- Tiny Dalton Local Schools in eastern Ohio is very excited about new school bus safety measures in place this school year. This includes a button designed to help assure that no students remain on buses at the ends of their routes. Sounds like a good and useful gadget, but did no one think to workshop that name before settling on it? (Millersburg Bargain Hunter, 9/7/22) Unfortunately, there is no button that seems capable of actually getting kids on board the buses in the first place. At least not in Columbus City Schools, where district, charter, STEM, and private school families all seem to be affected by the district’s ongoing difficulties with drivers and technology. (And since we’re also talking about product naming, I feel like the Columbus Schools’ student ID cards could use a different name, but I do admire the district’s wild optimism in this area.) (Columbus Dispatch, 9/9/22)
- Speaking of Columbus City Schools, officials there want to “get out in front of the data”, as they say, and give their own preview of upcoming district test scores and report card measures, just like Akron City Schools officials did earlier in the week. Whereas some folks found that Akron earning back 70 percent of a pre-pandemic D grade, if true, was fantastic news, no such positive news could apparently be spun in Columbus. The news, officials indicate, will be very bad here when full data are released next week. (Fox28 News, Columbus, 9/7/22)
- And speaking of lowered expectations, Dayton City Schools enacted new athletic eligibility guidelines for students this week, revising them sharply downward. Students with GPAs as low as 1.0 can still play sports as long as they are engaged in specific academic recovery efforts, known colloquially as “study table”. (I wish the redoubtable Jeremy Kelley, back to his roots and getting ink stains on his fingers again, would have given us as much detail on what these recovery efforts look like as he did on how board members voted and debated on the issue. But what can you do? Editor Kelley is a busy guy. It’s just good to see his name on a byline again.) I know the district’s intention is to keep kids engaged with school by any means possible, but what, seriously, is the endgame here? (Dayton Daily News, 9/8/22) Meanwhile, Dayton Christian School is on the glow up. And its enrollment has increased. But they still have space available for this school year. Why yes, they do have a full slate of sports. And yes, they do take EdChoice vouchers…but you do still have to get there. (Dayton Daily News, 9/8/22)
- Finally this week, Ohio’s voucher programs featured heavily in this discussion of the past, present, and future of Catholic education in Cleveland. Can’t imagine why. Can you? (Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, 9/7/22)
Did you know you can have every edition of Gadfly Bites sent directly to your Inbox? Subscribe by clicking here.
