Week in Review 09-25-2020

Week in Review > Week in Review 09-25-2020

Posted by Buckeye Association of School Administrators on September 25th, 2020

CORONAVIRUS

The state’s coronavirus website now includes a dashboard displaying case data by race and ethnicity, Gov. Mike DeWine announced during his COVID-19 briefing Tuesday. The information on coronavirus.ohio.gov can be broken down by age/county and compared to the overall Ohio population, the governor said. “Improving data collection and reporting, as well as creating a publicly-available dashboard, were recommendations from the COVID-19 Minority Health Strike Force,” DeWine said. “This dashboard will help better track health inequities and disparities, and we believe this data will also help put critical decisions into context for policymakers.”

An order from Interim Health Director Lance Himes will lift some of the pandemic restrictions on restaurants, bars, catering facilities and similar venues at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 24, though distancing measures, sanitation guidelines and certain occupancy limits remain.

A lawsuit against Interim Health Director Lance Himes regarding requirements for children to wear masks in school settings has been moved from Putnam County to Franklin County at Himes’ request, as the plaintiffs’ request for reconsideration was denied Thursday. The lawsuit, filed Sept. 9, claims that the health order represents “unconstitutional” conduct by Himes and did not include public hearings, lacked an expiration date and “imposes exemption standards which are contrary to clear constitutional requirements.” Similar statements were made about other orders by Himes and past Ohio Department of Health (ODH) Director Amy Acton.

EDUCATION

The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) owes a combined total of more than $40 million to the Cleveland, Dayton and Toledo school districts in a dispute over how the agency counted student enrollment more than a decade ago, a Franklin County Common Pleas judge ruled recently. Judge Gina Russo determined a section of the FY10-11 budget bill meant to limit ODE’s liability in the dispute could not bar the claims by the three districts.

The Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) has announced new regional alignments for the upcoming football playoffs after 664 schools opted in for the postseason. On Tuesday, Sept. 29 and Wednesday, Sept. 30, the head coaches in each region will vote to seed the teams in their region. OHSAA will then place teams on brackets on Thursday, Oct. 1. With various numbers of schools in each region, many of the higher seeds will have a first-round bye.

State Board of Education members Tuesday urged greater effort to hold early childhood education funding harmless when expected budget cuts hit in the coming biennium, and some also advocated that the board reinstate its standing committee on budget and legislative matters. Superintendent Paolo DeMaria and Ohio Department of Education budget chief Aaron Rausch gave a presentation on draft budget scenarios for submission to the Office of Budget and Management (OBM) in order to gather feedback and make changes ahead of the board’s vote to approve an official budget request in October.

The Ohio Supreme Court labeled as moot and dismissed Thursday a lawsuit from families and private schools who objected to a delay earlier this year in the EdChoice application window amid a dispute over how to address a dramatic expansion in the number of schools at which students would be eligible.

Children who miss a lot of school from kindergarten to eighth grade may suffer unexpected costs as young adults, new research from Ohio State University (OSU) suggests. Researchers found that those who were more regularly absent in these early years of school were less likely to vote, reported having greater economic difficulties and had poorer educational outcomes when they were 22 to 23 years old.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY/STATEHOUSE

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee offered unanimous support Wednesday to Democratic legislation requiring the State Board of Education to develop high school curriculum on “proper interactions with peace officers” and the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission (OPOTC) to provide the Ohio Attorney General’s Office corresponding recommendations on “proper interactions with civilians.” SB16 (Williams) would go on to near-unanimous passage by the full Senate with additional language requiring the Ohio Department of Public Safety (ODPS) to adapt the high school curriculum for mandatory driver instruction.