Your Guide to Ohio's State Board of Education

Background

The Ohio state Board of Education sets education policy for the entire state. The board’s work includes determining Ohio’s academic content standards, adopting rules for state standardized tests and setting teacher licensing requirements, among other items. The board sets administrative rules affecting schools and school districts, rules on school district territory transfers, district transportation decisions and educator license revocations. The board is also responsible for appointing and evaluating Ohio’s Superintendent of Public Instruction.

The board is comprised of 19 members. Eleven are elected to represent districts and eight are at-large members appointed by the governor. The chairs of the education committees of the Ohio House of Representatives and Ohio Senate serve as non-voting, ex officio members. The superintendent of public instruction serves as board secretary.

Debe Terhar of the Cincinnati area is the current board president.

The board generally meets on the second Monday and Tuesday of each month.

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March 27, 2013

Cleveland School District Requests Exemption from State Takeover

It’s no secret that the Cleveland school district hasn’t been doing so well. The writing of a state takeover was on the wall when the district teamed up with the mayor’s office and the governor to pass House Bill 525, aka The Cleveland Plan. Still, under state law when a district gets the equivalent of [...]

March 13, 2013

State Board of Education Member Jeff Hardin Dies at 58

State Board of Education member Jeff Hardin died today of a heart attack. He was 58. Hardin was in his second term as the State Board of Education representative for District 10 in south central Ohio. He won reelection to his seat in November.

March 12, 2013

Richard Ross Named Ohio State Superintendent

Kasich education advisor Richard Ross presents the new school funding formula.

The Ohio Board of Education named Richard Ross the new state superintendent of public instruction today. Ross, 63, is currently the lead education advisor for Gov. John Kasich. He served as superintendent of the Reynoldsburg school district in central Ohio for 20 years before retiring in 2008.

March 7, 2013

How to Tell the Difference Between the Contenders for Ohio State Superintendent

In one corner, vying for the post of Ohio’s next state superintendent, is Dick Ross, Gov. John Kasich’s lead education advisor and the guy who crafted many of Ohio’s major education policy changes of the past year. In the other corner is Michael Sawyers, the former number-two at the Ohio Department of Education and the [...]

February 28, 2013

ACLU Asks Ohio Department of Education to Extend Seclusion and Restraint Policy to Charter Schools

Dan Machold / Flickr The ACLU of Ohio sent a letter to the State Board of Education today asking them to include charter schools in the draft rules that will govern the use of seclusion and restraint in Ohio’s schools. The board passed a policy on seclusion and restraint in January, but that policy is [...]

February 20, 2013

Who Wants to Be Ohio’s Next State Superintendent?

russell davies / Flickr The applicants for Ohio’s top K-12 education post include several former state schools chiefs as well as the former president of a national school-choice organization and the lead consultant on the takeover of the Detroit public schools Ohio’s last state superintendent of public instruction resigned in August after the state inspector general found [...]

February 11, 2013

State Board of Education President Debe Terhar Apologizes for Hitler Post

State Board of Education President Debe Terhar apologized today for posting a wrongly attributed quote from Adolph Hitler related to gun control on her personal Facebook page. But the state board voted 10-6 against removing her from her position as president. Ohio Public Radio’s Bill Cohen reports: Democrats demanded Terhar’s resignation, but they didn’t get [...]

January 22, 2013

Liberal Groups Call for School Board President’s Resignation Over Facebook Post

State Board of Education President Debe Terhar is taking heat for a post on her personal Facebook page. Terhar shared a picture of Adolf Hitler along with a misattributed quote that says: “Never forget what this tyrant said, ‘to conquer a nation, first disarm its citizens.’” The item came from a conservative page critical of President [...]

January 12, 2013

Ohio Moves to Regulate Seclusion, Restraint in Some Schools

Morgan Linnabary of Defiance says he was placed in a seclusion room dozens of times.

Morgan Linnabary was eight years old when he was sent to a special school for children with behavior problems. At the new school, when he mouthed off to teachers or got upset, he was sent from his classroom to the isolation room: a plywood box inside a separate room down the hall. It happened dozens [...]

January 11, 2013

Gov. Kasich Makes Three Appointments to State Board of Education: Angela Thi Bennett, C. Todd Jones, Mark A. Smith

Gov. John Kasich has appointed the leader of a private, Christian university focused on online education to a vacant at-large seat on the state Board of Education and reappointed two current at-large members of the board. Angela Thi Bennet, an East Cleveland lawyer, and C. Todd Jones, a Columbus lobbyist for the Ohio association of private [...]