Gadfly Bites 2/15/21 – Oh, excuse me, sir. Just one more thing…

1. In case you missed it, Governor DeWine reappeared before the press—Columbo-style—just as everyone was heading out for the weekend late on Friday. His message: It is not acceptable for districts to renege on the March 1 reopening pledges they signed. (Gongwer Ohio, 2/12/21) In case you’re interested, here is a sampling of reactions to that announcement from the districts in question: Akron City Schools' limited Remote Plus option... (Akron Beacon Journal, 2/12/21) …the Cleveland Metropolitan School District… (The74, 2/12/21) …and a single high school building in Cincinnati City Schools. (Fox 19 News,  Cincinnati, 2/12/21)
    
2. The Cincinnati call out seems perhaps a bit harsh considering it’s just one school and that the entire rest of the district is already ramping up their hybrid model. But I have to say that with or without the governor’s intervention, the increasingly public push-pull that is keeping Walnut Hills High School closed is pretty interesting. You will recall the story from last week’s Enquirer fretting that students were supposedly going to lose learning time because of only two formal instruction days included in the hybrid model vs. five such days in a fully-remote model. And then there’s the position that fully-remote learning sucks and must end. Supporters of both positions were planning to converge by caravan on a school board work session over the weekend to show by virtue of numbers which position was superior. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 2/12/21) You can read in this piece about how those caravan protests went and hear from students who were heading back to their high schools (not Walnut Hills) today to start their hybrid learning model. But the back-and-forth is not over, all sides promise us. “This fight is about all of us,” said a Walnut Hills senior, “and it requires solidarity among all of our different schools, among all of our different school communities who are united in the single fight for safe school, for safety for our kids, our teachers, our other staff members, and safety for all of us.” And if it sounds to you like all of this arguing may really be about something else, I would tend to agree. (WVXU-FM, Cincinnati, 2/15/21)
   
   

3. One more story on reopenings? Apparently the governor missed out on one district—Youngstown City Schools—whose CEO does not seem to have any sort of reopening timetable in mind, let alone March 1. (Man, Vindy dudes. Why rat the guy out like that if Dad didn’t notice? Not cool!) Additionally, the piece also includes important and relevant coverage of the recent Covid learning loss report from Ohio State University professors Kogan and Lavertu, including some analysis thereof from our very own Chad Aldis. (Vindy.com, 2/12/21)
    
4. Speaking of Professor Lavertu: a report he co-authored in 2017 on Ohio’s interdistrict open enrollment program, published by Fordham, was referenced anew in a national blog. Nice (the hit, that is, not the fact that high-performing suburban schools are still keeping their borders closed). (RedefinED, 2/15/21)
   
   

5. And speaking of Youngstown: There is very little discussion of the local school district in this profile of the four candidates running for mayor this year. Makes sense, I guess, in that mayors don’t typically have much say in their local schools. Although all of my loyal Gadfly Bites readers (howdy to all 14 of you!) will recall, Youngstown’s mayor should could have had more influence than most. (Mahoning Matters, 2/15/21)
    
6. Kudos to Jeremy Kelley for his deep dive into the enrollment numbers in Dayton-area schools, including districts, charters, and private schools. Some interesting numbers across the board, especially those places notching enrollment increases. Kudos to those realists among the interviewees who know the difference between typical mobility and the migration currently underway. Kudos also to whomever wrote that subhead and who thinks that classes are getting “closer to normal”. I love an optimist! (Dayton Daily News, 2/15/21)
   
   

7. As we noted last week, the Cupp-Patterson school funding plan has been reintroduced in the new General Assembly. Not much has changed since December (if you ask me) in regard to the hurdles that await this bill, not least of which is its enormous price tag. At least one of the new bill’s sponsors has an idea to use “leftover monies” to “kind of jumpstart” the approximately $2 billion of needed spending until a “dedicated funding stream” can be found. I’ll start looking in the couch cushions; you check the laundry. (WOSU-FM, Columbus, 2/15/21) 

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