- Schools across the Miami Valley areas, including charter and private schools, are finding it even more challenging than usual, they say, in filling open teaching and other positions. Remember that Dayton City Schools is planning on using a ton of its federal Covid-relief funding to put two teachers in every lower-grade classroom in the district, creating an even bigger challenge for
those neighboring districtsthemselves. District reps announced late last week that they had at least filled those additional teaching slots, even though a lot of support positions remained unfilled as the school year began. (Dayton Daily News, 8/22/21)
- The superintendent of Akron City Schools calls it “a great challenge to have” when speaking of a teensy bit of overcrowding the first week of the new school year at one district elementary building. While there is some talk in this piece of how to deal with growing district enrollment, I don’t think it’s necessary to get too excited just yet. The district still has a clutch of undersubscribed buildings, including the former elementary building less than five miles away from the “great challenge” building that had been fully shut down between 2014 and 2020 and now has a hundred or so preschool and Kindergartners. (Akron Beacon Journal, 8/20/21)
- A much larger and “less great” challenge to have, it would appear, is diversifying the K-12 teaching ranks in Ohio. According to data, 94 percent of the state’s teachers are white and approximately 1 in 3 Ohio public school districts have a 100 percent white teaching staff. There’s a lot of discussion in this very long piece of how districts could achieve higher diversity, but zero percent discussion of the situation in charter, STEM, or private schools. Worth a look, y’all? Just askin’. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 8/18/21)
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