- We will top and tail today’s edition of the Bites with two “say what?” clips. First up, we have a Vindy.com piece in which the editorial board opines on how they think Youngstown City Schools might be removed from the oversight of an Academic Distress Commission. It is full of nonsense, misrepresentation, misdirection, and a number of “say what now?” moments. As someone who has followed this issue for a long time, if this is their Plan A pathway out, I am more confident than ever that Youngstown City Schools will never earn removal from the oversight of an Academic Distress Commission. (Vindy.com, 8/18/21)
- While Cincinnati City Schools administrators did the prosaic work of tweaking the new public transit routes—to the extent that they could—serving district students in the upcoming school year, members of the local teachers union took to the streets to demand that someone bring the
cancelled XTRA routesdodo back from extinction. (WCPO-TV, Cincinnati, 8/17/21) - Speaking of the new school year, here’s a look at preparations for Escuela SMART Academy’s second year following the former charter school’s “absorption” by Toledo City Schools. Everything sounds really positive here. The charter’s founding principal is gone, but it seems like good news to me that a local Hispanic community support group is said to have weighed in on the selection of that new principal. Except…I can’t find any trace of that organization on the internet. And the one named person associated with it works for the city. Weird. I must be doing something wrong. (WTOL-TV, 8/17/21)
- Parma City Schools’ fully-remote learning model is back for the new school year—“for students who feel like they learn better from home for any number of reasons,” says the district supe. He goes on to say that, “It’s really…a separate entity. It’s its own school, essentially.” Innovative! And while there are a number of hoops kids and families have to jump through to maintain the ability to learn remotely (another innovation!), it is full already and the district is prepping for the long haul. It’s “built to last.” Interesting. (News 5, Cleveland, 8/17/21) Meanwhile, the new school year has already started at Old Brook High School’s Parma Campus, a new dropout recovery charter school in the city. One assumes that it, also, is “built to last”. (Cleveland.com, 8/18/21)
- And we end today with an even more emphatic “Say WHAT?!” Literally every quote regarding how legislative redistricting vitally matters to every aspect of education across the state is a self-serving misdirection which its speakers should have been embarrassed to speak aloud. But speak they did…like they always do. Their blinkered perspectives are nothing if not highly adaptable to attempt to capitalize on any political situation. Their singular pursuit of more money for the sake of it is, to borrow a phrase, “built to last”. (Ohio Capital Journal, 8/18/21)
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