By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
The State Board of Education election in November is an important race, despite that many people don’t understand the board’s role.
Ohio Sen. Teresa Fedor is one of two candidates for the state school board’s District 2, which encompasses Wood County, as well as Erie, Huron, Lorain, Lucas and Ottawa counties. Her opponent on the nonpartisan ballot is Sarah McGervey of Avon Lake.
At Thursday night’s Wood County Democratic Party meeting, Fedor said she opposes bans on books and education addressing racism; however, she believes the biggest threat is not funding constitutionally the local, traditional public schools.
Banning books and Critical Race Theory are talked about as “distractions, fearmongering. For 25 years, Republicans have rejected their official oath to the constitution to fund public schools. They have rejected the school funding formula, and no one has held them accountable,” Fedor said.
Effective since 1851, Article VI, Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution states “The General Assembly shall make such provisions, by taxation, or otherwise, as, with the income arising from the school trust fund, will secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state; but no religious or other sect, or sects, shall ever have any exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the school funds of this state.”
Yet, since the mid-1990s, public dollars have been channeled to charter schools and voucher schools. Fedor called the charter school system “a pseudo-public education system, a privatization scheme for nonprofit and for-profit organizations running those quote public schools.”
Fedor’s biggest concern is that charter and voucher school systems do not have to account for the public funds they receive.
“In traditional public schools, your pennies go on top of the table. Every penny must be accounted for. In charter schools and voucher schools, your pennies go underneath the table into a black hole, and you don’t know how they are spending it. We don’t have enough transparency, oversight or accountability.”
“Look what happened with ECOT (Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow. We are waiting for the $118 million they owe us,” she said.
The loss of money is only one part of the issue with the ECOT case. “The worst part is they did not educate those children,”
Fedor is also concerned with proposed amendments that will discriminate against children.
“Teachers and principals will be the guards to tell parents if they use another pronoun. There are all kinds of things that are way off base on what should be happening for our schools to be funded and for our children to be educated,” she said.
With her state senate seat up at the end of December, Fedor wants to use her experience as a teacher and a legislator to make a difference on the state school board. “I know how successful legislation works and what has to be done at the local level, grassroots up, for them to move.”
