January 30, 2009

We’re wrapping up another week and—hard to believe—another month! Not sure where January has gone, other than it’s been buried under a pile of snow! I hope you were all able to travel safely, stay warm, and maintain power throughout this latest winter blast. I’ve noticed all the spring gardening supplies are on display in the stores. That and the extra few minutes of daylight every day are hopeful signs of warmer, sunnier days to come!

Several members of the Administrative Team, as well as Shane Haggerty, attended the Ohio Association of Career-Technical Education Legislative Conference this past Wednesday and Thursday with me. We had an opportunity to meet with all six of our local legislators or their aides: Senators Keith Faber, Steve Buehrer, and Karen Gillmore, as well as Representatives Cliff Hite, John Adams, and Dave Burke. Many thanks to Shane for setting up these appointments. These face-to-face visits give us an opportunity to share with our legislators success stories of our students, new initiatives we have on campus, and future program plans. We are also able to stress to them the importance of maintaining our per-pupil funding as well as our career-tech weighted funding so that we can continue to offer services at the current level. Building these relationships is especially critical during these times of transition for education in Ohio. Several of the legislators and/or their aides requested additional information from us, and we will certainly send that to them right away. In addition, we encouraged them to visit our programs to see for themselves the tremendous opportunities we offer young people and adults; and we’ll follow up with a formal invitation in the near future. (Representative Burke is already scheduled for February 13.)

We learned from one of the many speakers at the Legislative Conference that 48 members of the House of Representatives have two or fewer years of experience as legislators—so we have a lot of educating to do! I’m confident that when those legislators visit us that they’ll recognize the quality instruction you provide our students and see the difference that the relevance of career-technical education makes.

I also shared with you earlier this week a summary of Governor Strickland’s State-of-the-State Address. While it’s difficult to argue with the premise of his proposed reform package, the question on all of our minds is how these initiatives will be funded, particularly in light of funding cuts proposed last month by the Governor. One of our speakers on Thursday morning at the conference was John Stanford, Executive Assistant and advisor to the Governor on education policy. I had the opportunity to ask Mr. Stanford if, in light of the Governor’s reform package, the earlier proposed cuts could still be expected. He explained that, if the President’s economic stimulus package should pass the Senate without major revision, the cuts will be reconsidered due to the revenues that Ohio would receive. But he also said something that concerns me—a good portion of the stimulus funds would come to states as Title I and IDEA funds, which would put considerable restrictions on how they could be utilized at the local level.
However, a recent update from the National School Boards Association outlined that while $26 billion of the education stimulus package would be administered through Title I and IDEA (Ohio’s portion for these would total approximately 9.8 billion), another $39 billion would flow to states through “emergency state funds” to K-12 and higher education (it’s unclear what Ohio’s portion would be). These emergency funds would flow over the next two years; so in my mind, that begs the question—then what? I suppose the more answers we get the more questions we’ll have! Governor Strickland has promised to roll out his state budget plan to the legislature early next week, and that should answer some of the looming questions. These certainly are interesting times to be in education!

Speaking of “interesting times,” I hope you’ll all take a moment to thank our Facilities & Grounds staff for the tremendous job they’ve done this week (and this winter) in keeping our campus clean and safe during all this messy weather. While you’re at home in the morning waiting for that phone call regarding a delay or cancellation (and I’m trying to find my glasses so I can see the computer screen to register the AlertNow phone call!), our Facilities & Grounds staff are already at work in the very early hours of the morning to get a head start on clearing parking lots and sidewalks. Snow is one thing, but a “sandwich” of ice, snow, and more ice make it an even more difficult task. Having spent quite a bit of time in downtown Columbus this past week slopping through uncleared snow and ice, I can truly appreciate how good we have it!

Have a warm, safe weekend!