'Something special:' Murray Ridge School future uncertain without levy passage

ELYRIA — Dann Swift cracked open a worn, leather wallet with a smile. The director of education at Murray Ridge School handed over $6 for a box of Girl Scout cookies to Jordan, a student who had popped into his office, aide in tow, to sell the sweet treats for her troop's benefit. Jordan, one of about 130 students at the school, quietly took Swift's money and walked off to sell another box to another teacher, while Swift sent the wares he had just purchased on to another staff member. For Swift, seeing his students participate in Murray Ridge School's Scouting opportunities, or on stage at its annual talent show, was part of what they worked for in the aging building off Murray Ridge Road. "If we weren't needed, the program wouldn't be here," he said of the school. "It is needed — by the parents, by our partner school districts, by the community." Murray Ridge School serves students with severe developmental disabilities, medical and behavioral needs. The school opened in the early 1970s as an expansion of Murray Ridge Center under the Lorain County Board of Developmental Disabilities. In the years since, it has become a lifeline for families with children facing myriads of medical and developmental setbacks, meeting each child where they are from preschool through graduation. For younger children, they receive as much academics as they can — sight words, numbers and so on — and some return to their home district after a few years with Murray Ridge teachers, Swift said. For older students, the curriculum can focus on life skills like collecting money at a cash register or being a good co-worker. "It's a service that many people in our community need," he said. "And people fought so hard to get it, we certainly want to make sure it continues to serve the people of Lorain County." Now, with a levy on the ballot in May, that service may be in jeopardy. 'It's still needed' Superintendent Amber Fisher told The Chronicle-Telegram's Editorial Board that Murray Ridge School could shutter by the 2027-28 school year if the upcoming levy fails. Issue 11, a 0.85-mill increase to fund Murray Ridge Center and School operations, would bring in about $10 million each year, if passed. It would cost the owners of a $100,000 home in the county $30 each year, according to the Lorain County Auditor's Office. The county Board of Developmental Disabilities brings in about $38 million in revenue, including from two existing levies, but last year it spent about $45 million to provide services to more than 3,000 clients in the county — including the 130 students at Murray Ridge School, Fisher told The Chronicle. That difference in revenue and expenses dates to the pandemic and drops in reimbursement rates, coupled with increased costs due to a shortage of service providers. For students at Murray Ridge School, about half the costs for their education and care are covered by the money Murray Ridge receives from the state on those students' behalf. State funding for students with disabilities is higher than their neurotypical counterparts, and that funding follows the child from their home district to Murray Ridge School. Swift estimated Murray Ridge School receives $10,000 to $15,000 per student, depending on the child's diagnoses and other factors. That covers about half the costs of the school, with the rest paid from the county board's general budget, supported by other levies. Escalating costs have put the school on the potential chopping block because the county is not required to offer it, or the preschool at Murray Ridge School, Swift said. There was some philosophical thought through the years that the school would close and that its students would be better served in integrated classrooms with their peers at their home districts, Swift said. "You see, it didn't happen," he said. "It's still needed." He used Jordan, the Girl Scout who sold him cookies earlier that day, as an example. She requires specifically trained staff who know her needs, know that she will get up and walk around and interact with people — try to hug them, sit with them — which in a public school setting could disrupt a class of 20 other students. For children with behavioral needs, who may have outbursts, or those with medical issues like epilepsy, every staff member at Murray Ridge School is trained to care for them, Swift said, and to keep the day moving without those outbursts or other events derailing other students. "You might have a student having a severe behavior in the middle of our lunchroom — everyone knows how to handle it," Swift said. "In a school district, if that same thing happened … it wouldn't be as accepted. The benefit of our students, our staff knowing how to deal with that situation and then eventually, hopefully learning to adjust their behavior accordingly is more probable here." Michelle Alten-Simon, of Elyria, cannot imagine sending her daughter, Iceley, 10, anywhere else. Iceley has been at Murray Ridge School since preschool. She is medically fragile, requiring a feeding tube, has had several surgeries on her gastrointestinal tract and recently was diagnosed with a gene mutation that causes brain abnormalities. She is also autistic. When Alten-Simon and her husband adopted Iceley — an 18-month-old on a feeding tube they drove to Columbus and back to take into their care first as foster parents — they knew Murray Ridge would be a better fit. "These kids need this school, this county needs this school," she said, adding that her family moved to Lorain County for the services Murray Ridge offers. "It's not a traditional classroom. They learn at their own pace — if a child needs to leave the classroom for a while, it's fine. It's much freer." Without