In this edition of WYSO Weekend: Miami Valley StoryCorps, and Veterans Voices. You'll also hear about one state organization raising awareness of child abuse prevention though a social media campaign. – see the details on those stories and more.
- One of the largest employers in Clark County is eliminating 120 jobs from its workforce. As WYSO's Wayne Baker reports, Assurant is cutting 87 jobs from its Springfield location and 33 jobs from its Dayton office.
- Governor John Kasich visited a central Ohio manufacturing plant last week and used it as the setting to sign a multi-billion dollar transportation budget bill. But as Statehouse correspondent Andy Chow reports -- the issue that got the most attention had little to do with driving or transportation.
- Sometimes men and woman find their direction in life as a result of their military service. This is true for Harold Wright. Today, Harold is an award-winning poet and translator of the Japanese language. But this isn’t the direction Harold expected his life to take when he joined the Navy long ago. A last-minute job assignment changed everything. Marine Corps veteran and Wright state student Jeremy Dobbins has today's Veterans Voices story.
- On Miami Valley StoryCorps we bring you conversations between local people who went to the StoryCorps booth in Dayton last spring. Today we hear Kathy Ellis interview her father William T. Ellis about his memories of growing up and living on Dayton's West Side. This Miami Valley StoryCorps interview - and many others - can be found at WYSO dot org. Today's interview was edited by Community Voices producer Pam Ferris-Olson.
- April is Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Month, and the Ohio Children’s Trust Fund is encouraging everyone to show their support for it by taking a photo of themselves holding a pinwheel and posting it to Facebook, Twitter or other social media sites. Kristen Rost is the OCTF executive director. She says they’re taking their message to social media with the hope of reaching as many people as possible to spread the word about reporting child abuse and neglect. We talked by phone about the campaign and about the work being done at the Ohio Children’s Trust Fund.
- Springfield and Yellow Springs school districts, along with the Global Impact STEM Academy, were notified this week that they have received conditional approval to opt out of significant state and federal testing requirements. Dr. Richard Ross, who is Ohio's superintendent of public instruction, informed both school districts and the STEM Academy that they will be able to use alternative assessments to monitor student progress and reduce the amount of state assessments required by law. WYSO's Wayne Baker spoke with the Superintendent of Yellow Springs Schools, Mario Basora about the testing waiver.
