Heights Schools Ask For Help Fighting Voucher Program Losses

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, OH — This week, Heights Schools Superintendent Elizabeth Kirby asked the community for help reversing funding losses from the state's EdChoice voucher program. The program allows families living in districts with "under-performing" schools to receive vouchers for private schools.

"People mistakenly believe the voucher program doesn’t affect us financially," Kirby wrote in an open letter. "The amount for elementary and middle school vouchers is $4,650 per student and high school vouchers are $6,000 per student. We lose that $6,000 per new high school student and that $4,650 per new elementary school student using EdChoice due to a freeze in state funding for the next two years."

Nearly 1,300 students in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Schools have taken vouchers and scholarships to attend private schools. Kirby said the district is footing much of the bill for their tuition.

"This amounts to an actual loss of $4.2 million for us last fiscal year and an estimated loss of $6.8 million this fiscal year," she said.

Kirby's district has nine schools on the EdChoice "under-performing" list, which qualifies families for the voucher program. The nine schools on the list are: Boulevard Elementary, Canterbury Elementary, Gearity Professional Development, Noble Elementary, Oxford Elementary, Roxboro Elementary, Roxboro Middle, Monticello Middle and Heights High.

The EdChoice voucher program nearly doubled in size in 2019. Schools from a variety of districts, like Solon, Lakewood and Shaker Heights, have landed on the voucher-qualified list.

On the state's EdChoice website, it says schools are eligible for addition to the voucher-qualified list if, "any of the following is true for two report cards from 2014, 2018 and 2019: The school received a Performance Index grade of D or F and a Value-Added (overall) grade of D or F on the 2014 Report Card or, the school received an overall grade of D or F or a Value-Added (overall) grade of F on the 2018 or 2019 report card."

Political Action

This week, a coalition of state representatives and other officials penned a letter to Governor Mike DeWine and Republican lawmakers in the state congress urging them to rollback the EdChoice program.

"In my district alone, in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District, if not corrected it will mean downsizing staff, less classroom resources, cuts to extracurricular programming, and more. Money is not just a number, it has real life consequences," said State Rep. Janine Boyd.

Kirby is asking state legislators to fund the EdChoice program directly through the state, rather than cull the funding from public school budgets. She said she's been working with public officials to lobby for change, but public outcry would aid their efforts.

"Unless major changes are made soon, the EdChoice program will continue to undermine excellent, well-rounded, high-performing public education institutions such as ours. Private schools can pick and choose which students they will accept. Public schools - like the ones in CH-UH - are for all," she wrote.

To read Kirby's full letter, visit the CH-UH Schools website.