While the focus of Tuesday’s election was on the presidential race, many voters across the Buckeye State also gave a yea or nay for their school district’s levy proposal. According to the Hannah Report, 192 district levies were on ballots this election day, and a little over half of them passed (55 percent). If your district asked for a renewal of a tax levy, it was more likely to pass (87 percent) compared to new levies, which passed at a 37 percent rate.
Despite these figures and the ever-tightening fiscal climate, Tuesday spelled victory for several districts asking for new levies. For example, Cleveland voters approved a $15 million levy. Cleveland Municipal will be able to reinstate regular school days and gym and music classes, which were previously cut. Akron City Schools also has cause for celebration with the support of its $7.9 million levy. To find out how your district’s levy did, see the Ohio School Boards Association’s webpage.
When Ohio Governor John Kasich released his “Achievement Everywhere” school funding plan in late February it was widely criticized for “stealing from the poor and giving to the rich.”
The Columbus Dispatch is reporting today that Gahanna-Jefferson Public Schools will be discontinuing their experiment with charter school creation at the end of this school year. The school of 110 students in grades 9-12 will be absorbed into the district. The main reason cited: once start-up funds ran out ($450,000 from the federal government’s Public Charter School Program), Gahanna Community School’s board and staff were unable to maintain operations with the fractional per-pupil funding provided monthly by the state to all charter schools. Upper Arlington closed a charter school for similar reasons last year.
While it is tempting for me to snark about “unscrupulous charter operators” (believe me, I wrote that blog post and it was really funny) and to rage that the federal government should get its start-up money back from Gahanna-Jefferson and Upper Arlington too, I think it is more important to talk about the object lesson that this situation presents.
The fiscal picture painted by the board and staff of GSC is the daily reality of almost all charter schools across the state: once the start-up funds are spent, the per pupil funding provided for school operations by the state – with no local funds and no facility dollars – is at least a third less than what is available to even the poorest of public districts in Ohio. Gahanna cites the savings that will be had by not having to pay $85,000 for filing separate state data and paying for separate financial services between the community school and the district. And this was with the district Treasurer doing the work!
Charter schools have to report data to the state monthly while districts only have to do it twice a year (something that the current state budget will hopefully change), and well run charters often bid out their work to get the best price, share services with other schools, and even train some staff do double duty. Thus keeping costs down. All hands on deck, for certain.
GSC has been housed within Gahanna Lincoln High School since its inception, Wickliffe in Upper Arlington was within a building the district already owned, so neither school ever had to worry about paying rent or figuring out where to hold classes. That is not the reality of charter start-ups who have to identify facilities and then pay rent and often times repair costs to get the buildings up to code.
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