Saturday, July 01, 2000
Monroe schools blaze trail
District becomes official; much work awaits
By Sue Kiesewetter
Enquirer Contributor
MONROE — The idea came to Suzi Rubin in July 1995: get involved in a fledgling campaign to separate Monroe's schools from Middletown's.
She and a small group of others set to work: campaigning, cajoling and dealing with mountains of paperwork, looking forward to the day when this growing community would again have its own school system.
Today is that day.
Monroe Local Schools — with the blessing of state education officials and local voters — is now Ohio's 612th school district. Nearly 1,500 students will walk through the district's doors when classes resume next month.
By design, they will be entering one of Ohio's smallest school districts, defying the state's 45-year trend of consolidating smaller districts into larger ones. It is the first district to be created this way, undoing a merger of the two cities' schools that had stood since 1954.
For the committee that set up the new district, it's the culmination of five years of effort: battling with the state, with people in Middletown and, at times, against the doubts of their own neighbors. But the success of the Committee on Reviewing Education, or CORE, has helped strengthen civic pride here. Residents say their children will be better served by the smaller district, which opens with just two buildings.
The final details still are being worked out. They range from the mundane (how many cartons of paper each district will get) to the daunting (which teachers will move and which will stay). With no plan or model to follow, district officials have relied on the Butler County Education Service Center and the Ohio Department of Education.
“There is no blueprint. There is no magic formula to do this,” said Edmund Pokora, Middletown's treasurer and a member of the transition team.
What they do will be watched carefully by dozens of communities throughout the state that are in similar unions as Monroe and Middletown once were.
“Other districts want to see this precedent established,” said Melanie Bates, a member of the Ohio State Board of Education and a Cincinnati resident. “(CORE) is a concerned group of people. I wish every community had a nucleus of people like they do.”
Change had broad support
Those who are working through the issues and setting up the new district say it is well worth their efforts and personal sacrifices. Mrs. Rubin and board member Carol Brotherton believed so strongly in the cause that both temporarily gave up or curtailed full-time jobs.
Mrs. Rubin watched as her single CORE file folder grew to a four-drawer file cabinet, and boxes that now sit on her front porch.
“I really, firmly believe small districts are the best. If we're half as good as I think we'll be, we'll turn the tide of thinking bigger is better,” Mrs. Rubin said.
Jane Garver Majors said she has looked forward to this day since the 1954 merger, when she was a Lemon-Monroe High student.
“I am just excited I lived long enough to see this day. I think the excitement of this happening and the way people volunteer their services is an example of what this community is about,” Mrs. Majors said.
“We're proud of our community. ... We, as residents, are going to have more control over what happens. All the time while we were with Middletown, we've had direction from everyone else.”
Cody Wells, 14, said he doesn't expect much to change when classes resume next month.
“It's not a big deal. It's still school. With open enrollment, my friends will be there too,” he said.
Plenty left to do
Putting together the district hasn't been easy. Transition teams from Middletown, Monroe and the Ohio Department of Education have been working through issues as diverse as dividing textbooks between districts, deciding who gets the district's lone tractor, and making sure each gets its fair share of tax revenue.
Still on the “to do” list for interim Superintendent Dan Hare and other administrators:
• Renovate a portion of the closed McGees IGA on Main Street for administrative and storage space.
• Hire a principal and assistants for the middle/high school. Fifteen people applied. Teaching and support staff positions still must be filled.
• Construct ramps and make restrooms handicapped-accessible.
• Establish a school calendar; the opening day is still unknown.
• Create bus routes and pick-up points for open-enrollment students from Middletown.
• Store five rooms of elementary furniture from Middletown until eight trailers arrive and can be set up for use as elementary classrooms.
“Monroe will have a good school district when it opens in August, but it will be a rocky road to get there,” said Robert Quisenberry, Monroe's transition team leader and a former Hamilton Schools superintendent. “There's a dedicated community here. They have thought this out well.”
One big hurdle is an opinion by the state's tax commission that two emergency tax levies might have to go back on the ballot because they were passed before Monroe became a district, Mr. Quisenberry said. A levy that raises $8.2 million for the combined district expires on Dec. 31, 2005; a second that generates $4.9 million annually expires at the end of next year.
Mr. Quisenberry said both districts believe that since both levies passed in Monroe, they shouldn't have to go back on the ballot until closer to their expiration. Until the matter is resolved, Middletown will collect the money and distribute a portion to Monroe, Mr. Quisenberry said.
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