Gadfly Bites will be on vacation Wednesday. Back with more fun on Friday.
- Looks like we only have one clip to speak of today, but at least it’s a doozy. The independent STEM network called The Metro Schools (near and dear to my heart as you’ll no doubt recall) has some big plans for expansion here in Columbus. These include the addition of an elementary grade component and ultimately serving up to 5,000 students from K-12. Whether you’ve seen their “unique” little building or not, you can probably figure they’re going to need more space than they have. The first step of this, we learned late on Friday, is the renovation of a huge former Columbus City Schools building which is currently owned by the Ohio State University and has sat empty since at least 2009. So far so good, right? Well, those of you who are longtime Gadfly Bites subscribers may remember that this particular building was the subject of several news stories—and Bites editions—back in 2018 when the district did a private deal with OSU so as to bypass any charter school who might have wanted the large, historic, and felicitously-located property. Some fun features of that wonky deal included a lower-than-appraised sale price, several missed deadlines, and at least one additional payment from the district for causing a missed deadline. Most importantly, though, was a rider which sought to prohibit OSU from using the building to in any way “compete” with the district in the future. At the time, it was thought that that meant a charter school, but it was my supposition that Metro was the main concern. This has, I think, been proven correct with Friday’s news. (Just think where Metro and its students would be right now if this sale had actually happened three years ago!) But the main thrust of this piece—while summing up a bit of the foregoing history—is the possibility that district folks (or indeed outside anti-choice folks) will work to scuttle the deal now. I hope it won’t come to that, but at least one Ohio State University trustee quoted on the record here seems to be backpedaling from the “done-deal” status that Metro seems to believe has been achieved. (Columbus Underground, 5/7/21)
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