Ohio House Education Committee - 6-8-2026

Father, we thank you today for the ability that we have to serve you and to serve the great people in the state of Ohio. I pray that you'll give us wisdom, knowledge, and grace today as we review several proposals that are put before us, help us to make wise choices, and to do what is in the best interest of our citizens and our community. And we thank you and praise you for that in Jesus' name.

to lead the Pledge of Allegiance. We pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Chair Fowler-Arthur? Here. Vice-Chair Odioso? Ranking Member Brennan? Here. Representative Byrd? Here. Representative Click? Here. Representative Dean? Representative Manning? Yes. Representative Miller? Present. Representative Newman? Here. Representative Tickle-Antonio-Chuckton? Representative Ritter? Here. Representative Robinson? And Representative Thomas?

I'm sorry. Yes, Chair Fowler-Arthur, Ranking Member Brennan, and members of the House Education Committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony in opposition to House Bill 715. I'm Tom Radican, Associate Director with the Catholic Conference of Ohio. I'd like to start by just briefly noting that our EdChoice scholarships, together with our special needs scholarships, have been leveling the playing field for low- and middle-income families across Ohio. And I'm happy to report that enrollment has increased by about 24,000 students in the past six years, all charter non-publics. And while enrollment in kindergarten and first grade spiked right away many families waited for a logical transition to transfer their children with most waiting for middle school or high school And so it only now that I think we beginning to see the full effect of Ed Choice And today, 65% of our Catholic schools report waiting lists, which is double from the waiting lists in 2019 pre-COVID. We can't accommodate all the interest. I mention this because the bill proposes to require each chartered non-public school to report annually the type of school that the student had attended in the previous year, and only the previous year. And thus, without any context on when the student initially enrolled in the school, perhaps years ago, this provision is unclear and at best potentially misleading. As was noted in the sponsored testimony, the state supports the rights of parents with EdChoice scholarships, and with that right and privilege comes a balance of accountability and transparency. And I would argue today we have that balance in place. We have a robust, robust system of accountability and reporting requirements. It's in the written testimony. For the sake of time, I'm going to speed through that. But let me give you one good example. Our schools and all chartered non-public schools must complete diagnostic and final assessments in English language arts and math in grades 3 through 8. All of these performance scores are rolled up for each student and reported to our parents. and in each report the students are compared to state and public school district scores and disaggregated by race, gender, and economic disadvantage. In House Bill 33, last budget, legislature took the next logical step and required the department to create student growth measures. These growth measures capture and take to the next level that growth, the accountability and success measures, and they will publish that on their website. A similar provision in the bill is well intended, but is therefore redundant. The bill also requires, I'm going to skip this provision because it's in the writing, in my written, one important provision, the bill directs to the department to identify every chartered non-public school in each school building and break out the state funding and the amounts for each in three categories, scholarships, auxiliary, and administrative costs. To the best of my knowledge, for each public school building, the department does not publish and break down the dollars for each of the major funding categories there, and we shouldn't do it here. Thank you for ending right on time.

Thank you. I appreciate that, Chair, and thank you, Mr. Radican. It's always good to see you.

I'm a little disappointed that the bill is exactly the same, except even a little bit better after IP meeting, and you were interested part of before and you're opponent now. But one of the questions that I have for you is you spoke of the 24,000 students that you've increased over the six years. How many of those are new students, and how many had already been enrolled in your schools but did not have vouchers, and now they do.

I think, first of all, the numbers I cited are all charter and non-public, so this is the data that the department produces. It went up from about $161,000 to $185,600 in the last six years. So I think we can attribute much of that to the Ed Choice expansion, logically, that came into effect then. But we on the Catholic school side we haven been able to capture numbers What I have solicited and got feedback from is what I had briefly explained is we see quite frankly we expecting more of a response an immediate response and we didn't get it when Ed Choice expansion first came out, and we were curious what was going on. But as a parent, and many of you are parents, we don't always just say, okay, Johnny, we've always wanted you to go to Catholic school. We know you're in second grade, but off you go into third grade. or we know you're in sixth grade and you've settled into your middle school and now we're going to slide you over to that Catholic school. So we think families waited. In fact, anecdotally, we're fairly confident families waited to that transition of their child going into middle school and then made the switch, or they waited until high school in ninth grade and they made the switch. And so I'm sorry to answer your question. We don't have the breakdown on those numbers.

Thank you.

