Three citizens addressed the members of the Conneaut School Board of Education when the board met in April work session Wednesday evening at Conneaut Valley High School where the board has typically met the last several years in April.

September meetings are at Conneaut Lake High School, with other monthly meetings held at Linesville's Schafer Elementary School.

About two dozen citizens were in attendance with three addressing the board of education.

Mike Blumenstein of Summit Township commented on how a friend's father passed away and how people have tried to help one another. He said he found the lady crying because she had concern over her tax bills. He challenged the board to go the Senior Center [he called it Active Aging] and also Palfund in Linesville and talk to the people there. He noted a lot of people out there are desperate, noting the board is often vilified. He thought the board good people trying.

PalFund residents rent apartments in PalFund and are not property owners there.

He also expressed a concern the board would not talk to citizens. Citizen comment periods at school board meetings, by policy and practice, is opportunity for members of the public to share their concerns with the board. It is not a debate time between the two. Speaking times are limited to allow the board to move into their agenda and work items.

Typically board members are willing to talk with citizens as they can be called or approached outside of meeting items.

That was the point board president Jody Sperry made in an e-mail to Cathy Kornman, who also spoke and read Sperry's reply to her. Kornman wanted another public meeting on budget with Sperry noting all board meetings are open to the public unless an executive session is called which is permitted under law and often deals with sensitive personnel matters, not general discussion items.

Kornman said she had two children graduate from Linesville High School and is not against students or teachers. She said she was against raising taxes. She suggested working together and having a desire to decrease taxes, not increase.

She said the matter was a community problem and urged making necessary cuts. She concluded, "We as a community will manage.

The other speaker at the meeting was former school board member John Burnham of the Conneaut Valley area. He said he had warned the board several years ago of a financial storm.

Among items he mentioned were having assistant principals, an assistant superintendent, spending too much on custodial costs, wanting to cut electrical costs as lights are on too much, lowering thermostats even if that meant people would have to wear seaters or ladies would need to wear pants,.

He suggested adding instructional time to the days and cutting other days [perhaps a 4-day week?]. He noted District 10 sports travel and suggested having an independent league which most likely would not allow the teams to take part in any playoffs and he wondered about distance learning and freezing wages.

Where is the board on budget matters? Because of personnel issues which are not public, it is known there has been a little discussion on budget matters with more and detailed discussion coming up as the school district deals with the cut in state aid. The district has reduced teaching positions by 20 over the past 5 years and will continue to look at staffing and related issues to include declining enrollment.

Many questions remain and could include cuts in music and art programs, electives including wood shop and CAD technologies, vo-ag,, how to deal with declining enrollments, what is the impact of cuts in state aid but not state requirements. Should sports programs be cut or should there be more co-ops among the schools. How does one schedule classes, even the basics with declining enrolments in schools.

School board members were told some years ago when the renovation and addition projects were being looked at to update the 1950s built high schools that there were people willing to pay more to keep all three high schools in place. Financial standings have changed since the late 1990s and early 2000s.

What can be afforded and what cannot are the issues facing the school district and how best to educate the children of this school district.

It is not just this school district but nearly every school district in the state facing financial crunches especially with cuts in state aid being proposed by the current governor.

The schools are being asked to do more with less but the governor or state legislators have not cut their salaries, etc. to levels of three years ago as they are wanting school districts to do.

At the work session, bids on the cleaning of Linesville's elementary school and Conneaut Valley High School were discussed. Apparent low bids were from out-of-local-area firms with some concern expressed if the lower bids were viable to keep cleaning done.