Roger Effron wants you to know the latest local, state and educational news. Find out who's making the news in the area.

Teacher student sex scandals are something we don’t want to talk about but it seems rampant. Recently, incidents involving teachers in Madison Local and Mason have hit the news. The sad thing is that this may be an epidemic. In Florida, a middle school teacher was recently arrested for having sexual encounters with middle grade students. If you scan the news like I do, you will see it across the nation in all types and sizes of school districts, involving both male and female teachers.

Look for State Superintendent Zelman to vacate her office for greener pastures. The Governor is putting pressure on her to say goodbye to Ohio. His interest is taking more control of the state’s educational process. Can’t blame him.

Covington Ky is looking into establishing a Montessori school. It’s a no brainer. Montessori is a fast seller in this part of the country. Xavier has an outstanding training program for Montessori educators.

We bid good tidings to two highly competent northern Kentucky Superintendents, Jack Moreland (Covington, KY) and Brian Blavatt, (Boone County). Both are great Superintendents and masters of public relations. Certainly both staff and community will miss them.

With gas prices skyrocketing, it means great pain for those districts that have large bus fleets. Lakota and Kenton County are two school districts that have a large number of buses. Hate to see their fuel bill! There are a few school districts like Reading and St. Bernard who do not have buses and kids can walk to elementary school.

We wish Dianne Brunsman and Les Tacy best of success in their new positions. They have departed ways with Northwest Schools for greener and calmer pastures. Speaking of turnover, Princeton City Schools is looking for a number of principals.

In Lakota, a school administrator and her secretary were provided with a settlement pay out if they would leave the district. These two employees were accused of making racially offensive remarks. On the surface, one might think of just showing them the door without any form of payment would have been the right action. However it is much more complicated. There may a contract involved which somewhat binds the employer. You have issues of free speech. You have the issue of innocence before being proven guilty. And finally, you have expensive lawyer fees. The district knowing all of this might have taken the appropriate course and cut their losses by just paying the employees. Hopefully the public understands this part of doing business.

There are some districts which are considering levies in August. For example, Bethel is going for an income tax levy. Historically, August is not a good time to run a levy. Parents are totally disengaged from school. Furthermore, if the economy is still in the toilet during my birthday month, who wants to raise their taxes?

Applause to those young men and women who are part of the Class of 2008. Graduation is a great time for families to celebrate. Hopefully issues such as who shall be the valedictorian, whether kids should “walk” and the nature of the commencement speaker’s speech should not overshadow this wonderful moment.

Other news sources for education:
OHIO
http://www.osba-ohio.org/news.htm
KENTUCKY
http://www.kde.state.ky.us/KDE/HomePageRepository/News+Room/

NATIONAL
http://www.edweek.org/ew/index.html
http://www.foxnews.com/national/education/index.html

If you have any news that you want posted, please send to roger@effronassociates.com