DEADLINE EXTENSION: Students, educators can now enter Ohio Education Association’s redistricting contest through June 1, 2021
“These district maps play a fundamental role in the strength of our democracy, but for too long, gerrymandered districts have allowed politicians to choose their voters, not the other way around,” OEA President Scott DiMauro said. “Thanks to reforms approved by voters like requirements to keep 65 of Ohio’s 88 counties whole and only let five counties be split more than twice, the redistricting commission is being held to new standards to ensure districts are politically competitive and elected leaders must represent the interests of all of their constituents, not just their favored few. Ohio’s students and educators have a chance to show them how that’s done.”
The Design Ohio’s Future contest is open to all Ohio middle and high school students as well as all OEA members. Entrants can design their maps using the free community webtool at https://districtr.org/, click the ‘share’ button, and submit their map’s URL on the OEA website at https://www.ohea.org/design-ohios-future-contest/ Full contest rules are on the submission page. All entries are due no later than June 1, 2021.
Winners will be selected for creating Ohio House, Ohio Senate, and Congressional District maps in the following categories: Most Politically Competitive, Fewest Community Splits, and Most Creative. All map entries must include districts that have roughly the same population size and are contiguous, and all entries except those in the Most Creative categories must adhere to redistricting requirements Ohioans voted for. The full requirements and a tutorial video can be found on the Design Ohio’s Future page of the OEA website.
A middle school student, high school student, and OEA member winner will be chosen in each of the nine categories. The winners will receive a special commemorative plaque and have their maps featured in the Ohio Schools magazine and on the OEA and All in for Equal Districts websites. The maps will also be shared with the state officials responsible for redrawing Ohio’s maps.
“What happens in our classrooms depends so much on what happens in our Capitol buildings,” DiMauro said. “Our current system is broken, and if we’re going to fix this mess, we need non-partisan, independent redistricting that ends map manipulation. We’re asking Ohio’s students and educators to lead the way.”
Ohio Education Association and Ohio Federation of Teachers Oppose Legislative Attack on Trans Students
“These bills — HB 61 and SB 132 — are not just a sports ban, this is part of a coordinated national attack on the safety and lives of trans students. As educators, we are speaking up because we know that our students don’t thrive when they’re not safe and healthy, and because every student deserves respect and equal opportunity.
HB 61 and SB 132 are a bad solution in desperate search of a problem. The Ohio High School Athletic Association has already implemented a detailed policy that ensures that trans students have equal opportunity while maintaining fair competition in women’s sports. Efforts to throw this policy out in favor of widespread discrimination of trans athletes are just mean-spirited attempts by some politicians to wage a culture war in our schools rather than addressing the real problems that Ohioans face. While these bills won’t address any needs in our schools or any real issues with school sports, they will send a harmful message to trans students that they are not welcome and that it is not safe for them to be themselves in our schools.
Multiple studies have shown that trans youth attempt suicide at much higher rates than their peers. The existence of these bills and the vitriol that they spark are exacerbating factors that will put our students at greater risk. Over the past year, we stood up for commonsense COVID precautions in our schools because part of our job is keeping our students safe and that’s also why we are strongly opposed to HB 61 and SB 132.”
Ohio Education Association launches redistricting contest for students, educators
“These district maps play a fundamental role in the strength of our democracy, but for too long, gerrymandered districts have allowed politicians to choose their voters, not the other way around,” OEA President Scott DiMauro said. “Thanks to reforms approved by voters like requirements to keep 65 of Ohio’s 88 counties whole and only let five counties be split more than twice, the redistricting commission is being held to new standards to ensure districts are politically competitive and elected leaders must represent the interests of all of their constituents, not just their favored few. Ohio’s students and educators have a chance to show them how that’s done.”
The Design Ohio’s Future contest is open to all Ohio middle and high school students as well as all OEA members. Entrants can design their maps using the free community webtool at https://districtr.org/, click the ‘share’ button, and submit their map’s URL on the OEA website at https://www.ohea.org/design-ohios-future-contest/ Full contest rules are on the submission page. All entries are due no later than May 1, 2021.
