From the Columbus Dispatch:

Columbus City Schools have more than 120 buildings designed for teaching.
But in a three-day effort to teach its teachers, the district is renting banquet halls, high-end hotels and conference centers — using almost $145,000 in federal grant dollars. . . .
The district will pay up to $8,000 to rent Villa Milano, a marble-clad banquet hall with enough “classic elegance” that “you will think you have been transported to a romantic Italian Villa,” according to the hall’s Web site.
Other sites include: the Hyatt Regency ($23,000); the Greater Columbus Convention Center and the Hyatt on Capitol Square ($25,000 each); the Quest Business and Conference Center at Polaris ($17,000); and the Aladdin Temple near Easton ($12,500).
The district will pay the speakers more than $1.4 million in federal stimulus money, part of $64.2 million that Columbus schools have been awarded from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Happy Monday.

More here.