Superintendent Jon Ritchie says the stars lined up for Orrville and Rittman last year when the two districts voted to share their top administrators. In all, four school officials and a secretary were retiring or had found new jobs, and each school had major capitol expenses coming. Under the Orrville-Rittman compact, those positions went unfilled. Ritchie, his assistant superintendent and the treasurer all originally at Orrville assumed duties at Rittman too. And the districts found other ways to cut costs.
JON RITCHIE: "Rittman doesn't have a bus mechanic. The Orrville bus mechanic now works on Rittman buses. If we were a business people would say we increased sales. We figured out a way to reduce costs without cutting, and that way was to take on more responsibility."
There's also a shared secretary, and transportation personnel now serve both district's students, all 24-hundred. No one got a raise for the extra workload.
The districts also share office supplies, educational software, even a fingerprint machine. In the first year of the compact, Rittman saved 104,000 dollars in salaries alone while Orrville pocketed 117,000.
Superintendent Ritchie says the deal has saved both districts from asking voters for more money -- at least for last year and 2009.
JON RITCHIE:"You start doing the multiplier effect with that and it's huge. Between the two in a five-year period, by this compact we're saving well over a million dollars.
Ritchie had one foot firmly planted in each district before the compact, as a graduate of Rittman who was first employed by Orrville. He says he understands each town's fierce loyalty to its schools. He stresses that the administrative deal isn't a baby step toward full consolidation where one district eventually is dissolved into the other.
Each district intends to keep its own school board, budget, union agreement, curriculum and extracurriculars. And with a blackberry and a full tank of gas, Ritchie makes sure he provides the face time needed in each district to show allegiance to both schools at two proms, two national honor society dinners...
JON RITCHIE: "If I'm standing at the Orrville football game, I'm not at the Rittman football game. So I have to make sure I attend more stuff than most people would expect."
Still, Orrville math teacher and union chief Phil Young had concerns in the compact's early days.
PHIL YOUNG:
"I think the big fear was that we were being led down a path where consolidation was right around the corner. We haven't heard one bit of talk about that. The part that probably got us excited in the beginning is that we knew we didn't have a whole lot of money, so to be able to save money or to get a raise was a nice idea. And it has probably when it's all said and done saved a couple three jobs."
It was the same for Larry Boggs. Rittman's city manager, former police chief and a school board member. He worried that Rittman, as the smaller system, would be slighted.
LARRY BOGGS "I was a little skeptical at first, but every time I have had a problem, I've had very easy access to Mr. Ritchie. He's always came up here for meetings, and he's been very open to our concerns and suggestions. "
While some states are talking more seriously about full-scale school consolidation…Pennsylvania is contemplating going from 500 school districts to just 100, for example; the idea hasn't caught on in Ohio even though the state has nearly 50 districts with fewer than 700 students. The extra costs of duplication of service and inefficiencies in administration pale in comparison to the uproar that comes anytime there's even a hint of merger. Just ask Thomas Ash of the Buckeye Association of School Administrators.
THOMAS ASH: "When you start merging and consolidating, I think a lot of people would say, 'sure that's fine, as long as you don't close my high school."
So, instead of merger…leaders here tend to talk about "other options."
In his state of the city speech, Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson said education funding should be regional but he didn't offer specific details. The Youngstown area chamber of commerce is urging the legislature to consider its plan to cut the number of administrators within local school districts.
The Orrville and Rittman schools in Wayne County may have shown a fairly painless way to negotiate these tricky waters and at least achieve some savings, but Superintendent Jon Ritchie isn't about to become a an evangelist for their plan…or any other.
JON RITCHIE: "We're busy enough that we don't have time to be out there touting this."
At least for now, actually reducing the number of school districts in any substantive way in Ohio remains one of those "third rails" of politics. Very few people dare to touch it.
Kymberli Hagelberg, 90.3