- Columbus City Schools is looking to expand selective admissions in a number of its lottery schools. This effort comes complete with school fairs to help district families find the best fit for their students among the CCS offerings. Whatever you may think of the former move, the latter is most definitely a welcome development. More please! (Columbus Dispatch, 1/9/17)
- Speaking of school choice, here’s another look at open enrollment from the perspective of a group of districts in Northern Ohio who seem to swap students back and forth fairly regularly. As is typical with these stories, the folks interviewed seem to have a clear grasp on the dollars and cents involved with open borders but very little idea as to why students come or go from their districts (aside from the dry observation that “people always like to have a choice”). Seems to me that one of these is more important to the proper functioning of the program than the other. Just sayin’. (Fremont News-Messenger, 1/6/17)
- Columbus will likely need permission from the state board of education for the above-mentioned proposal to expand selective admissions. The new session of the board begins with its first meeting of the year today. A number of new members will be sworn in due to elections, term limits, and resignations. Patrick O’Donnell gave the “Northeast Ohio perspective” on the new composition of the board over the weekend. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1/7/17) Patrick also put together a profile of the new District 5 board member – representing part of Cuyahoga County – who beat the incumbent member in November. He used a brief new interview and snippets from Facebook and the PD archives. Very detailed. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1/7/17) Speaking of the state board, folks are still talking about their decision in December to impanel a study group to look at the possibility of altering new state graduation requirements before they are even fully phased in. Case in point, this piece looking at the possibility that many current juniors in Marion-area school districts may not be on pace to graduate in 2018 without the aforementioned alteration. Kudos to the headline writer for getting the word “shocker” in there. Nice and clickbait-y. (Marion Star, 1/9/17)
- A regional editor at the Vindy opined positively this weekend on good things he sees happening in Youngstown City Schools. None of them have anything to do with the Youngstown Plan, although said plan is namechecked. Interesting. (Youngstown Vindicator, 1/8/17)
- Finally, the venerable and pretty darn awesome Marburn Academy has a spiffy new building which becomes its home as of today. Here is a look at the new space, the school, and its students. Nice. (Columbus Dispatch, 1/9/17)
