Education News for 05-08-2012

Statewide Education News

• Kasich school plan may change (Dispatch)

Republican leaders in the Senate plan to slow down Gov. John Kasich’s initiatives for holding back third-graders who aren’t proficient in reading and for a tougher report-card rating system for schools and districts. Under the Senate plan, new report cards would be issued by Sept. 1, 2013, for the 2012-13 school year, not this summer for the current school year. And the so-called reading guarantee would start in the 2013-14 school year, instead of this fall. Read More…

Local Issues

• School bus drivers test skills on safety course (WLIO-Lima)

They drive our kids to school every day. Rarely do parents second guess the skills of school bus drivers. For the drivers, the safety of the children is of the up-most importance. To help improve their safe driving skills, bus drivers took to the course as part of the regional school bus safety Road-E-O Saturday. Driving a car through an obstacle course of cones may be difficult for some people, but imagine doing it in a 30 to 40 foot school bus. That is exactly what area bus drivers did Saturday morning, helping to sharpen their driving skills. Read More…

• Animals on loose not considered ‘calamity’ for closed schools (Dispatch)

Unsure whether lions, tigers and bears remained loose near Zanesville, three Muskingum County school districts canceled classes the day after Terry Thompson released his menagerie of exotic pets and shot himself in the head. A calamity? Read More…

• Effort Underway To Repeal Westerville School Levy (NBC-4, Columbus)

The levy controversy in Westerville just won't go away. Even though voters approved a 6.71-mill emergency operating levy in March, voters may soon see a levy issue on their November ballot as well. However, the new issue would be to repeal the levy. Monday, the group Taxpayers for Westerville Schools began collecting signatures in an effort to repeal the levy. Read More…

• Official: Public can fight school privatization (Vindicator)

To stop privatization of public education, citizens need to become active. “Go to hearings, send 10 million emails to the governor and the legislators,” William L. Phillis, executive director of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, told about 200 people at Boardman High School Monday. Phillis was a speaker at a public forum sponsored by township schools and the Mahoning County Educational Service Center, Read More…

• Salem bus drivers treated to breakfast on their ‘day’ (Salem News)

SALEM - City school bus drivers received a pat on the back Monday as part of School Bus Driver Appreciation Day in Ohio. "They do an awesome job of keeping our kids safe," Salem City Schools Transportation Supervisor Tom Mather said about his drivers. As for the kids, he said "they're safer in a school bus than any other form of transportation." Read More…

• Eastmoor neighbors concerned about Africentric relocation plan (Dispatch)

Residents of the northern end of Eastmoor say they have a lot of questions about Columbus City Schools’ plans to move Columbus Africentric Early College to a former apartment complex near them. In the meantime, Bexley-area officials remain interested in using the old Woodland Meadows property even after the campus is built. They met with Columbus school-district officials yesterday, Columbus schools spokesman Jeff Warner said. Read More…

• State dept. of education recognizes local teacher (Chillicothe Gazette)

A Ross County educator recently was recognized by the Ohio Department of Education for her local leadership as an advocate for families and young children. Maryjo Flamm-Miller, program specialist for Ross County Job & Family Services, received the 2012 Irene Bandy-Heddon Community Leadership Award from ODE's Office of Early Learning and School Readiness. The Community Leadership award was one of several awarded during a conference April 21 in Columbus. Read More…

EDUCATION NEWS FOR 12-20-2011

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…

News for March 11th, 2011

As we woke to a light snow covering today, we also learn via the NBC4i that more snow days are coming, no not that kind, this kind

The Ohio House has voted 92-5 to give schools two more "snow days," beyond the three they're currently allowed.

A relentless winter has meant many schools long ago exhausted their current annual allotment of three calamity days, meaning they must make up any further time lost due to weather.

We also learned that in order to close a large budget gap, 32 teachers will be cut by Gahanna-Jefferson schools

Thursday night, the Gahanna-Jefferson Schools Board of Education approved more than $7 million in cuts. These cuts impact dozens of teachers and thousands of students.

The cuts come after failed levy campaigns last May and November.

You can read the full list of cuts here.

School Tranportation News reminds everyone that SB5 affects more than just teachers, police and fire, but other education support staff, including many bus drivers

Senate Bill 5 as currently written would repeal collective bargaining for state and public employees. According to Pete Japikse, director of pupil transportation at the Ohio Department of Education, only about 5 percent of the state’s school buses are owned by contractors. But things get more complicated when trying to determine the breakdown between school bus drivers employed by private companies and those who work for local school districts.

“Just like teachers, there is a fairly significant percentage of school bus drivers represented by organized labor,” Japikse said. “In fact, teachers and drivers belong to some of the same unions. Whatever the impact is on teachers will probably be some of the same impact on drivers.”

In other SB 5 related news, the Dispatch is reporting that the House Speaker does not know when a vote might occur, but hearings are planned for all next weeks

Speaker William G. Batchelder said he is done predicting when the collective-bargaining bill will come up for a full vote in the House.

The Medina Republican told reporters yesterday that Senate Bill 5 will not come up for a floor vote next week. This came a day after he told reporters that he hoped to have a House vote next week on the controversial measure.
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The House Commerce and Labor Committee will continue hearings next week on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. On Tuesday, Gov. John Kasich will introduce his two-year operating budget.

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