OHIO — A number of school districts across the state will have to regroup and determine how they will approach future elections. Levy experts say election night results for levies were disappointing. 

What You Need To Know

  • 52 of the 73 renewal issues passed, which is 71% compared to the usual 90%
  • Levies requiring new money from voters fell below the typical passage rate in a presidential election
  • Levies for urban districts like Akron, Toledo and Cleveland Metropolitan School District passed 
  • Districts like Reynoldsburg City Schools, Westerville City Schools and Pike-Delta-York Local will have to come back to voters as ballot issues in both places failed

Education experts from the Ohio School Boards Association called Tuesday night’s results “a tough reminder of the challenges Ohio’s schools are facing,” with the indicator that economic pressure played a big part in the results.

Typically, more levies pass during presidential elections with higher voter turnout. While turnout was similar to 2020, levy expert and Founder of Support Ohio Schools Research Foundation Jerry Rampelt explained that the results from Tuesday are historically surprising. That’s because this is the first time passage rates have been this low, especially during a presidential election.

He, like others, believes that in some places across the state, voters could not and would say yes to something that could put an additional strain on their personal budget. 

“In Ohio, where the folks are living paycheck to paycheck and maybe the taxes would go up $250 a year on their home and they think very hard about that because they’re working a tight budget and so the passage rates in those areas are lower," he said.

While everyone isn’t rejoicing, some districts are as they asked voters to dig deeper into their wallets, so that operations could continue smoothly and new buildings could be built.

Akron Public Schools is one district who had an issue on the ballot pass. The district will now be able to build a new high school and new money coming in will help to offset some of the district’s budget deficit it’s facing. 

“This is simply going to make the roads so much easier and so as we realize that there will still have to be some reductions and some still some restructuring that we have to do, it's still exciting," said Superintendent Michael Robinson. "We know that we are not where we want to be, but we do know that we will get to where we need to be over time.”

Robinson made it clear that there will be a number of conversations with the board of education and other district stakeholders to determine what cuts will have to be made, but he wanted to reassure the community and especially students that, “Just as we did in the last reductions, we are going to be very, very relentless about trying our hardest not to touch the classroom.”

“We don’t want our kids to feel the impact of this, and we don't want them being concerned and worrying about if their program is gonna be intact next year," Robinson said.

Akron Public Schools isn’t the only district coming out of election night with good news. Springfield Clark Career Technology Center in southwest Ohio is another place where school officials are breathing a sigh of relief.

“We'd done this twice before…last November and then in the primaries in March and this time felt different, but I was still just cautiously optimistic, because everywhere you go around here, there's a sense of nostalgia and happiness about what the CTC or JVS has done for them directly, their business, their organization, their family member," said Superintendent Michelle Patrick.

Patrick said the passage of the issue not only helps students, but the entire county. For the center, she said it’ll allow them to meet current labor market demands with the latest equipment and technology. As for businesses, she noted that they can count on getting students who are upskilled, fully credentialed and ready to work.

“The space alone allows us to give more students the opportunity to choose career technical education and to jumpstart their career path in a way that they may have wanted to do but weren't able to because we had to turn them away," Patrick said.

Plus, there’s now an expectation that they’ll be able to contribute millions more back to the economy as they’ve already started to do.  

For both APS and Springfield Clark CTC, they’ll be looking to hold community conversations as well as in-house as well as find architects that can begin work on their new buildings. It’ll be a few years before any of the new construction is complete, but both superintendents are glad that they are headed in the right direction. 

To see more on how districts across the state performed, click here.