Rootstown Communicator

Page 1 THE STANDARD IS EXCELLENCE HOME HE INTER OF T The W S ROVER Rootstown 2020 Communicator Rootstown Local Schools • 4140 State Route 44 • Rootstown, Ohio 44272 • (330) 325-9911 News From Around the District Thank You and Welcome! By Terri Hrina-Treharn We would sincerely like to thank Norm Reynolds for his 18 years of service on the Board as well as his contributions to our school and community. During his tenure, he served as President, Vice President, and for a number of years as the Legislative Liaison. Please know, you will be missed. And as we bid farewell to Mr. Reynolds, we also want to welcome a new board member, Steven Vasbinder, who joined us in January. Steven is a life-long resident and graduate of Rootstown. He and his wife have two children, one who is attending Kent State University and one in high school. He looks forward to serving the community and school district. Steven will be serving as the Student Achievement Liaison/Board Member. Superintendent’s Message It is hard to believe we are already in the second half of the school year! The first half of the 2019-20 school year was filled with numerous student achievements and growth both in the classroom and in extracurricular ac- tivities. The second half of the school year, I’m sure, will be filled with even more student achievements as well as students partaking in Ohio’s State Tests this spring. Congratulations to the Elementary School for being selected by the Ohio Department of Education as a Purple Andrew Hawkins Star designee, which is awarded to schools that exceed the criteria for serving military-connected students and Superintendent families! The Rootstown Local School District’s Board of Education will be asking the Rootstown community to renew a 4.31 Emergency Levy on March 17th of this year. This is NOT a new tax and the monies that this levy generates will continue to be used for operating expenses. Finally, I would like to invite you to the March 16th Board of Education meeting where I will be presenting the annual State of the Schools address in which I will share information about what is going on in our schools and what lies ahead for the Rootstown Local School District. Thank you for your continued support of Rootstown Local Schools. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding our school district. Go Rovers! ANDREW HAWKINS Page 2 News From the Treasurer’s Office ISSUE #7 - RENEWAL LEVY On March 17, 2020, the district is on the ballot for a RENEWAL levy. This is not a new tax! Because this is an emergency-type levy, it renews at the same dollar amount and will not cause a tax increase. How are operational funds spent? Every year the Ohio Department of Education compiles financial information for all the school districts across the state of Ohio. Known as the Cupp Report, this profile data reveals state averages as well as data for comparisons with other districts (Source: http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Finance-and-Funding/School-Payment-Reports/ District-Profile-Reports). In 2019, the average spending per equivalent pupil in Rootstown was $11,255.70, while the statewide average was $12,472.40. The majority of the general fund was spent directly in the classrooms totaling $6,901.41 per pupil with an Connie Baldwin additional amount of $531.54 for pupil support. Non-classroom expenses such as administration, transportation and building Treasurer operations totaled $3,537.42 per pupil. Looking at the chart to the right, the majority of the general fund (61%) was spent on instruction- al salaries and supplies used directly in the classrooms. Pupil support includes such items as student counseling, psychological services, health services, library services, and some extracurricular activ- ities. Building operations totaled 20% and includes transportation, utilities, and improvements and repairs not covered by the Permanent Improvement levy. Another 12% was spent on administration, secretarial salaries, and costs of the day-to-day operations of the school building offices—20% below state average. Lastly, 2% is used for staff support such as curriculum services, and continuing education to improve staff effectiveness and productivity. The Rootstown Local School District does a great job of preparing our students for their futures while providing a good value for our taxpayers. Please remember Issue #7 when you vote on March 17, 2020. Assistant Superintendent’s Message Terri Hrina-Treharn - Assistant Superintendent, (330)325-2014 Spring Testing The state tests this spring, including retakes for high school students, will be administered during two test win- dows. The first test window will be for English Language Arts and will occur from April 6th to April 24th. The second window for all mathematics, science, and social studies tests will take place for our district from April 16th to May 6th which includes make-up days. More Terri Hrina-Treharn specific information about when your child’s grade level Assistant will test can be found on the right, and is posted on the Superintendent district calendar which can be accessed via our district Facebook/Twitter pages and/or our district website. District Events Calendar NEW!!! We have created a District Calendar of Events. Please note this is a live docu- ment that will continue to evolve as new events come up throughout the year. Therefore, we encourage you to check back frequently. This is can be found on our District Facebook and Twitter pages as well as the district website. R-Stars!!! Hopefully you have seen our postings on social media or have been a parent/guardian lucky enough to get a phone call to hear your child has been chosen! This is an incentive we are doing again this school year. Once a month I “pop” into a classroom in each building and ask the teacher if they have any “R-Stars.” The teacher lets me know which student has been chosen as the R-Star as well as why that student was chosen. Students then get their picture taken with the R-Star, receive an R-Star t-shirt, get a prize, and I call their parent/guardian right then and there to share the good news. New this year is that these students will also be recognized at a Board meeting. Please check out our R-Stars for this year so far! Page 3 From the Office of Special Education Marcy Spence - Director of Special Education, (330)325-4144 Hearing Screening Program Happy New Year! The special education department hopes your holidays were filled with family, fun and a little quiet time thrown in! For so many reasons, the holiday season is such an exciting time. Parties, presents, good food and friends are certainly enough to get the adrenaline going but, this year, my family was very fortunate to have another special event to look forward to – the birth of my first grandchild. A bit on the late side, my granddaughter was finally born in early January. What a joy it was to see pictures of her opening her eyes, looking around and taking in the new world. Her parents examined every inch of her making sure all her pieces and parts were present and working well, but imagine their surprise when a hearing specialist, an audiologist, came by to screen their newborn daughter’s hearing. They had never even considered there might be something wrong with her ability to hear. Thankfully, my granddaughter’s Auditory Brainstem Response Test (ABR) results were normal. The ABR test examines how the inner ear, called the cochlea, and the brain pathways for hearing are working (transmitting sound). Marcy Spence As an educator, this event reminded me of the critical importance of the universal newborn hearing screening programs Director of Special currently operating in all states, and the fact that this screening serves as the first step in catching hearing loss that can also Education occur during childhood in our preschool, elementary, middle and even high school students. When a student’s hearing is compromised, their speech and language, academic, emotional and social development can be at risk - even mild or unilateral (one ear) hearing losses may be educationally significant. Additionally, hearing loss caused by exposure to recreational or occupational noise can result in devastating losses that, according to the Ohio Department of Health (ODH), are nearly one hundred percent preventable. Roots- town Local Schools takes this form of sensory loss very seriously and actively engages in a robust hearing screening program throughout the district. Our hearing screening program is mandated by the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) in conjunction with the Children’s Hearing program and ODH. The Children’s Hearing program generates the screening requirements and guidelines for school based preschools and K-12 districts. ODH sets the requirements for what grades are screened, what equipment can be used, what specific hearing tests are utilized and the referral criteria. Per ODH’s website (odh.ohio.gov), the goal of a school hearing screening program is three fold: 1) Early detection and identification of hearing loss in children, 2) Access to professional care for all children suspected of having a hearing loss, regardless of financial limitations and 3) Education of children and their parents/caregivers about the sources and consequences of dangerous sounds as well as how to protect themselves from these insults. On an annual basis, all of Rootstown’s preschool students are screened and our K-12 students are screened at certain grade levels. These grades include kindergarten, first, third, fifth, ninth and eleventh.

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