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REPORT TO THE NORTH OLMSTED CITY COUNCIL AND ADMINISTRATION :• TERRY GRODEN VICE - PRESIDENT, NORTH OLMSTED CITY SCHOOLS BOARD OF EDUCATION OCTOBER 21, 2014 Council President Dailey- Jones, Mayor Kennedy, members of City Council and the Administration: I'm here this evening on behalf of the North Olmsted City Schools. Although tonight's report is not about the district's overall financial situation, I can tell you we are presently in a stable fiscal position as far as day -to -day operations. Our treasurer just released an updated 5 -year forecast, and we are planning a public meeting to share the details of that report soon. I hope you can attend that meeting. The focus of this report is to bring you up to speed on advocacy efforts the district has pursued on behalf of the community, as well as the schools. We think it's important that you know some of our major concerns related to public education policies in general, but especially how some of these policies are affecting North Olmsted. I will be speaking primarily about special needs funding and charter school performance and accountability. I will also touch on our advocacy efforts related to the Common Core. As the district's Legislative Liaison I've had ongoing dialogue with elected leaders at the state and federal levels over the past 2 years. I met with Senator Sherrod Brown and Rep. Jim Renacci in Washington in February, and met with Renacci again at his district office in Wadsworth in March. Our discussion was mostly about federal funding for IDEA mandates imposed by the federal government. IDEA is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. This piece of legislation directed school districts to integrate the education of students with a wide range of disabilities, or special needs, into the same system applied to all students. This is a responsibility the North Olmsted City Schools never ran from, believing that we can and will provide the best academic environment for all children. Recognizing the significant costs involved, the federal government promised to reimburse districts for 40% of the expense to meet the IDEA mandate. Last year we received 10 %. The total cost last year to educate our 584 special needs students was approximately 8- million dollars. We received 800 - thousand from the federal government. Therefore, North Olmsted tax payers were left to pick up most of the other 7.2- million. But the State of Ohio is not honoring its commitments either. The state legislature promised to help schools educate what they call "catastrophic" special needs cases. According to this mandate, which affected 22 North Olmsted students last year, the district was to receive 446 - thousand dollars in state aid. We received 93- thousand dollars, leaving North Olmsted tax payers to pay the other 353 - thousand