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Ohio’s Strategic Plan for Education: Each Child, Our Future

Posted Jan 31, 2023

The “whole child” remains at the center of Ohio’s education strategic plan, which you can review here . One of the Four Learning Domains is Social-Emotional Learning (SEL). Ohio has adopted new SEL standards around these five SEL competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. Otterbein University’s Education Department is working with our teacher candidates and practicing teachers to understand and implement these SEL standards. Dr. Allison McGrath, Otterbein’s special education expert, leads SEL courses and workshops for local teachers.  

Dee Knoblauch, Ph.D. 

Education Graduate Director 

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State considers new 5-year education plan that shifts away from tests

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

The Ohio Department of Education is constructing a new five-year strategic plan — dubbed Each Child = Our Future — aimed at building a more effective state education system to help position students for success upon graduation.

A draft version of the plan earned praise from some for moving away from emphasizing test results.

The draft includes a broad vision statement about building graduates who contribute to society, brief goals about increasing the percentage of graduates who are on a successful path within one year of leaving high school, and 15 strategies to help educators get students to those benchmarks.

“So many times we’re reacting to stuff, and this is our chance to really think forward,” state school superintendent Paolo DeMaria said. “What are the areas that we think we need to work on to drive a continuous improvement mindset, to improve the work of the education system of the state?

ODE has been holding public meetings across the state in the past month — including one in March at Stivers School for the Arts in Dayton — to get feedback on the draft version of the plan. Four more meetings remain, including April 11 in Wapakoneta and April 17 near Norwood in Cincinnati.

The draft plan is also accessible online (search “strategic plan” at www.education.ohio.gov), and gives online viewers the ability to comment through April 13.

Melissa Cropper, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, attended last week’s session at Stivers. She applauded DeMaria and ODE for an inclusive process that listened to many key stakeholders. She said participants at the Dayton meeting liked the focus on social-emotional learning, well-rounded education and “helping students find their chosen path rather than on simply raising test scores.”

“The plan represents a shift from an over-emphasis on test results to an emphasis on foundational knowledge, well-rounded content, critical reasoning, and social-emotional skills with a goal of making sure that upon graduation, each child has what he or she needs to be successful in the next stage of life,” Cropper said.

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The draft plan identifies three key challenges the state must address — preparing students for an unpredictable era given the speed of technological change, addressing inequities where some students have better educational opportunities than others, and developing “the whole student” via social-emotional skills beyond just academics.

DeMaria said regardless of the pace of change, there are certain fundamentals the state needs — strong leaders in schools, community partners that can help in a variety of ways, and teachers equipped with best instructional practices but also the ability to understand each student’s needs.

The draft plan includes 15 strategies to help the state achieve its educational goals. Four deal with ways to improve early-childhood education. Others suggest new ways to assess students’ abilities, to improve school culture and to transform high schools so more students graduate with college credit or career or military training.

Northmont Superintendent Tony Thomas, who attended the Stivers event, said the long list of detailed strategies should be phased in a few at a time so implementation teams can focus on them. He said he likes the broad focus of the plan, and hopes it can stabilize education reform in a less political way.

“My hope is we can move past the ranking and sorting of schools and students and move to a system that promotes creativity, problem-solving, perseverance and collaboration,” Thomas said. “These were essential skills for many great industry and thought leaders of the past, and we need those type of thinkers again.”

About the Author

Jeremy Kelley is the assistant news editor for the Dayton Daily News. Jeremy is a Cincinnati native and has lived in the Dayton area for 30-plus years.

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Time and Change: Strategic Plan

Enable, empower and inspire.

What Ohio State does matters. And how we do it matters. When we are at our best, we make a real difference to people. Our size, breadth, geography, history and standard of excellence position us to drive the future of higher education.

Our strategic plan is a living framework that allows for flexibility moving forward. What is not flexible is our aspiration to be the best university we can be. We owe it to our students, our faculty, our staff and to our community. We owe it to ourselves. And, because we are Ohio State, we owe it to the nation.

• I Teaching and Learning
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Time and Change: The strategic plan for The Ohio State University

When Ohio State is at its best, we make a real difference in people's lives. The Time and Change strategic plan sets forth the next steps of what it means to be a flagship public university in the 21st century.

Creating opportunities for students

Land Grant Opportunity Scholar Makayla Davis has found her community at Ohio State.

Academic and student experience

Prof. Arnab Nandi, student Ginette Rhodes and alumna and Rhodes Scholar Layla Ujayli share the impact of their Ohio State experiences.

Why faculty choose Ohio State

Prof. Norah Zuniga Shaw, Dr. Rama Mallampalli and Prof. Rafael Jimenez-Flores talk about the collegial communities Ohio State has empowered them to create.