Winners will be selected for creating Ohio House, Ohio Senate, and Congressional District maps in the following categories: Most Politically Competitive, Fewest Community Splits, and Most Creative. All map entries must include districts that have roughly the same population size and are contiguous, and all entries except those in the Most Creative categories must adhere to redistricting requirements Ohioans voted for. The full requirements and a tutorial video can be found on the Design Ohio’s Future page of the OEA website.
A middle school student, high school student, and OEA member winner will be chosen in each of the nine categories. The 27 winners will receive a special commemorative plaque and have their maps featured in the Ohio Schools magazine and on the OEA and All in for Equal Districts websites. The maps will also be shared with the state officials responsible for redrawing Ohio’s maps.
“What happens in our classrooms depends so much on what happens in our Capitol buildings,” DiMauro said. “Our current system is broken, and if we’re going to fix this mess, we need non-partisan, independent redistricting that ends map manipulation. We’re asking Ohio’s students and educators to lead the way.”
OEA welcomes CDC’s school reopening guidance, calls for federal support
“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.”
OEA applauds resolution on use of state testing data, but urges further action
“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.
OEA urges passage of Fair School Funding Plan in light of new revenue estimates
“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.”
Ohio Education Association Anticipating Release of Full Budget Details, Urges State Lawmakers to Ensure Education Funding is Top Priority
“The devil is always in the details,” said OEA President Scott DiMauro. “Education spending must be a top priority in Ohio to ensure our students, educators, and communities receive the resources they need to succeed. OEA will closely examine the full budget proposal as soon as possible and will continue advocating tirelessly for Ohio’s 1.7 million public school kids.”
Based on the initial, high-level budget document released by the governor on Monday, OEA is encouraged to see an emphasis on expanding broadband access to help close the digital divide for students and on wraparound services like mental health programs in schools. However, OEA is deeply disappointed in the governor’s refusal to draw on the $2.7 billion rainy day fund or to address the state’s unconstitutional school funding formula in his budget plan.
“The Fair School Funding Plan, which received overwhelming bi-partisan support in the House at the end of the last term, represented years of work and compromise to finally deliver an equitable and constitutional funding system. DeWine punted, rather than delivering on the promise of that legislation,” DiMauro said. “The governor’s budget looks like it will fall far short of what this moment in history requires, especially for students in high-poverty or high-minority school districts.”
“The funding increase the Fair Funding plan calls for is more than affordable, since the state is projecting a $1.3 billion revenue increase over the next two years alone and the plan calls for a $1.9 billion increase over 6 years,” DiMauro added. “We look forward to working with the legislature on addressing this with the Fair School Funding plan in the current legislative session, as well as tackling all of the work that needs done in the coming months as the budget debates continue.”
Ohio Education Association Offering State Budget Basics Workshops for Members
OEA is offering two virtual sessions for Members in early February, following the release of Governor Mike DeWine’s executive budget proposal and the district-by-district breakdown of the budget numbers. Please register with one of the following links: (Registration is now closed)
Wednesday, February 10, at 6 p.m.
Friday, February 12, at 12 p.m.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with information about joining the webinar of your choice. Questions may be submitted during the session via the chat function on Zoom. Separate sessions will also be offered for members of the media that week.
“Whether this is your first time going through Ohio’s budget debates or you’ve been watching the process unfold for years, we can all benefit from some basic lessons on how it all works, and more importantly, what it all means for Ohio’s 1.7 million students,” said Stephen Dyer, OEA Director of Government Relations, Communications & Marketing, who will be leading the upcoming workshops.
Dyer is a former Ohio State Representative and reporter, who has been a senior lecturer at the University of Akron since 2013. His experience in all those arenas make him uniquely suited to teach others about the state budget, providing critical context for educators who are so intimately impacted by it.
“Ohio’s students, K-12 teachers, education support professionals, and higher ed faculty cannot afford another budget deal that fails to provide adequate resources to our schools, colleges, and universities. Ohio’s leaders must deliver a fair spending plan that finally addresses the state’s unconstitutional school funding formula,” Dyer said. “When informed constituents can hold lawmakers accountable through the budget process, all Ohioans win.”
