These are challenging times for Liberty school board

These are challenging times for Liberty school board

The Liberty Local School District Board of Education has an enormous job ahead of it.

It is under extreme economic duress. It was the victim of a glitch in the state’s voucher law that resulted in scores of students being able to transfer from an under-performing elementary school to parochial schools during a small window. Those transfers will cost the district millions of dollars in state aid because those students will be entitled to vouchers as long as they attend private schools, through the 12th grade. For a variety of reasons, Liberty residents are demonstrably unwilling to approve new taxes for the district, at least in the amount that is necessary to continue functioning. A 9.9-mill levy was defeated by a margin of 4-to-1 in May. It is back on the ballot in November, but even its strongest supporters hold no real hope for its approval. Two of the three incumbents who could have sought re-election in November aren’t running.

And to top it off, the district’s financial situation is so critical that it could slip into receivership under which the state Department of Education would be calling the shots.

Under those circumstances, it wouldn’t be surprising if no one wanted a job on the Liberty Board of Education, and yet five well qualified candidates are in the running for three seats.

Nohra

We found the strongest of those to be Joseph Nohra, a 38-year-old father of two, who says he moved back to Liberty Township because he is convinced it and its school district have a brighter future ahead.

Nohra, who holds a master’s degree from Youngstown State University, is an assistant high school principal in Austintown. His professional background, his personal commitment to the township and its schools, and his willingness to look for new ways of meeting the district’s goals are impressive.

Lang

The next strongest candidate is the lone incumbent, Gloria Lang, a 77-year-old Delphi retiree who is completing her first term on the board. Lang notes that the seeds of the financial crisis the district is mired in were planted before she joined the board and that she has played a role in working on solutions. She said the board knew it was in a precarious position, and it met with unions and the administration. Cuts were made that saved $680,000 in benefit packages. Those were made, she said, before a state audit was released criticizing the board for excessive spending on employee fringes, especially health care.

She noted that while the district is losing hundreds of thousands of state dollars for students who have taken vouchers for private schools or transferred to other districts through open enrollment, the district continues to bear the cost of transporting students to 13 different schools outside the district.

She supports efforts the district has made to challenge a state law that, she said, unfairly penalizes the local district.

Flanagan

The three remaining candidates are Michael Ceci 41, a tax agent for the Ohio Department of Taxation; Christine Flanagan, 55, a special education supervisor for the Youngstown City School District, and David Hight, 44, a millwright for Parker Hannifin, who has been active as a coach and as high school football and basketball referee.

Ceci is the most passionate, especially on matters of school finances, but seems unwilling to even acknowledge some of the progress that the board has made. Hight is sincere, and moved to the district seeking a better education for his children, who are now in high school, but offered little insight when questioned about the district’s financial situation. While either is capable of serving and would bring varying strengths and weaknesses to the board, we were most impressed by Flanagan.

Her career has been spent in the difficult area of special education, as a teacher in Pennsylvania and Warren, and for the last 10 years as a supervisor in Youngstown. She has an insight into the challenges of education that exceeds even that of Nohra, and she has considerable experience in both classroom and supervisory positions. She acknowledges the progress that has been made in reining in some of the expenses in Liberty and says more will have to be made, along with a better effort at marketing the district.

Based on the professional and personal backgrounds of the candidates and on our interviews with them, we believe Liberty could be well served by any combination of these five candidates, but are convinced the best three are those we’ve endorsed: Nohra, Lang and Flanagan.