Ohio State sees scientists as "beacons of truth"

Prof. Rafael Jimenez-Flores says Ohio State gives research scientists the resources needed to study how to make food safe and plentiful worldwide.

Strategic plan resources

Our ambitions are bold because that is the Ohio State way. Our responsibility is great because families in Ohio and beyond require us to be the very best we can be. Our future is bright because we are Buckeyes — and we have 150 years of excellence to help light the way.

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Ohio Department of Education Develops New Strategic Plan For Education – Each Child, Our Future

On January 2, 2019, the Ohio Department of Education released its plan “to lift aspirations, create hope and excitement, guide development of state-level education policies and promote high-quality educational practices across the state.” Each Child Our Future Ohio Strategic Plan For Education: 2019-2024, at 4 (#EachChildOurFuture). The plan includes ten strategies to help increase the number of Ohio high school graduates who are enrolled in a learning experience, serving in the military, earning a living wage, or engaged in a self-sustaining vocation one year after graduation. The ten strategies include:

• Increase the supply of highly effective teachers and leaders and provide supports to ensure they are effective or highly effective;
• Support every principal to be highly effective—especially those leading schools that serve the neediest children;
• Improve targeted supports and professional learning so teachers can deliver excellent instruction today, tomorrow, and throughout their careers;
• Identify clear learning standards and guidelines that reflect all four equal learning domains;
• Move toward a varied system of assessments to appropriately gauge the four equal learning domains and allow students to demonstrate competency and mastery in ways beyond state standardized tests;
• Refine the state’s accountability system to be a fairer, more meaningful process that reflects all four equal learning domains;
• Work together with parents, caregivers, and community partners to help schools meet the needs of the whole child;
• Promote the importance of early learning and expand access to quality early learning experiences;
• Develop literacy skills across all ages, grades, and subjects; and
• Ensure high school inspires students to identify paths to future success and give students multiple ways to demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary for high school graduation and beyond.

To read the full strategic plan, click here .

Authors: Matthew John Markling and the McGown & Markling Team.

Note: This blog entry does not constitute – nor does it contain – legal advice. Legal jurisprudence is like the always changing Midwestern weather. As a result, this single blog entry cannot substitute for consultation with a McGown & Markling attorney. If legal advice is needed with respect to a specific factual situation, please feel free to contact a McGown & Markling attorney.

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Strategic planning and goal setting.

Customized strategic planning is among the most impactful work a board of education can do. The OSBA strategic planning model, proven highly successful for more than a decade, is designed to meet your district's specific needs. OSBA's board and management services consultants, all former school board members, will provide expertise on the board's role in setting district goals and work with your team to create a unique and customized strategic plan.

As leaders in your district, it's important to look toward the future and anticipate opportunities and roadblocks in preparing students for school and lifetime success.

A good strategic plan:

• provides a framework for getting input from all stakeholders;
• creates opportunities to develop or revise a district's mission and vision;
• includes a process for establishing long-term district goals and specific strategies;
• creates a plan for implementation, evaluation and improvement;
• brings all other district plans, committees and priorities together in an understandable and actionable way.

Well-trained and informed boards are better prepared to lead their districts to improved student achievement; higher levels of governance; increased community and voter support; and greater confidence to make important decisions. The students in your district deserve such leadership.

High-performing boards think about the future and continuing their good work beyond the next election. Tips for succession planning for school boards can be found at  https://www.ohioschoolboards.org/tips-school-board-succession-planning .

Goal Setting - For districts that already have a strategic plan, or for those unable to allocate the necessary time and resources required to complete a full strategic plan, OSBA consultants can design a customized goal-setting workshop to energize your current strategic plan or create a set of shorter-term goals to serve the district until a full strategic plan can be entertained. 

For further information, contact Cheryl W. Ryan ,  Teri Morgan ,  Kristine Robbins  or Quinn Maceyko at (614) 540-4000. 

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College of Arts and Sciences Strategic Plan

Dear members of the College of Arts and Sciences community,

I am pleased to share the Strategic Plan for the College of Arts and Sciences . The plan will focus our work and guide our investment for the next four academic years. With your help, the college will come to exemplify what the liberal arts can mean at a twenty-first century land-grant university, distinguishing us from our peers and putting us at the center of national conversations about the promise of higher education.

The College of Arts and Sciences, in its current form since 2010, is at the academic heart of the university. Our faculty collaborate with colleagues from every other college—for example, on research that advances our understanding of climate change, the social determinants of health, and the ethical implications of artificial intelligence, and on creative work that enriches our lives, challenges our assumptions, and helps us to imagine alternative futures. We teach almost every undergraduate and are home to roughly 20,000 students pursuing undergraduate or graduate degrees. And the reputation of our departments and programs, including several ranked in the top 20 nationally, contributes substantially to the overall reputation of the university.

