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- Cleveland City Council was not happy about the budget-cutting talk coming out of Cleveland Metropolitan School District in recent days and new-ish CEO Warren Morgan was on the hot seat about it in a council meeting on Monday. (Ideastream, 2/26/24) One of the strongest criticisms from councilmembers was about the repurposing of the McKenzie Scott grant away from the student-run grant program to plug a small portion of the hole in the district’s general fund instead. Interestingly, in defense of the action, CEO Morgan indicated that the student grant program was not quite the widely-beneficent utopian ideal that its supporters have painted it to be. (Signal Cleveland, 2/26/24) Patrick O’Donnell does not mention the Scott grant in his excellent summation of how CMSD handled its ESSER funds and, predictably, ended up right where they are now. There are way too many other important issues to cover. (The 74, 2/26/24) Parents and staff members spoke up in last night’s school board meeting, echoing some of the councilmembers’ sentiments but adding lots of specific personal anecdotes about how the proposed cuts would affect their children. (Fox 8 News, Cleveland, 2/27/24) In the end, the school board voted 7-1 to approve Morgan’s budget-cutting plan and send it to the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce for further approval. That one dissenting vote: specifically related to the repurposing of the Scott grant, it is said. Personally, I’d object to all those extended calendar schools who will be losing their extra instructional days, which is definitely not an ESSER-funded thing. But that’s just me. (Ideastream Public Media, 2/27/24)
- Speaking of DEW, recent data from those good folks indicate that while over 66,000 new families took advantage of expanded EdChoice availability this year, the large scale exodus of students from district schools (doomily predicted by voucher grouchers everywhere) did not occur and that a number of school districts—especially ones which were growing in previous years—continued to increase their enrollment over the same period. These facts still don’t make the haters any less grouchy, though, judging by their commentary here. (WOSU-FM, Columbus, 2/27/24)
- DEW Director Steve Dackin leads off a trio of nerd-forward stories. (Not that I’m asserting that he is one, but if the steampunk goggles fit…) Director Dackin toured New Lexington High School earlier this week, checking in on its comprehensive-sounding Workforce Development Program. The visit included elementary school kids learning to weld, a school farm with crops and livestock, and chatting with the local IBEW rep. (Perry Tribune, 2/28/24) The Richland Area Chamber and Economic Development organization and the 179th Cyberspace Wing of the Ohio National Guard are collaborating on a cool-sounding nerd camp for Richland County high schoolers this summer. Electronics for Beginners will include the basics of Arduino programming as well as foundational concepts of using a microcontroller, a physical programmable circuit board, and interactive electronic devices. It will also include an introduction to relevant technology-based career pathways. Neat! (Richland Source, 2/27/24) Finally today, since every school district in northeast Ohio is abdicating their entire educational responsibility out of fear of the upcoming eclipse, perhaps lots of their kids can take part in Akron Zoo’s science-focused activities that day instead. Kids can become contributing researchers in two different projects: One in which citizen-scientists observe how an eclipse changes local atmospheric conditions and one in which they monitor animal behavior during the eclipse. (Let’s hope the critters take it better than many of our fellow humans have so far.) It is too bad that participation requires a paid ticket--perhaps their schools could contribute to the cost since they’ll be saving a ton of money by not running buses or serving food that day--but it’s a smarter option than hiding in your house and all the data collected by participants will be shared with NASA. (Cleveland.com, 2/26/24)
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