Parents, teachers protest Ohio's school funding system

ROSELAWN, Ohio - Cincinnati parents, teachers and other community members are spending the last day of school traveling to Columbus in an effort to fight for better school funding.

Parents for Public Schools of Greater Cincinnati is organizing the first "Legislative Bus Initiative" Wednesday morning.

The group is boarding a 58-passenger bus and traveling to the state capitol to protest Ohio's current school funding system. Parents and teachers of Cincinnati Public Schools and Winton Woods City Schools will participate.

"Our purpose in going is to influence upcoming legislative house finance and education committee meetings, because we know they're going to be meeting over the summer months and they're recessing soon and we thought it was important that Southwest Ohio was represented," said PPSGC Executive Director Rolonda Smith.

Ohio's school budget funding system was ruled unconstitutional in 1997 by the Ohio Supreme Court. The court ruled the system relied too much on property taxes to fund schools.

PPSGC agrees, and on Wednesday, will be pushing for a new system. The group says because of the way the system is structured, Cincinnati gets less state money than other urban districts even though Cincinnati has a higher population.

"First of all that would be receiving the funding that was cut out in the last budget year, and secondly, it would be a formula that is based on real income versus property value," said Smith.

The group doesn't have any official meetings with legislators, but says they hope their voices will be heard.

Several seats are still available on the bus.

The bus leaves at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday from the PPSGC office building at 1821 Summitt Road in Roselawn.

The Future of Southwest Ohio paid for the bus and the Strive Partnership paid for food for the trip.