As a former teacher and business manager I would like to highlight a few reasons that I am against the school building levies and for better education of our students.
I have been criticized for my attempts to describe Schools as a business which I believe they are. BG City Schools produces a product, and that product is our students and their successes.
Income for our School business is derived from taxes on our residents and others but growth in revenues comes from more and more people wanting to move into our community because of the schools. Right now, and for the pasts years, we are not getting people moving into our community as evidenced by the fact that I don’t think we have had a new subdivision started in the past 10 or so years. We are still trying to fill out those started many years ago.
I have mentioned to several school board members that if student success is a reflection of the product of our schools; where are the articles promoting the success of our students and acknowledging their finding success in their careers. I know we have produced a huge number of successful students from BG City Schools and don’t often see mentions of their success. I do, however, see many Toledo area private schools mention all the scholarships and awards there students receive each year and to no one’s surprise, those schools get many Bowling Green area students. People perceive they receive a better education there or have better athletic teams.
As a business manager I see too many of our part-time employees of high school age that are weak in spelling, math and communication skills. Many editorials stress the need for more technology in our buildings but I have seen too many cases where technology, specifically their cell phones are causing a real lack of productivity. Many young people are living on their phones and are weak in being able to actually talk to a customer in a business environment and placing the job ahead of the next text or social media post that just came into their phone.
Buildings have been on the levy for the past several years and I have to agree with several others that have highlighted the failure of our district to maintain the buildings we have and I believe we may have even used maintenance monies to build the addition to our middle school.
I agree also that we are in older buildings and their condition is pretty bad. Is the cause completely due to a lack of maintenance. Perhaps.
My daughter did a study abroad in Italy several years ago and when I was on the finance committee for the schools during her time there, I asked her to find out how old her college buildings were. Surprisingly she said that the buildings were 400 years old and still functioning.
This is eight times longer than most American school buildings last. Were they perfect, likely not; but students were being educated there and had been for over 400 years. Most students are only in each building for four years and I really wonder if they really care about the state of the buildings.
The Ohio School Facilities Commission is failing local school districts in my opinion. There building requirements demanded if you want Ohio tax dollars is leading to buildings being built with substandard materials and in a way where I doubt they will last 50 years.
How can I say this; I have had business customers whose companies have built numerous new school buildings that like the floor at Perrysburg High School, the companies dispute the material selections and when it fails, they are ultimately responsible. Our middle school concrete floor is another example, the contractor did not like the specifications for the floors and when he asked to be able to upgrade the quality; he was told that he had to use the materials as specified. When he asked who would be responsible if the floors failed, he was told that he would be responsible. My friend the contractor then told his guys to pick up their materials and they walked off the job.
Another contractor commented on the great condition of DeVilbiss High School in Toledo. Built many years ago, this building could last another 100 years.
Finally the Affluent District designation which handicaps BG City Schools is really hurting our district. Getting this removed would bring in enough additional income to completely pay for at least the new high school and perhaps an elementary building over the life of the levy. I have not read about attempts to move BG City Schools out of this designation which punishes not only our children and our community but several other small cities like BG who also house a major University. The University salaries and student rental properties valuations hurt the few districts in Ohio that are truly not Affluent but house a tax exempt entity which leads to our situation.
My no vote is not due to building conditions in our district it’s 100% due to the fact that I think that we need to improve student performance before we spend monies on buildings thinking that new school buildings will fix our less than optimum student outcomes.
Marc Schaller
Bowling Green
