February 2021 OEA Retirement Systems Update

[February 11, 2021] Nearly a year after the first COVID-19 cases appeared in Ohio, the Ohio Education Association (OEA) is grateful to have clear science-based guidance from the federal level to shape plans for getting students and educators back into their classrooms safely. The guidance provides a blueprint to reopen school buildings for in-person instruction in districts where that has not yet been possible and to ensure safety for all school community members in places where face-to-face instruction has already resumed.

“The CDC guidance generally reflects what OEA has been saying since last summer about the conditions under which in-person instruction can be achieved safely. The level of community spread is the key factor in deciding the education model for students to continue receiving a high-quality education, in-person or online, and the science-based CDC guidelines recognize the absolutely necessity of mitigation measures like masks, social distancing, and sanitization procedures. Emphasizing the importance of COVID testing further strengthens these safety norms,” OEA President Scott DiMauro said.

The CDC’s guidance also calls for prioritizing school instruction over extracurricular activities and sports, echoing OEA’s Putting Education First policy which asked Ohioans to avoid non-essential activities to limit community spread of the virus to enable school buildings to remain open for in-person instruction. The full Putting Education First policy can be downloaded here.

“OEA is pleased to see leadership from the CDC on this issue and to see the importance of equity in the federal policies to direct resources to communities that have been hit hardest by the pandemic, including many communities of color or those with high-poverty, where actions like updating ancient ventilation systems in schools or addressing the digital divide have thus far felt out of reach,” DiMauro said. “It is now up to U.S. lawmakers to follow through on these promises and pass President Biden’s COVID relief package, which will include over $130 billion in targeted support for PreK-12 schools, about $4 billion of which would go to Ohio.”

“It is simply not possible to follow the CDC’s rules without the resources to do so,” DiMauro explained. “More than 60 percent of Ohio’s teachers are already teaching in person – some are doing so at risk to themselves. But they shouldn’t have to. Our members want more than anything to be in their classrooms with their students when it is safe, and we are all counting on Congress to deliver what we know is needed to make schools safe now.”

[February 9, 2021] In light of the unprecedented challenges and changes to learning environments because of the global COVID-19 pandemic this academic year, the Ohio Education Association (OEA) was pleased with the proposed resolution put forth by State Board of Education Member Dr. Christina Collins this week to direct the Ohio Department of Education to limit how state testing data is used and interpreted. Dr. Collins’ full resolution can be downloaded here.

“Teaching never stops; learning never stops. However, we must be mindful of the fact that the pandemic has, as Dr. Collins put it, ‘affected every student in Ohio, disrupting the structure of teaching and learning’ this year,” OEA President Scott DiMauro said. “Dr. Collins’ calls to lower the stakes for state testing and ensure the results are appropriately labeled to reflect the circumstances under which testing is occurring this year are an important step in safeguarding our students, educators, and communities from unfair punishments as a result of this spring’s tests.”

Even so, OEA maintains a much more important measure would be to suspend standardized testing altogether, especially since they must be administered in person, even to students who have been learning remotely all year. Therefore, OEA urges lawmakers to quickly approve House Bill 67, bi-partisan legislation that would waive state testing requirements for the 2020-2021 school year and require the Department of Education to seek a waiver from federal testing requirements.

“While we certainly would prefer that tests not be given this year, given the yawning disparities in educational delivery the pandemic has created between districts, we deeply appreciate Dr. Collins’ efforts to minimize the harm these tests will thrust upon our students and fully support her resolution,” DiMauro said.

[February 4, 2021] Following testimony from the non-partisan Ohio Legislative Service Commission (LSC) estimating nearly a billion dollars more in tax revenue over the next biennium than Governor Mike DeWine’s executive spending plan budgeted for, the Ohio Education Association (OEA) is calling on the General Assembly to take up and approve the Fair School Funding Plan immediately. As the LSC figures reflect, there will be about the same amount of new revenue available in the next state budget as it would take to fully fund House Speaker Robert Cupp’s plan.

“Our students can’t afford to wait any longer for Ohio’s leaders to do the right thing,” said OEA President Scott DiMauro. “The state can no longer justify its failure to act. The money is there to finally deliver on the promise of world-class education for all Ohio students once and for all.”

The Fair School Funding Plan (FSFP), which was passed with overwhelming bi-partisan support in the Ohio House during the last legislative session, would enact a student-centered school funding formula that is equitable, adequate, predictable, and that ensures that all students have the resources to succeed regardless of where they live or their family’s income. The FSFP would provide an additional $1.99 billion in state aid when fully phased in and provides about 70% of the increased funds to the poorest urban, small town, and rural districts in the state. Importantly, it would finally fix the state’s broken funding system, which was ruled unconstitutional decades ago by the Ohio Supreme Court in 1997’s landmark DeRolph v. State of Ohio ruling.

The Ohio Senate refused to consider the FSFP legislation in the last legislative session, and Gov. DeWine refused to include it in the executive budget ‘blue book’ released earlier this week. Instead, he punted the issue back to the legislature.

“We’ve had three generations of Ohio students go through an unconstitutionally funded school system, leaving them victims to a scheme that has never accurately reflected the true cost of educating kids in this state. Legislators can easily end that seemingly ceaseless cycle by passing Speaker Cupp’s school funding plan,” DiMauro said. “The time for excuses is over. The time for action is now.”