Statewide Education News

Olentangy to end daily all-day kindergarten (Dispatch)

Olentangy school officials plan to end a pilot program that offers daily all-day kindergarten classes and to convert its building into an elementary school. Officials said that will require drawing new attendance boundaries for the district’s elementary schools. A committee reviewing the kindergarten program decided that it is too expensive and that the building could be better used to ease crowding throughout the district. Read More…

District could face fiscal emergency (Journal-News)

MONROE — As the Monroe school district continues to deal with a financial crisis, the district may be just months away from the Ohio Department of Education declaring it in fiscal emergency, the superintendent said Monday night. The ODE notified Monroe on Dec. 15 that it is now on fiscal watch; it had been on fiscal caution since Oct. 1. “With what we owe right now, we could end up in fiscal emergency by the end of May,” Superintendent Elizabeth Lolli said at the board of education meeting. Read More…

Granville teachers appeal suspension of licenses (Newark Advocate)

NEWARK - Two English Language Learner teachers in Granville are appealing a one-year suspension of their teaching licenses imposed by the Ohio Department of Education. This past week, Mary Ellen Locke and Jane Pfautsch asked Licking County Common Pleas Court Judge David Branstool to stay the suspension imposed Nov. 15 for reportedly helping students cheat on the Ohio Test of English Language Acquisition in early 2010, according to appeals filed by attorney Eric Rosenberg. Read More…

Local Issues

Amherst schools look at ways to cut spending (Morning Journal)

AMHERST — With up to 30 jobs on the line, the Amherst school district will be looking to cut $2.5 million for its budget next year. “These are challenging times to serve in the public education,” Superintendent Steve Sayers said. The district began looking at making cuts last month after failing a levy earlier this year. “Our expenses are expected to exceed our revenue,” Sayers said. At yesterday’s school board meeting, he detailed what $2.5 million in cuts to the district would look like. Read More…

Findlay board OKs bus drivers' contract (Courier)

The Findlay school board voted Monday in special session to ratify a contract with district bus drivers. The board voted 5-0 to approve a two-year agreement negotiated with the Ohio Association of Public School Employees Local 010. Findlay City Schools employs 29 bus drivers, 22 of whom are union members. The union's ratification vote was held Thursday. The drivers agreed to no base pay or step raises in calendar year 2012. Read More…

Westerville schools may cut 221 jobs (Dispatch)

About 100 Westerville teaching jobs — or almost 1 out of 10 — would be lost by next school year under a list of potential cuts introduced by the district school board last night. Also scheduled to be cut: 95 of about 740 classified staff members — mostly school-bus drivers and custodians — and eight of 74 administrators. In all, the list includes 221 jobs. Board members took no action on the cuts last night but began discussing them, and they voted to enter into negotiations earlier than planned with each of the district’s four unions. Read More…

City schools consider restructuring elementary buildings by grade level (Chillicothe Gazette)

CHILLICOTHE - Chillicothe school officials are floating the idea of reconfiguring the district's elementary buildings by grade level. Superintendent Jon Saxton on Monday presented a report from an ad hoc budget reduction committee that offers two options for shuffling students -- neighborhood "sister" schools and grade band schools. The sister schools plan would house grades kindergarten through second in Allen and Tiffin and grades three through five in Worthington and Mount Logan with the idea that students could remain in the same area of the city where they now attend school. Read More…

Editorial

Reading readiness (Blade)

Ohio's race to the top has begun in earnest with the announcement that the state is getting $70 million in federal aid to prepare low-income children for kindergarten. State education officials must spend that money wisely. President Obama's signature education initiative, Race to the Top, aims to help states develop creative programs to make schools more effective. Ohio was one of 35 states that applied for a grant to help get youngsters ready for kindergarten, and one of nine states selected to share $500 million in federal funds. Children's success in life often depends on what they have learned and experienced before age 5. Studies show that the better prepared a child is to enter kindergarten, the more likely he or she is to do well in school. Read More…

L.A. Unified's food for naught (L.A. Times)

As any parent could have told the tastemakers of Los Angeles Unified School District, it's a long road from pizza to black-bean burgers, from chicken nuggets to quinoa salad. Kids like pizza and nuggets; they tend to balk at that other stuff. Unfortunately, the district forgot that when it radically changed its school lunches practically overnight to fare that was decidedly healthier but too exotic for many students — think Caribbean meatballs and pad Thai, in place of nachos and strawberry milk. Though some of the new meals have been a hit, too many end up in school trash cans. Read More…