Local
In response to the district’s ongoing budget shortfall and the possibility of additional school closures, the Columbus Education Justice Coalition (CEJC) and a broad coalition of parents, educators, students, and community members are demanding that the Columbus Board of Education adopt a new budget shortfall policy that centers transparency, equity, and community voice in all major financial and facility decisions.
Letters have been individually sent by educators, parents, students, and community members to Board members, urging the district to publicly discuss and consider the proposed Budget Shortfall Policy submitted by CEJC on September 8, 2025, and move toward formal adoption without delay.
The proposed policy calls for:
A robust and transparent analysis of all projected costs and savings for any proposed school closure.
Consideration of the full impact on students, families, educators, and communities, including staff and resource access.
Creation of a representative decision-making committee with students, parents, educators, staff, and community organizers from each school region and high school feeder pattern.
Tuesday, November 18, 7pm
Zoom meeting - please register
Jewish Voice for Peace event - Tom Hayes will reflect on his experiences as a participant in the Gaza humanitarian aid mission in late September. Following his kidnapping and imprisonment in Israel, Tom returned to his home in Columbus on October 12.
Tom is a long-time advocate of Palestinian rights and a documentary filmmaker. In the 1980s, he filmed in Palestinian refugee camps and has produced three long-form documentaries on the denial of Palestinians’ rights. His 1985 documentary “Native Sons: Palestinians In Exile,” narrated by Martin Sheen, follows the lives of three refugee families living in Lebanon’s camps. His 2015 film “Two Blue Lines,” explores the impact of Jewish settlement on the Palestinians, from before the creation of the state of Israel to the present day.
Hayes most recently co-directed “Voyage of the Handala,” an independent documentary about the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, premiering Oct. 27 at Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival in Spain.
Tom is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace Central Ohio.
Sunday, November 16, 2:30-4PM
The Magical Druid, 2887 N. High Columbus, OH
Providing space for our community to discuss paganism and other topics of interest. Free event but donations to cover rent, utilities etc. is always nice.
Bill Pulte is the administrator of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the huge mortgage guarantors that are critical to the housing market and the ability of Americans to own and remain in their homes. Of course, he’s a Trump diehard, and that’s not the problem, exactly. Trump has the right to appoint a supporter to this position. Nonetheless, there have to some limits, and this guy is an embarrassment and doesn’t seem to have a clue about the job he should be doing, because he seems to believe his only real job is to be subservient to every whim of the president no matter what it might do to these agencies or all of our mortgages.
The scandals surrounding this guy are compounding faster and more furiously than interest rates on a mortgage.
The Columbus Dispatch article by Cole Behrens from November 13 shows us that the Columbus City Schools (CCS) continues to play politics with the future of our children. The Superintendent knows she must cut about 50 million dollars from the budget.
She was in the district when her predecessor hired hundreds of additional administrators to the Central Office. She knows that the Central Office is overstaffed. The Board of Education (elected by Franklin County Democrats) knows this too; they aren’t stupid. So, what’s the first thing they choose to do to solve this budget challenge?
Play politics.
Instead of cutting the overstaffed Central Office, the Superintendent and the politically-motivated Board of Education will take the easiest route to solve the problem: lay off a wide range of employees at every level.
Some Central Office administrative roles will be eliminated, but also plenty of janitors, secretaries, and teachers. Everyone will be angry, but it will be spread across all levels fairly. Fair to the employees perhaps, but unfair to the students.
Flock Group, Inc. has had some explaining to do this year. Billed as an intelligent platform that "unites communities, businesses, schools and law enforcement, combining their power to solve and deter crime together," the vendor of automated license plate reader (ALPR) data has, in actuality, been accused of using data points from 83,000 cameras to help a sheriff's deputy in Texas track one of the state's citizens as she fled to Illinois -- a state where the right to end a pregnancy is protected -- following a self-administered abortion in the Lone Star State.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol (OSHP) has a contract to give the company $90,000 per year. For some Ohioans, that's too much.
"Given [the lack of regulation], we think it is irresponsible of our state and local governments to be purchasing, obtaining, or using these types of mass surveillance devices and technologies with no adequate statutory safeguards in place governing their use," says Gary Daniels, a legislative director at the Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Join Indivisible every Saturday as we stand at the corner of High Street and North Broadway and protest the destruction and degradation of the Trump administration. Location: East North Broadway and High St., Columbus.
This article first appeared on the Buckeye Flame.
In January, I became the first out transgender person to serve on a city council in Ohio when I was appointed to fill an open seat. I ran to keep that seat in November and lost, but I wasn’t deflated or discouraged.
I’m actually more energized and more committed than ever. And here’s why.
Back in 2023, I ran for the Ohio House of Representatives. I knew winning wouldn’t be easy. For starters, I was running in Ohio’s most conservative district. My opponent was a co-sponsor of the Ohio Drag Ban. But that wasn’t all. As a transgender woman running in that political climate, I had more than just a tough race ahead – I had to face the reality that people who didn’t want to see me or anyone like me in politics would do everything in their power to stop us.
I wasn’t alone, though. Alongside me, two other transgender women ran for Ohio House seats. Together, we were determined to show up, fight and challenge the status quo.