The college serves the State of Ohio on each of our campuses, helping to meet the needs of our urban and rural communities and preparing today’s and tomorrow’s workforces. We are committed to the university’s mission of “education for citizenship” and to productive partnerships across the State. We train students to think critically; communicate effectively; and navigate linguistic, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries. Graduates leave with the competencies and the flexibility to thrive and to lead in varied and rapidly evolving workplaces.

The college has a global reach. We teach more than 30 world languages, offer dozens of global education programs led by ASC faculty, and engage in research and creative work on every continent of the globe. The college is a diverse and inclusive community. We are proud of the varied backgrounds of our faculty, staff, and students, and transformed by the insights those differences bring to our classrooms, laboratories, and performance spaces. And we are committed to being a welcoming, sustaining, and healthy place to learn and to work. The strategic plan will build on our successes. We will strengthen the faculty in core disciplines and support the growth of established and emerging fields that create opportunities for research and creative distinction. We will expand significantly and formally recognize the engagement work undertaken by our academic units. We will multiply extraordinary experiences for students, in and outside the classroom, and ensure all have access to them. We will create new opportunities for professional development for the staff who enable every aspect of the college’s mission. Finally, we will steward our resources wisely and pursue new sources of revenue that will enable the college to thrive.

This strategic plan is fully aligned with the provost’s Academic Plan. It is also informed by conversations with faculty, staff, students, and alumni that took place over the past twelve months. Those occurred in forums with the college’s chairs and directors; visits to many of our 38 academic units; meetings with advisory boards and committees; and town halls for faculty, staff, and graduate students. A draft plan was shared with the college community in Spring 2023. The final plan has been reviewed and revised by the members of the Dean’s Council: the divisional deans, associate deans, and senior directors who will have primary responsibility for achieving its goals. Beginning this fall, we will develop and share annual implementation plans that set concrete goals for the academic year ahead. The strategic plan will and should be a living document that responds to new opportunities and challenges. I am excited about the path it lays out for us and look forward to the collaborations that will move us forward.

David Horn Dean

Project 2025 masquerades as a conservative strategic plan, but it’s really America’s ‘Mr. Shadow’: Leslie Kouba

• Updated: Apr. 07, 2024, 5:42 a.m. |
• Published: Apr. 07, 2024, 5:30 a.m.

Kristen Eichamer, right, talks to fairgoers in the Project 2025 tent at the Iowa State Fair, Aug. 14, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa. With more than a year to go before the 2024 election, a constellation of conservative organizations is preparing for a possible second White House term for Donald Trump. The Project 2025 effort is being led by the Heritage Foundation think tank. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) AP

• Leslie Kouba, cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio – The 1997 sci-fi movie Fifth Element is set in 2253. The antagonist is a mammoth black encrusted ball of lava that goes by sinister names like Mr. Shadow, Anti-LifeForce and Supreme Evil. It hurtles through the Universe every 5,000 years, bent on annihilating Earth.

The title character is the out-of-this-world heroine, who, when combined energetically with the four elements of life (earth, wind, fire and water), becomes the only force capable of obliterating the Supreme Evil and saving all humanity. But when she sees how we treat the planet and each other, she wonders if the Earth is worth saving. Great movie.

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Local News | Lorain County to host first Strategic Plan…

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Local News | Lorain County to host first Strategic Plan Pillar Discussion Workshop on April 15

Following the Future Summit and launch of the Lorain County Strategic Plan, the Lorain County Board of Commissioners will host a series of six Strategic Pillar Discussion Workshops from April to June, according to a news release.

The first Pillar Discussion Workshop will focus on transit, the release said.

It will take place from 10 a.m. to noon, April 15, at Lorain County Community College Spitzer Conference Center, Room 208 at 1005 N. Abbe Road in Elyria.

As previously announced, Lorain County commissioners are working on ways to improve public transportation services and rider experiences by bringing new technology to the transit system, according to the release.

Beginning in July, a new on-demand, app-based transit program — known as microtransit — will be available in the cities of Elyria and Lorain, the release said.

The microtransit service will be contracted with TransitTech provider Via, the release said.

The two-hour workshop will cover what currently is happening in Lorain County relating to transit, best practice models, opportunities to collaborate and the formation of a transit task force, according to the release.

The workshops are open to anybody who wants to attend, the release said.

Registration is required.

For more information about the Lorain County Strategic Action Plan Project, contact special projects coordinator/manager David Greenspan at 440-420-1773, or visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lorain-county-pillar-discussion-workshop-transit-tickets-873832325007?aff=oddtdtcreator .

