- A “rock star teacher” in Elyria says she is leaving the profession at the end of this year because her “special education students are suffering under the new system based on Common Core standards and more rigorous assessments.” (NorthCoast Now)
- Ohio Auditor of State Dave Yost wants to make sure state law explicitly forbids felons from serving on charter school boards after routine audits of two schools turned up individuals with felony convictions on their boards. (Dayton Daily News)
- Madison Schools in Lake County voted to continue outsourcing a large chunk of its transportation services, approving a new five-year contract with its current vendor. Local union reps and another private company also submitted proposals, but there were issues with both of those bids, detailed here. Hopefully this will be the end of it for the next five years. I say that because the original privatization effort ended up in court back in 2009. You can probably guess why. (Willoughby News-Herald)
- It is often said that without parental involvement, schools can only do so much to help children, especially children whose economic and family circumstances are less than ideal. That sentiment was articulated again recently in Youngstown, by the city’s mayor, in reaction to the local NAACP’s expression of no-confidence in the district’s leadership. This week, the leaders of two community groups, including district school parents and grandparents, are joining in. They say they can easily get parents into the buildings but that the school administration has no mechanism in place for those parents to actually help. This is a conundrum – becoming thornier by the week – in a district that could use more solutions. (Youngstown Vindicator)
- We end with a story of corporate involvement in local schools. The focus here is on a “greeter program” in Chillicothe, whereby employees from the local paper plant cheer elementary students in to school several days each week. Picturesque and touching, sure, but I could only imagine that the real-life engineers in science classes and the reams of free paper are probably far more valuable assistance for the schools. (Chillicothe Gazette)
