WestChesterBuzz.com

To let West Chester and Liberty Township residents catch up with the news that they need to know, WestChesterBuzz.com will list and link to all of last week’s top local stories every Monday.

Governor John Kasich. File photo.

Kasich unveils plan to fund, reform Ohio schools – Governor John Kasich offered a new way of funding schools last Thursday he says will be more equitable for poor and rural districts and add to the school choices of working class families. The plan raises the amount of state aid going to education in the next two years and Kasich promised no district will see a reduction in that amount next year, even with the changes he’s proposing.

Crossroads coming to Mason? – Crossroads is one step closer to opening a new church in Mason to serve its rapidly growing congregation in Butler and Warren counties, Rachel Richardson of MasonBuzz.com reported last week. Chuck Moore, Crossroads’ director of multi-site, told Richardson that the church “responded to the people in Mason and West Chester who asked for a site.”

Ryan Kelly grew from 6-1, 200 pounds as a high school sophomore to a 6-5, 285-pound senior before he committed to Alabama. Ironically, the team Bama defeated – Notre Dame – in this past season’s national championship game was Kelly’s favorite team as a child. Photo provided by the University of Alabama Athletics Communications.

Lakota West grad talks about winning two national titles – Ryan Kelly wasn’t supposed to be playing in the national championship game. Yet, there he was snapping the football during his team’s last offensive series, as Alabama finished off Notre Dame, 42-14, in the BCS National Championship game in Miami, Fla. Jan. 7. It was the second straight season where Bama finished as national champions.

Gray to have number retired - The best basketball player ever to don a Lakota West basketball jersey, Amber Gray, will become the school district’s first athlete of the sport to have her jersey retired. Gray, who owns school career records in points, rebounds, assists, blocked shots and games played, will have her No. 10 jersey hung permanently in her high school’s gym before the Lakota East at Lakota West girls’ basketball game this Wednesday, Feb. 6. The announcement was made last week.

Sheriff weighs in on immigration proposal – Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones went to Washington, D.C. last week, where he offered his ideas on immigration reform at a meeting of the National Sheriff’s Association Immigration Committee.

Lakota Board of Education approves 2014-15 school calendar – The Lakota Board of Education approved last week its school calendar for 2014-15. According to the calendar, school would begin Aug. 21, 2014. The last day of school for students is set for May 29, 2015, with graduation either May 30 or 31, 2015.

Trevon Broomfield. Photo provided by the West Chester Police Department.

Craigslist car thief – A man used the Craigslist classified-ads website to troll for cars – then stole three of the vehicles, and drove one stolen car in a chase that ended with a crash, a Warren County grand jury says. The incident, when Trevon Broomfield of Dayton was caught, began in West Chester Township where police said they received a report that a 2005 Nissan Sentra had been stolen from a home.

Kroger case won’t be reviewed in Feb. – The West Chester Township Zoning Commission won’t hear the case of a proposed shopping center, which is to be anchored by a new Kroger Marketplace, on Feb. 25. Instead, the project, that has local neighbors worried about their safety, has been tabled until the commission’s next meeting on March 18. In effort to halt plans for a 133,000-square-foot Kroger, Tom Eggert and his neighbors on Wethersfield Drive have lined their street and the corner of Tylersville Road and Princeton-Glendale Road (State Route 747) with lawn signs that read “StopKroger.com.”

Vote for the 2013 Shamrock Shuffle t-shirt design – For the first time in the history of the Shamrock Shuffle, the Community Foundation of West Chester/Liberty is hosting a t-shirt design contest for the annual event that attracts approximately 4,000 runners every March. Participants sent in their designs earlier this winter. Beginning last Thursday, Facebook users could vote for their favorite design.

Posted in: Crime, Fall sports, Government, News, Schools, Sports, Winter Sports |

Tags: Tags: Amber Gray, Amber Gray Lakota West, Amber Gray Xavier, Amber Gray Xavier University, Craigslist, Craigslist crime, Craigslist grand theft auto, Governor John Kasich, Hamilton County Educational Service Center, John Kasich, Ken Dirr, Mary Ronan, Randy Bertram, Ryan Kelly, Ryan Kelly Alabama, Ryan Kelly Lakota West, Trevon Broomfield, West Chester Police, West Chester Police chase

Plan brings big ideas, more money, lots of questions

Governor John Kasich. File photo.