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OHIO Board of Trustees approve Housing Master Plan Phase II construction; hear revitalized mission and vision statement

• Russ Research Opportunity Center Room 180 Fit Out – The Board approved the development of an effective and efficient research environment for several active and pending sponsored research projects in the newly completed Russ Research Center. This $1.5 million project is anticipated to be funded by the Russ College of Engineering and Technology departmental funding.
• Athena Cinema Structural Stabilization – The Board approved to stabilize a structural issue discovered during routine maintenance. The $850,000 project is anticipated to be funded by century bond emergency project funding and central University funding.
• West Green Gulch Bridges Repair and Repaint – The Board approved to repair a pedestrian bridge on West Green that is in a state of disrepair and will also remove a second pedestrian bridge that is no longer needed. This $558,000 project is anticipated to be funded by century bond.
• Lin Hall Third Floor Renovation – The Board approved to provide a gallery and learning laboratory for student and alumni engagement to highlight OHIO’s research and creative activity. Renovation of the OHIO Museum Complex space on the third floor of Lin Hall will include refinishing the floors, walls and ceilings in rooms 310 and 311, the third-floor corridor and the stairs to the third and fourth floors. This $500,000 project is anticipated to be funded by external grant funding.
• A resolution to change the name of the World Religions program in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences to Religious Studies.
• A resolution to change the name of the Sport and Lifestyle Studies program in the Department of Recreation, Sport Pedagogy and Consumer Sciences in the Patton College of Education to Recreation and Sport Services.
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• A resolution to approve land exchange of approximately 0.23-acres on Moore Avenue in Athens with the Ohio University Credit Union (OUCU).
• A resolution to approve to issue up to $75 million of new debt in support of Housing Phase II new construction.
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• A resolution to elect Trustee Scott Borgemenke as First Vice Chair and Trustee Matt Evans Second Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees for the year beginning May 14, 2024, and ending May 13, 2025.
• A resolution to increase the program fee for the Masters of Speech Language Pathology and the Doctor of Clinical Audiology from $63 to $75 per credit hour.
• A resolution to create a new opt-out course fee for BA1000: Introduction to the College of Business to cover the cost of the DiSC assessment.
• A resolution to increase nursing courses to cover inflation for passthrough certification.
• A resolution to increase the course fees for flight courses in Aviation by 10 percent to cover inflation.
• A resolution to change the current reduced OHIO Online instructional fee from $304 to $316 per credit hour.

Warren County ESC granted injunction in lawsuit against Ohio Department of Education

The Warren County Educational Service Center in Lebanon, which operates programs for students with specialized needs in the county, has been granted an injunction by the court in its lawsuit against the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.

The injunction stops ODEW's corrective action plan from taking effect at the center. The corrective action plan issued to Warren County ESC stems from a 2022 investigation by the department into the center after the advocacy group Disability Rights Ohio filed a complaint claiming it wasn't offering adequate services to students from more than 40 local school districts.

RELATED: 2 years on, dispute over special education in Warren County remains unresolved

ODEW's investigation identified issues with Warren County ESC's Wellness Center in Mason, which largely focuses on providing mental health treatment for students at risk of harming themselves or others. Following the investigation, ODEW issued a corrective action plan so Warren County ESC could meet state standards. However, in February DRO filed a complaint against ODEW claiming it didn't follow through with its initial plan and allowed Warren County ESC to continue operating without taking corrective action.

Warren County ESC then opened a civil case against ODEW. Warren County ESC's attorney contends DRO's 2022 initial complaint claiming it lacked evidence of systematic issues and says ODEW's corrective action plan is "wholly unsupported by special education law because it takes away parent-choice to place students with the most significant behavior and mental health problems at the ESC's Wellness Center."

With the injunction in place, the ESC isn't required to follow the state's plan and can operate as usual while the legal battle continues.

RELATED: Investigation into Warren County ESC reveals inadequate services for students with disabilities

"We are obviously pleased with the decision," the ESC's attorney Gary Stedronsky said in a statement to WVXU. "I am glad the court accepted our argument that the Department of Education and Workforce did not have the legal authority to accept the DRO complaints against the ESC or issue corrective action against the ESC. The decision was based on a plain reading of the Department's own regulations that were ignored by staff at the Department when they accepted the DRO complaints and issued the corrective action."

Kristin Hildebrant, senior attorney for Disability Rights Ohio, says Warren County ESC's handling of the situation has not shown a desire to improve services or do what's best for students.

"DRO disagrees that an injunction should have been granted in this case and believes that Warren County Common Please Court is not the correct place for this matter to be resolved. The ESC has failed to exhaust required administrative remedies before going to court and the court should grant our motion to dismiss the ESC's case," Hildebrant said.

DRO has filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit but the court has not yet ruled on the motion.