(A) On and after the effective date of this section, any new or renewed contract between the governing authority of a community school and an operator shall include at least the following:

Terms Used In Ohio Code 3314.032

  • Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
  • Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). Source: OCC
  • Property: means real and personal property. See Ohio Code 1.59
  • Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.

(1) Criteria to be used for early termination of the operator contract;

(2) Required notification procedures and timeline for early termination or nonrenewal of the operator contract;

(3) A stipulation of which entity owns all community school facilities and property including, but not limited to, equipment, furniture, fixtures, instructional materials and supplies, computers, printers, and other digital devices purchased by the governing authority or operator. Any stipulation regarding property ownership shall comply with the requirements of section 3314.0210 of the Revised Code.

(B)(1) The operator with which the governing authority of a community school contracts for services shall not lease any parcel of real property to that community school until an independent professional in the real estate field verifies via addendum that at the time the lease was agreed to, the lease was commercially reasonable.

(2) The independent professional described in division (B)(1) of this section shall be immune from civil liability for any decision rendered pursuant to this section.

(C) Beginning with the 2016-2017 school year, the governing authority of a community school, with the assistance of the school’s designated fiscal officer, shall adopt an annual budget by the thirty-first day of October of each year.

Not later than ninety days after the effective date of this section, the department of education shall develop a format for annual budgets of community schools. The format shall prescribe inclusion of the following information in a school’s budget:

(1) Administrative costs for the community school as a whole;

(2) Instructional services costs for each category of service provided directly to students, compiled and reported in terms of average expenditure per pupil receiving the service;

(3) The cost of instructional support services, such as services provided by a speech-language pathologist, classroom aide, multimedia aide, or librarian, provided directly to students;

(4) The cost of administrative support services, such as the cost of personnel that develop the curriculum and the cost of personnel supervising or coordinating the delivery of the instructional services;

(5) The cost of support or extracurricular services costs for services directly provided to students;

(6) The cost of services provided directly to students by a nonlicensed employee related to support or extracurricular services, such as janitorial services, cafeteria services, or services of a sports trainer;

(7) The cost of administrative services related to support or extracurricular services, such as the cost of any licensed or unlicensed employees that develop, supervise, coordinate, or otherwise are involved in administrating or aiding the delivery of services.

(D) The governing authority of a community school shall be the sole entity responsible for the adoption of the school’s annual budget, but the governing authority shall adopt such budget with the assistance of the school’s designated fiscal officer.

Last updated May 4, 2023 at 9:42 AM