MCDONALD School district requests to send students to TCTC

The career center's board will decide this week whether McDonald students will be accepted.
McDONALD-- The village school district has become the third in a former compact of five Trumbull County districts to seek admission of its vocational education students in the Trumbull County Career and Technical Center.
The compact -- Niles, McDonald, Weathersfield, Howland and Lordstown -- sent vocational students to the Gordon D. James Career Center, Lordstown, for 25 years.
The career center board will vote Thursday on whether to accept McDonald students as of July 1. Niles and Weathersfield school boards have voted to join TCTC in recent weeks.
The compact began to unravel when the Niles Board of Education voted in late December to pull out of the Gordon James center.
Not much choice: McDonald district treasurer Thomas Radabaugh said that after Weathersfield decided to also join TCTC, it left the McDonald little choice.
If the district is accepted, a 2-mill levy will be added to McDonald School District's tax bills starting in February 2003 to pay for its students to attend the county vocational school.
Superintendent Robert Bloniarz will issue a special newsletter to residents the day after the TCTC board votes on whether to accept McDonald. Students will get a look at the TCTC on Feb. 27.
Collections on the new levy would begin in January. The owner of a $100,000 house would pay $62 a year more. The vocational school levy is voted on countywide every 10 years and is up for a vote in four years, Radabaugh said.
The district had to select a comprehensive vocational education by June 30 or face state penalties.
The district sends 21 students to the Gordon James center this year