After announcing it would be closing at the end of this school year, a struggling Cincinnati charter school will instead shut down next week.

The Dohn Community High School Board of Directors released a statement Friday, saying the school will close on Monday due to “insurmountable financial challenges stemming from the previous school year.”

The charter school serves mostly Black students who have behavioral problems, were expelled from other public schools or are otherwise on their last chance to get a high school diploma. The board agreed during an emergency meeting March 7 to sell its two buildings to Performance Academies, a Columbus-based charter school with a location in Mount Healthy, Dohn’s lawyer, Adam Brown, previously told The Enquirer. The idea was to use that money to cover the rest of the school year, before shuttering Dohn.

“Upon assuming leadership, the current administration took all measures to attempt to stabilize finances, restructure operations, and maintain the highest quality of education for our students,” Friday’s statement reads. “Unfortunately, despite these efforts, the financial burdens from the prior school year have proven too great to sustain operations.”

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Interim Superintendent Bill Geraghty added in the release: “Despite our best efforts to overcome financial challenges, we have exhausted all viable options to keep the school open.”

School leadership is working to assist students and families in transitioning to new schools and to provide support for staff, the statement said. As for seniors who are set to graduate this spring, they will receive special attention to ensure they have opportunities to complete their education.

Further details regarding student placement and closure logistics will be shared in the coming days, according to the statement.

Dohn Community High School was founded in 2001 by local educator Kate Bower as a recovery-focused high school for students struggling with addiction, according to the statement. It was named after her sponsor, Blanche Dohn. “The school grew into a vital resource for the Cincinnati community,” and eventually began serving teen mothers, adult learners, and career and technical education students.

A year ago, Sonny Styles was the newcomer in Ohio State’s front six on defense.

Now he’s the only returning starter.

Styles could have followed the entire defensive line and linebacker Cody Simon to the NFL. But like those players did in 2024, Styles chose to return for his senior year.

“I just didn’t feel like I was ready to go yet,” he said Thursday after Ohio State’s sixth spring practice. “I feel like I didn’t reach my ceiling to where I wanted to be in terms of college. Obviously, when you leave here, you want to keep getting better, but I feel like I had more to do here.”

Styles will be a senior, but he’s still only 20 years old. He was supposed to be in OSU’s 2023 recruiting class until he decided to reclassify to the ’22 class. Because of his physical and mental maturity, it proved to be the right move.

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Styles started at safety as a sophomore before moving to linebacker last year. He was instrumental in OSU’s run to the national championship. Styles was second on the team behind Cody Simon with 100 tackles, including 10 ½ for losses and six sacks, in OSU’s two-linebacker scheme.

With only safety Caleb Downs and cornerback Davison Igbinosun returning as starters, Styles is ready to lead.

More: Ohio State football’s C.J. Hicks excited about positional switch to defensive end

“I think he’s the leader of the entire team,” linebackers coach James Laurinaitis said. “He handled himself really well through the entire winter workout period and all that.”

Told of Laurinaitis’ comment, Styles said, “I appreciate him saying that. I think we’ve got a lot of leaders on this team. I just try to carry myself the right way (by) the way I was raised and I’m just trying to instill some of those values in the younger guys. It’s easy to be a leader on this team. We’ve got so many great people.”

Styles, along with offensive lineman Austin Siereveld and wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, earned Iron Buckeye status for their offseason conditioning work.

“The longer you’re here, the more you understand the importance of those kind of things,” Styles said. “What Iron Buckeye means is being able to bring your ‘A’ game each and every day despite how you may be feeling outside of this building, and being able to be the guy that someone can look at like, ‘Hey, he’s doing it the right way.’

“It’s not only just you can lift heavy or I can run fast. It’s your character. I’m showing up on time every day. I’m bringing energy every day. I have enthusiasm, I’m excited to be here. I’m pouring into others. I really appreciate that honor.”

Styles seems a lock to be named a captain this summer and it wouldn’t shock anyone if he’s named the “Block O” recipient.

“He’s a vocal guy, and it shows up on the field, too,” said linebacker Arvell Reese, who’s expected to start alongside Styles. “It’s hard to follow after a guy who says something and he’s not on their stuff. Sonny is one of those guys who’s on his stuff, so when he leads, everybody’s listening.”

Styles has filled out to 235 pounds on his 6-foot-4 frame. As to be expected, he’s also more comfortable as a linebacker.

“I feel like I’ve been playing the position for longer than a year, so that’s a good thing,” Styles said.

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Styles cherishes being part of last year’s national championship team, but he, like the other Buckeyes, is ready to turn the page.

“You have to rebuild from step one,” he said. “We won the national championship last year and we can hold onto that forever, but we’ve got to create our own story and start from ground zero.

“I think we have something to prove. We’ve got a little chip on our shoulder.”

