The Ohio Department of Education's Division of Learning has scheduled regional meetings during April and May 2013 to bring district and school leaders up to date on major education initiatives such as:

ODE has launched the Data Tools Portal, which provides access to dozens of data resources tracking school improvement and student progress. Using this portal, administrators, teachers and parents can find resources organized by questions they may want to answer. The portal contains student achievement, school finance, career technical education, and early childhood and K-12 assessment data.

With the recent passage of House Bill 555, new credentials are required for any teacher providing all or part of the daily reading instruction for students affected by the Third Grade Reading Guarantee.  ODE has published a guidance document that aims to clarify understanding of this requirement.

The document can be accessed at the link listed below.

Recent legislation strengthened the longstanding Third Grade Guarantee (once called the Fourth Grade Guarantee) to give a greater emphasis to reading instruction and intervention in the early grades. Through this initiative, school districts and community schools will diagnose reading deficiencies in students at grades kindergarten through three, create individualized reading improvement and monitoring plans and provide intensive reading interventions.

Along with the new learning standards Ohio has new academic content standards that will help students with cognitive disabilities make the most of their learning experiences. The Ohio Academic Content Standards-Extended (OACS-E, or “extended standards”) will ensure that students with significant cognitive disabilities have many ways to learn and to demonstrate their knowledge. Online professional development modules for teachers are available at http://www.ohextendedstandards.org/.