Press

Leaders representing rural, suburban, small town, and big city school districts across Ohio are calling on the Ohio General Assembly to ensure all children can attend a public school that meets their needs and prepares them for success regardless of their ability or background.

Across the state – from Medina County to Big Walnut to Cincinnati – districts have worked with community members to organize informational town halls about fair school funding in the state budget. So far, more than 230 school board members have signed on to the All in For Ohio Kids (AOK) letter asking the General Assembly to fully implement and update the Fair School Funding Plan in the 2026-27 State Budget. Ohioans, including school district superintendents and treasurers, showed up in large numbers to testify before the Senate Education Committee earlier this month, and many were forced to wait in an overflow seating room.

ATHENS, OH — Members of the United Academics of Ohio University (UAOU) responded to Ohio University’s (OU) objection to their union certification, by stating that they are undeterred and will continue preparing for eventual contract negotiations with the University.

“We're proud of what we've accomplished by working together as faculty to build a union, and grateful for the support we've gotten from students and community members,” said John O’Keefe, an Associate Professor of History at Ohio University's Chillicothe campus. “The university is still trying to delay this process based on claims that haven't convinced the State Employment Relations Board, but we are ready to sit down and start negotiating a contract that will improve faculty working conditions, and therefore student learning conditions.”

“Michael Harkness and Chad Smith have pledged to work with the current Board majority to continue improving transparency and accountability at STRS and to continue stabilizing the fund’s financial conditions,” said OFT President Melissa Cropper. “These ongoing efforts, spearheaded by Board members that OFT has endorsed in past elections, has allowed STRS to begin restoring benefits by providing cost of living adjustments to retirees and lowering the years of service requirement for contributing members.”

"The House budget throws the Fair School Funding Plan out the window, pulling the rug out from students and from districts that need a reliable source of funding to make long term plans. While Rep. Stewart claims that the state can’t afford full and fair school funding, the House budget proposal would direct more public dollars toward a new voucher for non-chartered, private schools which follow practically no state guidelines on student safety or academics."

“The Senators who voted to pass SB 1 may think that they’re targeting 'woke' professors, but the expansive nature of the bill means that they’re targeting every single student, professor, and staff member at Ohio’s public colleges and universities. They are so angry over their unproven theory that higher education is ideologically biased that they’re willing to take down our world-class system of public colleges and universities. Instead they should focus on the real issues affecting higher education in Ohio, like keeping tuition affordable and surviving tumultuous threats to federal scientific and health funding that schools rely on. As this bill moves to the Ohio House, we are urging representatives to either scrap this flawed bill or give serious consideration to amendments that will blunt the worst of the impacts.”

“As currently written, SB 1 will put Ohio’s world-class system of higher education at risk by stifling academic freedom, raising administrative costs, impeding recruitment and retention of talented faculty, and pushing more young adults out of Ohio,” said Melissa Cropper, OFT President and Secretary-Treasurer of the Ohio AFL-CIO. “The Senate can avert the worst of these risks by taking the time to consider amendments and make this bill better.”

“For more than twenty years, Ohio families have dealt with insufficient school funding. Parents, students, and educators have been asked to do more and more with less and less. The Fair School Funding Formula was designed to fund education based on what that education actually cost. Over the past four years, we have gotten closer to the goal of a fairly funded education system. The refusal to use current costs in the formula undercuts the Fair School Funding Formula as a whole by using old data to calculate financing for current expenses.  We are confident that the people of Ohio want their schools to be funded at levels that will afford all children the opportunity to live up to their potential, and we look forward to working with Gov. DeWine and the Ohio legislature to make that happen with a fair and fully funded formula.”

"Ohio has world class colleges and universities because Ohio has world class higher education students, faculty, and staff. We deserve legislators who will work with us to solve problems like rising tuition and keep Ohio colleges and universities competitive in our region and in the world. SB 1 doesn’t do anything like that. Instead it uses culture war politics to attack workers’ rights and turn campuses into hostile environments for people of color, immigrants, and other marginalized communities."

“HB 8 is a mess of a bill that will jeopardize student health and safety, lower the quality of the education that Ohio students receive, and dissuade people and businesses from moving to – or remaining in – Ohio.

This legislature seems to think that it's their job to micromanage what books are in a classroom, force teachers to put students in danger by outing them, and require schools to allow students to leave during the schoolday for religious instruction. Ohio parents and communities want to, and are capable of, continuing to make these decisions locally for their individual school districts. We hope that Governor DeWine will veto this bill and push back against the one-size-fits-all unfunded mandates from the statehouse.”

Ohio Federation of Teachers President Melissa Cropper released the following statement about SB 104:  “Every child deserves a safe and welcoming learning environment. We have been dismayed in recent years as extremist legislators have pushed for laws that target, intimidate, and harass trans and non-binary students. They do so at the expense of actually solving the real problems that students and educators face..."