Gadfly Bites 3/20/23—Paging Dr. Mohip! Paging Dr. Hardy!

1. Dayton City Schools says its busing situation is getting better, although the only data provided are driver attendance figures. These are higher now than they were at the beginning of the year, mainly because the district has implemented a “bonus” structure for drivers who show up on time and finish their shifts every day do their actual jobs. One other stat provided: The district has racked up at least $2 million in fines from the state for failure to adequately transport charter and private school students on many many instances throughout the year so far. The legal eagles on the district payroll are said to be on top of that situation. You know, by suing the state. (Dayton Daily News, 3/19/23) Speaking of interesting stats: Changes are afoot at Dayton’s International School, the district’s new magnet program for all English Learner students. It is housed in a building that was slated to close as a neighborhood school due to low enrollment, although any neighborhood families who wanted to stay there and attend the English Learners program were allowed to do so. Reopening this year as the International School, the building had 617 students. Of those, 64 transferred back to their neighborhood schools upon reaching some unidentified level of English proficiency while 112 left the district. Hmmm…. The rest are, presumably, still plugging away there. However, there must still be more room in the building because another magnet program—a Montessori elementary—will join the EL program there next school year. Supposedly, students from another district Montessori program will get first dibs (clearing that program’s wait list) and, as ever, neighborhood folks will be allowed to join up to that one as well if they want. All this sounds to me like a scheduling and transportation nightmare to me, but what’s new about that? (Dayton Daily News, 3/20/23)
   
   

2. Aside from incessant lobbying, I will freely admit that I never quite understood the function of or service provided by the Ohio School Boards Association (OSBA). But if I ever had to guess, I would think that close to the top of the list would be making sure all of their member boards had accurate information on how public meetings should be scheduled, advertised, and run so as to conform to state law and Robert’s Rules of Order. An ongoing court case regarding a pandemic-era meeting notification in Lowellville Local Schools hinges on OSBA’s stellar reputation in this regard, even if the district in question erred in not getting up-to-date guidance thereto. Fascinating. (Vindy.com, 3/20/23)
   
   

3. Let’s turn for a moment to something that I do know a lot about: The sad true story of Ohio’s academic distress commissions. In case you missed it, it was announced last week that control of the Houston Independent School District will move under the aegis of a board of managers appointed by the Texas Education Agency. The governor’s office there says it is necessary to turn the district around due to low performance and mismanagement and the plan has been working through the courts for four years. So far so familiar. The national discussion, like this one from NBC News, is focusing on the general failure of state interventions like this to generate the types of academic improvement intended—Ohio’s included. Unfortunately, no one with any knowledge of how these things actually got sabotaged in the Buckeye State has yet been heard from in relation to the Texas story. Shame. (NBC News, 3/17/23) And speaking of Youngstown City Schools (were we?), the headline of this piece references an “enrollment spurt” in the district that is necessitating some staffing changes. Good news, right? Well, if you read the piece fully you will see that it is simply a redistribution of students between two high school feeder patterns begun a couple of years ago. That effort appears to include some unsubtle coercion (you can stay in your old high school if you really want, but you’ll have to provide your own transportation every day of every year until graduation) and a failure to similarly redistribute staff until the mismatch of teachers and students has now become an unavoidable problem. (Vindy.com, 3/20/23)
   
   

4. No state involvement here yet, but there are some familiar echoes of the academic distress follies emanating from Cincinnati City Schools suddenly and messily. A group of administrators and supporters submitted a letter of complaint to the elected school board earlier this month relating at length the things they dislike about new-ish superintendent Iranetta Wright’s way of doing business. “She has repeatedly displayed the attitude that because she is the superintendent, she will get what she wants,” is among the list of their concerns. There is no information given as to how the letter—or the superintendent’s response to it—became public, but sometimes these things just happen, you know? In her response, the superintendent confirmed that she had made changes in her first year on the job, but that “[t]hese operational adjustments are based on experience and proven, industry best practices to align the district and all schools to our board approved goals”; that they stem from her “desire to know and have a working awareness of the inner workings of our district”; and that the district “must consider additional measures to dramatically improve the outcomes for our students”. Once again: so far so familiar. More to come, I’m sure, and probably with some unique Queen City, chili-on-spaghetti level, twists. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 3/17/23)
   
   

5. Finally today: Fordham is namechecked as a supporter of school choice legislation under consideration in the General Assembly in this piece, but the real point seems to be to set up the  narrative of a possible “clash” between ESAs/backpack funding and the expansion of EdChoice among our august legislators. (NBC4i, Columbus, 3/20/23) Similar vibe in this piece (substitute “sticking point” with “clash”), but as usual with Gongwer, lots of in-depth and thoughtful discussion here as well. (Gongwer Ohio, 3/17/23)

Did you know you can have every edition of Gadfly Bites sent directly to your Inbox? Subscribe by clicking here.