Shooter in library gets 8-plus years in prison
A man who fired a gun during an argument at the Downtown Columbus Metropolitan Library, wounding one person and sending terrified patrons running for cover, was sentenced Friday to 8 years in prison.
Joseph W. Steward III, 28, pleaded guilty in August to felonious assault with a gun specification and inducing panic for the June 11 incident.
Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Kim Brown imposed the sentence.
Assistant Prosecutor Sayje Brown had asked for the maximum sentence of 12 years or something close to it, saying Steward fired the gun in a crowded library on a Sunday afternoon, one of its busiest times.
landed in jobs, higher education or the military not long after high school.
However, 52 vocational districts — more than half — got a D or F in “technical skill attainment,” a measure of the scores of students who take one of the state’s career-technical assessments or an industry test.
Not one career-tech school in Ohio earned above a C on “prepared for success,” the state’s way of calculating whether students are well-prepared for college or a career.
Locally, the Columbus City Schools vocational program and the Central Ohio Joint Vocational District, which is served by Tolles Career and Technical Center in Plain City, both got an F for technical skill attainment.
Connie Strebe, director of satellite programs for Tolles, said student participation affects that grade. If not all students who are eligible to test in their area of study do so, that hurts the school’s score. Also, she said that regular schools within the vocational district can offer career-tech classes, and Tolles is graded on those students’ participation and test scores, too.
“We work with them the best we can,” Strebe said. “But we don’t control hiring. We don’t control curriculum.”
Tolles has some strategies for tackling that grade, she said, including working more closely with member schools and making sure students who miss their particular test have another chance to take it.
“Prepared for success” was the other area where careertech schools stumbled. Out of 91 vocational districts, 77 earned a D or an F. Among the Ds were Columbus, Eastland-Fairfield, Licking County (C-TEC), PickawayRoss and Lancaster.
The grade calculation includes “remediation-free”
scores for the ACT and SAT college entrance exams; how many graduates earned Ohio honors diplomas or industry-recognized credentials; scores on Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate tests; and college classes that let students earn at least three credits.
C-TEC, the Career and Technology Centers of Licking County, earned the best marks of any local careertech school, but got its worst grade, a D, in “prepared for success.”
In response, C-TEC Superintendent Joyce Malainy pointed to the school’s track record in other areas, including technical-skill attainment (B), graduation rate and placement after high school (both A).
Also evaluated this past week were the schools in Ohio that serve students at risk of not finishing high school. Out of 86 dropout-prevention and dropout-recovery schools, 51 earned an overall rating of “meets standards” and eight “exceed standards.”
However, the standards are much different for these schools than their traditional counterparts. Dropout schools don’t get letter grades from the Education Department, for one thing. For another, the graduation rate is calculated by how many students get their diplomas within four, five, six, seven and eight years of entering the ninth grade.
Of the 20 central Ohio dropout-prevention schools, 10 earned the “meets standards” rating, including Groveport-Madison’s Cruiser Academy, Reynoldsburg’s Everest High School and Pickerington Community School. Nine earned “does not meet standards,” including Hamilton Alternative Academy, which the Hamilton Local Schools closed in June.
One, Newark Digital Academy, “exceeds standards.”