April 2025 – Whoopsie Piggle

There are few American cities with the cultural and educational amenities combined with a relatively low-cost of living as is found in Akron, where I am fortunate enough to own two homes. In 2003, I bought a 1909 Arts and Crafts home, which I call Dreisbach House, for $112,500. After a divorce in 2010, I refinanced the balance of the mortgage on a 15-year note and paid it off early by rounding up each payment.

The Great Recession depressed housing prices longer in Akron than other parts of the country. I bought the neighboring house, which shares a driveway with Dreisbach House, in 2014 on a lease-to-purchase loan because even with a $54,000 mortgage it was under water. I expect to pay off what I call Cressler House in the next two years.

I raised my three eldest sons and birthed my fourth in Dreisbach House. Then, for several years, I rented it out and used the proceeds to pay both properties’ mortgages. After my last tenants moved out three years ago, I began restoring the house with the plan to move back into it and turn Cressler House into an AirBnB.

Several considerations led to this decision. First, several friends have acquired properties and turned them into AirBnBs, which have earned more annually than has renting Dreisbach House on a long-term lease. Secondly, short-term guests aren’t there long enough to be as hard on a home as long-term tenants. And, finally, I dream of having a place where my adult children, their spouses/partners and, hopefully one day, children can stay when they visit.

But plans change. Last summer I decided to remain in the more modest Cressler House and instead turn Dreisbach House into an AirBnB. At the time, drywall covering the original walls, window frames and baseboards in three of Dreisbach House’s four bedrooms had been removed. Plaster walls and the wood of the window frames and baseboards needed repaired (or replaced), while proper electrical outlets needed installed.

Not a floor nor a step in Dreisbach House squeaks because the exterior walls are constructed of two layers of brick. The thick masonry keeps the home as cool as a cave in summers – an important consideration in 1909 when air conditioning was not available – while cheap coal once fueled the boiler in winters. Gas lights hung from the bedroom ceilings, the plumbing of which has been discovered each time I’ve installed a ceiling fan, and the original electrical wiring was knob and tube.

The interior brick behind the plaster walls and new up-to-code wiring in Holly Christensen's house. — The interior layer of brick under the lathe and plaster, exposed to install wiring to code.

In order to install GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter) outlets in the bedrooms, several inches of lathe and plaster were removed, revealing the interior layer of brick. That brick causes the plaster walls to often bubble and crack and I considered covering them with paneling after the wiring was completed. But the supervising contractor, Paul Mann, had a different solution.

“Look, Holly,” he said, “paneling would hide any moisture that may seep through the walls as well as any mold that develops as a result. Also, the remaining original baseboards will likely crack if we pull them off to install paneling behind. You’ll save the original baseboards and some money if you refinish the plaster walls. Any bubbles or cracks that occur down the road can be repaired.”

The bedroom ceilings also needed thought. One had been covered with acoustic tiles, while in another bedroom I had bead-board paneling hung to cover water damage caused when a third-floor radiator ruptured and leaked. Paul recommended putting in drywall ceilings, an upgrade to the project, but worth the added cost long term.

Jack, the contractor who did the work, turned the bedrooms into pristine boxes. In the bedroom with an elongated closet over the staircase, he reconfigured the closet by installing a wall on one side so that it is now only slightly wider than its door. A nook was created by cutting a hole in the wall that had been part of the closet. Paul helped Jack design Arts and Crafts-style framing around the original closet door and nook opening.

The original fresco at Holly Christensen's house.

The house did the next step: choose colors. When I bought Dreisbach House, wallpaper covered the walls on the ground floor. The first day I took possession of the house, I pulled it all off. In the living room and stairway, original frescos of cherry branches in full bloom were revealed. Unfortunately the plaster was severely cracked in many places and had to be patched and painted over – except for one panel alongside a window on the landing to the second floor.

Using a chart of historic colors from January Paints, I matched a color called Venetian Glass to a green stripe in the remaining fresco. It is now the color of the bedroom walls. In the hallways and living room I chose Parsnip, an off-white bordering on light taupe. These colors look both original to the house and make the wooden accents pop in complementary splendor.