Jessica Brown and Denise Smith Amos report:

Governor John Kasich offered a new way of funding schools Thursday he says will be more equitable for poor and rural districts and add to the school choices of working class families.

His budget plan also creates pots of money for “best-practice” grants to districts and to help educate certain groups of students like those with disabilities or who are learning English as a second language. He even gave a slight nod to early childhood education.

The plan raises the amount of state aid going to education in the next two years and Kasich promised no district will see a reduction in that amount next year, even with the changes he’s proposing.

He didn’t say how he plans to pay for much of it. He also didn’t offer a specific funding formula by which districts can plan their five-year forecasts.

State officials estimate his budget will spend $7.4 billion on preschool-through-grade 12 education in the 2013-14 school year and $7.7 billion in the following year. Kasich plans reveal his entire biennial budget proposal Monday.

This year, state aid to schools – which included basic aid and reimbursements for certain business tax reductions – totaled nearly $6.1 billion, said Rob Nichols, a Kasich spokesman.

It’s unclear from the initial discussion what would happen after the biennium. Kasich hinted that he wants school districts to wean themselves off of a guaranteed amount of state aid, but he didn’t say when or how.

With this plan, Kasich, who is up for re-election in 2014, became the fourth governor to try to fix school funding since the Ohio Supreme Court ruled the state’s method unconstitutional in 1997 because education funding relies too much on local property taxes. The plan must still be approved by the state Senate and the House.

Here are the highlights:

How much money is it?

Kasich promised state aid to districts will be flat in the coming year.

“No school district will receive less money next year than this year on the formula,” said Dick Ross, director of 21st century education for the Kasich administration. The amount of “general revenue funds” going to the state’s more than 600 school districts will be $6.2 billion the first year and $6.4 billion in the second year. That’s up from $6.1 billion this year, though it doesn’t make up for revenue districts lost in federal pass-through stimulus dollars. Kasich’s plan also adds a $300 million pot of incentive money called the “straight A fund” that will bump that state aid total up to $7.4 billion the first year and $7.7 billion in the second year.

But one complaint has been that state funding hasn’t been distributed equitably among school districts. Kasich hopes his plan will fix that.
A new way to fund schools

Currently schools are funded with a mix of state, federal and local dollars. The amount of state dollars depends on the amount of local tax dollars generated and what the state has said are minimum costs of education.

But the system results in too much disparity, Kasich said, with some students getting a poor or an adequate education based on where they live.

He says his plan will make education funding more equitable because the state will contribute more dollars to districts that have high concentrations of poverty or low property values.

He wants to also set aside extra money for disabled, poor or non-English speaking students.

Vouchers and charters

The plan expands the state’s Educational Choice voucher program – stipends families use to send their child to a private school. Under the plan, any family whose household income is below 200 percent of the poverty line (about $46,100 for a family of four) could apply for a voucher, not just families living near persistently failing schools. The vouchers will at first be available for kindergarteners in the next school year and will expand to include first grade students in the second year. Vouchers will also be available for students in grades K-3 whose schools are not improving in literacy performance.

“Straight A Fund”

The plan creates a $300 million pot of money to provide one-time grants to districts for projects that improve their effectiveness. Projects could include modernizing operations or improving achievement. Details are vague. The goal is to “move schools more from the schools my father and mother … attended to the schools of the 21st century that will prepare students for the jobs they need,” Ross said.

• Students with disabilities

Kasich’s plan includes $100 million to cover the “catastrophic costs” of educating kids with severe disabilities. For example, some students can cost a districts $100,000 annually to educate because of their special needs. This money would let districts get reimbursed for more of that cost.

• English-language learners

The plan will give extra money to districts to help offset the additional costs of educating students who are not native English speakers. (The state makes these students take state achievement tests in English after two years.) Kasich’s plan would allocate $1,500 per pupil in the first year. That child would get 75 percent of that next year and 50 percent the third year. An ongoing stipend will help schools pay for translation services for parents who don’t speak English.

• Early Childhood

The plan allocates $90 million a year to fund preschools for children who live in high-poverty areas and who don’t have access to quality preschools. Cincinnati Public Schools, for example, has a 400-student waiting list to get into preschool programs.

• Low-income students

The plan will allocate additional per-pupil funding above and beyond basic state aid for “economically disadvantaged” students. The amount was not specified.

• Gifted

The plan gives districts $50 per student per year to identify and educate gifted students.