Sure, through the Chair, Rhett Manning. So I'd mentioned briefly, trying to run through, that the growth measures that the department is going to publish and post on their website is going to capture the testing data, the assessment data that we've been doing in every grade, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, English, math, and then in 5th grade and 8th grade, science. I know I've received those reports, and it did give a breakdown. It told me, as a parent of a parochial school kid, how my school stacked up to the closest district school. That same data, my understanding, although we haven't seen it yet from the department, is what they're working on taking that data, creating yet again some overlying growth measurement, maybe a way to progress to show progress, which would be reasonable. In other words, are our kids improving? You know, are our scores improving? That's a legit, that's legit. And we're waiting for the department to produce that. I think it should be coming up pretty soon. But the other issue with requiring schools, requiring the department to post the amount of dollars by those three categories at each building, I think there's not an apples and apples comparison there with the public schools. The public schools do not report by building how much funding they get from the state in each or any major category that I could find. I did find some data related in the report card buried down in a spreadsheet, and I found it. It's there, but again, it's not by major category. And so I think this bill would be proposing to set up an apples and orange comparison and putting a big in effect a target on our charter and non schools with look at all the dollars that are going here look at all those dollars going to that school How many are going to the district schools? We don't know. And so I think it would require that kind of a logical comparison. So just a reply to him, I'm not going to ask another question, but...

And so I think if you're worried about comparing apples to apples, maybe we should go back to state testing. It wasn't that long ago, and many of your schools are still continuing to do state testing. If we did that, that would certainly be beneficial, too. But we just want that information out there that a parent can look at it and see everything in one area. Very beneficial to parents. Thank you.

Through the chair. So it's before my time, but I'm fairly certain that most of the public schools, public districts, express some significant concern with the state testing system. In fact, one of the representatives on your committee here said maybe we should move in a direction of permitting public districts to use more legitimate, credible alternative tests like we're permitted to do. I think that would be a good move. And a good number of our schools do use the state tests because they like them. And it's my understanding that in science with fifth and eighth grade, there's really not many alternative tests. And I think we default to using the state test for fifth and eighth grade science as an example. So we already have a bit of a blend with the state test where our schools have chosen to use them when they're most appropriate. Just to provide a little more clarity before we move on to the next question.

Trying to tell me something? I got a lot. All right. Hey, Mr. Radican. All right, I'll make this quick. I'm not as fast as Zen, our bill reader. So, you know, when we were talking about expanding universal vouchers, it was told that it was going to help the neediest students in our communities. So do you agree that legislators should know whether EdChoice is primarily creating new educational opportunities or subsidizing tuition for students already enrolled in private schools?

You may continue.

I had a follow-up to that, but I'll hold it, but I've got another question. So does the Catholic Conference, as a Catholic myself, acknowledge that Ed Choice funding is supported by state tax dollars, that that money could otherwise be invested in public schools? When I taught econ, I taught about opportunity costs. If you use the money for this, you can't use it for that.

Do I have time left?

Thank you. So what would the Catholic Conference say about capping tuition at the rate of inflation? because I'm hearing from a lot of folks that tuition has gone up quite a bit since the expansion of the program.

Thank you to the chair, and thank you, Mr. Radkin, for being here and giving your testimony this morning. And I noticed that in your effort to hit the time you left out some of your written testimony, which I'd like to ask about, something that we hear often is that there is no accountability, there are no standards for private schools, and so we can't know how they're doing. And so I'd like you to just respond to that if you would. Is that true? And if it's not true, then why do you think that is something we frequently hear? And do you also find that people in your community are prevented from knowing what the benefits are because there is no such, as we hear, there's no accountability. And people can't know the benefit that they might receive, that their children might receive and choose to send them to your school. Are they prevented from knowing those benefits? So what's your response to that?

Representative Miller for our question.

Through the chair. So we have a sliding scale, right, of Ed Choice. So not every family is going to get their 6166 or the 8404. And so if you're a family, as I think you know, making more, you'll have to identify where you fall on that scale. And so you may only, instead of getting 6166, that would maybe cover all or at least a good portion of your tuition. Now, you know, you're making your family of four and you're making slightly more than $144,000. your scholarship is going to start to decrease rapidly.

Just to clarify, I'm sorry, were you still had, you have time if you wanted to respond. I just was wanting to clarify if you had a follow-up question rep, you have 20 seconds left. Go ahead. About two minutes. Go ahead. Okay.

I'll take that follow-up. Thanks, Chair.

