School Science News for Kids

After a slight legislative skirmish between the Ohio House and Senate over unwanted amendments, HB 36, the “Restoration of Calamity Days” bill was signed into law today by Governor John Kasich.
The Columbus Dispatch reported:

Schools will get two additional snow days this year, after the Ohio Senate brought a quick end yesterday to a dispute over the bill granting them.

The legislation, which would increase from three to five the number of so-called calamity days that schools can miss without having to make them up, got hung up in the House this week, mainly over a disputed provision related to charter schools that the Senate had added to the bill.

House Democrats, whose votes were needed to ensure that the bill would take effect immediately, did not like a requirement that public schools bus students to charter schools, STEM schools or nonpublic schools when they make up calamity days. The Democrats called that an unfunded mandate.

Some Democrats also said they didn’t like another provision related to the ability of schools to make up snow days through online lessons and take-home work.

The House voted to reject the Senate amendments on Tuesday.

Rather than fight it out in a conference committee, the Senate yesterday took the rare step of “receding” from its amendments – essentially stripping them out of the bill, allowing it to pass. The House had passed the original version of the bill with the emergency clause, allowing it to take effect right away.

Sen. Keith Faber, R-Celina, said the issues of busing and makeup days will be debated another day.

Gov. John Kasich said in a statement: “I look forward to signing this, not only for the relief it provides, but also because, let’s face it, kids love snow days.”

Kids do love snow days. School love snow days too.

Developing the Leadership to Change School Culture Is Key for New York and Eight Other States

BLOOMINGTON, IND. – –Today an additional 10 schools opted to include the HOPE Foundation’s Failure Is Not an Option^® process for improving low-performing schools in their School Improvement Grant applications. They join schools throughout the country that have selected the leadership capacity-building Intensive School Reform model for their “Transformation Model”—one of four models approved by the US Department of Education for addressing low-performance. The common theme in these schools seems to be a growing agreement among many that shifting the schools’ culture is critical to sustaining success.

“Having been responsible for support to low-performing schools in New York City for much of my career,  I have come to the conclusion that simply ‘restructuring’  the instructional program as an intervention is doomed to failure without a significant accompanying cultural change, indicated Ben Waxman, Network Leader for CEI-PEA.

Schools rarely fail because of the programs they attempt to implement, but rather they fail because the capacity to implement is thwarted by the present culture. The HOPE Foundation provides the persistently low-achieving schools with a methodology and construct to make school cultural change.”

Unlike many of the new and larger entrants into the area of school turnaround, the HOPE Foundation has a decade-long track record of success in both turning around low-performing schools and in enhancing overall performance within an entire district or region. The Intensive School Reform model, based on the principles found in the Award-Winning book Failure Is Not an Option^® , is the only one in America receiving support from both the American Association of School Administrators and the National Education Association .

AASA is pleased to offer a powerful tool like the Failure Is Not an Option^® approach to our membership, said Dan Domenesch, Executive Director of the . We are impressed to see how entire districts using this process are able to collaborate in the face of significant challenges.

John Wilson, Executive Director of NEA said “The NEA believes that the HOPE Foundation offers a model of proof and promise to schools striving to make the right kind of change to help students succeed. The HOPE Foundation has shown – over and over again – that its collaborative model of school improvement is sustainable and effective.

The efficacy of this approach was the subject of a study released last week by the American Institutes of Research. The report indicated that there was a “strong correlation” between implementation of the model and student achievement gains in the Mansfield ISD schools studied outside of Dallas, TX.

Of the total 2,138 schools eligible for improvement grants, 833 have received funding thus far. The “Transformation Model” has been selected by 72% of those receiving grants.  Schools in Wyoming, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina and New York have begun their work with the HOPE Foundation. More are slated to begin over the summer.

“People are beginning to understand that programs don’t carry well because they don’t fit all contexts.  Building a robust leadership team to shift the schools culture, however, has led to sustainable successes in our schools and districts since 2001,” said Alan Blankstein, President of the HOPE Foundation.

According to Waxman, hopes for a new and sustainable culture are realistic.

The success experienced by IS 192 in Queens, once a school on the brink of closure, is an example of the value of cultural change. Through the HOPE Foundation support, reform has taken hold, a strong student support culture has been created and increased student achievement has resulted.“

For the full report or to find our more information on Intensive School Reform and the HOPE Foundation, visit or call 627-0232.

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HOPE Foundation | 1252 North Loesch Road | Bloomington, IN 47404-0906