This story idea comes from the Citizens’ Agenda, a compilation of issues raised by Mansfield residents as part of Richland Source’s Talk the Vote Listening Tour.
MANSFIELD — Last fall, Richland Source met with voters from across the city to discuss their hopes and dreams for the city and how its government might operate.
Multiple residents expressed a desire to see Mansfield’s government invest more time and effort into the next generation, possibly by collaborating with the Mansfield City School district.
Residents asked about potential links and improved communication between the city of Mansfield’s administration and Mansfield City Schools. They wonder, could this be a potential key to economic and workforce development?
Supt. Stan Jefferson agreed that it takes a village — or in this case, a city — to raise a child.
The most obvious example of that city in action is the laundry list of collaborations between Mansfield City Schools and local agencies and non-profits. The district regularly partners with Catalyst Life Services, Community Action for Capable Youth (CACY), the Mansfield Urban Minority Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Outreach Program (UMADAOP) and Third Street Family Health Services, just to name a few.
Partnerships with the city government are less frequent, but they do occur.
Mansfield Recreation Coordinator Angel Singleton said the parks and recreation department has a great relationship with the district.
“We worked with them this past summer with our summer program,” she said. “The district provided a Title One teacher to help the children read and they had a couple of administrators read during our ‘Being a Reader Makes You a Leader’ reading program.”
The district also helped spread the word about the department’s drive-thru summer program during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cheryl Meier, second ward council member and parks committee chair, said she’d met with Jefferson, parks and recreation director Mark Abrams and other school employees in the spring to discuss ways to work together rather than “reinventing the wheel.”
“Those are ongoing conversations that I want to continue,” she said.
After Mansfield residents voted down a levy to replace the city’s only public pool, the city and district partnered to temporarily open the Malabar pool to the public.
“Mr. Abrams called us early this year because the levy didn’t pass in regards to opening the swimming pool system for the kids,” said school board Vice President Gary Feagin.
“We told them if they get lifeguards, we would open Malabar for two weekends to allow kids to come in and swim,” he said. “That is a form of collaboration that I’d like to see more of.”
Feagin said he believes the wellbeing of the school system and community as a whole are intricately linked.
“I’ve always maintained or said that the city of Mansfield can only go as far as the Mansfield City Schools, and Mansfield City Schools can only go as far as the city of Mansfield,” he said.
“I believe there should be a very tight connection between MCS and the city of Mansfield.”
Nevertheless, Feagin said he’s not aware of much ongoing partnership between the two entities.
“Maybe I’m missing something, but we really don’t have any collaborations at all with the city of Mansfield,” he said.
Jefferson said the district partners with the Mansfield Police Department to have a school resource officer, as well as security officers for sporting events.
Feagin said he doesn’t consider that much of a collaboration because the district bears the cost burden.
“I understand the police department said ‘Hey we can’t afford it,’” he acknowledged. “But when it comes to the safety of our kids, some of that should be shared.”
Brad Strong, a teacher at Malabar and president of the Mansfield School Employees Association, pointed out that chances for collaboration may be limited because the city and school district serve vastly different roles.
“The city schools serves the purpose of educating children. The city of Mansfield has a different mission. That’s not their primary purpose,” he said.
Strong said it’s rare for the district and city to have cases where sharing funding is appropriate or even legal. Like Feagin, he cited the Malabar pool opening as an exception.
“We do work with the city where we can, but we have to watch where we spend our resources because we serve different purposes,” he said.
“If we took dollars away from kids to build a civics center, it would piss people off. If the city took away money from roads and bridges to build something for the schools, that would piss people off.”
Strong cited the presence of city council member Stephanie Zader on the district’s levy committee as one example of cross-collaboration.
Zader, an at-large member of city council, chairs the committee for Mansfield City’s renewal levy this November.
“Stan Jefferson and Chris Elswick both called me and asked me to chair the committee,” she said. “When the superintendent and a school board member both call you, you say yes. It has been an eye-opening experience.”
Zader proposed a resolution Tuesday in support of the tax levy renewal, which the rest of city council passed.
She said she plans to have Jefferson attend the next city council meeting to talk about the importance of the levy.
School board president Sheryl Weber said she’d like to see more communication between the district and the city in the future.
“We’ve got lot of good things going on and and sometimes I don’t think we let the public know or even even our city government know,” she said.
Jefferson said he doesn’t communicate with city officials on a regular basis, but he feels confident about their ability to work together when the moment arises.
“We haven’t had a lot of things to go to the city for because we work so much with the agencies,” he said. “If there is something that we need to meet about, we have been able to meet about it.”
For example, Jefferson noted that it was Mansfield Mayor Tim Theaker who introduced him to the current C.E.O of the Children’s Hunger Alliance. The district has since partnered with the Columbus-based non-profit to provide weekend meals to students in need.
Both Weber and Meier suggested that internships and job shadowing opportunities for high school students may be a way the city and district could collaborate further. Hands-on learning opportunities are especially meaningful for students in the career tech program.
Could students in the interactive media program livestream city council meetings? Could students in the construction building trades program help with citywide projects?
Could aspiring educators get real-world experience helping run summer camps with the parks department?
Internships could go towards certain Ohio Graduation Seals, such as the OhioMeansJobs Readiness Seal. Job shadowing or class tours could expose students to careers they never knew existed.
“Maybe this is going to open a door,” Meier said. “Like, ‘Oh you know what, the water treatment plant really interests me, I think I want to do something like that.'”
Theaker said there were discussions about having high school student internships available in the city early in his career, but nothing materialized.
“I’m open for something like that,” he said. “I think that’s an idea that would be easy to work out.”
