Parents object to open enrollment for Fitch

By Ed Runyan

Some parents questioned whether the safety of the children would be threatened.

AUSTINTOWN — The sentiment of the 100 or so citizens attending a public hearing on open enrollment at Austintown Fitch High School on Monday night was unanimous: They’re against it.

The tally among the five school board members — mixed. Two members are against it, two said they hadn’t formed an opinion, and the fifth, Dr. David Ritchie, said: “If you listen to everybody, nobody’s in favor of it, so I don’t imagine it’s going to go too far.”

The two against it were Richard Zimmermann and Traci Morse Merlo. Louis Chine and Joyce Pogany said the were undecided.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Doug Heuer continued to discuss the need for additional revenue to run the district in the face of dropping state revenue and increasing costs.

He said approving open enrollment would probably increase the student-teacher ratio in the district depending on how many new students were received, but the cost of doing nothing could be worse.

Heuer said accepting an additional 150 students into the district might increase the student-teacher ratio by one-half student per classroom, but having to make up the money lost by not having open enrollment could lead to an additional two students per classroom at the elementary level.

Heuer said that in the event of staffing cuts, the elementary level would be cut first because it has the most excess capacity.

All the talk about the need for more revenue and the public’s distaste for open enrollment caused board members to begin talking about levies.

“Since all the people are so much against [open enrollment], they need to get behind us for a levy,” he said.

Zimmermann said he will vote against open enrollment if it comes to a board vote at the 6:30 p.m. board meeting April 21 at Frank Ohl Intermediate School.

The main reason, he said, is that adding 200 open-enrollment students would raise $1.1 million.

“That’s a pebble in a pond,” he said.

He said it doesn’t make sense to get the Austintown voters upset by approving open enrollment because those voters will be needed to approve a levy eventually.

All of those who spoke at the meeting were against open enrollment.

Cathy Jones, mother of students attending the district, said many parents have “grave concerns” about whether open enrollment would lead to unsafe conditions within Austintown.

For instance, one of the allowable exclusions is any student who has been suspended or expelled for 10 consecutive days in the current school year or previous school year. She wonders just how bad someone’s behavior would have to be to get suspended for 10 days.

“What constitutes 10 days — fighting or a knife?” she asked.

Heuer, meanwhile, said discussions he has had with superintendents in districts with open enrollment has shown that children with disciplinary problems are not the ones applying to leave their district.

Looking at a breakdown of the 123 students who currently leave the Austintown school district to attend other open-enrollment districts, some parents said the problem may be that the district isn’t doing a good enough job to keep its students.

The list said Weathersfield currently gets the largest number of Austintown open-enrollment students at 69, followed by Jackson Milton at 20, Berlin Western Reserve at 12, and Youngstown with 7.

runyan@vindy.com