- Proceeds from a new craft beer are earmarked to help support a cash-strapped high school band in rural central Ohio. The beer company CEO is an alum. Kudos to everyone involved and let’s hope that… Wait. What? (Columbus Dispatch, 9/2/15)
- It’s a tale of two online education programs in eastern central Ohio. First up, a profile of one teenage parent who got back on track for high school graduation and college thanks to district-run Newark Digital Academy and its staff. Says the student: “They are working to get you through school and won’t stop bugging you until you get it done.” Sounds about right. (Newark Advocate, 8/31/15) Meanwhile, the digital academy run by nearby Southwest Licking Schools is facing a student shortage. Judging by the well-meaning efforts to keep it operating, district officials see the value in it for the students they have, but if they don’t add at least five more students (up to 25) before September 15, the academy will receive no state funding for the month of October. And that would seriously test the resolve of the district to keep the program going. Why yes, this IS the same district using beer sales to fund their band. Why do you ask? (Newark Advocate, 9/2/15)
- However, in-person attendance has risen sharply in Southwest Licking Schools, to its highest level in the district’s history. This has prompted the first use of modular classrooms and a tiny bit of finger wagging at voters who defeated a building-related levy last November. (Newark Advocate, 9/2/15)
- The finger-wagging in Columbus City Schools is a bit more pronounced on the same topic with a bit less evidence. Two grade levels in one elementary school in the best neighborhood in the city (if I do say so myself) were over capacity this year. Remonstration about razing a historic building on the campus of said elementary is par for the course in that neighborhood and was occurring even without the enrollment bump. The resulting discussion by board and administration about changing district-wide feeder patterns, building new buildings, and going back to the voters for construction money is far more out of character. Likely it is engendered by simple relief at a change of the usual topic in Columbus, and reality will settle back upon them again and cool their rhetoric soon. (Columbus Dispatch, 9/2/15)
- “I remember the summer of ’15. It was rainy, but it seemed like it would never end…” Thus will begin many a tale told by current students in West Liberty-Salem Local Schools to their grandchildren years hence. School is still out in that tiny rural district, its start date pushed back again to September 14 due to rain-related construction delays. “Everybody is taking this very well so far,” says the district supe in what is probably the understatement of the century. “Everybody understands what we’ve had to deal with and are being patient.” (Springfield News-Sun, 9/1/15)