OEA members can watch a recording of the Wednesday, Feb. 10 workshop on the following page: State Budget Basic Workshop recording (this page is accessible by members-only)
OEA Seeks Answers About State Bd. of Ed. Member’s Role in Jan. 6 Events
“I was deeply disturbed to learn that a member of the State Board of Education may have had any hand in organizing the rally aimed at overturning legitimate election results. The actions of the insurrectionists and militants who attended the rally and who attacked our country that day are reprehensible and inexcusable, and we are calling on Kirsten Hill to denounce those fellow-rally attendees in the strongest terms,” said OEA President Scott DiMauro.
Hill, who represents District 2 on the State Board of Education, is chairwoman of the Lorain County TEA Party, which arranged a bus trip from Elyria to Washington D.C. on January 6th to attend a political rally hosted by the President. The event posting claimed “Folks from around the world are counting on U.S. to get Trump re-elected… We’re fighting for Trump to the bitter end,” and directed site goers to WildProtest.com with branding like #DoNotCertify and #StopTheSteal. Hill was listed as the coordinator for the Elyria-based contingent on other websites urging Ohioans to go to D.C. for the event. As has been widely reported, the January 6th rally ended with a group of militants storming the Capital Building, resulting in a Capitol Police officer being beaten to death and the death of four rioters.
“Hill is responsible for the future of 1.7 million children who attend Ohio schools. Those students are watching now,” DiMauro said. “We all deserve answers about exactly what Hill’s intent was in arranging and attending the January 6th event that in itself was an assault on the democratic principles of our nation, even before turning violent.”
“As a social studies teacher, I have spent my career teaching the importance of our sacred democratic processes, including the peaceful transition of power and the integrity of U.S. elections. One of the core values of OEA is our belief in our democracy,” DiMauro added. “We cannot stand for any attempt to undermine our republic, especially by a person who was elected to serve its citizens. We must ensure this is a country where our leaders reflect the very best of every kind of American, and where liberty and justice are for all, no exceptions.”
In Wake of Release of Barebones 2020 Ohio School Report Cards, Ohio Education Association Urges Overhaul of State’s Broken Report Card System
“These latest school and district report cards shine a spotlight on the major problems with the entire report card scheme,” OEA President Scott DiMauro said. “The fact that the state recognizes that any 2020 letter grades and rankings would be useless without spring testing data proves just how overly-reliant the existing grade card system is on standardized tests. If the essential value of the state’s report card system is standardized test results – which do not accurately represent how a student, teacher or school is performing — the state’s current report card system has no value at all.”
“These tests and the algebraic contortions the state’s report card system twists them into have always been stacked against low-income students, especially. OEA is not afraid of accountability. But the state must design a fair, informative, and transparent accountability system,” DiMauro said.
Spring standardized testing was suspended in Ohio after school buildings shut down in March to protect students and educators from COVID-19. As schools return to session this fall, many Ohio lawmakers recognize the futility of resuming standardized testing in an environment that is now anything but standard.
Not a single educator has indicated to us that missing the spring tests harmed a single student.
If passed, Senate Bill 358 would require the Ohio Department of Education to seek a federal waiver of testing requirements and suspend the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment and the fall 3rd grade English test.
Further, SB 358 calls for suspending school and district report card ratings for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years – a measure welcomed by OEA. “Due to COVID-19, school districts will continue to experience barriers to education service delivery and instability in student data (particularly in districts with high concentrations of poverty). It would be misleading and unfair to require report card grades or punitive measures based on report card data during this time,” OEA Vice President Jeff Wensing said in support of SB 358 in early September. Click here to read Vice President Wensing’s full statement.
“Senate Bill 358 is a good start, but much more work is needed to address the foundational issues with Ohio’s current school report card system,” DiMauro said. “The cookie-cutter A-F grades are a meaningless and simplistic way to describe students’ educational experiences. All they accurately measure are a student’s and district’s wealth. Using these tests to punish low-income students by providing cover for taxpayer money to be diverted to worse-performing private and charter schools while undermining local control in poor districts is a stain on Ohio’s education system. The state needs a truly informative accountability system that fairly identifies improvement areas while empowering stakeholders to direct resources where they are needed most. That – rather than punishing poor kids and schools – should be lawmakers’ guiding light.”
More information about OEA’s recommended reforms can be found at ohea.org/oea-calls-for-sweeping-changes-to-state-report-cards/