Gadfly Bites 2/12/21 – Making up time

1. There may be eight inches of snow on the ground here, but our Chad Aldis was on the radio this week talking about summer school. That is, an all-hands-on-deck effort to mitigate Covid learning losses (now very well documented) using additional time outside of the regular school day and year. (IdeaStream Public Media, 2/10/21)
    
2. As I’m sure you’ll recall, Governor DeWine announced this week he was expecting all school districts to submit a pandemic-mitigation plan to him. That is, a locally-created roadmap for recouping learning time—and student achievement—lost due to Covid disruption. Initial responses to the governor’s polite request are trickling in. First out of the gate was the president of the OEA. Sadly, in all the versions of this story that I could find, dude’s quote was missing a key word so I don’t even know what he wants! Something about “resources”. (Statehouse News Bureau, 2/10/21) The superintendent of tiny Fremont City Schools is up next. He appears to have termed DeWine’s respectful requisition “a bomb” (by which I think he means something big and surprising and unexpected, not in the sense of “a flop”, although it’s hard to tell in context). He told the local journalist, “We've already decided as a school district to beef up our summer school offerings,” but that “[t]hings get complicated when you look at teachers’ contracts and bus drivers, it’s not just a simple 'let's go two more weeks’.” (Fremont News Messenger, 2/10/21) The superintendent of Olmsted Falls City Schools was even more blunt in his assessment of the governor’s summer school suggestion:  “I believe that families will want to simply get away and spend time with their extended family and friends during the summer on vacations and not necessarily want to go to school.” He suggested cancelling state testing instead so that all the catching up could be taken care of before families head out on their superspreader trips. (Cleveland.com, 2/12/21) And the superintendent of Parma City Schools gave us a sort of remix of all of the above. “I think we need to be creative in how we structure these [plans]. Simply extending the school day or school year is not likely to be an attractive option for our students or teachers. We’re going to work with our teachers to build enrichment opportunities that certainly have a skill base to them but also pique student interests and stimulate creative-thinking skills.” (Cleveland.com, 2/12/21) Anyone else looking forward to seeing those formal plans (to help students “recoup the experiences they have missed”) come rolling in besides me?
   
   

3. Meanwhile, the state board of education this week passed a resolution to “reaffirm the irreplaceable role of in-person learning for K-12 education in Ohio.” Well, I feel better after reading that. How about you? (WKBN-TV, Youngstown, 2/10/21)
    
4. Going back to the topic of state testing for a moment: Here’s a national story on the topic with a strong Ohio angle. It’s really long and intricate and tries to capture all the various sentiments on the topic, but the crux comes about midway: “Both sides agree on one thing, though: The pandemic could be an inflection point in the long-running fight over standardized testing in the United States”. No lies detected there. (Hechinger Report, 2/12/21) I hope you will forgive me if I state the obvious in follow-up to that “both sides” business by saying that the decision on testing is up to the state legislature. Senate President Matt Huffman said this week, “I don’t think we should cancel the testing for this year.” (Dayton Daily News, 2/10/21) Someone should probably pass that statement of the obvious on to at least one elected school board member in suburban Westerville. Because her take is, “I would love to see our area districts band together and say we will not be doing these tests and see where we can go with that.” I’m pretty sure there’s no “Schoolhouse Rock” lesson on that… (ABC6 News, Columbus, 2/11/21)
   

5. Here we have an editorial in which recently-publicized student enrollment declines across the state are lamented. There is no discussion of the achievement losses also documented recently. Why? Because the only thing that is being lamented about those district enrollment numbers is “rejuvenated competition from other sectors”. You know what they mean. (Morning Journal, 2/11/21)
    
6. This one is something of a head-scratcher to me. After nearly a year of hearing that all fully-remote learning models are horrible/unworkable/not what anyone signed up for/damaging to kids (choose whichever applies to your mindset), the Enquirer is suggesting that participation in a hybrid learning model might lead kids to fall behind. The issue? Cincinnati City Schools’ hybrid model includes two fewer days of formal instruction than the fully-remote version. District officials call it “self-directed learning” and said there would be some measure of at-home work provided. But one parent described it as “No modules, no nothing.” (Cincinnati Enquirer, 2/10/21) If I were still a parent with school-age children, this is the kind of hybrid model I would be looking for. Kids in class and kids at home get the same synchronous teaching and teachers in class and teachers at home can still work and collaborate in real time. This piece is an advertising document for sure, and it makes the providers of the gear look like the Magnificent(ly Nerdy) Seven. But the tech solutions are legit and it seems like these amazing interactive electronics are helping St. Jude Catholic School in Elyria (which does take students on vouchers, in case you wanted to know) serve all its families fully—and with the highest amount of stability possible—given all of the disruption going on around them. Kudos to everyone! (AV Network, 2/11/21) It is noted in this piece that Catholic and Lutheran schools in Cleveland (all of them accepting voucher students) have been open for fully in-person learning all school year with minimal issues. This is contrasted with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (and Akron City Schools, new to this particular show), which already seems to be waffling on its previously-floated “April 1” reopening. The cause of the delay is said to be “parents and teachers”, and we do get a handful of telling parent/guardian comments in this piece. But I wonder which of those groups is loudest and most frequently in the CEO’s ear? As an additional note, we hear that the governor and the lieutenant governor aren’t best pleased that two districts which signed the March 1 reopening pledge are not planning on following through with that pledge, although the reaction seemed pretty mild as reported. (The 74, 2/11/21)

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