I was with you up until without an increase. Whatever the tuition is for that year, They will apply that Ed Joyce voucher toward it. If they are short and they have expressed an interest in some kind of financial aid then that parish and that school board often has procedures and assessments for providing a family even a family who might have a decent income, but if it's available to be able to subsidize that, help subsidize the cost for any family. Thank you.

We have representative. I'll follow up with you after.

Okay, thank you. Representative Click for a question.

So just from my own experience, through the chair, I've had children in Catholic school. I've had children in Christian school. I've had children in public school. I've had children graduate from Christian schools. I've got a bunch of kids. I have kids graduate from public high schools, and I've had kids graduate from Catholic high school. So I've kind of seen all of it. And we've moved a bit. I was on active duty for quite a while. And then on a number of school boards, private school boards. While we offer accrediting information and to assure people of those types of safety nets, so to speak, the vast majority, vast majority of people come to our schools because their child needed something that our school had, or our parents wanted something our school had. So we don't really talk about values. We talk about virtues and things like that. And we have some different teaching methods, perhaps more traditional classical teaching methods at times in some schools. There's a whole host of things that parents find attractive. And then I've never asked for it from a school as I've moved and entered my child, but I would imagine some parents may want to know the testing, the scores on things like ELA and math and things of that nature, and especially in K-8, that information is available at the school. It will soon be published here in Ohio. And so I think we in the Catholic schools, by the way, we have about 20 percent of our kids are not Catholic. And so we try to appeal to interested parents with showing them a rigorous academic structure, but more importantly, a safe, secure, encouraging, virtuous environment, Christian, Catholic environment. You may continue.

Through the chair, you're right, I'm not going to directly answer that question. But I will note that one of the concerns that I think gets misplayed a little bit, and it's related to your question about how wealthy are people out there in the districts, whether their kids are going to public school or the private school. I mean, our families, no matter what kind of scholarship we get, a John Peterson or an Ed Choice, we're paying the same state income taxes, federal taxes to the extent federal money comes back, the same local taxes as the families, regardless of their income, are paying in that district. And so we're still paying a whole lot more relative to our peers, no matter what our income level is. But I'll just end with one note. So our Ed Choice scholarships, it sometimes gets misconstrued. I often hear this from our critics. They will use the 8404 for high school or the 6166. That's the maximum scholarship amount for Ed Choice expansion. And they will say wealthy people are getting $8,400. Wealthy people are getting $6,400. No, they're not. As Representative Miller noted, if you're at a higher income, you're getting – if you even elect to get the Ed Choice scholarship at all, if you want to take the time to do it, you're going to get a whole $616 at a K-8 school. And so while, last note, while 17 percent, this is in the LSC analysis, member briefing, while 17 percent of all of the scholarships will go to the highest income families, just numbers of scholarships, only 3 percent of the dollars go to that top end. just as a related point.

Any further questions?

All right.

Thank you. Representative Ritter is recognized for a question.

The average cost per? So right now, I'm using only state data, so cup report data. So right now we're showing $17,609 average expenditure per student in the state. That's on line 45 in the wrap-up. I can send that to you. That doesn't include, for example, this recent possible $600 million in facilities infrastructure, stuff like that. I don't think that's included. And so for us, yeah, our tuition is somewhere in, usually in the $6,000 for K-8 in the $6,000 low $7,000 range. And then for our high schools, it's getting close to $12,000 on average tuition. but our average Ed Choice scholarship that our families receive, the average is only $5,470. Now in fairness it was raised during the sponsor testimony that there is auxiliary funding and administrative cost reimbursement And those are generally for ACR it a straight reimbursement on the requirements that the state mandates us to do We have to report in detail exactly what we're doing, the manpower, who's doing what, to satisfy those ACR requirements. Auxiliary, it's very limited. It tends to be focused on tech improvements and things. It's also got some other kind of, well, it's got a whole other range of assistance, very particular, and all of those have to be very detailed and proven. But nonetheless, so in fairness, if you added the auxiliary and administrative cost reimbursement, the average Ed Choice scholarship would be about $6,811. Okay. But that's still a far cry from $17,609, if that answers your question.

