Author's Note: This is a special edition of Ohio Charter News, posted on a Monday to catch up on some important news stories from the last 10 days. We will not publish on Friday of this week due to the Thanksgiving holiday and will return on Friday, December 5 with all the charter news you can use!
Stories featured in Ohio Charter News Weekly may require a paid subscription to read in full.
Helping build connections
Students at South Side Academy recently hosted a group of firefighters and other first responders for a s’mores cookout at their Youngstown charter school. The purpose was two-fold: To celebrate these local heroes for their service and to build a connection between students and those folks to whom they might need to turn for help sometime. “These safety providers are here to help us. We can go to them if you’re lost, if you’re hurt, if something happens,” said dean of students Marquita Dixson, “and not having that fear is huge.” Nice.
The wheels on the bus of educational choice
In our last edition, we covered an op-ed by Fordham’s Aaron Churchill, which laid out data describing how Ohio’s “impractical to transport” rules have been overwhelmingly used to deny busing to charter and private school students, rather than to students attending a given district’s own schools. Today, we look at a response editorial, authored by Columbus City Schools’ transportation guru. His version of the story minimizes the issue and points fingers at the longstanding state requirement for transporting charter and private school students. Relatedly, here’s a news story from Dayton—a region whose transportation travails go back many years—the details of which illustrate with on-the-ground detail the same concerns as Aaron showed with data. Even more important, it sounds like the troubles district families are experiencing today are very similar in both urban and suburban districts.
The view from around Indiana
Transportation is just one issue on which charter schools across Indiana are hoping to work in partnership with districts, given a raft of new laws requiring such cooperation passed this year. School facilities and local funding are also on the list. And they are looking closely at what is happening in Indianapolis—through the new Local Education Alliance there—to see whether such cooperation is possible. The jury is still out at this time, with many longstanding points of friction between districts and schools of choice under discussion at various levels of civility.
Different schools, the same success
Journalist Alina Adams takes a look at the top-performing elementary schools in New York City, as rated by U.S. News & World Report recently, and says that all of them have one vital thing in common: An unwavering expectation that all of their students can succeed. And succeed they have, whether their schools are the traditional exclusive, test-only-admissions, gifted and talented schools run by the NY Public Schools or open-admissions charter schools run by Success Academy. There’s a lesson in there for sure.
Invaluable data resource
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ Charter School Data Digest is now fully updated for 2025. You can find this comprehensive, nationwide compendium of charter data here. NAPCS aims to provide answers to your most pressing questions and deliver important facts and figures for further analysis. Don’t miss it!
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