Week in Review 11-6-2020

Week in Review > Week in Review 11-6-2020

Posted by Buckeye Association of School Administrators on November 06th, 2020

CORONAVIRUS

Ohio continued to set records for new COVID-19 cases throughout the week with 3,845 new cases on Friday; 4,229 new cases on Tuesday; and 4,961 new cases on Thursday.

Gov. Mike DeWine used his Thursday COVID-19 briefing to introduce an expanded executive team at the Ohio Department of Health (ODH). Bureau of Workers’ Compensation Administrator Stephanie McCloud will become director. OhioHealth Chief Medical Officer Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff will become ODH medical director; Interim ODH Director Lance Himes will stay on as senior deputy, taking charge of the state’s vaccine distribution plan; and Office of Budget and Management Assistant Director Kathleen Madden will become ODH chief of staff.

EDUCATION

The Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) football state championships will be hosted at Fortress Obetz, a multi-purpose sports complex located just southeast of Columbus. The Division I state championship will take place on Friday, Nov. 13, while the finals in Divisions II through VII will be played on Friday, Nov. 20, Saturday, Nov. 21 and Sunday, Nov. 22, with two games each day.

The Ohio School Boards Association (OSBA) Delegate Assembly elected Robert M. Heard Sr. as the association’s 2021 president-elect Thursday. He has served on the Cleveland Municipal Schools Board of Education for 15 years. Heard was elected during the annual business meeting of the OSBA Delegate Assembly. Current OSBA President-elect Scott E. Huddle, a member of the Mad River Local Board of Education in Montgomery County, will become OSBA president on Jan. 1, 2021.

The Center of Science and Industry (COSI) has launched new COSI Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) kits meant to bring a hands-on learning experience to students. The kits provide teachers, caregivers and parents with five days of “connected, standards aligned learning experiences,” and come in several themes. The water kit, nature kit and space kit are all available for order now, and dinosaurs, energy, engineer and human body themed kits will be available soon. They are recommended for grades K-8. Order or find more information about the kits at https://cosi.org/connects/kits/.

Leila Kubesch, an English as a second language and Spanish educator at Norwood Middle School, Ohio’s 2020 Teacher of the Year and Ohio’s 2021 Teacher Fellow, has received the following two national awards: the Horace Mann Award for Teaching Excellence and the 2020 Toyota Family Teacher of the Year by Toyota and the National Center for Families Learning.

The Ohio Supreme Court rebuffed attempts by Attorney General Dave Yost and a long list of news outlets and media associations Thursday to gain access to the late Dayton shooter Connor Betts’ school records after his 2019 killing of nine people outside Ned Peppers Bar. The Court said public record exemptions do not expire upon death of a student or former student, as litigants argued, with majority and dissenting opinions mounting dueling claims over the “plain language” of R.C. 3319.321(B).