- It is truly an unusual situation when the good folks at Gongwer use an evocative, emotional word like “bristle” in a headline. Must mean it’s budget season and some folks don’t like what they’re seeing in the tea leaves. (Gongwer Ohio, 6/21/21) It is also truly unusual that the good folks at Cleveland.com covered the same press conference of the Ohio 8 Coalition—in which those large urban school districts did have a wholly predictable laundry list of budget provisions about which they wanted to unburden themselves—and apparently detected nary a bristle worth reporting. (Cleveland.com, 6/21/21)
- Someone might want to consult their thesaurus and then check in with those guys on this, too: A revamp of the state’s school and district report cards was amended into House Bill 82 yesterday. (Gongwer Ohio, 6/22/21)
- Back in the real world (sorta), here’s a really long piece discussing a sizeable decrease in the number of students filling out the FAFSA college student aid form in Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky this year. While the ultimate read I get from this (YMMV) is that “lack of student engagement due to Covid” gets the blame for the decline—so opine the adults interviewed—the one high school graduate actually profiled said that she tried to get help from her district’s counselor in plenty of time but could not, shall we say, get that individual to “engage” in the FAFSA process with her. There were no interviews with that counselor or indeed anyone from Cincinnati City Schools included, to try and find out what really happened. But not to worry. Things seemed to have worked out OK for the young woman in question, and she seems OK with her new future plan, but a) it took a non-profit outside Cincinnati City Schools to help her figure out an acceptable Plan B, and b) can you imagine the version of this story from Mason or Mariemont or even Mount Adams? (Cincinnati Enquirer, 6/21/21)
- Here’s a look at the wildly successful (ask anyone) first year of programming at the A.C.E.S. Center for serving students with autism in Parma City Schools. (Yes, that’s still the name of it and we’ve already raised an eyebrow at it in these Bites before. So let’s just move on.) Not only has it saved the school district money (ask the supe), it has also kept some students from being served outside the district as they previously were (saving more money), and thus it is on the grow to serve more students and hopefully save the district even more money next year. (Cleveland.com, 6/23/21)
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