Gadfly Bites 6/7/24

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Judging by their enthusiastic contribution to this editorial from Kentucky, Ohio appears to have successfully exported all of our loudest and sourest voucher grouchers to the Bluegrass State. Can they please stay there? (Kentucky.com, 6/6/24) Sadly, they didn’t stay south of the border for long, because here they all are again saying the same stuff in this news story about the EdChoice expansion in the Dayton area and statewide. I feel like the multiple instances noting when a private school “did not return a request for comment” are meant to be some sort of indictment, but it is summertime, y’all. Kudos to the long-hours-pulling private school reps who did respond and offer simple, commonsense, and “this is clearly a good thing for families who want it” messages in response to whatever questions were sent to them. (Dayton Daily News, 6/7/24)
Let’s return to the other big hot button issue of the spring/summer: School closures. Ideastream takes a long look at one neighborhood in Akron which had a number of district school buildings close over the last 20 years as its population declined. (While we are told that lots of local families also opted for private schools as voucher eligibility came to—and expanded in—Akron City Schools over that time, these schools are not apparently seen as “neighborhood schools” or “community anchors”, since they weren’t mentioned or located on the neighborhood map, to say nothing of the charter schools that have also no doubt launched in and around the neighborhood in that same time). But I think the biggest takeaway here for districts is that if you are ever able to close a school building—which generally only happens in the most extreme fiscal distress or underutilization situations—you should definitely not leave the building boarded up “just in case”, while you dreamily hope that the enrollment decline will magically reverse itself and you’ll have the sudden need for a 1,000-student space…which will only cost you $25 million and take 3 years to reactivate since you left it to deteriorate for 10 years. (Ideastream Public Media, 6/6/24) Staying on topic to close the week: The final public comment sessions related to Columbus City Schools’ Facilities Task Force were held yesterday. And I feel like the reasons quoted in this coverage for not closing way-undersubscribed buildings were, once again, great clues as to how to actually close and merge buildings successfully. Such as: Make sure parents know that all schools provide free breakfast, lunch, snacks, and other family supports. And make sure your busing system is the most efficient it can possibly be. As I understand the teachers’ comments here, the district could actually improve their absenteeism districtwide with this effort…although that may not have been what they meant. (10TV, 6/7/24) However, current “public” comment (be fair, folks, it was mostly employees) may not even matter, seeing as how the teachers union is deeply questioning the public comments given at previous meetings. (ABC6 News, Columbus, 6/6/24)