ASHLAND — The Ashland City Schools Board of Education plans to reduce staff through attrition.
It approved a memorandum of understanding with the Ashland City Teachers’ Association Monday. The agreement offers a one-time retirement incentive of $20,000 for 12 teachers who announce their intention to retire by March 15.
Supt. Steve Paramore said the reduction needs to happen thanks to the district’s low kindergarten enrollment numbers this year.
Details from the memorandum of understanding
- The first 12 Ashland City Teachers’ Association members “eligible for either an unreduced or reduced S(tate) T(eachers) R(etirement) S(ystem) retirement benefit” to notify the district of their intention to retire at the end of the school year are eligible for the $20,000 incentive.
- Teachers who take the district up on the incentive will have a retirement date of June 1, 2025.
- “All employees who are eligible for STRS retirement under the terms of their current retirement plan are eligible for the one-time retirement incentive.”
- Employees must notify the district’s treasurer of their intention to retire by March 15. The board won’t take action on any association members’ retirements until its March 25 meeting.
Ashland City Schools has 185 kindergarten students this year — about a 10-percent reduction from the 2023-2024 school year, when the district had 203 kindergartners enrolled.
The district can only speculate about the reason for its lower enrollment.
At its October board meeting, treasurer Kyle Klingler said he thought homeschooling could play a role. That practice has been on the rise post-COVID. He added some students could also be taking advantage of EdChoice, the state’s school voucher system, opting to attend private schools.
Anecdotally, he said he’s heard private schools in the area have higher enrollment.
Whatever the reason, Klingler told board members in October the decreased enrollment would affect the district’s five-year financial forecast.
That’s because the district receives funding based on the number of students enrolled. When that number dips, less money goes to the district.
“We’re doing O.K. financially,” Paramore said Monday. “But we’re trying to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, and that means doing all our due diligence based off the five-year forecast.”
How will the reduction in force work?
The typical kindergarten class has 24 students in it, Paramore said. But with lower enrollment this year, those class sizes have fallen to around 15 students.
The district won’t know its kindergarten enrollment for next year until early March. Still, that number has fallen each year since the 2021-2022 school year.
Ashland City Schools’ kindergarten enrollment
The table below shows the district’s kindergarten enrollment from the 2019-2020 school year onward.
Data from 2019-2024 came from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce’s reporting portal. This year’s number came from Paramore.
| School year | Ashland City Schools’ kindergarten enrollment |
|---|---|
| 2019-2020 | 241 |
| 2020-2021 | 227 |
| 2021-2022 | 211 |
| 2022-2023 | 237 |
| 2023-2024 | 203 |
| 2024-2025 | 185 |
With a reduction in force by attrition, Paramore explained the district hopes some of its experienced teachers who are close to retiring might choose to take the $20,000 incentive. Then, the district would save money by not rehiring for their positions, thereby reducing its staff.
The district employs 10 kindergarten teachers, 10 first grade teachers, nine second grade teachers and six third grade teachers, according to Reagan and Edison‘s staff directories. Taft employs eight fifth grade teachers, seven fourth grade teachers and one staff member who teaches fourth and fifth grade.
When all is said and done, the district hopes to have nine teachers for each grade, kindergarten through fifth, Paramore said.
“It’s a unique year with the reconfiguration, which actually might help with reducing staff,” Paramore said.
That reconfiguration, announced in January, will go into effect at the start of the 2025-2026 school year.
All pre-K through first grade students will attend Reagan Elementary; all second- and third-graders will go to Edison; and fourth and fifth graders will remain at Taft.
The reason for that reconfiguration is twofold, Paramore has said: it’ll both help create a unified culture, and ensures federal funding remains in the district.
Paramore also told the board Monday he’d address that reconfiguration more thoroughly at an upcoming State of the Schools address. That speech is slated for Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. at Archer Auditorium.
