Liberty schools will sue state over vouchers

LIBERTY — The school district has passed a resolution announcing its intent to bring a lawsuit against the state to recover money that Ohio is spending to send students using vouchers to private schools.

“What’s been lost [financially] in the past and is projected to be lost in the future is devastating to this school system,” Superintendent Mark Lucas said after Tuesday’s board of education meeting.

The decision comes one week after voters overwhelmingly defeated a 10-year 9.9-mill emergency operating levy.

The move also will authorize Lucas to look for a team of attorneys to represent the district for free. The district’s next move will be to seek legal advice from local and state lawyers, several of whom have called to express an interest in pursuing the action, Lucas noted.

Lucas and board President Gloria Lang said that the core argument in the lawsuit will be that the vouchers, along with the state school funding formula, is unconstitutional.

The program offers tuition for youngsters in academically troubled public schools to attend private schools.

For two years, E.J. Blott Elementary School had been in academic watch, but has moved up to continuous improvement on the state report card. Those pupils were eligible for the voucher program during the 2007-08 school year.

Predicting a $1.8 million deficit by the end of the next fiscal year, Lucas said that the district pays about $5,200 per pupil who uses a voucher. Over 12 years, that comes to more than $62,000, a situation the board has said is unfair to township taxpayers.

This year, the taxpayers will have to spend roughly $700,000 to send 134 youngsters to private schools, the superintendent said.

For the full story, see Wednesday's Vindicator or Vindy.com.