Coffee and Conversation meeting gives community members information on the status of the Wooster City School District
By Sharon Haught
March 8, 2010
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The coffee flowed and the conversation meandered through a broad range of topics as community members gathered at Muddy Waters Café for the second in Wooster City School District Superintendent Michael Tefs informal Coffee and Conversations Feb. 26.
During the 90-minute session Tefs fielded questions on everything from how snow days are determined to the districts ongoing plan to update student curriculum.
But it was the topic of the 6.5 mill operating levy that will appear on the May 4 ballot that garnered a great deal of attention.
Its tough. I know that, said Tefs. I live here in Wooster. I pay the same taxes that you do. I have the same children that you have.
Wooster isnt alone in its bid for additional funding.
Everybody is hurting, said Tefs. I think that half of Wayne County is on the ballot in May and there are statistics that two-thirds of the 611 school systems in the state of Ohio will be on the ballot either in May or November.
Communities and their school systems are going to be defined in these next 10 months, said Tefs. Youre going to see school districts that are really going to struggle and I think they are going to begin to get stagnant or regress, or those that are going to be able to will continue to progress.
Tefs noted that the 6.5 mill operating levy, which equates to about $16.60 per month on every $100,000 in property valuation, will generate $4 million per year in revenue for the district.
I can assure you that those dollars will do nothing for us to add anything new, said Tefs. Its to maintain what we have now.
Some of you wont like that answer because you want to see X happen, Tefs acknowledged.
I will tell you that were just not going to be able to raise those kinds of dollars to get aggressive on new programs, but we can have the opportunity to maintain the excellence that we have, continue the curriculum that we have, continue the post secondary options that we have for our students in preparing them for college, said Tefs.
He noted that the levy campaign has a great head of steam right now but that the district has its work cut out to educate voters about the levy, particularly the 30 percent of the citys population that doesnt have a child in the school system.
The schoolhouse, I feel like weve got that, but we wont pull this levy off with just the schoolhouse of faculty, parents and kids. Were going to need to get outside of the schoolhouse to be successful, said Tefs.
According to Tefs, in this early stage of the campaign, people are starting to get some really good questions and were learning from those and were changing our campaign strategy based on what were hearing.
Tefs noted that the Wooster Schools Alliance, the group of community leaders and parents running the levy campaign, has launched a Web site designed to provide additional information on the levy request.
That can be accessed either through the Levy Information link that appears on the districts Web site at www.wooster cityschools.org or directly at www.woosterschoolsal liance.org.
