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- Educate the community about school funding
School funding is a complex mixture of economics and
politics, but the basic message is simple. If we
allow our community leaders to permit family housing to be constructed
faster than they develop commercial enterprises in our community, more and
more of the cost of running our schools will transfer to homeowners. Instead
of paying a third of the cost of operating our schools, we homeowners will
end up paying 100% of the cost of educating new students.
I believe that once people understand this simple dynamic, the rest of the
job is easy.
- End the Excessive Use of Executive Sessions and
Improve Communications
The current School Board makes it a practice to rotate its regular meetings
locations among all the school buildings in the District. This is probably a
good thing as it exposes them and the members of our community to all the
facilities of the District. It is also customary for the host school to put
on a program for the Board at the beginning of the meeting. These programs
are attended by many proud parents, who get to see our schools (and their
kids!) at their best. It's fun stuff.
But when the program is over, all the parents and kids exit, leaving the
room occupied by the Board members, the Superintendent and Treasurer, and a
variety of top administrators. Usually a reporter from one or both of the
community newspapers is present as well. But there is rarely more than a few
community members present, unless something very controversial is on the
agenda (e.g. the recent redistricting decision).
Those community members are given the opportunity to make comments (limited
to three minutes) to the Board, but the Board is not required to respond. I
have frequently made use of these opportunities. It is unusual to have more
than a handful of speakers, and often there are none at all.
Next the Board deals with its core agenda. While the agenda may span several
pages, most items are approved in groups, and the vote is nearly always
unanimous. This part of the agenda typically requires only a few minutes.
At the end of every agenda, with rare exception, there is a motion to enter
Executive Session. This is when the Board, the Superintendent, and the
Treasurer can go into a closed room, without observers, and discuss matters
in private. Ohio Law (ORC 121.22) imposes strict limits on what can be
discussed in Executive Session, called the Sunshine Laws. The Ohio School
Board Association (OSBA) provides
further
instruction about what School Boards are required to disclose about the
purpose of an Executive Session, and how they are to be conducted.
Our School Board spends a great deal of time in Executive Session. From
November 2006 to March 2007, it was in Executive Session a total of 27 hours
across 14 meetings, an average of two hours per meeting. In each case the
reason stated for the Executive Session was ambiguous, not satisfying the
requirements of the law, as interpreted by the OSBA. In most cases the reason stated was "to discuss
personnel and land acquisition." (note that the selection of the
Emmelhainz land for the third high school was made on
February 13, 2006, well before this time period). I pointed this
shortcoming out
in person at one meeting, and offered the Board a copy of the OSBA
instructions.
I don't actually know what goes on in these meetings - no one does but these
seven people. But I would like to find out. Because sometimes the Board
decides things like giving Homewood Homes free access to the 16"
water line we're spending $834,000 to construct to serve Bradley High School
and Brown Elementary. They reveal much less than the whole truth in their
public meetings and in the minutes. I'm not sure anyone in the community would have
known about the provisions on this deal had I not
asked for a copy of the
actual contract. It sure looks questionable, and the secrecy makes it
worse. I understand secrecy while negotiations are in progress, but
afterwards full disclosure is in order. And not in documents one must know
to request, but rather in press releases, the website, and through their
email broadcasts.
- Demand a Voice in Community Planning and
Management
Housing developments have cropped up all over our District
because the officials of the cities of Hilliard, Dublin and Columbus take a
friendly, even facilitating stance toward developers, even when it
brings
harm to the community.
I think the School Board should yell and scream about this (I certainly have
been). After all, the population of the Hilliard City School District is
75,000, making it a larger political entity than all except Columbus. The
folks who vote for members of the School Board also vote for mayors, council
members, township trustees and county commissioners. Why doesn't the school
board mobilize our community to demand that these other elected officials
make the health of the school system one of their highest priorities. After,
it's one of OUR highest priorities.
We now have the Big Darby Accord playing a large role in the future of our
school district. Only half the land within the district boundaries has been
developed, and the use of most of the remaining land may well be determined
by the Big Darby Accord members. Our school district, as well as
Southwestern City Schools, should have a seat at the table, especially at
the meetings of "The Electeds" - officials who hold elected offices.
Why shouldn't that include the elected members of the School Board? As
said before, the school district is a larger entity, in terms of constituency and
budget, than all parties other than the City of Columbus and Franklin
County.
- Develop a Long-Range Strategy for Growth
We should not have to go through another fiasco like the one associated
with building our third high school. First, with the endorsement of
officials of the City of Hilliard, our School Board bought 122 acres
on Cosgray Rd for the third high school. Then there was a great outcry about
the impact of putting that much traffic so close to the other two high
schools. Mayor Schonhardt then declared that putting the high school on
Cosgray Rd was now a bad idea, and that
Davis
Rd (on the land of developer Dan O'Brien) would be a better choice.
That
never happened. Finally
the School Board selected and purchased a piece of land on Walker Rd (read
more), and in
May 2006, after several tries, the bond levy was passed to build Bradley
High School. Now the District must dispose of the Cosgray Rd property, and
in today's depressed real estate market, is likely to take a bath.
Meanwhile, our high school kids are dealing with buildings that are over
capacity by 20%, and it will get worse before Bradley comes online in 2009.
Most, if not all of this could have been avoided with better planning and
better communications.
- Campaign for the Creation of Impact Fee Levies
Impact Fees are a kind of tax that is applied to new structures at the
time of construction. The City of Hilliard already imposes impact fees to
help pay the infrastructure costs of new construction. We need the General
Assembly to grant this power to school districts as well.
Instead of the approach we have today where new schools are built by
borrowing money (by selling municipal bonds), with an impact fee system
the money is collected as each house is built. If the amount of the impact fee
is set appropriately, when the population growth reaches the point where a new
school building is needed, the money is already in the bank. We don't have
to hope that the residents will pass yet another bond levy, committing
ourselves to pay principal and interest for year to come. By moving into our
community, new residents automatically agree to fund new schools.
The cool thing about an impact fee is that it taxes people who have yet to
move into the community, not the ones who already live here. However, to
make things fair, these owners of new homes would not have to pay any of the
millage associated with bonds sold in the past. We who already live here pay for the schools
already in existence; the owners of new homes pay only for the schools we have to
build because of them.
Impact fees are a common answer to funding school construction in high
growth areas all over the country. We don't have them here because the
developers and homebuilders think it will make it harder to sell new homes,
and these people carry great weight in our state legislature.
State Representative Larry Wolpert, our voice in the Ohio House of
Representatives, bravely sponsored
HB299 to create
school district impact fees, but you never heard our School Board or
Administrators say a thing about it, much less lend their support. HB299
died a quiet death.
Why was that?
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