- During the divisive teachers strike in Louisville, Ohio, we learned that there were also serious divisions between Louisville and other nearby towns. Getting “outsiders” to staff classrooms during the strike was not only problematic because of the whole “crossing the picket line” thing but also because folks in Louisville held some deep animosity toward folks from other districts nearby. As you may recall, this has to do with sports. And while the teachers strike is over now and the internal wounds are starting to heal, sports-related beefs are much harder to fix. You will recall that the seven other member districts of the Northeastern Buckeye Conference voted to dissolve and reform said conference (for no explained reason) without Louisville. As a result, the Leopards are facing life as a member of no athletic conference at all and they are having a difficult time finding opponents to fill their 2018-19 football season…except for “private school football powerhouses” apparently looking for some easy pickings. It all sounds pretty desperate to me – to the point of Louisville leaders being urged to rejoin the league they left nearly 30 years ago. And even those wounds may not have healed yet. (Canton Repository, 3/21/17)
- Catching up on another story from several weeks ago, the school board and teachers union reps from North Ridgeville schools entered mediation this week in an attempt to reach a contract agreement and avert a strike. The usual “last, best” and “unfair labor practice” steps have already been taken, although I don’t think they’ve yet reached “triple dog dare” yet. Hope they don’t get there. (Elyria Chronicle-Telegram, 3/24/17)
- In Lorain, it is the lull between Academic Distress Commissions and odd things are occurring. We previously noted that the outgoing ADC was inexplicably lionized by all and sundry during their last week in office. This week, the mayor of Lorain received an award from the Ohio School Public Relations Association for being a “Friend of Education” (OK, maybe that is explicable)… (Northern Ohio Morning Journal, 3/23/17) and a new communications survey was pushed out to district families in order to “discern how the district is communicating with residents and staff.” This despite the fact that the entire structure of the district is going to change – including communications, if Youngstown is any guide – in less than a month. (Northern Ohio Morning Journal, 3/22/17) Weird times.
- What happens when the test is standardized and the computer equipment on which that test is taken isn’t? I don’t know. Hypothetical doom, I imagine. I stopped reading after “mastery”. (Columbus Dispatch, 3/24/17)
