Week in Review > Week in Review – 02/15/2019

Posted by on February 15th, 2019

FY20-21 BUDGET

The Children’s Budget Coalition began releasing issue briefs and policy recommendations to advocate for a variety of initiatives to address childhood poverty. They are available at https://ohiochildrensbudget.org.

CHILDREN/FAMILIES

Groundwork Ohio, the Ohio Child Care Resource and Referral Association (OCCRRA), Ohio Association of Child Care Providers (OACCP), Ohio Association for the Education of Young Children (Ohio AEYC), and Southwest Ohio Association for the Education of Young Children (SWOAEYC) Thursday announced the formation of the Ohio Early Childhood Equitable Access Coalition, a coalition of early childhood educators unified behind a common policy agenda and committed to mobilize stakeholders to advocate for increased quality and access to early education programs in the FY20-21 state budget and beyond.

EDUCATION

Parties in the ongoing litigation surrounding the Educational Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT)discussed three major issues at a status conference Friday, with Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Richard Holbrook saying he would make a decision on two of the issues in the coming days. Those two matters were whether the ECOT board should be able to ask interim master Myron Terlecky to indemnify individual former employees of ECOT and whether a group of seven public school districts should be able to pursue claims against Third Wave Communications,Midwest Communications & Media and Grant Street Consultants.

Applications are now being accepted for the Ohio Department of Education’s (ODE) EdChoice Scholarship Program. The deadline to apply is Tuesday, April 30.

Superintendent Paolo DeMaria gave his forecast of upcoming legislative deliberations Tuesday to the State Board of Education, as part of a new standing agenda topic for the board’s meetings. Board President Laura Kohler said when she was developing a new committee structure she’d heard strong interest from colleagues about reconstituting a legislative committee of the board, so she decided to effectively create a committee of the whole by making legislative updates a routine feature of the monthly meetings.

The State Board of Education is gearing up for deliberations on numerous revisions to state report cards for traditional district schools, career-technical planning districts, and dropout prevention and recovery schools. The board’s Accountability and Assessment Committee started talks Tuesday on upcoming work to revisit rules on the composition and calculation of report card measures.

Rep. Louis Blessing (R-Cincinnati), chairman of the House Primary and Secondary Education Committee, told Hannah News at the committee’s first meeting Tuesday evening that he expects movement on bills to revamp school district report cards and early childhood education. He said districts are still upset about the state report card rating system, and he said a bill similar to 132-HB591 (Duffey) could be introduced early on in the session.

Reps. Bob Cupp (R-Lima) and John Patterson (D-Jefferson) saidTuesday their long-awaited report on a new school funding model is near completion but needs a bit more work before its public debut. The two spoke after co-chairing their first meeting as leaders of the House Finance Primary and Secondary Education Subcommittee, under the new bipartisan subcommittee structure instituted by Speaker Larry Householder (R-Glenford). “It’s no surprise that some of these things take a little longer to fine tune in the final form than one anticipates,” Cupp said.

The House and Senate introduced nearly 100 bills in the first barrage of legislation filed Tuesday, though the House skipped straight to HB16 in the numbering to reserve space for House Republicans’ priority bills.

Posted by on February 15th, 2019

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