- Fordham’s Chad Aldis provided opponent testimony on HB 200 in committee yesterday. The coverage focused on the proposed switch away from A-F grades on school and district report cards—in line with the few questions he and others received—but Chad’s full testimony covered a lot more than that. (Gongwer Ohio, 4/20/21)
- I am always a little skeptical when school districts’ planning docs adopt some “clever” acronym by which to sell them. Ditto for when Covid-remediation planning docs extend for two or three years. Double ditto for such a plan that seems to encompass less than 24 hours of additional work to make up what could be a year or more of “suspended schooling” or whatever we’re calling it today. (Cleveland.com, 4/19/21)
- On Monday, we discussed a pilot program being run in Montgomery County right now in which the county ESC provides the fully-remote education for a member district who opts to buy in. How that would work in practical terms: Who hires the teachers? To whom would a parent address FAPE concerns? Where do kids go for in-person testing? Would the ESC get a report card? Etc. And while I was left with more questions than answers, the enthusiastic response of one district supe for adopting the pilot model next fall led me to believe that someone had those answers even if we in the general public did not. Here is a piece which, in discussing the rather stringent limits being placed on fully-remote learning by West Branch Local Schools in Mahoning County next fall, gives us a hint that the Ohio Department of Education has all of those answers and that districts have been apprised with the requisite detail. They have four options for acceptable non-traditional learning models, per ODE, and they have until July 1 to apprise the department as to which they are choosing. More on this to come, I should imagine. (Morning Journal-News, 4/21/21)
Did you know you can have every edition of Gadfly Bites sent directly to your Inbox? Subscribe by clicking here.
Policy Priority:
Topics:
