41 Ohio school districts create Greater Cincinnati School Advocacy Network
Network designed to keep control of schools local, not in hands of government, organizers say
Local school districts are telling Columbus to back off.
On Monday, 41 districts from Hamilton, Butler, Warren, and Clermont counties joined together to announce the formation of the new Greater Cincinnati School Advocacy Network.
"It's time for the state to stop trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist," Mason Superintendent, Dr. Gail Kist-Kline said.
The group's mission is to stop the erosion of local control of its schools.
"We need more local control of our public schools," Deer Park Superintendent Jeff Langdon said. "We appreciated the efforts of our teachers, but their work is becoming nearly impossible."
District leaders said unfunded mandates and constant testing are burdens to teachers, taxpayers and children.
Many local parents said they agree, including Liberty Township resident Kate Halpin, whose daughter is going into the third grade.
"It has been really stressful for her because she gets really tired from all the testing. She doesn't want to do her homework then," Halpin said.
Amy Baccei's son, Sam, is entering the fifth grade at Lakota.
"He even said to me, 'They're pushing all of this content on us that doesn't have anything to do with what I'm supposed to be learning,'” Baccei said. “It's just extra, and it's stressing the teachers out, and we're all stressed out. Having children sit through three hours of testing a day over a course of several weeks is not what public school is about."
Instead of helping academic performance, Greater Cincinnati leaders say, mandates are reducing opportunities for innovation.
"Our local school boards should be making decisions. They're the property taxpayers. They're representing their community, and they should have the lion’s share of the decision making about what their school should look like and what the requirements and mandates should be in their local community," Jon Graft, superintendent of the Butler County Educational Service Center, said.
Another concern is compliance, which is costing the districts millions of dollars.
"When I think about how I have to hire half-a-dozen technicians to send millions of pieces of data to Columbus and to Washington, D.C., when I could be hiring teachers instead, that's where the real value is," said Mary Ronan, superintendent of Cincinnati Public Schools.
Districts say it all trickles down and hurts students who like to learn.
WLWT reached out to the Ohio Department of Education to get a response but we have not yet heard back.41 Ohio school districts create Greater Cincinnati School Advocacy Network | Local News - WLWT Home:
