- Chad was a guest on a tiny sliver of All Sides with Ann Fisher yesterday. The topic was Ohio’s largest online school, its current tussle with the state over an ongoing attendance audit, and the larger implications for it and others like it depending on the findings. Audio and video are available at the link; the online schools portion starts around 16:45; Chad gets to join in after the journalists have had their bash (sending the nonexistent case to the state supreme court if they do say so themselves), around 35:00. (WOSU-FM, Columbus, 7/19/16) The first 16 minutes of this edition of Fisher’s show was spent on the journalists discussing the Republican National Convention. When this show was planned, there wasn’t a connection between the two topics. Fortuitously for radio station, host, and journalists/pundits, a connection arose. Here’s the editorial board at the ABJ to tell you all about it. (Akron Beacon Journal, 7/20/16)
- Back in the real world, the third and final public meeting hosted by Youngstown Schools CEO Krish Mohip was held this week. Some students finally showed up (including one from a local private school and none from the district’s East High School) and, as promised, Mohip took their input very seriously. Actually, so did the Vindy, failing in their joy to note who else was there and what if anything they said. Mohip is looking at a September 6 deadline to develop and present a district improvement plan to the Academic Distress Commission. (Youngstown Vindicator, 7/19/16)
- I’m not sure I follow this piece entirely. The Reynoldsburg school board this week made a change in superintendent Tina Thomas-Manning’s contract whereby they eliminated her bonus (based on four performance metrics and determined entirely by how well she does in meeting them) and replaced it with coverage of her personal pension contributions (which is retroactive, apparently guaranteed, and is far in excess of the performance bonus she earned in Year 1). This piece makes it sound a bit like punishment for offenses unspecified, but if it is then may I please be punished in a similar manner? (Columbus Dispatch, 7/20/16)
- In levy news around the state: Nearly two-thirds of the members of the citizen millage committee setting the rate of Columbus City Schools’ November levy ask live within the district and will need to pay any amount that voters approve. That, of course, is my rendering if this story. For the Columbus NAACP’s take on it (for it is they who asked for the residence information), just flip that percentage. (Columbus Dispatch, 7/20/16) As predicted last week, there will be no Clash of the Pre-K Levies in Dayton this November. The school board has decided to table its proposed ask after a presentation by the city. The terms are still to be worked out. (Dayton Daily News, 7/19/16)
- Has StateAuditor! Man succumbed to his kryptonite? Has he uncovered a school choice option which has brought the mighty hero to his knees? It may sound like that in these two pieces, but no Gentle Reader. Look closer. Coventry Schools in Northeast Ohio was on fiscal watch for an astounding 18 years. It has recently tipped into fiscal emergency, triggering a veritable tsunami of assistance from the state (“Why didn’t we do this years ago?” they cry to the heavens). Auditor Yost has completed a performance audit and found that open enrollment policy is a lot like a radioactive spider bite: it comes with great responsibility. Coventry has in fact been a bit too…open with its open enrollment policy it appears. If open enrollment is used to fill existing empty seats, it is typically a boon to the receiving district: additional revenue without raising fixed costs. But because students come into the district with state funding only (holy charter school funding model!), an overabundance of open enrolled students can necessitate an increase in classroom space, staff, and other expenditures that are not covered by the limited income generated. This is the nefarious activity apparently going on, however inadvertently, in Coventry. In fact, both the Akron Beacon Journal piece (Akron Beacon Journal, 7/19/16) and the Gongwer piece (Gongwer Ohio, 7/19/16) note that the additional expenditures on teachers alone for open enrolled students in the district is over $1 million a year. StateAuditor! Man has a clever plan for Coventry to limit its open enrollment numbers for the good of all. All people in Coventry, that is. The district will hopefully not take this advice as an excuse to kick dozens of kids out of their schools and back to whatever district they felt was inferior enough to leave (Akron). We’ve been down that road before and there’s no superhero on the other end.
- Finally today, you’ve heard of Plants vs. Zombies? I give you Plants vs. Tenure. A Toledo City Schools floriculture teacher (?) was suspended earlier this year, stemming from allegations that she gave away district property without permission or documentation. Plants and pots, if you must know. She is now fighting for her job and restitution in what promises to be a thorny case. (Toledo Blade, 7/20/16)
