Board continues Austintown’s open-enrollment policy

By Justin Wier

jwier@vindy.com

AUSTINTOWN

The Austintown schools will continue the open-enrollment policy in the 2017-18 school year.

New board President Alex Benyo said at the Wednesday night meeting that while board members weighed community concerns about open enrollment, the data shows it’s beneficial to the district.

“There’s a lot of data for the community to digest to really be able to make a good honest opinion versus rumors and concerns that may or may not be true,” Benyo said.

Superintendent Vince Colaluca added there is no statistical difference between resident students and open-enrollment students in terms of attendance, test scores or behavior.

A committee convened to assess the impact of open enrollment will report its findings to the district at a Jan. 25 meeting. The district will rely on those findings to determine guidelines on how many students it will admit.

A report issued by the state auditor in October found the district experienced a net loss of $25,652 on open-enrollment students during the 2015 fiscal year.

“We disagree with some of the things the state auditor is saying,” Colaluca said.

He said the auditor’s findings were dependent on reducing the number of buildings and spending $350,000 less on athletics, decisions the district opposes.

The decision to continue open enrollment passed on a 4-1 vote, with board member Harold Porter dissenting.

Porter said his opposition to open enrollment led him to run for school board, and that the policy has gotten out of control.

He doesn’t think the district will be able to get a levy passed or fund the construction of a new building for Fitch High School until the program ends, though he said it would have to happen in stages.

“There’s no way you can cut it all at once,” he said. “We can’t go cold turkey on it.”

The school has 773 open-enrollment students. Colaluca said if the district decides to reduce the number of students it admits, it doesn’t want to harm any current open-enrollment students.

In other business, the board accepted a $2,000 donation from Jay Morgan, a former high school principal, to establish the Dr. David Ritchie Legacy Foundation. Dr. Ritchie has served on the school board since 1967, and the foundation will provide scholarships for students who excel in terms of academics, leadership or commitment to the community.

The board also refinanced $3.7 million in bonds and increased the rate paid to security guards from $22 to $25 per hour.