Editor's Note:
This is part two in a three-part series examining Ashland City Schools’ reconfiguration effort. This story looks at the financial motivation behind the reconfiguration and explains what Title I offers for the school district.
ASHLAND — Kristy Tucker distributed numbered packages to Edison Elementary first graders on a Wednesday morning.
The contents — a booklet, tongue depressors, clothespins, cutouts of hands, goblin fingers and spoons — seemed random at first, but their purpose quickly became clear.
Students opened the booklets and used each of the materials to sound out different vowels. They held up the hands to their ears to signify the letter “e,” the clothespins for the letter “u” and so on.
Tucker, a trained dyslexia therapist, walked her first graders through three more activities over the course of about a half hour. With only four students in the room, Tucker paid individual attention to each one.
“Thank you for taking your time and working so hard on that,” she told a student who was struggling to put the letters of the alphabet in the correct order during one of the activities.
Title I dollars fund Tucker’s position, according to Ashland City Schools deputy supt. Linda McKibben.
The possibility of losing out on Title I funds serves as one of the drivers of Ashland City Schools’ current reconfiguration — its fourth in the last 15 years.
Administrators say Title I funding is low on the list of reasons for the reconfiguration. They list factors like opportunities for more collaboration among staff and a more unified district culture as higher priority.
How much does the district receive in Title I funds?
Title I
Title I is a federally funded program that helps schools in Ohio provide supplemental education to students in need.
The program’s goal is to ensure that all children have an equal opportunity to succeed in school.
How does Title I work in Ohio?
- Schools are eligible for Title I funding based on the percentage of students who participate in the Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program.
- Schools use Title I funds to provide additional instruction, support services, and professional development.
- Schools can also use Title I funds to help students who are experiencing homelessness.
- Schools can use Title I funds to help students who are neglected, delinquent, or at-risk.
In fiscal year 2025 — the current fiscal year — Ashland City Schools received $706,992 in Title I funds. That makes up about 2% of the district’s total budget, said treasurer Kyle Klingler.
The amount of Title I funding the district receives each year isn’t stable. That money comes from the federal government to the states. The state then doles it out to school districts, Klingler explained.
Depending on how much Title I money the state receives, Ashland City Schools’ allocation may go up or down.
That money is earmarked for providing extra support with reading or math. At Ashland City Schools, it goes toward reading support.
This school year, the district employs seven full-time employees and one part-time employee who work with students on their reading and comprehension, according to McKibben.
Two are trained dyslexia therapists, like Tucker. The others are small-group instructors. Both positions help students who struggle with their reading, offering them extra attention or targeted supports.
“Our classroom teachers and our Title I reading teachers collaborate on these things,” McKibben said. “So, it’s not necessarily just our Title I reading teachers providing those interventions. But our Title I reading teachers get really specific about what kids need.”
Breaking down Title I spending
Public school districts in Ohio submit funding applications, plans, budget details and final expenditure reports to the state’s Department of Education for federal grants they receive.
The website used to submit those reports is called the Comprehensive Continuous Improvement Plan. It’s publicly accessible.
The table below shows how the district planned to spend its $706,992 in Title I funds for fiscal year 2025.
| Category | Amount spent |
|---|---|
| Salaries | $471,166.82 |
| Retirement fringe benefits | $213,670 |
| Purchased services | $15,086.18 |
| Supplies | $7,069.93 |
| Capital outlay | $0.00 |
| Other | $0.00 |
| Total | $706,992.93 |
The $706,992 the district received this year was a decrease from the year before. In fiscal year 2024, Ashland City Schools received $1,010,800 in Title I funds.
With the reduction in Title I funding between the 2024 and 2025 fiscal years, the district lost two reading specialists. It had nine during the 2023-2024 school year, compared to seven this school year.
According to McKibben, one remains employed by the district as a classroom teacher and the other resigned from her position.
Title I funding for the next fiscal year remains in flux.
The district has two small group instructors — Sue Bohland and Jill Lambert — who plan to retire at the end of this school year. It’s waiting to see how much Title I funding it receives before replacing them, Paramore told Ashland Source earlier this month.
School-wide status
The amount of funding the district receives from Title I is based on the number of students in the district on free and reduced lunch. Under Title I, schools can either be considered “school-wide” or “target assisted,” McKibben said.
All the research shows that every year (students) are non-readers, the chances of them becoming a fluent reader, a reader with high comprehension, decreases dramatically.
Linda McKibben, Ashland City Schools Deputy Superintendent
McKibben explained when a school receives a school-wide Title I designation, it means all students can benefit from the funding.
Reagan and Edison both have school-wide Title I designations, which means all students who need them can receive services from small group instructors or dyslexia therapists like Tucker.
But if a school is considered target-assisted, it can only provide those services to economically disadvantaged students.
The issue Ashland City Schools has faced — and part of the reason for its reconfiguration — is with Reagan Elementary School. Reagan’s economic demographics mean the school is on the cusp of not qualifying for school-wide Title I status.
If the school didn’t qualify for school-wide status, it would mean only students identified as low-income would be eligible for reading interventions. That means students who might need those services, but aren’t low-income, would not receive them anymore.
Plus, losing school-wide status would almost certainly mean another decrease in the amount of Title I funds the district receives.
The district’s reconfiguration will likely help redistribute the percentages of low-income students at each elementary school, with the result that both schools can maintain school-wide status.
McKibben and Klingler couldn’t give an exact figure as to how much money the district could’ve lost out on without reconfiguring. Regardless, McKibben said the job of the reading instructors the district employs using Title I dollars is an important one.
“All the research shows that every year (students) are non-readers, the chances of them becoming a fluent reader, a reader with high comprehension, decreases dramatically,” McKibben said. “It just becomes more and more difficult the farther you go into your education.”
