MANSFIELD — Members of the Mansfield City School board were divided during a special meeting Friday morning.
After nearly 30 minutes of discussion, the board voted 3-2 to terminate its contract with the Mid Ohio Educational Service Center at the end of the 2024-2025 school year.
The same resolution also declared the board’s intent to enter into a new service agreement with the North Central Ohio Educational Service Center for the 2025-2026 and 2026-2027 school years.
“We’re looking forward to working with Mansfield,” said Supt. Brenda Luhring of North Central Ohio ESC.
“We’re excited to just bring in Mansfield into our family, to do good things for the staff and the boys and girls, because that’s the most important (thing).”
The Mid Ohio ESC is located in Mansfield and serves most school districts in Richland County.
The North Central Ohio ESC is based in Tiffin, but has a campus in Mansfield. Its client districts include Ontario Local and Shelby City.
What is an educational service center (ESC)?
Educational service centers are public education agencies that function as large-scale service providers to support to public, non-public and community schools.
Ohio law requires all public schools with 16,000 or fewer students to affiliate with an educational service center.
ESCs commonly provide services like professional development, technology support and fiscal and administrative services.
School districts sometimes subcontract with ESCs for hard-to-fill or part-time positions like substitute teachers, school psychologists, speech therapists and occupational therapists.
As public entities, ESCs receive some state funding to support operations. While ESCs are government bodies, they do not have taxing authority. Rather, each ESC depends on revenues from client schools and districts, state operating subsidies and payments, contracted services to districts, and grants and state funding.
ESCs are classified as school districts under state law and local education agencies under federal law and are governed by publicly-elected boards of education.
Board president Chris Elswick, vice president Linda Golden and member Leslie Ward voted in favor of the change. Board members Gary Feagin and Jennifer Kime voted against it.
Both Feagin and Kime questioned why the board should include a commitment to the North Central Ohio ESC in its resolution.
Kime said she would have preferred to see an “apples to apples” quote from each ESC for the coming school year.
“I understand the need to look at different ESCs, look at different contracts. That makes sense with our budget situation,” Kime said.
“These are both highly-qualified, very capable ESCs with professional staff that will both do a good job. But which one is best for our district? I can’t tell until I have that information,” Kime added.
“I feel like we’re just moving from one to another with the hopes and dreams that the next thing will be better, because it’s different than what we currently have.”
Elswick said it would be difficult to get quotes from both ESCs for the coming year because the needed services will depend on student enrollment.
However, several board members cited an estimate provided by the North Central Ohio ESC. The estimate compared costs between the two ESCs for a gifted coordinator, psychology services, speech therapy and occupational therapy.
According to the estimate, the cost for such services was slightly lower through the North Central Ohio ESC, with a savings of just over $36,000. Both contracts quoted an amount of more than $1.2 million.
Feagin called the decision to sever “old-time relationships” with the Mid Ohio ESC for a $36,000 cost savings “ludicrous.”
The discussion surrounding ESCs revealed tension between several members of the board.
Feagin said he didn’t feel comfortable voting on the contract due to a lack of information.
“We haven’t had a meeting to discuss that as a board,” Feagin said. “We should all have the exact same information when we’re voting on a contract, and we don’t have that.”
Elswick said he’d offered to speak with Feagin the day prior to the meeting and Feagin had rejected his offer — something Feagin confirmed during the meeting.
“I said, ‘I have no desire to call Chris,'” Feagin recalled.
Golden then accused Feagin of similar behavior when he was vice-president of the board.
“I find that funny that you’re bringing that up, because when (former board member Renda Cline) was the president and you were the vice president, we did the same thing. You guys knew everything that was going on and we knew nothing.”
Mid Ohio ESC head ‘shocked’ by Mansfield’s departure
Supt. Stan Jefferson said the district’s administrative team did its research on the services and pricing both ESCs had to offer.
“We reported out to the board the information that we received from both ESC and yes, there was an approximately $36,000 savings,” Jefferson said during the meeting.
“We also talked to other school districts that belong to North Central Ohio ESC. From an informational point of view, our job was to gather that information and then to report that information to the board.”
Jefferson said he heard no complaints from any district leaders who work with the North Central Ohio ESC.
Elswick said cost wasn’t his primary reason for voting the way he did.
“Cost is not the main driver, I believe service is the main driver,” he said. “I think the services are going to be better for the district and for the kids.”
Mid Ohio ESC Supt. Kevin Kimmel and Board President Doug Theaker both urged the board to continue its working relationship with the ESC.
“We were shocked to learn that Mansfield was considering options. We received a 100-percent satisfaction rating in May from your district,” Kimmel said.
“In my conversation with Superintendent Jefferson on Nov. 6, I asked, ‘Is Mid Ohio in jeopardy of losing its contract? His answer to me was ‘No.’ “
According to Kimmel, Mid Ohio currently employs 17 dedicated staff members who work in Mansfield City Schools, primarily providing gifted and special education services.
Kimmel said those staff members will likely be offered positions through the North Central ESC and would have to transfer their employment in order to continue working in the Mansfield City Schools next year.
Kimmel cited several programs the ESC offers Mansfield City students at its Fourth Street facility, including a spelling bee, Artapalooza and Academic Challenge.
“A vote to move away from Mid Ohio is a vote against students in the community,” he said. “Keep it local. Don’t send taxpayer dollars an hour away.”
The Mid Ohio Educational Service Center assisted Mansfield City Schools with its interim treasurer search earlier this year, which ultimately led to the hiring of Barb Donohue.
When Donohue resigned from the position, the district sought assistance from the North Central Ohio Educational Service Center in the search.
North Central Ohio also provided an interim treasurer, Jennifer Hedrick, from its staff. Now that Mansfield City Schools will be joining the North Central Ohio ESC, Luhring said the agency is waiving the fees for Hedrick’s time.
District leaders hope to further minimize costs
Elswick said conversations about adjusting the district’s ESC contract have been ongoing for about two years. Those talks were interrupted when the district’s former special education director took a job in another district.
“With the five-year forecast we just had, we have to find a way to do things differently,” Elswick said.
“We have to change the way we do business, and I believe that the new ESC will help us with that — to do services beyond what we’ve had before, do it more cost effectively.”
Jefferson and Elswick said regardless of which ESC the district is affiliated with, Mansfield City Schools will need to evaluate its contract to reduce costs.
Jefferson said he’s had conversations with peer superintendents in the Ohio Mid Sized Leadership Collaborative about their ESC contracts.
“No school district has the ESC costs that we have, Jefferson said, adding that some of those schools may have lower percentages of students with special needs.
“This is something that goes even beyond either one of these ESC on us, we as a district, must take a look at the fact of doing some self servicing from within,” Jefferson continued.
“From years past, we have subcontracted a lot of our work out. There’s nothing wrong with that. Many school districts do that, but I think that that takes away the creativity that we as a district have.”