Representative Newman, you had one minute remaining of your previous time.

to give that dollar to a private school? Well, we do raise donations. We have many, many, many donors who believe in our mission, as do our Christian Jewish brethren and other secular private institutions. They have a mission, and they're able to raise support for that. And we're blessed to have that. But it doesn't cover everything that we need. And so if I could, I guess just draw an analogy to if you took all of our kids and put them, which isn't going to happen, but if we simply close down all of our schools, all of our charter non-public schools, Just doing some simple math at $17,609 per child, if that's a fair number to start with. It would be close to $3.3 billion to educate all of our kids at the level of expenditure that the districts are using right now. We know we are doing it for less. Again, we have, you know, it's not a perfect world. We have older buildings, right? We would love to have better players. I grew up playing, you know, my playground was the hard top, you know, play kickball and everything on the hard top. You do what you've got to do. So we were able to do more with less, I think. And like I mentioned briefly before, you know, we're trying to, our teachers were notoriously paid not as much as we think they should have been. And they would very often start in our Catholic or Christian schools, Jewish schools, and then move to the public schools. You can't blame them. They're trying to raise a family. And so we been trying to close that gap a little bit But yes our tuition has been going up a little bit It is a little more costly now We are not even close to catching up to the public districts in terms of our expenses But like I had said our costs to educate are still well above our tuition rates Well above our tuition rates, and we always manage to fill that gap again with the sponsors and the donors who believe in our mission.

Thank you, Chair. And the fact that, and I don't want to talk for Vice Chair Odeo, so that is not here. As you well know, we're certainly not against the vouchers. We are not against private schools. But one of the things that we're talking about here is the cost. Now, I have two school systems in mind that get $2,000 per kid through the state. And our outstanding schools, you know, five stars. So do you have any idea and can maybe you kind of weigh in on how much you think it would be to educate a disabled kid? Somebody that is in a wheelchair all day long. Somebody that needs to have their clothes changed. The number of students that have mental problems. The number of students that are homeless. and what happens when you have a behavior child that you can't deal with and you send them back to the school, does your dollars come back to the public school when you do do that? Because I know that happens. And it might not be just I'm talking in private schools, not just Catholic schools. Right. Right, of course.

Catch your mic.

Can I treat that as a brief question? You have 53 seconds left. Fifteen seconds.

So I'd be happy to meet with you and share. I've done some computations because I know that the school districts compute. They factor out the costs of special education needs and costs in providing that equivalent. I forget. I'm drawing a blank now on the name. It's a way, equivalent per pupil, not equivalent, it's related. I'm sorry, I meant to write it down. But it's a way to factor out those extraordinary costs. And even when you do that, we are still much more effective and efficient with using our John Peterson special education dollars. But admittedly, it's a very complicated issue. I've had members ask me to try to sort that out with them because of the questions that you just had, and I've shared that information. I'd be happy to meet with you and share that same kind of analysis that we've been trying to do. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair, Fellow, Arthur, members of the House Education Committee. I am here to represent 211 Catholic and Evangelical schools and 60,000 students across the state to express our opposition to House Bill 715, not because we oppose transparency or accountability, but because this bill is a misguided and unnecessary attempt to provide it in a way that only adds to educational bureaucracy. First, the claims that surround the bill that chartered non-public schools need public accountability fails to recognize that Ohio already has a robust accountability system of chartering non-public schools. I know of no other state that has such a process in place. Every EdChoice provider school must submit to the chartering process, and I provided a list in the written testimony that you have of what all of those factors and components are. I won't spend time going through that in oral. But more importantly, every one of these schools is accountable directly to its primary constituency, the parents and students who enroll there. If those people are not satisfied, they are free to take their scholarship and their tuition and go elsewhere. The persistent narrative that chartered non-public schools are unaccountable is false. Second, this bill moves the state in the regulatory wrong direction. The justification for the state regulating markets is valid when the state has granted a monopoly of sorts, such as utilities in the regulation provided by PUCO. In that case, regulations protect the public because market forces do not exist to do so. In the same way, Ohio's educational landscape has been regulated because public schools had been granted a monopoly of sorts on students, giving all but the wealthy one option to fulfill the state-required schooling. To its credit, the General Assembly has consistently voted in favor of breaking that monopoly and providing families the ability to select other options, primarily through the EdChoice Scholarship Program. The appropriate response to opening the market is to reduce, not increase, regulations. We should be reducing regulations on all schools, public and non-public, and this bill moves us in the wrong direction. Third, the attempt to provide apples-to-apples comparisons are grossly misguided. Last week, a public school colleague supporting the bill made the claim that public and non-public schools are seeking the same outcomes, just through different methods. This could not be further from the truth and belies why parents actually choose a private option. The intended outcomes at most non-public schools are not the same as public schools. It is not solely a quantitative difference, in other words, a difference in test scores that drives parents to a non-public school. It's a qualitative one with entirely different goals. If the state were to treat all schools as if they must produce the same outcomes, you will end up getting all the same types of schools, which contravenes the purpose of school choice programs. And I see that I'm running out of time. There are some additional information in my written testimony. I'm happy to take some questions. Thank you very much.

