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ESC checks revenue options |
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Wednesday, 19 March 2008 |
By ANNIE ZELM
Staff Writer
As Auglaize County Schools Board of Education members broaden their scope of influence, they are considering ways to gain additional revenue with their services.
Possible avenues include developing and selling curriculum for gifted and special needs students in other school districts, and targeting home-schooled students outside of the state by hosting virtual classes through a Web site.
“We already do some of that, but we’re talking about extending those possibilities,” Auglaize County Educational (ACE) Director Deb Munis said as she addressed board members during Tuesday’s meeting.
Munis said the legislature recently mandated the Ohio Department of Education to begin developing curriculum and online courses statewide.
Other educational service centers in larger cities, such as Columbus, already are involved in education on a more entrepreneurial level, she said.
“There are large companies that sell curriculum across states, so it’s not a new idea, but we’re getting to the point where we now have the capacity to do it,” Munis told the Wapakoneta Daily News in a telephone interview after the meeting. “It just brings in another revenue piece that we don’t currently have.
“With the governor’s decision on financing, it’s a little scary, so we want to find ways to help our districts,” she said, referring to recent biennium budget cutbacks through which the ESC is slated to lose approximately $29,759, or $37 per pupil, for the 2007 and 2008 school year.
Munis said the ESC or the Auglaize Academy, an online school which receives separate funding on a per-pupil basis, could develop curriculum to sell outside of the state, although they could not grant diplomas or offer graduation requirements.
One possibility is selling curriculum or virtual classes to home-schooled students.
“A lot of times, they don’t want to be involved in the rules and regulations of a traditional school,” Munis said, “so we could sell them just the courses.”
Other options include scoring standardized tests, adding online resources to help educators study for Praxis testing and help students study for ACT and SAT testing. They could also focus on offering training sessions for professionals in a variety of fields.
Finally, the center has the potential to work with the judicial system to help inmates earn their general education degrees (GED) and perform technology training or trade testing online.
The ESC is now in a better position to develop these alternatives, Munis said, because of statewide changes that expanded its services to a regional level.
“We’ve built curriculum, we’ve built hardware capacity, and the biggest advantage is people are finally becoming aware of online classes and how that can work,” Munis said.
The online classes and curriculum could be modeled in a way that is similar to the ACE Academy, which enrolls approximately 90 students. The majority of the academy’s students are from Auglaize County, but some are referred by other agencies throughout Ohio.
To implement some of these programs, Munis said the ESC would need more full-time teachers, a part-time clerical staff and a part-time technical staff, as well as more computer hardware and software.
This could include Web cams, iPods, video editing programs, more laptops and more server space.
“We need to figure out where we want to take aim and decide how to pursue those avenues we want to pursue,” Munis told board members.
Auglaize County ESC Superintendent Patrick Niekamp said he plans to schedule a workshop day with board members to discuss their options over the next few months.
Board members also discussed the possibility of inviting a third-party educational expert to facilitate the discussion and help them develop ideas.
“Whatever we do is going to be a balance between how much of our focus we want to stay here and how much of a focus do we spread beyond the county,” Niekamp said. “I’m sure there will be more talk on programs to pursue as time goes on.”
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 20 March 2008 )
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