Gadfly Bites 8/7/20 – “All we want is to keep our lives the way they were”

Following Wednesday’s voting/territory transfer story, we return you to this deep-cluster school district border story, STILL in freakin’ progress. (Cleveland Jewish News, 8/5/20)
There were protesters marching in front of a Columbus City Schools board member’s house this week. No, not those protestors. Good guess, but it wasn’t them. Nope, not those ones either. Oh for heaven’s sake, we could be here all day guessing. Just read the story! (Columbus Dispatch, 8/6/20)
The school reopening decisions of Mt. Auburn Preparatory Academy, a single smallish charter school in suburban Cincinnati, and the entire massive Cincy Catholic diocese are compared here. Honestly, you should just focus on Mt. Auburn’s plan as described here. Seems to be as thorough, flexible, and family-focused as it can be. (WLWT-TV, Cincinnati, 8/6/20) Speaking of thorough, here is a deep discussion of the possibility of some in-person classes being held outdoors in Northeast Ohio this school year. This includes both the national and international perspective, which might be just a skosh too much background when trying to make the point that it gets cold in Cleveland and that cities can be big, dirty, and occasionally dangerous. (Cleveland.com, 8/5/20) So, perhaps we should think inside the building when we’re thinking outside the box. Case in point: Canton art teacher Kathy Pugh designed a portable plastic desk shield for students to carry with them from class to class (and back home to be sanitized at the end of the day). A number of design and manufacturing experts in the area help Ms. Pugh with her idea and thus, the Pack-N-Go was born. Take a look and see what you think. (Canton Repository, 8/6/20)
For all those folks who think that remote learning didn’t go so hot back in the spring—or perhaps, more importantly, for those folks who fear that it will not go so hot this fall (either anew or still, YMMV)—the CEO of Cleveland Metropolitan School District has some nuance for you to consider. “Learning wasn’t lost,” he told the local news this week. “Time to learn was lost. We lost a lot of time. But you’re still able to learn. You maybe didn’t learn to read when I wanted you to, but I still need to teach you to read.” Is that optimism or wishful thinking? I think there may be a clue here: Bossman says that “if educators can overcome the disruption at the end of last school year and the beginning of this one, they can avoid lasting negative impacts on the education for his students.” (News 5, Cleveland, 8/5/20)
Finally this week, the I Know I Can program here in Columbus gets some national plaudits from Bellwether Education Partners for its success in helping low-income and minority students from central Ohio get to and through college. Nice. (The 74 Million, 8/5/20)