Feb 21, 2021
Gov. Mike DeWine stated last week what we and many around the Valley have believed for quite some time.
It’s time for kids to get back to school.
Just 31 Ohio school districts remain fully remote as result of the pandemic, DeWine said. Youngstown City Schools is among them.
“We have a number of kids who are not doing well with remote learning,” he said.
Students in Youngstown City Schools, particularly, are our focus here because they attend the only local school district that has not returned to in-person learning since students originally were sent home when COVID-19 cases began rising in Ohio nearly a year ago.
Staff photo / R. Michael Semple..
Ronald Shadd, president of the Youngstown Board of Education, stands outside the empty East High School on Friday. Of the three Ohio districts under control by an Academic Distress Commission and CEO model, only Youngstown has not returned to in-person learning. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine admonished the district in his COVID-19 update last week, saying he wants students there back at least partially in person by March 1.
YOUNGSTOWN Two of the three Ohio school districts taken over by the state for having successive, failing grades on the state report card already have reopened their doors to students.
Youngstown has not announced a timetable for beginning either a hybrid or a five-day-per-week in-person school schedule.
According to an Ohio Department of Education website, 34 out of 609 public school districts are fully remote.
The state school board backs the importance of in-person learning, and Gov. Mike DeWine said not heading to classrooms after staff vaccinations for COVID-19 is “unacceptable.”
Ohio has 395 districts that have returned to five-day, in-person classes and 180 districts that are hybrid, according to ODE.
Some school districts, including Cleveland and Akron, are on the fully remote list of school districts that have now announced in-person reopening plans.
Feb 14, 2021
YOUNGSTOWN Harding Elementary educators are exposing students to the accomplishments of African-Americans including some close to home as part of Black History Month.
Principal Teri Coward said black history is American history, and school staff want to provide information to student about the many African Americans throughout history who blazed trails for those who came after them.
Students choose someone to research, and they email Coward a paragraph they write from their research. She reads the information during each day’s morning announcements to share it with the school.
“The depiction of blacks in American history impacts the character of black children who don’t get to see positive images of black Americans,” Coward said. “Teaching black history gives scholars many options towards success they may not know exist.”
While some school districts have started receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, teachers and staff members in 59 of Ohio s 88 counties are still waiting their turn.
And if the vaccine schedule for school districts looks random, that s because it is in a way.
The state didn t use set criteria for making the vaccine schedule for school districts, Gov. Mike DeWine s spokesman Dan Tierney told The Dispatch last week. There simply was not enough supply to do it in one week; therefore, we had to divide it into weeks and by nature some are going to go in Week One, some are going to go in Week Four, he said.