Efforts to cut costs being made

March 31, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

POLAND

History likely won’t repeat itself in the Poland School district despite numerous efforts to shave costs following state funding cutbacks.

Superintendent Robert Zorn, who temporarily closed one elementary school in 1985 due to plummeting enrollment, said the thought has crossed his mind, but not too seriously.

“Have I thought about it? Yeah,” he said. “I’ve kicked that around. I don’t know yet.”

The district is facing upward of $1.3 million in state-funding cuts. It also has placed two levies on the May ballot: a 3.6-mill emergency renewal levy that would generate $1,369,748 annually for five years and a 4.9-mill emergency levy that would generate $1.875 million annually for the same period.

School board president Elinor Zedaker didn’t speculate, but said the district had to “consider all cost-saving measures.”

Zorn also said that under Ohio state law regarding public nuisance, a district can’t abandon a school in a residential area.

Zorn said in the 1980s, Union was a continuing- education community center when it wasn’t a school.

The district previously closed Union Elementary in 1985 due to plummeting enrollment, but reopened it in the 1990s as an elementary school housing kindergarten through third graders. It was part of a $2.5 million project that helped renovate the high and middle schools.

Class size is also a variable, as the state still requires a 25:1 or fewer student-to-teacher ratio. Another is formulating a way to fit all elementary students in three buildings. Dobbins and North, which have fewer than 230 students each, are similar in size and number of classrooms.

Both have significantly fewer students than McKinley and Union, which have upward of 350.

Zedaker said it would be difficult to try and pack 400 students into one building.

Utility cost for elementary schools is about $50,000 for electric, water and energy, Zorn said.

Poland’s enrollment has fluctuated between 2,336 and 2,552 over the past 10 years, but with state budget cuts and two pending levies, as many as 28 employees might not return next school year.