EDUCATION
Eliminated from contention was Keith Bell, who is currently employed at Ohio State University but was a Columbus deputy superintendent between 2010 and 2012.
Next will come public meetings with the candidates, in which they will introduce themselves to residents and answer questions. Dates have not been set.
Safety also was on the minds of school officials as a result of the Feb. 15 school shooting that left 17 dead in Parkland, Florida. Stanford, during his comments to the board, advised residents to call or text a state hotline, 844-SAFEROH, if they have tips about possible threats to schools. The number is a joint project of the Ohio departments of Public Safety, Homeland Security and Education.
“We need you to check their book bag on the way to school,” board member W. Shawna Gibbs advised parents regarding their schoolchildren. “We need you to go through their drawers. I know it’s their room, but it will keep everybody safe.”
Among the business items approved by the board was formation of a facilities task force to evaluate the condition of the district’s 110 school buildings, in part to determine which ones are under capacity. The district expects to have to close some buildings because of its financial situation.
Board member Dominic Paretti said a major goal is equity — making sure all students get to go to a nice school. “It’s gonna be tough,” Paretti said.
Treasurer Stan Bahorek, during his financial update, mentioned that the amount of money Columbus will lose this year for district students who opted to go to the online Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow charter school was revised by the state recently, dropping from $8.8 million to $4.1 million. The last day of classes for ECOT was Jan. 18, forcing its approximately 12,000 students to enroll in other schools. A special master was appointed to oversee the disposition of the school’s assets.
“Do I expect, given all the court cases and the going-out-of-business activity of ECOT, to see any dollars in return from ECOT?” Bahorek said. “I personally do not.”
Immediately after the meeting, the district held its second public financial forum to allow community members to ask questions and make suggestions on how to cut more than $20 million from the district’s budget for 2018-19. Projections show the district could be in the red by as much as $89 million at the end
of 2020-21, and by $224 million at the end of 2021-22.
The more than 40 attendees broke down into smaller groups around the school. Board members and administrators milled around and sat at tables, ready to answer questions.
Viola Williams, whose two grown children graduated from MarionFranklin, carefully studied giant posters on the cafeteria walls listing line-item reductions and eliminations to find out how cuts will affect current students. “Some of it I’m learning as I talk to people,” she said.
In a classroom down the hall, Maria Welch of Columbus told administrators about her frustration with Columbus City Council for giving developers big property-tax abatements at the expense of the schools — specifically a multiyear deal in 2017 for residential developers in the Easton Town Center area.
“When I had to leave work to pick up my daughter in September three times in a week because the schools didn’t have air conditioning, my thought was, ‘(Council) just gave $68.4 million to Georgetown (Co.),’” Welch said.