Gadfly Bites 8/12/20 – No time like the present

1. Fordham’s Chad Aldis is quoted in this coverage of a new report aimed at providing a roadmap for Ohio to increase the percentage of adults who have completed a postsecondary certificate, credential, or degree. “Especially exciting,” said Chad, “are the plan's efforts to expand opportunities for high school students to engage in work-based learning, industry certification, and advanced coursework.” Excellent stuff indeed. Here’s hoping the effort, dubbed Complete to Compete, goes full speed ahead. (Gongwer Ohio, 8/11/20)
    
2. Franklinton Prep High School, a dropout recovery charter school, was the first to open for full in-person classes here in central Ohio. They did so on Monday. The vote of families was 60/40 in favor of in-person schooling, and the superintendent says his school was “uniquely positioned to handle health restrictions”, so it appears that no online option was offered for the start of school. (I think that’s how it turned out—the piece is a little equivocal on that point.) There is no discussion of whether they ended up losing students if this indeed was the only option, but the supe does note that they are prepared to go back to the spring’s online-only option “in case the need arises”. (NBC4, Columbus, 8/10/20) It’s a charter elementary—North Dayton School of Discovery—that is first to open for the year in the Miami Valley. That also happened Monday. The school opted for a fully online model to start, that decision made in late July. While the rona is a factor, the school’s principal also cited Dayton City Schools’ horrible proposed transportation plan for charter schools as the main motivator of the decision. I might also suggest that the school’s excellent-sounding online model—each student receiving a Chromebook or tablet with teachers hosting live morning meetings and live virtual instruction with small groups, in addition to other educational videos—helped smooth the decision-making process. (Dayton Daily News, 8/10/20)
    
3. Breakthrough Schools in Cleveland do not start their school year until September 8, which is good because they are still working out certain details of their fully-remote reopening plan. (That plan is on their website – sounds like live virtual teaching all day every day along with “innovative extracurriculars” – you should check it out.) To wit: how to assist families whose students will not have adult supervision at home during the day this fall. Their plan, not yet finalized, will involve network-hired and trained chaperones at certain sites convenient to families around the city. (News 5, Cleveland, 8/10/20) There is no mention of churches in the foregoing clip, but they feature prominently in this one on the same topic. Just as with our Columbus story on Monday. The piece is long and digresses a lot into national political hot buttons (yuck), straying from the main point of safe spaces for Cleveland kids who will lack adult supervision academic motivators at home this fall. The key differences between this Cleveland story and the Columbus one is that the effort seems to be at a far-less-advanced stage in NEO and that the Cleveland school district decided not to comment. This could mean a lot of different things, but I have my own favorite among the possibilities. I’ll give you a clue: it rhymes with “honey”. Specifically, who has already been given a portion of “honey” and who is still waiting for some “honey”. (IdeaStream, Cleveland, 8/12/20)
    
4. In non-rona charter school news, students at the Utica Shale Academy will be sharing in a $200,000 state grant to help them gain knowledge and credentials in six so-called “Industry 4.0 building blocks”. I think this is good stuff, although your tolerance for jargony jargon like “informactionable data” may determine whether you think so or not. Anyway: congrats to the Fighting Frackers of USA! (WTOV-TV, Steubenville, 8/11/20)
    
5. Back to the back-to-school discussion: yesterday’s episode of the long-running soap opera Stories from the Crypt (hasn’t that misery-fest been cancelled yet?) included some statewide data on school reopening plans. Governor DeWine tells us that, as of now, more than 500,000 Ohio public school students (38 percent of the total) will return to the classroom fully in-person, while around 398,000 (25.6 percent) will have classes fully remotely, and 380,000 students (24.5 percent) will be operating under a hybrid model featuring both in-person and remote learning. Tune in next time when you’ll hear the governor say…. (Columbus Dispatch, 8/11/20) Lakewood City Schools is one of those districts whose students will be going back to school fully remotely, starting September 8. High school intervention specialist Corey Streets had to get creative in setting up his remote teaching station at his home, since the impending arrival of a new baby will kick him out of the spare room he used last spring. Thus, he has kitted out and unveiled “Mr. Streets’ Center for Remote Shed-ucation”. Yeah, it’s an actual shed, but somehow I love it. Although I’ll love it more when the Keurig is up and running. (Cleveland.com, 8/12/20)

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