By Jon Gambrell
Enquirer contributor

OXFORD - In a meeting attended by a standing-room-only crowd of more than 80 people, citizens and council members spent more than an hour on the proposed split of Talawanda Schools into two districts. City Council passed a resolution supporting a possible vote on splitting the district.

The council voted 4-3 to pass the resolution, with Mayor Jerome Conley, Alan Kyger, Prue Dana and Steve Flee in the majority. Council members Doug Ross, Dave Prows and Francis Liu dissented.

"My parents always told me when in doubt, don't," Prows said. "We may be now splitting the council and the city. I don't think that's good."

While many argued against politicizing the issue, State School Board spokesman J.C. Benton said many factors would weigh into their decision on whether to allow a split vote or not.

"Ohio is a state of local control," he said. "We trust the decisions and discussion of local school districts."

Both sides will present to a State School Board subcommittee on March 7 in Columbus.

According to Benton, this possible split is the first heard by the state board since Monroe split into its own district from Middletown in 1999.

The Talawanda Schools Reorganization Committee wants to bring the issue to the ballot box. The group's Web site, www.oxfordschools.org , has links to online petitions supporting a possible November vote on the issue.

Doug Troy, a member of the committee and a chairman of Miami's computer science and systems analysis department, said his programs have trouble bringing in top quality professors because of the shape the schools are in.

By 1968, Talawanda Schools had incorporated Hanover, Reily and Milford townships, the village of Somerville and a sliver of Preble County into one school district.

It took the school district four attempts to pass the last bond issue, squeaking by with only 16 votes. Troy says that once each township had its own school district with individual "identities," educational standards would improve.

"If you look at the voting history, you see how the townships have voted," he said. "If Oxford and Oxford Township have their own school district, levies would pass and they would have adequate facilities."

One student at the council meeting, 14-year-old Emily Schwarz, wore a "Let Us Vote" sticker in support of bringing the issue to the November ballot. "Oxford and Oxford Township have passed almost all the levies, but the other townships have not," the Talawanda High School freshman said. "A vote is the only option left."

Schwarz, who figure skates and is a member of the mock trial team, fears if there are funding cuts, the school might cut busing for her different after-school activities.

But for another student, Devin Carr of Hanover Township, splitting the school district would not give township students the chance to make friends in Oxford.

E-mail jgambrell@fuse.net