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New $75B Ohio budget gives Youngstown schools path to local control

Youngstown City School District educational assistant Monique Jordan, from top left, helps preschoolers Anaura Mitchell, Micah Hutch and Tori Pollard make dessert pizzas with peanut butter, marshmallows and chocolate chips. The students are in teacher Gia Marra’s class in the school district’s summer learning and enrichment program at Kirkmere Elementary School. A state budget compromise might eventually lead to the Youngstown schools regaining local control. ...Submitted photo

Local school leaders are optimistic that inclusion of the Fair School Funding Formula in the two-year state budget expected to be signed by the governor will provide a framework for funding to be used over the next generation.

In addition to providing a new funding formula for Ohio schools, this version of the state budget also provides a way for the Youngstown, East Cleveland and Lorain schools to gradually emerge from state control.

The Fair School Funding Formula has three components: a base cost, state and local share and categorical aid.

Each district’s local share will be based on a combination of property values and other income factors, according to the plan. Factors such as transportation, poverty, special education needs and technology will be considered.

The original plan for the formula was a six-year phase-in program, but in the new state budget, only two years are funded.

It’s a largely state-funded model, which will weigh a school district’s wealth against the state’s share.

Per-pupil base cost will be calculated on a district-by-district basis, made up of costs for teachers, student support, district leadership and accountability, building leadership and operations, and athletic co-curricular activities.

That base cost is an average of $7,202 per pupil. Including state and local shares, the state estimates expenditures of $10.9 billion in each fiscal year.

State Rep. Michele Lepore-Hagan, D-Youngstown, said the Ohio House version of this bill in December 2019 was sidelined as COVID-19 pandemic concerns grew.

“Allowing this to be tied to the two-year budget enables the general assembly to handle it a little bit at a time,” she said. “It is easier this way. We want to make sure all Ohio children have equitable educations. We have not had that when it comes to public education in this state.”

Private school vouchers under the EdChoice scholarship program will be directly funded by the state, rather than through a deduction from a school district’s share of funding, as was previously the case.

COMMISSIONS

Academic distress commissions eventually will be phased out.

The three districts currently under ADC supervision — Youngstown, Lorain and East Cleveland — will be able to create a three-year plan to be released from that control. It’s similar to a bill introduced in the Senate earlier this year.

Youngstown school board President Ronald Shadd said the board will look at multiple ways of preparing to move forward. It will wait for results of a state performance audit of the district and will be working with CEO Justin Jennings and the ADC in making a plan for the district’s future.

“This is not an effort of the seven board members,” Shadd said. “The ADC and CEO will play a part in developing the plan. We must have one unified vision.”

Shadd expressed appreciation to all those in the community — including Lepore-Hagan and Sen. Michael Rulli, R-Salem, who have been working toward a goal of local control.

School board member Brenda Kimble, the previous board president, said she is overjoyed the three school districts will have paths forward to move from under that system. “We have to make our plan and focus on ways to make it successful,” she said.

Kimble said she would like to see the board bring back some academic programs that were helping children learn and grow that were eliminated under the chief executive officers.

“We have to create an environment that the district does not fall back into state control, because this is not eliminating HB 70, which placed us under the ADC.”

Board member Jackie Adair said she also is pleased language that eventually can lead to the Youngstown schools regaining local control is in the budget compromise bill.

“I am hoping that we will return to some sense of autonomy soon . … The board is up to the task of providing what is needed to turn the district around.”

Adair congratulated all of those who have helped get the district this far, but was especially complimentary to Kimble because of what she called her drive to overcome HB 70, which established the current ADC-chief executive officer model.

BOARDMAN REACTION

“I am pleased that a version of the formula is included in the budget,” Boardman Superintendent Terry Armstrong said. “This is a compromise in which we did not get everything we wanted, but it is taking the state in the right direction.”

Armstrong emphasized the budget is expected to address the state’s overreliance on property taxes to fund school districts.

Under the current funding formula, Boardman, for example, is considered a wealthy district because of property evaluations. Incomes of those living in the township, however, sometimes do not match the valuation of their homes.

“We are capped, so we are receiving $3 million less than we should receive,” he said. “Under the formula, we will claw back some, but not all, of that $3 million.”

The old formula really had no basis in what it costs to educate a student while the Fair School Funding Plan is logically focused on the base cost of what it costs to educate a student in 2021, Armstrong noted.

Direct funding of nonpublic schools is a certain part of the budget. The state has been deducting local funds from districts to pay for nonpublic school education.

But it does not appear direct state funding will happen with open enrollment students. Those costs would be left on the local districts and, in part, the local taxpayers.

Lakeview Superintendent Velina Jo Taylor admits she did not expect the Ohio house-backed version of the school funding formula to make the state budget.

“While I would like to have it guaranteed for six years, as it was designed, having it in the budget sends a strong message,” Taylor said. “I have faith it will be fully funded. This provides us a fair shake. They will see it will work.”

rsmith@tribtoday.com

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