- I am honestly not sure how any school district is in financial hardship at the moment, given the Covid-relief largesse sluicing in, but it appears that Mansfield City Schools is in such a state and its elected board duly finalized a cost-saving plan last week intended to get the district out of that state. While eight positions will be eliminated in the plan, a grand total of one teacher will lose his job what with one thing and another. Despite this positive-sounding outcome, the local union flack still sounds cranky. “Honestly, I wish the district would have done some things a little bit differently,” he opined. “We didn't RIF anybody in the central office. If we need fewer teachers, we need fewer people at central office. There was no secretaries, no positions down there that could have been cut?” Some interesting math there, methinks. (Richland Source, 4/23/21)
- Speaking of union flacks, the president of the Ohio Education Association has concerns about the state budget bill which passed the House of Representatives last week. Specifically, he wants to see a detailed provision regarding computer science education for all K-12 students removed from the budget and debated in a standalone bill because, he says, of the “many barriers to making this proposal a reality.” He lists a few of those “barriers”, but they don’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Wonder what the real objections might be? (Ohio Capital Journal, 4/26/21)
- On a related note, Lt. Governor Jon Husted is touting a new initiative called the Tech Internship Pilot Program. Interested companies can sign up to be connected with qualifying students or new high school graduates for positions in “software, data, cloud and IT infrastructure, and cybersecurity”. Hmmm…. All that sounds kinda familiar, doesn’t it? Anywho, the pilot will only accommodate 100 kids in tech internships at first, but I can only imagine that there are tons of potential placements in businesses across the state. It sure seems like that student pipeline could grow…if kids were learning computer science stuff. (Dayton Daily News, 4/25/21)
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