Statewide Education News

Charters hire coordinators to get kids into college-prep high schools (Dispatch)

As middle-school students, they’ve been preparing for college. Pennants hang in their classrooms. The only missing piece: high school. Most of the students at KIPP Journey Academy and Columbus Collegiate Academy, both charter middle schools, would attend a low-performing high school if they went to their neighborhood schools. That won’t do, so each of the middle schools has hired someone to help get students into excellent, even elite, area high schools. Read More…

District seeks to strengthen standards at high schools (Vindicator)

Youngstown - The proposed update to the city schools academic-recovery plan focuses on strategies to improve high school students’ achievement. The plan, adopted by the academic distress commission March 15, awaits approval by state Superintendent Stan Heffner. Heffner, who has 30 days to review the plan, may approve, reject or modify the document. Adrienne O’Neill, chair of the distress commission, said the plan that’s been in place since July 2010 focuses on the elementary schools. That plan remains in place, but the newly-constituted commission updated it. Read More…

Ready for college? Some seniors aren't (Daily Record)

WOOSTER - Getting into college and being ready for college can be two different things. The academic standards being phased in by the 2013-14 school year are in part motivated by "the need to help Ohio students be best prepared for college and or careers after high school," said Patrick Gallaway, the Ohio Department of Education's associate director of communications. It's apparently not a new problem. Read More…

Teens hungry to learn about managing money because they're not learning it at home (Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND - Two years after the Ohio Department of Education told all high schools they had to start teaching financial literacy, schools are finding a hunger among teen-agers to learn things their parents never taught them. "Many parents feel more comfortable talking with their kids about sex than finance," said Beth Pagan, a business teacher at North Ridgeville High School. "And honestly, with some of them, I think the parents are financially illiterate." Read More…

Charter schools get boost from busing (Beacon Journal)

Charter schools claim to offer a superior education than that provided by traditional public schools. But Akron school officials suspect parents have another reason for choosing charter schools: free busing courtesy of the city school district they are abandoning. A combination of law and geography gives charter schools an advantage over the Akron District. The financially strapped district buses students only if they live more than two miles from their school, ruling out most Akron City students attending neighborhood schools closer to home. Read More…

Schools enact new plan to battle bullies (Tribune Chronicle)

Officials at Warren City Schools said they want to make it clear the minute students, parents and community members step inside any of the districts buildings that they have entered a "No Bully Zone." The city school district, which has seen several reported cases of bullying among students this school year, has developed a K-12 anti-bullying initiative it hopes will reduce the number of bullying incidents. Read More…

Galion boy attends school via Skype (News-Journal)

GALION - Cage Nolen has been out of class for almost five months, but in some ways, he's never been gone. The 8-year-old Galion Primary School student said he prefers to be at school. "It's just more fun," Cage said. "Plus, I can play UNO there without fighting with (brother) Chris." But his parents say it's too much of a risk. "Cage can get pneumonia very, very easily," said his mother, Diana. "He usually gets it a couple times a year." Read More…

Mishandled finances not uncommon in charter schools (Dispatch)

Spend first, ask permission later, and don’t bother with receipts. The loose financial systems at some of Ohio’s charter schools have led to questionable spending in recent years. Some schools hired treasurers with spotty track records; others hired qualified treasurers but disregarded their advice when they insisted on better checks and balances. The recent case of a charter-school treasurer who misspent more than $600,000 in public money over a decade at several schools has highlighted how common fiscal missteps have been in charters. Read More…

Former Congressman Louis Stokes in favor of Mayor Frank Jackson's idea for Cleveland schools (Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND - Cleveland needs the kinds of major improvements to its schools that Mayor Frank Jackson is proposing, former U.S. Rep. Louis Stokes said Friday. "This is the time we must put everything aside and say, 'How do we give kids the education they're entitled to?' " said Stokes, who served in Congress for three decades. Now retired, Stokes said he decided to speak about Jackson's plan after hearing the mayor talk recently and being impressed with his sincerity about wanting to improve the schools. Read More…

Local Issues

Olentangy schools audit spurs theft report (Dispatch)

An Olentangy school board member has filed a theft report because a state audit said two district athletic directors had misused money in tournament accounts. Board member Adam White said he filed the complaint so authorities would launch a probe, not as an accusation that Jay Wolfe and Thomas Gerhardt broke the law. The report filed Thursday with the Delaware County sheriff’s office says only that a theft occurred and names Olentangy schools as the victim. Read More…

