Strickland budget plan could hurt some vocational schools in Ohio

By Harold Gwin

YOUNGSTOWN — Changes in state education funding in Gov. Ted Strickland’s proposed biennial budget could have a devastating effect on career and technical education in cities like Youngstown.

House Bill 1 would eliminate weighted funding for career tech programs run by individual school districts and small compacts of three or four districts. Larger joint vocational schools/tech centers such as the Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana career and technical centers wouldn’t be affected.

Weighted funding is state aid based on student enrollment.

Choffin Career & Technical Center in Youngstown is receiving $900,000 in weighted funding this year.

The school serves 515 students in 21 programs, with more than 10 percent of the students coming from schools outside of the city.

The proposed state staffing model would provide funding for only one career tech teacher for every 10 core subject teachers in a district’s high schools, said Joseph Meranto, Choffin director. Youngstown has 35 career tech teachers now, 21 of them at Choffin alone, and the funding change would reduce that total number to just 10.

State Rep. Ron Gerberry of Austintown, D-59th, said the funding change appears to be an oversight in the budget document.

He said he’s spoken with the chairman of the House subcommittee working on plans for the implementation of the governor’s budget and was told that the language affecting the individual, free-standing career centers will be changed.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.