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Ohio State football beat writer Bill Rabinowitz can be reached at brabinowitz@dispatch.com or on Bluesky at @billrabinowitz.bsky.social.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A group of Ohio Republican lawmakers is moving to ban the state and public water systems from adding fluoride, which prevents tooth decay and cavities, to water.

The Buckeye State is known for its water — and the benefits that dentist Dr. Matthew Messina sees from it.

“We’ve had that kind of a profound increase in public health that comes from modern dentistry and fluoride is a part of that,” Messina said.

Naturally occurring in water, fluoride is a mineral that years of research has shown strengthens teeth and prevents cavities and tooth decay. As the four-decade-long serving dentist explains, most public water systems add fluoride.

“It’s hailed as one of the top public health measures in the last century, because really, for a very low cost and very low amount of effort, the massive benefit that this produces for the community is tremendous,” he said.

He has worked in communities that didn’t have fluoride, he said, and the difference between children from cities and ones from rural areas that didn’t have public water fluoridation was night and day.

“We got a chance to see rampant dental decay in children,” he said. “It was like going back to the dark ages, so I really hope we’d never go back there again.”

There has always been a back-and-forth for decades on fluoride, much like vaccines. In recent years, there has been a campaign to push back on the mineral in water.

Although U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not a doctor, he has argued that the mineral is toxic.

“Fluoride is an industrial waste,” he wrote on X.

The effort has trickled down to Ohio.

State Rep. Levi Dean (R-Xenia) has proposed House Bill 182, which would ban public water systems from adding fluoride.

“It just says that individuals can then choose whether they want to ingest it or not — it’s not forced on them,” Dean told me.

Current law requires water systems to fluoridate water if the natural content is less than .8 milligrams per liter.

“It’s just for some people for health reasons or just even for individual freedom reasons, they don’t want the local governments to force this into their drinking water,” he said.

Dean and his GOP cosponsors want to prohibit this requirement. He argued that fluoride is bad for you. I asked him where he got this idea from since dozens upon dozens of research papers for decades disagree.

He cited a recent research study sharing that fluoride may be linked to lower IQ in children.

A study published by JAMA Pediatrics in January did a review and meta-analysis of whether exposure to fluoride was associated with kids’ IQ scores.

The authors found that there is a link between slightly lower IQ in children that have more exposure to the mineral.

But Messina explained that this research article is being taken out of context.

“It brings up a study of parts of the world where naturally occurring fluoride levels are much higher than in most of the United States, and they’re higher than the target levels that we have set,” the dentist said.

Looking into the paper, the authors acknowledged that a majority of the studies they looked at were considered “highly biased,” none of the data is from the United States, and that there was “uncertainty in the dose-response association.”

When the fluoride in the water was less than 1.5 mg/L, the link wasn’t apparent. As mentioned, Ohio has a cap of .8 mg/L.

“Now, there’s disagreement on the concentration of where that starts and how, but that’s why I think it should be up to the individual to choose what levels they engage with fluoride at,” Dean said.

The lawmaker argued that if people really want fluoride, they can buy toothpaste, tablets, or drops.

“I’m not arguing with the fact that it could be beneficial to some people for dental health,” he said. “I’m arguing with the fact that should we be ingesting it, if the benefit is for your teeth, shouldn’t you be applying it just to the teeth and not consuming it?”

Toothpaste has significantly more fluoride than water does, which is why you are told to spit it out, according to the CDC.

The Republican continued that this is about Ohioans having a choice — just like he does, as he uses fluoride-free toothpaste.

“What kind of concerns do you have with Ohio considering to remove fluoride from all public water?” I asked Messina.

“Well, if Ohio did that, we would be stepping back in time,” he responded. “We have a known beneficial, preventative part of our tool kit, and for us to continue to go forward without that — we’re really leaving one of our best weapons behind.”

Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) seemed interested in the proposal because when asked if the state should keep fluoride in public water, he acknowledged that he “didn’t know.”

“Fluoride naturally occurs in water, I just found that out this week,” he said. “They started adding it.”

He said that people over the past few years have been “dismissed.”

“Now there appears to be some science that says too much fluoride, including adding fluoride, is bad for folks,” he said. “I’m not a scientist, I’m not a chemist… We’re going to sort of litigate that question… in the legislature here over the next couple of months. I don’t know the answer to your question.”

House Minority Leader Allison Russo (D-Upper Arlington), whose background is in public health, was not thrilled to hear about the bill.

“I entirely support fluoride in water,” she said, noting that the benefits are clear in dental health.

I asked her if she saw this as an effort to privatize water.

“I see this as a basic human right,” she continued. “I think the expectation of every household in this country is that you have access to clean tap water in your households.”

Gov. Mike DeWine, who is routinely against non-doctors making health decisions, is not commenting on this bill yet.

Knowing the governor, this would not be out of the realm of a possible veto. He consistently states that he supports science, vaccines, best practices of doctors in gender-affirming care, prevention of tobacco for kids and the stopping of medical misinformation.

Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.