All anyone wants to talk about today is primary election results. Bo-ring. So there’s not much for me to report on today.
- This doesn’t have anything to do with any of the myriad school levy issues that rose (mostly) or fell across Ohio, but it does have to do with school funding…and my strange obsession this week with Middletown. The district’s treasurer projects a budget in the red by 2018. She blames three things for this: a continuing drop in property values in Middletown, rising retirement costs, and a continuing loss of students to charter schools. Which of these do you think the district has it in their power to actually address? P.S. – Anyone else disturbed by the description of funding for charter school students as “tuition”? Oy vey. (Middletown Journal-News)
- This is also about school finances, but is all together more bizarre. Apparently Cardinal Mooney High School in Youngstown was raising money in order to move from its 50-year home in the city out to the suburbs. Having missed the goal by quite a bit, the campaign was suspended and the plan to move will be scrapped for now and a new strategic plan will be put in place. I have two questions unanswered by this story: a) Do they think that people didn’t give in order to keep the historic school from moving? b) Will they give the money back now that the plans have changed? Yeah, I know. (Youngstown Vindicator)
- I could have answered this young man’s question, having spent many hours copy editing charter school contracts to help out my colleagues in Dayton. But I am glad that there is a column like The Ombudsman in order to learn what happens to the student records of closed charters. Nice. (Dayton Daily News)
