District leaves Metro School tab with parents

 

A Metro School mom's plea to Worthington school board members came too late to reconsider a proposed resolution to pay all or a portion of tuition costs for students with less money.

Board members met Monday, July 28, to approve further student participation in the Metro School -- as long as parents pick up the tab, since the board turned its thumbs down on a proposal to consider paying tuition for students in need.

Parent Marilyn Morris said she had to take a second job to afford Metro School tuition for her son.

"I'm very disappointed in tonight's proceedings," she said. "Our son is flourishing at the Metro School ... what my tax returns won't show is in order to afford Metro School, I took a night shift at a hospital. That was four nights a week I wasn't with my children.

"I hope the school district can come up with a creative way to help us through this," she said.

Morris said Gahanna and Westerville school districts both pay full tuition for Metro School students.

Westerville schools passed a resolution earlier this month, however, that requires parents to pay $735 to cover the difference between Westerville's per-pupil cost and Metro School tuition for students enrolling this fall, while agreeing to continue to pay full tuition for nine students currently enrolled in the school.

When Worthington board members approved Metro School participation for six students in 2006, parents were required to pick up the tuition.

Former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann said in September 2006 that districts "have no authority" to charge tuition for a public alternative high school, throwing Worthington into a Metro School muddle that ended with a refusal to allow any more students into the program.

During this week's meeting, Superintendent Melissa Conrath said House Bill 562 confirmed a district's right to require parents to pay.

"Due to the efforts of Reps. Kevin Bacon and Jim Hughes, the question raised by the attorney general was clarified, giving districts the right to ask parents to pay tuition for the Metro School," she said. "Because this has been clarified, we're proposing a resolution to allow more students to participate in the program, as long as the tuition cost is passed along to parents, which is what we used to do with the Christopher Program."

Conrath said six Worthington students currently attend the science school.

Board member Charlie Wilson proposed the amendment.

"It is very likely we will be sued, because a public school cannot refuse to send a student to an appropriate public school program just because his parents can't afford it," Wilson said. "The Metro School is not just for privileged or gifted kids -- many of the kids have (Individual Education Program) plans. I propose we add at the end of the resolution that the board may, at its sole discretion, provide tuition for students whose parents can't afford it.

"We could look at every student individually and could pay the part of the tuition parents can't afford," he said.

Metro School tuition currently is $6,300 per school year.

Wilson insisted the district was setting itself up for litigation.

"If we are setting ourselves up for a guaranteed lawsuit, then we should discuss not participating at all in the school," said board member David Bressman. "I was initially opposed to our participation, then changed my mind when I saw the school and when we agreed parents would pay. Then Marc Dann changed the rules and we as a board were harassed and intimidated by a certain Metro School parent.

"Now we're going back to participating, but you want to add slippery slope language to require us to pay tuition for poorer students?" he said. "Where do we draw the line on public programs that could be best for children, if they are $20,000 per year?"

Wilson said his basic point was "we are a public school system and the Metro School is a public school system."

Treasurer Jeff McCuen and Conrath said Metro School is not a "public school."

"The Metro School is an educational option, not a public school program," McCuen said.

"Metro School, by the new legislation, is an educational option," Conrath said. "Another educational option would be foreign travel, but parents have to pick up the cost for that travel."

During a Metro School discussion earlier in the year, McCuen said Worthington is on the state funding guarantee, due to declining enrollment, so any state dollars that would follow a student to another school are not all state dollars, they are taxpayer dollars.

The next school board meeting is set for 7:30 p.m. Aug. 11 at the Worthington Education Center, 200 E. Wilson Bridge Road.