OCTOBER 13: CCS Could Close More Schools, Columbus to Roll Out New Domestic Violence Legislation, Expanding E-Bike Regulation, and Getting Kids Interested in Music

All right, so Columbus City Schools, as we've talked about really for the better part of two or three years at this point, continues to deal with ongoing funding issues.

So at a town hall yesterday evening, Superintendent Dr. Angela Chapman said the current school funding system just isn't working.

And we know that the state legislature changed how schools were funded last year.

She says...

This is happening all while the cost to operate schools is increasing.

We're seeing more kids have to rely on the resources that are available at schools.

And also, I mean, schools are providing so much more in terms of technology and things like that that they didn't have to do when we were in school.

But state funding relatively has stayed pretty much the same since 2022, all while these costs just keep going up and up and up.

Yeah, and Chapman said the empty seats at schools are costing Columbus City Schools millions of dollars.

I'm sure many other districts are also seeing issues surrounding funding.

About 20% of seats, she says, are vacant, and some classrooms are only 30% full.

Again, that's according to Angela Chapman.

So she laid out 10 schools that would possibly close yesterday.

We've got Broadley, Moeller, Fairwood, Como, Duxbury, Everett, mcguffey buckeye mifflin middle and seabird and those many of which probably sound familiar they've been on the chopping block in the past right when um we've been talking about school closures it would also cut two district buildings so a lot of buildings potentially not coming back in the future being kind of shifted as they look to kind of figure out where to cut

Right.

And then we're also going to see a number of students move buildings as they consolidate programs and move them around.

For example, the adult ed is moving into Columbus City School, Columbus City's Preparatory School for Boys.

The Gifted Academy will go to the Preparatory School for Girls.

And this was one that kind of got talked about last week, Coz or Columbus Alternative High School that's currently in a building in Linden would get moved into really the district's newest high school building, which is Downtown High School.

Another thing that I kind of found interesting out of all of this was where some other students would be moving for example west broad elementary students they're going to move temporarily to highland elementary while west broad gets a new school so if you remember that whole debate from a couple years ago west broad was on the chopping block um west broad teachers and family became very heated over that um really fighting to keep that school there and the district finally said okay We'll build a new one because the sole reason they wanted to close Broad was because Broad is an older building.

I think it was built in the 20s or early 30s.

So it's kind of reached its end.

Duxbury is moving to Sullivan Elementary, Buckeye Middle.

They would get lumped into South High School.

Mifflin Middle gets lumped into Mifflin High School.

All right, so Columbus City Schools, as we've talked about really for the better part of two or three years at this point, continues to deal with ongoing funding issues.

So at a town hall yesterday evening, Superintendent Dr. Angela Chapman said the current school funding system just isn't working.

And we know that the state legislature changed how schools were funded last year.

She says...

This is happening all while the cost to operate schools is increasing.

We're seeing more kids have to rely on the resources that are available at schools.

And also, I mean, schools are providing so much more in terms of technology and things like that that they didn't have to do when we were in school.

But state funding relatively has stayed pretty much the same since 2022, all while these costs just keep going up and up and up.

Yeah, and Chapman said the empty seats at schools are costing Columbus City Schools millions of dollars.

I'm sure many other districts are also seeing issues surrounding funding.

About 20% of seats, she says, are vacant, and some classrooms are only 30% full.

Again, that's according to Angela Chapman.

So she laid out 10 schools that would possibly close yesterday.

We've got Broadley, Moeller, Fairwood, Como, Duxbury, Everett, mcguffey buckeye mifflin middle and seabird and those many of which probably sound familiar they've been on the chopping block in the past right when um we've been talking about school closures it would also cut two district buildings so a lot of buildings potentially not coming back in the future being kind of shifted as they look to kind of figure out where to cut

Right.

And then we're also going to see a number of students move buildings as they consolidate programs and move them around.

For example, the adult ed is moving into Columbus City School, Columbus City's Preparatory School for Boys.

The Gifted Academy will go to the Preparatory School for Girls.

And this was one that kind of got talked about last week, Coz or Columbus Alternative High School that's currently in a building in Linden would get moved into really the district's newest high school building, which is Downtown High School.

Another thing that I kind of found interesting out of all of this was where some other students would be moving for example west broad elementary students they're going to move temporarily to highland elementary while west broad gets a new school so if you remember that whole debate from a couple years ago west broad was on the chopping block um west broad teachers and family became very heated over that um really fighting to keep that school there and the district finally said okay We'll build a new one because the sole reason they wanted to close Broad was because Broad is an older building.

I think it was built in the 20s or early 30s.

So it's kind of reached its end.

Duxbury is moving to Sullivan Elementary, Buckeye Middle.

They would get lumped into South High School.

Mifflin Middle gets lumped into Mifflin High School.