Cleveland residents back Mayor Frank Jackson's plan for city schools, poll shows (Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND — Cleveland residents aware of Mayor Frank Jackson's plan to improve schools in the city support it by a 2-to-1 ratio, according to a poll sought by Jackson and the Greater Cleveland Partnership. Sixty percent of those people said they have a positive opinion of the plan. The poll by the Triad Research Group in Rocky River also shows support for Jackson's plan rising to 75 percent after respondents were questioned about issues the Cleveland School District faces and about parts of the mayor's plan. Read More…

TPS aims to beef up its magnet program (Blade)

The light glowed dimly, at least in the room, but served as a beacon for big plans and past ideas. Cody Hagen and Austin Miner, both 18, inspired by Nikola Tesla and working with a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are developing ways to transmit electricity without wires. So far, they've made their wireless currents light up objects a couple of inches away; the MIT team is up to seven feet, they said. Still, they correspond frequently, with the Massachusetts side offering tips through email. Read More…

Teachers stress finance skills (Enquirer)

Fourteen local educators and students were recognized recently for their work in financial literacy. The awards were presented March 22 by the University of Cincinnati’s Economics Center, which offers financial literacy programs for students and teacher training. The Economics Center says it’s important to recognize those who go above and beyond to help students understand financial issues. “The educators that we are honoring today are obviously exceptional teachers, but they are more than that,” said Economics Center’s Director, Julie Heath. Read More…

Lorain union preparing for teacher cuts (Morning Journal)

LORAIN — The process of laying off Lorain City School teachers and other staff, which will play out over the next 30 days, is nothing new to Lorain Education Association Union President David Wood. Over the next month, Interim Superintendent Ed Branham will be meeting with staff to help determine the 119 teaching positions that will be cut at the end of this year. The employee cuts, which total 182 district wide, were announced at Thursday night’s school board meeting. Read More…

Board wants to beef up summer-school program (Dispatch)

The Columbus Board of Education plans to expand summer-school offerings in 2013 and wants a committee to keep that in mind as it decides whether the district should ask voters for more money. The board voted yesterday to give the committee five district priorities, with expanded summer school topping the list. The committee is scheduled to deliver its recommendations to the board by June. Depending on when in June the advisory panel completes its work, the board might have only days to decide whether to seek a property tax in the general election this year. Read More…

All good news for Little Miami Schools (Enquirer)

HAMILTON TWP. — The youngest students in Little Miami schools will once again go to kindergarten every day in neighborhood schools when classes resume next school year. In a reversal of a February decision, the state-appointed commission that has run the financially-struggling district since it was put in fiscal emergency two years ago approved three resolutions Thursday, making good on promises made to the community by the elected school board last November following voter approval of a 13.95-mill levy after eight failures. Read More…

Chardon Superintendent Joe Bergant to stay with district another year (News-Herald)

Chardon Schools Superintendent Joe Bergant, whose resignation was scheduled to be effective in July, has chosen to stay with the district for another year. In making the announcement, the district said Bergant’s decision is a personal effort to help restore the learning environment which was severely disrupted on Feb. 27 as tragedy struck Chardon High when three students were killed and another three were injured. Read More…

Editorial

Breathing space (Dispatch)

That Ohio has one of the nation’s toughest laws on charter-school accountability is a good thing; poorly-run charter schools can’t remain open, short-changing their students year after year. It also is a good thing that the Ohio Department of Education wants to put in place a tougher, more-realistic set of standards for grading schools, even though it will lower the grades of many. But the department shouldn’t allow the combination of those two to doom charter schools that are making progress. Read More…

Awful literacy stats make the case for Jackson's school reform plan (Plain Dealer)

Imagine living in a place where nearly 44 out of every 100 residents are incapable of using a bus schedule to figure out how to arrive at work on time. Or in a community where the same number of people cannot write a brief letter explaining a credit card billing error. If you live in Cuyahoga County, you already are living that reality. Those measures are included in the sobering, countywide literacy findings regularly compiled by Case Western Reserve University's first-rate Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development. Read More…

Boundary lines (Dispatch)

It appears the 26-year-old Win-Win territory agreement among Franklin County school districts needs a tune-up, as cash payments among districts may be out of whack and changes in state business taxes have complicated things. But Columbus City Schools and the suburban districts should keep negotiating toward adjustments to the pact. The one-of-a-kind agreement has allowed school-district boundaries to remain predictable during periods of dynamic development, and that’s something worth preserving. Read More…