Bucyrus BOE votes to leave Mid-Ohio ESC

BUCYRUS — After months of discussion, the Bucyrus City Schools Board of Education decided which educational service center to contract with for the next two years.

The board made a unanimous 5-0 vote to contract with North Central Ohio Educational Service Center based in Tiffin during a special board meeting Wednesday afternoon.

The decision means the district will leave the services of Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center after the conclusion of the 2018-19 school year.

Current superintendent Kevin Kimmel is set to become the superintendent of Mid-Ohio ESC before the start of the 2019-20 school year.

Board members had a brief discussion after board member Adam Stone made the first motion to contract with NCOESC. The second motion was made by board member John Kime.

Stone began the conversation by saying it was crucial for the ESC to close the gap between Bucyrus and other local and similar school districts. He said the sole responsibility does not fall on the ESC but that the ESC provides specialized services that help the district perform better.

He said he believes part of the concern from the public is caused by the public not fully understanding what an ESC does for member districts.

Bucyrus City Schools Treasurer Ryan Cook said NCOESC officials said they are willing to take on current MOESC employees working at Bucyrus, to keep those employees at Bucyrus once the switch occurs, but it is not mandatory for those employees to make the switch.

Cook said one of the biggest concerns from parents was losing staff the students with certain needs had become accustomed to.

Board member Deb Hoover said the issues with Mid-Ohio were not with the people working at Bucyrus, but rather with the entity as a whole. She said reading was her greatest concern.

During a presentation at the beginning of the meeting board president Dr. Paul Johnson gave a presentation on what ESCs do for districts and what concerns Bucyrus City Schools had while looking for the best option for an ESC.

Johnson said one of the board’s main concerns was reading proficiency by third grade. Bucyrus City Schools’ third grade reading proficiency was approximately 30 percent lower than the state average in 2018, according to the graphs shown in Johnson’s presentation.

In his presentation, Johnson gave a timeline of when the conversations began to look at possibly changing service centers. The board received a memo from Kimmel in November with his concerns regarding MOESC and the board subsequently agreed to terminate the district’s contract with Mid-Ohio to allow the district to “shop around” with different options.

The school then listened to presentations from both service centers. Current Bucyrus High School Principal Dr. Mark Burke, who will become the superintendent at Mohawk Local Schools this summer, said he was in favor of the possible change in December.

Kimmel then was approved to be the next superintendent at Mid-Ohio.

Johnson said Ontario Local Schools, Shelby City Schools and Buckeye Central Local Schools recently left Mid-Ohio for NCOESC and Colonel Crawford Local Schools and Wynford Local Schools both already were served by NCOESC.

Galion City Schools and Northmor Local Schools both terminated their contracts with Mid-Ohio but voted to return after the announcement of Kimmel’s hiring.

Johnson said Kimmel’s hiring shows promise that Mid-Ohio will improve in areas that the board found lacking, including curriculum and instruction.

“I do believe that Kevin Kimmel will bring that along in MOESC,” Johnson said. “But as one of our board members said (during the meeting) our kids can’t wait.”

He said though NCOESC shows the most promise to help the district now, in the board’s opinion, Kimmel’s hiring is believed to make Mid-Ohio ESC an option in two years if NCOESC does not perform as expected.

“If NCOESC isn’t getting the job done, we’re going to shop around again in two years, absolutely,” Johnson said.

Johnson said he was most pleased that Kimmel did not interfere with the board’s decision -making process.

“Kevin was gracious even to kind of disengage from the decision-making process as Bucyrus superintendent because there was an obvious conflict of interest there,” Johnson said. “He really did a nice job of kind of backing away and at the same time being very supportive.

“Again, we think Kevin is going to do an excellent job there. It’s just we think it’s going to take some time for him to do that.”

Various employees at Bucyrus City Schools, who are employed through Mid-Ohio ESC, were present at the meeting, but did not sign up to address the board and were not asked to speak at the meeting.

Kevin Kimmel was the lone administrator present at the meeting. He made no comment on the issue.