Prepared Text for WSD Board Meeting on April 28, 2008

Prepared Text for Board Meeting – April 28, 2008

Marc A. Schare 614 791-0646 Home

614 791-0067 Work - 614 791-1779 Fax

Tonight, I have two concerns.

First, very quietly, in stealth-like fashion, the getting it right for Ohio campaign continued to gather signatures this year for the constitutional amendment. That effort died last week. According to Bill Phillis, the campaign gathered around 200,000 signatures and declared that they would not be on the ballot in 2008. More disturbing, perhaps, is that many of the groups associated with the campaign are expecting Governor Strickland to fix the problem as part of the 2009 State Budget. The State Budget will be in flux during the May primary season. That’s a pretty strong headwind to be running a levy campaign and it is yet another reason why this board must remain vigilant and knowledgeable about the Governor’s plan. As part of his explanation, Phyllis does not believe that Governor Strickland will increase taxes as part of the fix because Ohio’s economy cannot sustain tax increases, however, he did leave the door open to his group imposing tax increases on Ohio via the amendment if they are dissatisfied with the Governor’s plan. My biggest concern is that absent a tax increase, the governor will be redistributing K-12 dollars and in any redistribution plan, Worthington probably loses.

My second concern comes to us from observing my colleague, Professor Wilson. Charlie totes around a copy of the board policy manual and is usually aghast at how frequently it is disregarded. I spent some time with the board policy manual last week and he is correct. While certainly not intentional, there are items which are almost never followed and some which are simply outdated, at least in the 3 chapters that I looked at. The question is – what, if anything, are we going to do about it. Going through the policy manual and reaching consensus on changes in a massive undertaking, but it seems unacceptable to have policies which are universally disregarded. My thought is to try to tackle the problem over time, perhaps one or two chapters per year, but I am certainly open to other suggestions.