Biennial Budget Results

The Biennial Budget has finished its Ohio House/Senate revision and here's the results for CS Education...

Thank you to all those who participated in the advocacy efforts by making phone calls, writing letters or emails, and testifying before the house and senate committees throughout the budget process. Special thanks to the Ohio CS Policy Coalition.

Here's the results in summary form:

Teach CS Grant:
The final budget adds the Teach CS grants back into the budget and funded them at $4 million per fiscal year. The "Teach CS" included our language that breaks down how the money should be used:
  • A supplemental license that involves a mentorship-based pathway for existing teachers.
  • A university endorsement program that involves a coursework-based path for existing teachers;
  • An alternative resident educator licensure pathway for industry experts and other nonteachers;
  • A continuing education program that offers professional development to existing teachers, including those that teach pre-kindergarten to twelve who are generalists and those seeking advanced content knowledge.
Additionally, the added in the language that gave priority to economically disadvantaged schools where computer science is limited or not offered.
 
Computer Science Promise:
The CS Promise language was maintained, but they did not fund it. This is the program that allows students between 7-12 grade to take a computer science course if their school district does not offer one. Because this is not funded, schools will have to fund this from their own budgets.
 
Licensure:
The final version maintained the computer science license for industry professionals and assign the following grade band designations to computer science teaching licenses: (1) pre-kindergarten-grade 5, (2) grades 4-9, and (3) grades 7-12. They also added our request to include a K-12 grade band for CS.
 
Additionally, the waiver language passed; this extends through the 2024-2025 school year a current law exemption for the 2019-2020 through 2022-2023 school years that permits a public school to allow an individual who holds a valid teaching license to teach computer science, provided that individual completes a professional development course that provides computer science content knowledge, and expands the grade bands for which a license holder must be licensed to teach to qualify for that exemption from any of grades 7-12 to any of grades K-12.
 
Computer Science Council:
The final version of the budget does not include the Ohio Computer Science Council.
 
Office of Computer Science:
The final version of the budget does not Office of Computer Science.