- “In general, I think most superintendents earn their compensation,” says Fordham’s Aaron Churchill in this Dayton Daily News coverage of the pay and benefit structures for school chiefs in Ohio. He notes the big deal, high-pressure decisions they must make on the daily, adding, “A superintendent that can provide that type of strong leadership, while navigating political challenges, is worth every penny.” I suspect that someone on staff at the DDN disagrees with Aaron, based on the fact that a section discussing retirement plan contributions is headed “Other Kickbacks”. Ouch. (Dayton Daily News, 6/29/23)
- Speaking of district leaders, the superintendent of Columbiana Exempted Village School District is said to be super pleased with test score data from this spring, noting that even the lowest proficiency rate achieved was pretty good—75 percent of fourth graders were tested proficient or above in ELA—and well above the state average for that test. How’d they manage this feat? Supe told his elected school board members that it’s due to teaching, testing, reteaching, retesting, etc. until teachers are reasonably certain that kids have the material down. Genius, right? (The Morning Journal, 6/30/23) Also seemingly super pleased with stuff—all the stuff—is the superintendent of Beachwood City Schools, as he reports on the awesomeness of his district in a guest column for the CJN. I don’t know just how bougie this district really is, but reading the piece, I feel like they might want to integrate their mission statement fully into their branding and replace the Bison mascot with The Intellectual Entrepreneurs. Now wouldn’t that strike terror in the hearts of opponents on the gridiron and elsewhere? (Cleveland Jewish News, 6/29/23)
- Kudos from me (and probably only from me) to the elected school board of Akron City Schools who voted last night to hire their new superintendent from outside the district. It took six hours of deliberation and required two votes (for some reason), but their big ol’ search actually found them some new blood—Dr. C. Michael Robinson Jr., currently the chief academic officer for East Baton Rouge Parish Schools—and, likely, some brand new ideas for how to do business. (WKYC-TV, Cleveland, 6/29/23)
- Sticking with our theme of school leadership for one more clip: Here’s part one of a two-part farewell interview with CMSD CEO Eric Gordon. His last day after 12 years at the helm in Cleveland is today. (Signal Cleveland, 6/29/23)
- And speaking of things that have been around a long time in Ohio education circles (were we?), here’s a brief press release announcing that computer systems that have been utilized by nearly all district and charter schools across Ohio to manage all fiscal and payroll operations for forty years have finally been decommissioned. The “obsolete” and “retired” systems have been replaced over the last five years with “a robust, modern” app-based system in 766 Ohio school districts and charter schools. Yowza! (PR Newswire, 6/30/23)
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