Gadfly Bites 2/17/21 – News from central Ohio’s bougie burbs

1. We start today in one of the bougiest of central Ohio’s bougie burbs: New Albany-Plain Local Schools. Their director of elementary education lauds the district’s virtual education for elementary students this school year, built from “tough lessons” learned last spring. “Turning over our elementary students’ educational progress to an online company was not a viable option for us,” he says. “Although this model often works for older students, we believe our younger students require real time instruction in core academics from our outstanding New Albany teachers.” They were so successful that when the option for an in-person model was recently offered, 90 percent of parents decided to remain fully-remote. (ThisWeek News, 2/15/21) A fully in-person schedule is coming to Pickerington Local Schools on April 1. Families who want to stay remote can do so…unless their students are failing. In which case, it seems, they must attend in person. (ThisWeek News, 2/15/21) It is unclear when Grandview Heights City Schools will switch to fully in-person learning. A recent school board meeting on the topic drew only two parents, both of whom were ready right now. “Many of us call what you call a 'hybrid' (model) 'half-school',” said one dad, noting that the model consisted of only three hours a day of in-person instruction supplemented by “homeschooling from parents”. While board members tried to bring up the old “safety and security first” mantra (same as in both of the stories above), Dad responded by asking: “Where does education fit in” in the priority list? “No. 2? No. 3?” Ouch. (ThisWeek News, 2/12/21)
    
2. For those folks (you know who you are) who somehow felt that Governor DeWine’s call out of the districts suggesting they might renege on be flexible with their pledge to reopen schools by March 1 was punitive in nature, DeWine returned to the podium this week to assure them that this is not the case. (Toledo Blade, 2/16/21) In fact, the governor came armed with a new and clearer definition of what he means by “hybrid education model”, per the Ohio Department of Education. This is helpful indeed. But I believe he could have saved himself some grief if he’d had that in hand on Friday evening. (Cleveland.com, 2/16/21) Meanwhile, the governor was working the phones with at least one of those previously-“flexible” districts. As a result, Cleveland Metropolitan School District announced that a revised academic reopening timetable would be unveiled this Friday. On top of that, no matter where education fit in in the priority list (“No. 2? No. 3?” No. 627.), district sports would return next Monday. (Cleveland.com, 2/15/21)
    
3. Here in Columbus, the city school district’s transition to a hybrid learning model has had knock-on effects for local charter schools—in the form of new limits and conditions on student transportation which has in turn required at least one charter to curtail its school day. (ABC6 News, Columbus, 2/15/21) The district’s version of that issue—having to transport charter and private school students complicates their reopening efforts—kind of brings this whole discussion full circle. (NBC4i, Columbus, 2/16/21) For a deeper detail on the reopening challenges Columbus City Schools says it is facing after operating fully-remotely for 11 months, check out this piece. Hint: Charter schools and their students appear to be the least of the district’s problems. (Columbus Dispatch, 2/17/21)
   
   

4. Speaking of the blob (were we?), the alphabet soup of statewide traditional-education support organizations knew that they were cranky about the education portion of Ohio’s biennial budget as proposed by the governor, but it sure took them a while to get to the press and express their dyspepsia displeasure. Perhaps it took so long because their reps were busy with other stuff (see above). But if this piece is anything to go by, I’d guess it was because they really had to contort themselves to find anything to actually complain about. Check out that weird flex on student wellness funding if you want an example. (Spectrum News 1, 2/16/21) As if on cue, editors in Toledo today opined strongly in favor of HB1. (Toledo Blade, 2/16/21)
    
5. Back in the real world, six visually-impaired learners in two tiny and low-income school districts in southern Ohio will soon receive iPads specially adapted to their learning needs. This is all thanks to a state connectivity grant received by the regions Education Service Center. Nice! (Steubenville Herald, 2/15/21)
   
   

6. For the single remaining Gadfly Bites subscriber among you who still cares about districts nominally operating under the aegis of an Academic Distress Commission as much as I do, I’m sure you will join me in a hardy cheer (see what I did there?) for Lorain City Schools’ new improvement plan, adopted by the ADC (“nominal”) and the elected school board (“actual”) this week. There is a ton of hot air, empty promises, and a very long timeline. And yet the chair of the ADC actually called it “top-shelf thinking and elite doing”. I gotta ask you, man: Why do we still care so much? (Morning Journal, 2/16/21)

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