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Thursday, 27 August 2009 |
By KATIE YANTIS
Staff Writer
ST. MARYS — Local school administrators will be returning to an old policy with the repeal of a controversial piece of legislation.
State Rep. John Adams, R-Sidney, said Jarod’s Law was repealed when Gov. Ted Strickland signed the budget in July.
The law was created after a student was injured and killed by a falling cafeteria table. The law required schools to follow strict safety requirements — many of which school officials called unfunded mandates.
“What I understand is what schools will do is they no longer have to comply with Jarod’s Law,” Adams said. “They will return to what they were previously doing before it went in to effect. It simply wasn’t working.”
Adams said the schools should revert back to safety standards that were already in place.
“We want our school districts to know that they no longer have to comply with Jarod’s law,” Adams said. “This is a victory in repealing an unfunded mandate, something school districts have always had concerns with.”
He also recognized the trouble many schools were having trying to comply with the law without funds being provided.
“In some school districts, it was costing them millions of dollars,” Adams said. “That goes a long way in providing funding for school districts in this tight recession climate that we are in. Schools districts need every dollar that they can keep and use efficiently. By repealing Jarod’s law, that is a big plus.”
While the legislation was repealed and will continue to remain in effect until Oct. 16, the Ohio Department of Health is still making a few recommendations.
“We are in fact recommending that schools use this (Jarod’s Law), simultaneously we are working to rescind the rules,” Ohio Department of Health spokesman Kristopher Weiss said. “Local departments are free to do what they feel is necessary with the resources available to them. They can go back to what they had prior.”
Weiss said local health departments will continue inspections twice a year.
Local superintendents said they are relieved with the decision.
“Our whole goal is to keep kids safe regardless of a law or no law,” Minster Superintendent Gayl Ray said. “Schools are still mandated to go by Ohio Revised Code in terms of keeping kids safe.”
She said while the situation that created Jarod’s Law was serious, the law may have gone too far, Ray said.
“It went to the point of being serious to the point of almost being ridiculous,” Ray said.
Ray said there are things the Minster School District is doing to keep the kids safe and take precautions.
New Knoxville Superintendent Kim Waterman agreed with Ray.
“The safety of our students and stuff is always something we are making precautions for,” Waterman said. “When Jarod’s Law went into effect it went into a lot more depth and cost us money and cost us a lot of time. For example, having MSDS sheets for classrooms for any chemical substance, even hairspray.”
She praised the local Health Department for their dedication and work with the schools.
“I think our health department did a good job before Jarod’s Law was put in place,” Waterman said. “I feel we weren’t doing a poor job to begin with. You want our kids to be safe, you want our staff to be safe and you address those issues as they come about.”
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Last Updated ( Friday, 28 August 2009 )
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