Posted in: Government, News, Schools |

Tags: Tags: Governor John Kasich, Hamilton County Educational Service Center, John Kasich, Ken Dirr, Mary Ronan, Randy Bertram

Officials still in the dark on contents of Kasich’s formula

Denise Smith Amos reports:

Gov. John Kasich is expected to release a new school funding formula this week, becoming the fourth Ohio governor to try to fix a funding system the state Supreme Court has said is inequitable and unconstitutional.

But so far, not even the school districts and legislators know what to expect.

A group of legislators met with Cincinnati-area districts on Friday, and each group asked the other if they had any inside knowledge.

No one did, said Ken Dirr, director of the Hamilton County Educational Service Center, which hosted the event.

“Not even the legislators know. They say they have no idea and have been kept out of it,” Dirr said.

Although Kasich has kept his plans close to the vest, most school leaders in the Cincinnati region say they expect no increase in state funding for the next two years. Others fear a worst-case scenario.

“The (new funding) formula could result in a reduction in funding,” said Larry McDonough, Lockland schools treasurer. “I suppose I could put equal weight on an increase, but I’m just not feeling it.”

The state’s school funding formula is important because it affects the quality of education at Ohio’s public schools – how state and local taxes are spent, the quality of academic and other programs at each school, and how often schools seek to raise local property taxes.

So far this year Milford, Forest Hills and Oak Hills have all announced they’ll seek school tax levies or bonds on the May ballot.

Since the 1991 DeRolph v. State of Ohio lawsuit, Ohio policymakers – including governors and lawmakers of both parties – have tried to change the way Ohio’s schools are funded. The state supreme court has ruled four times that Ohio’s system is unconstitutional.

The crux of those rulings: School funding is too reliant on local property tax values, resulting in unfair funding and programming gaps between school districts and stark differences in education quality for Ohio students based on where they live and how much money their families earn.

The inequalities have become more glaring, school leaders say, with the recession and repeated defeats of local school levies. Some districts have cut music, art, gym and their libraries, while others are busing fewer kids or charging hundreds of dollars per student for sports and other extracurricular activities.

“We have a lot of districts around the state that are offering the bare minimums,” said Barbara Shaner, associate director of the Ohio Association of School Business Officers in Columbus.

“We have a lot of lower-wealth districts … not able to offer AP (advance placement) courses or multiple language opportunities or even the arts.”

But it’s unclear whether Kasich’s school plan will level the field.

Area school districts are bracing for cuts

Some Southwest Ohio school districts are bracing for cuts, new funding formula or not.

Northwest Local School District treasurer Randy Bertram is already budgeting for 5 percent less money from the state than last year.

“By law we’re required to have five-year forecasts,” Bertram said. “This governor has left us in the dark each year he’s been in the seat.”

Lakota, one of the region’s largest school districts, is assuming 1 percent less in state funding, said treasurer Jenni Logan.

But other district leaders find some hope among the rumors swirling around the topic.

Cincinnati Public Schools Superintendent Mary Ronan said part of the new formula may include a pot of money to fund innovation projects at districts. She and a delegation of CPS administrators already crafted a proposal and took it to Kasich’s budget staff on Jan. 11.

They’re asking for $28 million to fund 20 preschool classrooms, 42 literacy specialists and projects ranging from summer school to blended learning to Teach for America stipends.

How Ohio’s school funding works

In Ohio, the bill for a child’s public education is divvied up between the local community and the state in addition to some federal dollars. How much a community pays in school levies or income tax increases varies because of the way Ohio’s school funding formula is structured.

The funding system is supposed to funnel a larger percentage of state dollars to poorer districts. But there are some glitches. Cincinnati Public Schools and a handful of other Ohio districts with substantial poverty rates are actually considered wealthy by the state because there’s a lot of commercial property that can be taxed for schools.

Cleveland’s school system, for example, receives more than 70 percent of its money from the state, whereas only 32 percent of Cincinnati’s budget is money from the state. Taxpayers pay most of that balance via school levies. Cincinnati Public and various community groups have been lobbying for a change to the formula for years.

A few states, like Kentucky and Michigan, centralize most school funding and control over school spending. They also limit how much local taxpayers can augment state spending. Kentucky also limits how much local districts can raise taxes for schools.

Posted in: Government, News, Schools |

Tags: Tags: Governor John Kasich, Hamilton County Educational Service Center, John Kasich, Ken Dirr, Mary Ronan, Randy Bertram