Austintown board seeks input from public on open enrollment

By Ed Runyan

Accepting 200 pupils would generate $1.1 million per year for the district.

AUSTINTOWN — Aware that open enrollment could create controversy, the school board is asking district residents to express their views on it.

A public hearing will be 7 p.m. April 14 in the Austintown Fitch High School auditorium.

Doug Heuer, superintendent, says he will urge the board to vote at its next regular meeting April 21 to decide whether to approve an open-enrollment policy. Such a policy would permit pupils who live in other districts to attend Austintown schools.

Heuer said he previously thought the decision had to be made by March 30 but learned that the Ohio Department of Education doesn’t have a specific cutoff date. He said the state requires the decision by the end of this month.

That decision is one of several important ones Heuer is urging board members to make this month.

The others are when to ask voters for additional tax money at the polls and whether to make layoffs before the start of the 2008-09 school year.

Though Heuer said he doesn’t believe board members will be ready to decide officially at the April 21 meeting about a levy request for the August or November ballot, they will have to decide on a mixture of tax increases and layoffs by then to head off what he now projects to be a $4.9 million deficit at the end of the 2008-09 school year.

A decision to permit open enrollment would reduce the amount of additional tax money needed at the ballot and the number of layoffs, he said.

Heuer notified the teachers union April 1 that as many as 37 teachers could be laid off this summer. That is more than triple the number that have been on that same list his first two years as superintendent, he said. The list contained about 10 to 12 names then, he said.

Heuer explained that he is required by law to notify the union by April 1 of any teaching positions that might be reduced for next school year. The only ones certain at this point are two elementary teachers who are retiring, he said. Additional reductions will be affected by decisions on open enrollment and additional revenue.

Sandy DeCerbo, president of the Austintown Education Association, has not returned phone calls seeking comment on the notification.

Lou Chine, one of the five school board members, said he hopes the public hearing will separate fact and fiction on open enrollment and restore some of the public’s confidence in the board.

“For the past several years, nobody wants to trust the board,” said Chine, elected last November. He said he hopes the public will ask questions, learn about the issue and understand “everything we know.”

Chine said some district residents have told him they oppose open enrollment because they think it would increase the district’s busing costs and affect special education classes.

Both are untrue, Chine said. Open enrollment students are required to provide their own transportation, and no special education students would be accepted, he said.

Heuer said he supports open enrollment because accepting about 200 pupils would generate about $1.1 million per year in revenue, or the equivalent of about 1.8 mills worth of property tax revenue. Each open enrollment pupil brings in $5,565 in state revenue.

Austintown would likely allow open enrollment in grades kindergarten through Grade 4 and Grades 9 through 12. Grades 5 through 8 are full, Heuer said.

Heuer said the district would accept up to 200 pupils because those could be added without adding any staff to the district.

As for the concern that the school system might be flooded with problem pupils, Heuer said he has been told by administrators at other open-enrollment districts that the transportation issue tends to limit the option to families that are committed to education.

Chine added that Austintown would have some ability to set limits on what it will accept. He said the public is invited to participate in setting those limits.

runyan@vindy.com