School district coalition fights to keep public school dollars away from private schools

During a Zoom conference call Wednesday morning, the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy (OCEA) of School Funding discussed their next steps after winning a ruling that declared Ohio's EdChoice voucher program unconstitutional. EdChoice offers scholarships funded by taxpayers to eligible students, allowing them to attend participating private schools.

Despite the judge's ruling, the new state budget will allocate more funds to the private school voucher program than to public schools.

Labrae Local Schools is one of the districts in the Valley that is participating in this effort to stop the program. 

During the meeting, Superintendent A.J. Calderone expressed his concerns about how the vouchers could harm public schools, emphasizing the state's constitution.

"The exact words of the Ohio constitution state, 'No religious or other sect or sects shall ever have an exclusive right to or control of any funds of this state.' " Calderone said. 

The judge ruled in favor of the coalition on three out of five of their points in their lawsuit, but did not immediately terminate the program.  

Since the judge did not fully support all the arguments presented by the coalition--especially the claim that vouchers lead to racial discrimination--public school advocates, including William Phillis, the executive director of OCEA, believe that both the coalition and the state are likely to appeal the decision.

"The other side is confident that they're going to win this case at the Supreme Court level. We are more confident that we are going to win this case because it's based on the Ohio constitution." Phillis said.

The coalition is scheduled to have a meeting on July 16 to discuss its options to appeal parts of the judge's ruling.