Murray Ridge, 10-year-old Iceley would be back in the public school system, her mother guessed, but that would not be fair to her daughter, or the other kids in the district, she said. The staff at Murray Ridge do more than provide an education, she said, they also take care of the children at the school, like changing or bathing them after an accident or other issue. The other option would be for Iceley to be at home with her mother with a home health aide for support, Alten-Simon said, but she recognized that is not an option for many families. It would not be fair for Iceley, either, she said, as her child loves school and her friends and Murray Ridge is where she needs to be. "Some of these kids, including my daughter, are so special that they need to be in a classroom with several aides, a teacher, a paraprofessional — they need all that extra support," she said. Turmoil Lorain Schools' Linda Coad, executive director of exceptional children, is in the middle of building out her district's new school for students with autism, set to open next school year. Frank Jacinto Elementary will be repurposed as the specialized school, with the hopes of meeting the needs of students currently transported outside the district. Of the approximately 1,700 students with special needs Lorain Schools serves, 30 attend Murray Ridge School, Coad said. The school's potential closure would be a loss of resources, and loss of community, for the families it serves, she said. "They have this special niche where they work with most of our students with very complex needs. It's unique to the county that they work with students with medical (and) other type of disabilities," she said. "They provide this family setting for our families where they feel comfortable going to Murray Ridge to ask for support because as a family to navigate everything is really challenging." Murray Ridge School holds a special place for Coad, who got her start in special education there. As a college student, she worked at a summer camp and in the workshops, and quickly dubbed it her "happy place." "The community there, the culture they build in that school, you can't help but smile," she said. "... It is something special that they've created over many years." Lorain County is one of less than three dozen other Developmental Disability Boards operating a school, Swift said. Without Murray Ridge School, families must place students in their home school's special education programs, or private or nonprofit facilities. For Tracey Johnson, whose son, Brady, is in high school at Murray Ridge, putting him back in classes at North Ridgeville Schools does not seem like a good fit, she said. Brady, who has Down syndrome, attended North Ridgeville Schools for several years, and transferred to Murray Ridge when he was 10. During his time at the school, the now 18-year-old has come out of his shell, his mother said. "They just allow them to be themselves," Johnson said. " … They've worked really hard with me to get Brady a speech device that we had, a lot of prescriptions that had to be written, insurance companies involved … they just go above and beyond to get what these kids need." While Brady loved school in North Ridgeville, his mother said, the support provided was not enough as he got older, prompting the move. She recognized no one wants to pay more taxes, but that does not make Murray Ridge any less vital. "I can't imagine not having the school here," Johnson said. "How many families depend on the education and the family setting that this school offers? Our children, I can't — it makes me emotional to think about 50 years of education just no more." Coad said if students were to return to their home districts, schools would be required to provide adequate services — which could include contracting with additional nursing staff for medications or feeding tubes or providing aides as required in a child's education plan. It could also mean placing students in facilities elsewhere in, or outside of, Lorain County such as United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Cleveland. Just like at Murray Ridge, those services cost money. And for a school district like Lorain, in the midst of $17 million in budget reductions and trying to pass an operating levy of its own, adding more self-contained special education classrooms may drive other "hard decisions" within the cash-strapped district. It may change what the school for autism looks like at Jacinto, she said, but she assured that everything would be done in partnership with families. "Our job is to help them pick up those pieces," she said of families a closure could affect. Ideally, for Swift and the other staff and families served by Murray Ridge School, there are no pieces to be picked up. In years past, Lorain County voters have overwhelmingly supported renewals for the board, with its most recent levy seeing nearly two-thirds of votes cast in its favor in 2023. He recognized the uncertainty the Board of Developmental Disabilities faces alongside other entities reliant on property taxes when talks of a referendum to eliminate property taxes weigh in the background of every levy campaign. A group is collecting signatures to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to eliminate property taxes. It has not offered an alternative funding source for the public schools, libraries, fire and police departments that rely on those funds. For Alten-Simon, supporting the levy for her daughter's school was an easy choice that she hoped others would make as well. "If you vote no on the levy, it means that you don't have a child with special needs, you've never met a child with special needs and you're completely ignorant," she said. Contact Carissa Woytach at ctnews@chroniclet.com.