By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com

The countdown to the November election is on and there are a number of Galion teachers and parents that are refusing to give up on the school levy without a fight.

Nearly thirty people, comprised of school board members, administrators, teachers and parents, attended a special Galion Board of Education meeting Wednesday night to discuss the school levy. The levy is anticipated to be on the November election ballot after having failed 1,198 to 665 at the August special election.

Board of Education President Dennis Long presided over the meeting and asked those in attendance what they wanted to know and what kind of misconceptions they may have had about the levy.

“A lot of folks don’t even know what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” explained Long.

One person in attendance said that some people didn’t even know the levy had been on the ballot in August. It was at this point that the board asked how they could get the information out to the public. It was a meeting of the minds as ideas sparked off one another. Suggestions of signs, flyers, and a strong social media presence flew around the room.

Long said a small social media presence had been used leading up to the August election as well as phone calls being made to Galion community members. He admitted that there had not been a strong push leading up to August for the levy.

Another community member said there were some sentiments that the school was trying to pull one over on the community because there weren’t many signs or advertising. Many simply wanted to know where the money would go.

Long assured the room that pushing for the levy was not a sleight-of-hand trick by the school but rather it was something that was beginning to be desperately needed.

“Obviously, we’re going to need the money,” Long said. “We’ve been looking at that, we’ve been cutting. The staff knows what we’ve been cutting. These guys ought to be called Hercules for what they’ve been carrying now that everything’s gone away. And that’s no joke. These guys are carrying a big load.”

Then Long laid the stark truth out on the table.

“But we need the money. To be able to keep going; when 70 percent of your money comes from the State of Ohio, they don’t have to do a whole lot of changing on their end to take the money away. That disrupts us greatly. If we had more money coming locally, then we could withstand those disruptions in the State of Ohio a whole lot easier.”

“Over the last three years we’ve cut about two and a half million (dollars) from our budget,” explained school board Vice President Jennifer Kuns. “That’s pretty huge; it’s almost a quarter percent of our budget. We’re feeling that with increased class sizes; we’re feeling that with less administrators; we’re feeling that—the students are feeling that.”

Kuns added that though people may hear that the school will possibly be receiving $500,000 from the governor’s state budget, in reality, it’s just a drop in the bucket for Galion. “Look at how much we’ve cut just to be able to maintain. And I don’t know how to get that across to them.”

One first grade teacher said what it will really come down to will be connecting emotionally with the community members and, in the long term, bringing traditions back to Galion in order to create stronger loyalty to the school.

“We’ve got to change the culture, all the way around,” Long agreed with a quiet, serious note in his voice. “We’ve got to change the culture. In the building—the building is, unfortunately, representative of what the community is. We’ve got to work all the way around and change it all.”

Overall, those in attendance seemed to agree that they needed to focus their attention on those people that did not turn out to vote in August. Though the group was small, passionate conversation about the school, the students and the community took place and seemed to take another step forward.

“I’ve sat through many of these (meetings) in the past year and this is the most people we’ve had and this is so encouraging,” said Kuns. “Hopefully this is a sign but without—really we need the faith of the community to go out and talk to the community.”