*** COVENTRY FRIENDS PLEASE READ AND SHARE!!! IMPORTANT ELECTION INFORMATION!!! By now many of you will have seen the full page advertisement placed in the South Side Leader’s most recent edition. This ad, paid for by the Coventry Schools Taxpayers Accountability Coalition, cites several issues concerning the Coventry Local Schools and in the end, endorses two candidates (non-incumbents) for the school board. There was not sufficient time for the board to respond in the paper to this ad, but we thought it was important to respond to as many residents as we could concerning several of the issues listed below. LAKEVIEW- The ad cites a quote attributed to the district, “Lakeview is too old and too expensive to keep as a school.” We stand by that statement. Lakeview is too old and too expensive to keep as a school. That is why we closed it as a school. The ad implies that we have misspent taxpayer monies on this building. Six new classrooms are being created in the space once occupied by administration at the middle school. They had to go somewhere. It is important for you to know that less money has been spent on renovating Lakeview as a permanent home for the administration than would have been spent to lease office space for the next three years. The cost of the renovation is also far less than it would have cost to move the existing Turkeyfoot modular units and convert them to administrative offices, which was the original plan. Renovation of Lakeview has included the following: paint, carpet, some updating of electrical and plumbing, some new furniture, some roof repairs and some air conditioning units. NEW HIGH SCHOOL: The ad states the design for the new high school is 25% larger than it needs to be. We have tried to plan for the future. We used a 20 year projected independent enrollment study that greatly influenced the size of the building. OPEN ENROLLMENT: No matter how you personally feel about open enrollment, we have had it for many years and it brings in more than four million five hundred thousand dollars per year to our district. Open enrollment is accepted in over 70% of the districts in Ohio. It enables us to provide opportunities for all of our students, that we would potentially not be able to provide without open enrollment. NEW BUS GARAGE: The building of the bus garage is not the school district’s project. Petermann Transportation agreed about three years ago to build a new bus garage building as part of the contract we have with them. Has this project been delayed? The answer is yes, it has, but there have been several issues that have contributed to those delays, among them being the Manchester Rd. project, zoning and permits and public perception. The bottom line, however, is that this is not the district’s project. REWARDING EACH OTHER: The comments made in the ad, regarding this topic, are absolutely ludicrous, and the candidates who endorsed these statements should be thoroughly embarrassed by the accusations. Shame on you and the coalition that paid for the ad. The hiring of Mrs. Gable and appointment of Mr. Thompson were in strict compliance with the Ohio Revised Code. The contract of Mr. Chaboudy was about to expire and the board chose to extend his contract based on his past performance. INCREASE IN STATE FUNDING: The ad asks if we know that we received an increase in state funding. Yes, of course we know! Our treasurer recently presented the new five year forecast which shows a positive forecast for the next five years. This is the first time this has happened in over 20 years. We are thrilled the state has increased our funding. SALARIES: We do not dispute the reported average administrative salary of $83,480. However, keep in mind that we do not have as many assistant principals or newer administrators as others, which would tend reduce any average. Additionally, we have two less administrators compared to the state average. Our administrator to student ratio was reported as 95 to 1 which is completely inaccurate. The current ratio is about 175 to 1 which is higher than several other surrounding districts. Finally, we feel you should know that had these candidates took the time to attend the board meetings on a regular basis they would have known the answers to many of their own questions. If they would have simply attended regular board meetings, they would have been better informed of the real current facts, not relying on someone else for their information. We also believe you should know that one of these candidates did not even bother to vote in the last election when the bond/ PI levy was decided. The students and staff of Coventry Schools and the Coventry community as a whole deserve a better and more positive future. We are headed that way. The Coventry Board of Education Dave Andrews, President Bob Wohlgamuth, Vice President Tom Thompson Mark Conner Vickie Tavenier
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 21:16:25 +0000
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