January 18, 2007

By Diane Chiddister

At their Jan. 11 meeting, members of the Yellow Springs Board of Education took a first step toward putting a renewal of the school’s current emergency property tax levy on the May ballot. At the meeting board members approved a resolution to show necessity to renew the levy at the current amount; they are expected to actually put the levy on the ballot at their February meeting.

The proposed levy would raise $1,060,000 annually for three years.

Because it’s a renewal of an already existing levy, the May levy will not mean an increase in current property taxes for the school, board members emphasized; rather, property owners will continue to pay the same amount they’re already paying.

“This is for a renewal of what amounts to 16 percent of what it takes to run the schools,” board member Richard Lapedes said this week. “We don’t want more but it’s difficult to run the schools without that income.”

Lapedes and board member Anne -Erickson are co-chairs of the levy campaign committee. According to School Superintendent Tony Armocida, that committee will make the case for the levy to the public in upcoming months.

Armocida and District Treasurer Joy Kitzmiller first identified the likely need for a renewal levy at an October school board meeting. While discussing the school’s five-year forecast, Armocida stated then that the schools were expected to have a 2006 deficit of about $746,000.

If the deficit is not addressed, the schools would reach a negative cash balance by the 2009–10 school year, Armocida said at the October meeting. Currently, the school district has a $3.5 million budget surplus due to $1.2 million from the reorganization of The Antioch Company, a large property tax reappraisal in 2003, and years of revenues exceeding expenditures.

To keep the district budget balanced for the 2007–08 school year, the district will need to trim about $150,000 from the budget, Armocida said Thursday night. School board members and administrators have not yet addressed how they will make those cuts.

Armocida stated that due to the levy campaign, the board should make its 2007–2008 Education Plan public earlier than usual. While the plan is usually presented in April, Armocida said he hopes to have a draft ready by the board’s March meeting.

In other board business:
• Board members enthusiastically endorsed a new program at Yellow Springs High School and the McKinney School designed to enhance literacy.

“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to get kids to sit down and read,” YSHS Principal John Gudgel said when introducing the program.

The program, called the YSHS/McKinney Literacy Initiative, has two components, according to YSHS English teacher Elizabeth Lutz. First, program organizers hope to introduce students to strategies to make them better readers.

“We do have kids who are struggling readers,” Lutz said.

When young people have trouble reading, that difficulty affects them in all of their classes, and also makes taking standardized tests more problematic, she said.

The program’s second component is to “enhance the reading culture,” according to Lutz, who said that young people’s ever-increasing use of technology has made them less likely to want to pick up a book and read.

Literacy Initiative organizers plan initially to work with other teachers to teach strategies to help students read more easily, Lutz said, and will also take steps to make reading a more significant part of the school day. For instance, she said, she plans to establish a weekly time in her classes for each student to read the book of his or her choice, in order to promote the culture of reading.

Lutz also hopes to enhance the school’s library with donated books to offer students more reading options, she said.

• In recognition of January as board recognition month, Armocida presented each board member with a plaque honoring them for their service.

“You’re providing a service to the children in the community and to the community itself,” he said.

• In their first organizational meeting of 2007, board members re-elected current president Angela Wright, and elected Aida Merhemic as vice-president. They appointed the following board members to standing committees: to the Student Review Board, Merhemic; to the Yellow Springs Endowment for Education, Erickson; to the insurance committee, Lapedes and Wright; to the open enrollment committee, Wright. Lapedes was appointed legislative liaison and Erickson was appointed student achievement liaison.

• Board members agreed to meet at 7 p.m. the second and fourth Thursday of each month at the John Graham Conference Room at Mills Lawn School.

• Board members approved board compensation of $125 per meeting for 24 meetings, along with a variety of other measures to enable the school district to do its legal and financial business.

• The board approved the submission of the tax budget for fiscal year 2008 to the county auditor.

• The board approved co-curricular contracts for Craig Conrad, as assistant baseball coach at $1,213 and David Johnston, as assistant track coach at $1,893.

• The board approved several appropriations and modifications for fiscal year 2007.

• The board approved a revision of the brochure, “Picture Yourself in Yellow Springs Schools.”

• The board approved second readings for policies on the district crisis response plan, emergency situations at schools and home schooling.

• The board canceled its second meeting of the month. It scheduled a work session for Thursday, Feb. 15, from 1 to 5 p.m.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com