Gadfly Bites 8/18/25—Conclusion: Duplicative penetrative trauma to the metatarsals; self-inflicted

News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. Just sayin’.

1. Let’s start with a story of charter, private, and STEM school student transportation troubles…but probably not the one you were expecting. On Friday Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost renewed his legal action against Columbus City Schools, noting that a) last year’s case against the district’s large scale determination of choice-using students as “impractical to transport” just sort of puttered out with no resolution, and b) the district has done the same thing again just ahead of the new school year. Like the worst imaginable sequel to “Groundhog Day”. (Gongwer Ohio, 8/15/25) Relatedly, Columbus City Schools is eyeing a deficit of $50 million on the horizon (I mean, 2029) if they don’t cut some costs. Lots of potential for reductio ad absurdum options I reckon, but here are two things not discussed in any detail that I would like to offer, both of which I would put in the category of self-inflicted budget wounds. First is that the emergency board meeting at which this impeding deficit was revealed took place in the district’s fully active downtown office complex, which the board back in December voted to close “before the end of the 2024-25 school year” and which could easily have already sold for more than $50 million if they’d actually bothered to do what they said they were going to. Second is that a fraction of their budget allocation of $10 million annually (?!) to pay fines related to improper transportation of charter, private, and STEM school students could be re-deployed to solve that problem permanently. But I guess if they did those two simple things, they wouldn’t have anything to gripe about, and who wants that? (Columbus Dispatch, 8/18/25)
   
   

2. Here at last is the story you came for: An update on how Dayton City Schools families whose students attend district high schools are faring after the first week without any formal busing. It sounds to me like things are calm and orderly, with families and communities stepping up to help get kids to and from school as best they can. Superintendent David Lawrence, however, assures us—with, I reckon, more wishful thinking than actual evidence—such community support is unsustainable. (Is there a specific term for when “wishful” means “wishing for something bad”?) Specifically, he raises concerns about low attendance so far at Belmont High School, which is proven based on evidence about the number of lunches served. Reporter Eileen McClory notes that many many students attend Belmont—by choice—from the other side of town. (Wonder why that is?) And I will note that even with full operation of the high school busing plan the district is suing the state to bring back, the chronic absenteeism rate at Belmont was 65 percent in January 2024. Sounds like more “Groundhog Day” to me. Bossman also repeats his belief that the only way they can get a handle on busing is for the state to eliminate the requirement for transporting charter school students. (Dayton Daily News, 8/15/25) And indeed at least part of that old system is back in place again already because a Franklin County Court late on Friday granted a temporary restraining order against the state law that banned transit pass use by students in Dayton. We learn in this piece that the district is already distributing passes to all eligible students—including those attending charter, private and STEM schools—who want them. The rest of the legal case will follow in due time…probably. (Dayton Daily News, 8/18/25)
   
   

3. Interestingly, in this companion piece from Eileen McClory, looking at how charter and private high schools handled their first week without district transportation, we learn that most have been going it alone for a while now after repeated failures of Dayton City Schools’ capricious and error-prone “plans”. That includes John Carroll Catholic High School (“DPS hasn’t bused students directly to Carroll in several years”) and the Fordham-sponsored Dayton Early College Academy charter school (DECA). CEO Dave Taylor says DECA is projected to spend about $1.3 million in transportation costs this school year. This includes contracting with a private bus company for some students and providing transit passes for others (“The RTA option has worked for our students historically”). About 40 percent of their transpo costs which will be reimbursed by the state. (Dayton Daily News, 8/16/25) As a helpful wrap up to all of this news about districts making the same mistakes over and over again to the detriment of kids and educational achievement, News 5 in Cleveland reminds us of some policy changes recently pitched by Ohio Senate Education Committee Chair Andy Brenner that he believes would at last incentivize districts to find proper solutions to solve the transportation troubles of school-choice-using families (and, I would humbly suggest, district families for whom getting to and from school every day isn’t exactly guaranteed either) once and for all. These include: Tightening the allowed definition of “impractical to transport”, significantly boosting the amount of payment given to parents in lieu of providing transportation to their kids, and giving state transportation funding directly to charter and private schools who take on the job themselves. Sounds like the only way to end our “Groundhog Day” nightmare. (News 5 Cleveland, 8/18/25)

Did you know you can have every edition of Gadfly Bites sent directly to your Inbox? Subscribe by clicking here.