Ohio educators hold town hall in Sheffield Lake on public school funding cuts

Public educators from five area school districts held a town hall Tuesday at Joyce Hanks Community Center in Sheffield Lake to describe how changes in state legislature have impacted public school funding. Rebecah Jones from the Ohio Education Association said state funding has not kept up with rising education costs. "Our state Legislature is continuing to fail in its responsibility to adequately fund education from the state level," Jones said The state's current budget, signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine in June 2025, increased public education funding by $281.9 million over the biennium. But this budget moves away from full implementation of the bipartisan Fair School Funding Plan (FSFP), an approach that focuses on using current data on student demographics, property values and district's personal income levels to determine the cost of educating Ohio's kids. "The current budget breaks that concept," Jones said. "And it does so by cost inputs from 2022." Local educators have also said the budget prioritizes funding to private and charter schools. Superintendents Wes Weaver of Vermilion and Mike Molnar of Amherst noted the impacts they're seeing within their district due to limited state funding. "There's some nice property in Vermilion … and it's valuable," Weaver said. "It makes us look to the state as if we are rich. The rising percentages of students that we have who are on free or reduced lunch don't make it seem that way." In December, Amherst Schools approved a state-required budget reduction plan of $13.2 million over fiscal years 2026 to 2029, and eliminated 48 positions, cutting $10.3 million from its staffing costs about $3 million from supplies, contracts and software. The plan also resulted in the elimination of four bus driver positions, forcing the district to adjust its busing plan. Voters also defeated Issue 1, an income tax rate of 0.75 percent to fund Amherst schools, as well as a 1.5 percent income tax in November. Vermilion announced it was eliminating seven positions in February: Five staff members from Vermilion High School and two reading specialists at Vermilion Elementary School and Sailorway Middle School. The district said the cuts stemmed from financial pressure due to rising costs, changes to public school funding from the state level and a bond issue that failed in November, according to past reporting. Jones said she wants to see state representatives held accountable and see them prioritize education funding. "Increasingly more and more people from our communities are gaining an awareness that something about the system is broken, but they don't always know how those decisions were made," she said. Contact Gabrielle Monk at gmonk@chroniclet.com.