By mid-January Dreisbach House had been put back together and it was time determine what else was needed to turn it into an AirBnB. Stay tuned for the next installment.

This column was first published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Sunday, April 13, 2025.

When the Department of Education (DOE) was created in 1979, President Jimmy Carter warned supporters, “This thing won’t work as well as you think it will.” Time has shown his prediction accurate, however, not working as well as thought is not the same as working badly.

Just what does the Department of Education do? Many things.

The department oversees federal funding for colleges and universities as well as K-12 public schools. The bulk of federal funding for higher education comes in the form of Pell Grants, student loans and research funding. Most K-12 schools receive 10% of their funding from the department but as recently as the 2021-2022 school year, it was 14.6% for Ohio schools, or $2,600 per student.

Two DOE programs support school districts with the greatest needs. Title 1 helps fund supports for schools with high-poverty rates while REAP (Rural Education Achievement Program) specifically targets rural schools, which comprise more than a quarter of all U.S. public schools. My job as a tutor in an Akron Public Schools building with high-poverty rates is paid for with Title 1 funding. I see first hand the need for this support and how impactful it is.

The department also provides federal oversight for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Enacted in 1975, IDEA’s role is to ensure all states provide a free appropriate public education to students with disabilities both physical and intellectual. Within the department is the Office for Civil Rights to which students with disabilities can file complaints if they are not receiving a free appropriate public education as outlined by IDEA.

When I graduated high school in the spring of 1983, I had attended 10 public schools in four states. In none of these did I have classmates with intellectual disabilities, such as Down syndrome, nor physical disabilities that required wheelchairs or adaptive equipment. This changed in the years after IDEA federally required public schools to allow students with disabilities to attend, something that doesn’t just benefit students with disabilities. It also normalizes having friends with a range of abilities as students work and play with classmates who only a few decades ago were not encouraged, or sometimes even allowed, to attend public schools.

Just as important to know is what the Education Department does not do. It does not set curricula (what is taught) in public schools. It does not determine how schools receive funding outside of what it provides. It does not set standards for teachers nor graduation requirements. All of this is, and always has been, decided by the states.

On March 11, the Trump Administration put more than 1,300 DOE employees on administrative leave. The agency’s statisticians who analyze the data to determine which school districts qualify for Title 1 and REAP funding went from 100 to three employees, making it impossible to efficiently and effectively conduct their assigned task. The expected result is the funding for schools that rely on Title 1 and REAP will not be allocated and, therefore, distributed going forward.

Then, on March 20, President Donald Trump signed an executive order charging Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the department, “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.” And to give “the authority over education to the States and local communities.” Which is something they already have now. Trump also promised that the funding for Title 1 and REAP would remain intact, but with the department gutted of the employees who oversee the allocation of said funding, it remains intact in name only.

No president can constitutionally eliminate an agency established by Congress — only Congress itself can do that. But officially closing an agency isn’t the only way to kill it. Lawsuits have been filed by 21 Democratic state attorneys general and parents. The state AGs’ suit claims the massive reduction of Education Department employees is the de facto death of the Education Department, while the lawsuit by parents claims the cuts mean student rights will not be protected.

As a parent advocate for the nonprofit Oklahoma Parents for Student Achievement, Kristy Heller has worked with the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights on behalf of Oklahoma families whose children have not received the public education required by IDEA. Also a mother of a child with Down syndrome, Heller told an NPR interviewer that her family is considering moving because without federal oversight “states like Oklahoma…I don’t feel place the same importance on educating students with disabilities.”

Here in Ohio, I worry that Akron Public Schools may eliminate or significantly water down the SAIL program my daughter with Down syndrome attends. This program, designed for students with intellectual disabilities who attend about half of the day in a general education classroom, has been a game changer for my daughter’s education. Like Kristy Heller, I am not confident that my state will carry on the work of educating students with disabilities without federal oversight and funding.

Secretary McMahon has said IDEA will remain in place but perhaps at a different governmental agency — none of which have been prepared to take over such a large and important federal act. Nor could they possibly have been in the two months since Elon Musk and Donald Trump began dismantling several federal governmental agencies. It is far easier to break things than it is to repair or rebuild them. And just who benefits from this wide-scale destruction? Certainly not America’s students.