MOUNT VERNON — The composition of career center school boards varies from area to area.
The Knox County Career Center board, as previously reported, consists of three members from the Mount Vernon City Schools Board of Education, three from the Knox County Educational Service Center and one from the Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center. Of the six school districts served by the KCCC, only one — Mount Vernon — has direct representation on the board. The others, according to KCCC board president Richard McLarnan, are represented by the ESC appointees.
Ashland County-West Holmes Career Center serves five school districts, and has nine people on its board of education. Two are from the Tri-County ESC, and the remainder are from the five local districts: One each from Hillsdale, Mapleton, Loudonville-Perrysville and West Holmes; and three from Ashland.
C-Tec Career and Technology Education Centers in Newark serve 11 associate school districts. Its seven-member school board is comprised of two individuals from Newark and one each from Granville and Heath. The Licking County ESC has three appointees on the C-Tec board who represent the whole county and no one specific school district.
Richland County’s Pioneer Career and Technology Center has an 11-member school board and 14 associate school districts. Six of the board members are from the Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center, including Mary Jean Theaker, who also sits on the KCCC board. Five of the schools — Bucyrus, Shelby, Willard, Galion and Crestline — have direct representation on the board.
Of the 10 schools which are served by the Tri-Rivers Career Center in Marion, eight have direct representation on the 13-member career center board. Those schools are North Union, Cardington, Mount Gilead, River Valley, Marion Harding, Elgin, Pleasant and Ridgedale. One board member is from the Mid-Ohio ESC and three are from the North Central Ohio ESC, representing the service area as a whole rather than one specific school district.
One reason for the differences in school board composition is that the Ohio Revised Code allows some flexibility in that respect.
The section dealing with a joint vocational school district [career center] board of education says: “The board of education of the joint vocational school district shall be composed of one or more persons who are members of the boards of education from each of the city or exempted village school districts or members of the educational service centers’ governing boards affected to be appointed by the boards of education or governing boards of such school districts and educational service centers. In such joint vocational school districts the number and terms of members of the joint vocational school district board of education and the allocation of a given number of members to each of the city and exempted village districts and educational service centers shall be determined in the plan for such district, provided that each such joint vocational school district board of education shall be composed of an odd number of members.”
In other words, all of the school districts involved in each joint vocational school district should have had some input when the career center district was originally formed [in KCCC’s case, 1968].
The compositions of the board are not set in stone, however. The law does make provisions for changing the composition of the career center board.
Section 3311.19 (B) states an ESC, with the agreement of local school districts, may submit a request to the career center board to revise its plan in order to “provide for one or more members of boards of education of local school districts to serve in the place of or in addition to its educational service center governing board members.” The revised plan must then be submitted to the state board of education for approval.
