Lima will open doors for 'Public Schools Week'

Yahoo

21-03-2025

Mar. 20—LIMA — Lima schools Superintendent Jill Ackerman likes to say the district has something to offer for every student.
She plans to open the doors to Lima Senior High School on Tuesday to show the public just how much the district has to offer now: from the high school's 12 career technical programs, student clubs and dual-credit classes to its orchestra program and classes for disabled students.
"You want to see where your tax dollars are going?" Ackerman said. "We owe that to our community. Let us show you what we're doing."
Lima schools will begin its annual Public Schools Week tradition with a 15-minute pep rally at the high school.
The Lima Senior Marching Pride, Spartan Cheerleaders, Mayor Sharetta Smith and other speakers will welcome visitors, who are invited to tour the high school's career tech labs, view student artwork, make buttons in the graphics classroom or play in the kid zone until 7 p.m.
"There are so many ways we are reaching every child," Ackerman said. "So many things we do to help the most vulnerable and most high-achieving students, and all those in between. So many ways we embrace students and their families regardless of their circumstances."
Lima schools started Public Schools Week a decade ago to promote public schools amid the expansion of private school vouchers.
Lawmakers initially created the publicly funded scholarships so students in low-performing Cleveland schools could afford to attend private schools. The scholarships are now available to any Ohio child, regardless of where they live or how much their parents earn.
Ohio spent nearly $1 billion last school year on the scholarships, which now award as much as $6,166 per year for children in kindergarten through eighth grade and $8,408 for high school students.
Families whose household earnings are at or below 450% of federal poverty level, or $144,675 for a family of four, are eligible for the full scholarship, while scholarships for the highest-earning families are capped at $616 per child in grades K-8 and $840 per child in high school.
The expansion resulted in nearly 69,000 new scholarships awarded last school year.
The majority of those scholarships went to students who already attended private schools, as private school enrollment grew be fewer than 3,000 students, according to an analysis of state data by Policy Matters Ohio, which opposes vouchers.
Only 28 of the nearly 600 Lima students who used vouchers this year come from low-income families, Ackerman said during a press conference Thursday.
The majority of those students "have never set foot in our district" and "spent their entire school careers in a private school," Ackerman said. "They have been paying private tuition without complaint but now take voucher money."
Voucher opponents say private schools are not held to the same financial, academic and licensure standards as public schools, which are audited and graded for student performance.
Supporters say accountability comes from parents, who can remove their children — and the child's scholarship — from a private school at any time if the school does not meet expectations.
Lima schools joined a lawsuit challenging the legality of the voucher program, which opponents allege violates the Ohio constitution and diverts funding from public schools.
The lawsuit is pending in Franklin County Common Pleas Court but is expected to proceed to trial this year.
Any disruption to state or federal funding could jeopardize operations for high-poverty school districts like Lima schools: Only 11% of the district's per pupil spending comes from property taxes, amounting to $2,570 per student, according to the Cupp-Patterson report.
The district is eliminating $500,000 from its budget due to the expiration of federal pandemic aid, though most of those reductions are coming through attrition, Ackerman said.
The future of school funding is in flux as lawmakers draft the state's operating budget, which will determine funding for public schools and private school vouchers for the next two years, and as President Donald Trump issued an executive order Thursday to disband the federal Department of Education and return education authority to the states.
Ackerman said she remains hopeful the order will direct federal funding to the states, rather than cut funding from schools.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS WEEK SCHEDULE
Lima schools will host a pep rally ahead of its annual district-wide open house next Tuesday.
The pep rally will begin at 5 p.m. in the Lima Senior High School gymnasium, 1 Spartan Way, followed by the open house from 5:15 to 7 p.m.
This year's open house will include:
Free dinner prepared by the Spartan Inn culinary students—barbecue chicken, baked beans and potato salad
Appearance by the Easter bunny, Spartan Ride, the Spartan basketball teams and cheerleaders
Free books for the first 120 families in the library
Student performances in the Joe Henderson Auditorium
Student artwork
Kid Zone with games, activities and face painting
Meet and greet with the school resource officers and K-9s
Tours of the career tech labs and student recording studio
Health checks by patient care students
Crafts in the graphics classroom
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