Statewide Education News

Teacher evaluations tested (Dispatch)

This is what schools are learning about Ohio’s new teacher-evaluation system: It is time-consuming. It is much more complicated than the old one. And it has potential to help teachers improve. Statewide, 138 school districts or charter schools — a total of 265 school buildings — are using new evaluations this school year as part of a pilot program of the new Ohio Teacher Evaluation System. About 20 districts and charters in central Ohio are test-driving the new system, including Canal Winchester, Columbus, Hilliard, Pickerington and Worthington. Read More…

Growing STEM teachers (Enquirer)

UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS — Teaching physical science, Jordan Woods says, is the easy part. But it’s more difficult to learn to manage a classroom of ninth-graders at the Hughes STEM high school. “It was definitely the teaching part I needed help with,” said Woods, a 21-year-old from Independence who graduated in June from the University of Cincinnati with a degree in neuroscience (and also is planning her upcoming wedding). She originally wanted to be a doctor before changing her career plans. Read More…

Kasich’s new school-funding formula delayed (Dispatch)

Shortly after taking office this year, Gov. John Kasich scrapped his Democratic predecessor’s school-funding fix and pledged to replace it with his own formula for distributing tax money to schools. Kasich vowed to direct more money to classroom instruction, better serve the individual needs of students and expand school options by allowing more tax dollars to flow from traditional public schools to charter and private schools. A “bridge” formula was put in place for this school year, with promises of a new funding model for 2012-2013. Read More…

Student homeless rate up 82 percent (Dayton Daily News)

Area school officials say the foreclosure crisis and job losses are causing more students to become homeless. There were 21,849 homeless students attending public schools in Ohio during the last school year. That’s up 82 percent from 2005-06 when there were 11,977 homeless students, according to data school districts reported to the Ohio Department of Education. Paul Schneider, liaison for the McKinney-Vento Homeless Children and Youth program in Springfield City Schools, believes home foreclosures are behind the rising numbers. Read More…

Teach for America aiming to be in Ohio in the fall (Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND-More than $2 million in grants will help bring Teach for America teachers to Northeast Ohio schools by the fall. The money from the Cleveland, George Gund, Nord and Stocker foundations, along with a contribution from the Lennon Trust, will pay for the national program to recruit and train highly educated college graduates who majored in subjects other than education and help them move to the area. Read More…

Ohio’s new schools going green (Journal-News)

Ohio leads the country with more green-school projects under way than any other state, the U.S. Green Building Council said in a report released last week. The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit released its first Best of Green Schools list recognizing recipients from across the country — from K-12 to higher education — for a variety of sustainable, cost-cutting measures including energy conservation. Read More…

Districts lack minority teachers (Dispatch)

There were few other black teachers in Upper Arlington schools when the district hired her in 1979, but Kim McMurray Rhodes thought that, as time went on, there would be more. She never imagined that by the end of her career there would be fewer. “I was just breaking the mold. That’s what I was doing, and thinking I was opening the door for more and different minorities,” said McMurray Rhodes, 57, who retired in 2006. Read More…

Local Issues

Staff exodus costs Toledo Public Schools $11M (Toledo Blade)

Tense contract negotiations in Toledo Public Schools and a controversial state law led to a mass employee exodus this year. More than 400 employees retired from the 4,500-employee district between January and August, causing severance payouts to more than double those in prior years. The retirements continue to have both financial and academic effects, district officials said. Read More…

City schools may shop for ESC services (Chillicothe Gazette)

CHILLICOTHE - The Chillicothe City Schools Board of Education today could take the first step toward terminating its contract with the Ross-Pike Educational Service Center for special education services. The move is little more than a formality at this point, but Chillicothe school officials have indicated they might look to other ESCs if they can negotiate the same level of services at a lower cost. According to the biennial budget bill, which gives school districts more freedom in choosing an ESC, a district must notify its current ESC by Dec. 31 if it's even considering a switch. Read More…

Despite reports, schools say hazing problems rare (Dispatch)

Officials for many local school districts say they have policies and procedures in place to deal with hazing, but they say it’s not a problem they deal with often. In Westerville, where four high-school basketball players were charged this week with hazing, school officials couldn’t recall such an incident in recent times. “This is the first time we filed charges” for hazing, said Westerville Police Lt. Tracey Myers. “ It’s not something we come across often.” Read More…

Charter School opposition; Lorain School board passed a resolution against school vouchers (Morning Journal)

LORAIN — It has been an issue that has evoked a lot of strong emotions from those in public education, it’s Charter Schools. The Lorain School board passed a resolution Wednesday stating their opposition to pending legislation that would allow students to receive vouchers to attend charter schools. According to the school district, the legislation would allow any public school student to request an education voucher, with the only stipulation being that the family income is less than $95,000 a year. Read More…

Swanton Local teachers authorize issuing strike notice (Toledo Blade)

SWANTON - Teachers in the Swanton Local Schools have authorized their union's bargaining committee to send a 10-day strike notice to the board of education, but the actual notice has not been given. The action Thursday by the 88-member Swanton Education Association came two days after the board declared negotiations with the union at an impasse and imposed terms of its last offer. Steve Brehmer, a spokesman for the teachers' union, said union officials would wait until two new members join the board in January before calling a strike. Read More…

Editorial

Straight from the source (Dispatch)

A bill calling for the study of foundational historical documents, such as the U.S. and Ohio constitutions, the Declaration of Independence and the Northwest Ordinance, in Ohio schools will ensure that students will be exposed to the building blocks of American history. Such a law hardly should be necessary. It should go without saying that students need to understand the ideas expressed in those documents, which motivated and guided the founders of our state and nation. Read More…