Thanks. I have probably about 30 of them, but due to time constraints, I'll stick with one. So I would disagree with you that private schools are just there for the wealthy. We grew up on puffed rice and powdered milk and free and reduced lunches, and my parents, to get me away from some of the public school kids, put me into a private school for three years. So I would say that that's not inherently true. The question I have for you, though, is the last witness came up and was explaining how you compare apples to apples, but gave a, this is $17,000 to educate on average a student in a public school, and they're doing it for a lot less, and gave us a voucher number and a tuition number. would it be too much to ask for you all to say this is where all of our revenue comes in and this is what we invest in every child per student at any grade level just like we do at the public school? Would that be a fair requirement of getting taxpayer dollars so they know where it's spent?

Can I rephrase chair?

represent a Miller I would say the state already has that information in order to be an EdChoice provider, you have to submit your annual tuition to the state, which clearly states what shows what the per pupil cost of spending. Isn't the state tracks how much money in EdChoice scholarship or other scholarships end up being spent at that school? So I think the state already has that information.

Yes, you have 15 seconds for me.

yeah again through the chair to represent a miller again i think that the ultimate constituency here are the parents that the school serves. Keep in mind, I want to make very clear, EdChoice dollars do not go directly to private schools. They go to parents. Parents use the EdChoice scholarships to pay tuition. The school is receiving tuition from an EdChoice recipient in the same way they're receiving tuition from a non-EdChoice recipient. it. So the idea that money is fungible and so forth makes it very difficult, I think, to provide exactly what you're looking for. Ultimately, that accountability best resides with the parents. If the question is, do we know that money isn't being siphoned off to be spent somewhere else? I would say ultimately, it's the parents who send their children to that school who determine whether that, you know, the school is spending the money in a legitimate way and on the purposes that it was intended for. The fact that parents send their children in increasing numbers to private schools, I think is a pretty good indication that parents believe that schools are doing a pretty good job of that. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Mr. McIntosh, for coming in and giving testimony today. You are correct that you have collected all that information. Well, you haven't, but all that information has been collected by the state. So I see no reason why we can't have to put it out there for everyone to see so that other parents that are trying to make choices can find that information to realize you already do that. No more costly to the schools at all. You know, when then Representative Bill Seitz and I dropped 407, it was very cumbersome and would have cost a lot of money. And I appreciate the fact that you became an IP after we made those changes. And so I'm surprised that you're an opponent, considering that we've continued to make better changes because Vice Chair Odioso wanted another IP meeting. So that information is there.

Do you wish to follow up?

Yeah, and through the Chair, Turep Manning, again, I would say the notion that chartered non-public school and ed choice providers are not accountable is just not accurate. The chartering process requires every EdChoice provider school, with very few exceptions, to comply with every component of the operating standards for Ohio schools. The notion that I hear over and over again, that public dollars are going to unaccountable private schools, is just false. And I understand that's maybe not, you may not be taking as an aggressive position as some of the others that claim that. But I still think that's fundamentally a problem built within 715 that just leads to an unnecessary – it doesn't provide any additional accountability when all of that information is already publicly available.

Thank you to the Chair, and thank you, Mr. McIntosh, for being here and for your testimony. And I really appreciated how you described the difference between the regulatory process for such things as utilities, where there's a monopoly versus what has now become more competitive nature in our education process in Ohio. So could you just tell us in your view, in your perception, the wrong direction versus the right direction, the wrong direction being regulating more, right direction being deregulating. Could you just tell us, in your opinion, what is the outcome of the wrong direction and regulating more versus, I assume in your opinion, a better outcome of the deregulation? Could you explain that?

And I would say part of that would be reducing some of the regulations on public schools, because up until recently, three years ago to be exact, there were a whole lot of Ohioans who were locked into that being their only option. Now that that's largely been eliminated, maybe not completely, but largely been eliminated, some of those regulations that have been applied to public schools can be lifted so that they can use their resources in a more effective way.

Is that the extent of your question, Representative? Thank you. Representative Brennan is recognized for a question.

Yeah, through the chair to Representative Brennan. It's a fair question and one that school choice opponents use frequently. My first response.

I chose to send my son to Ignatius and my daughter to Padua, but I also chose to pay for it. So it doesn't necessarily indicate I'm against school choice by my question.

Yeah, to the chair, to Representative Brennan. A couple ways that I would answer that. Yeah. And the first is that when the state compels education, which they do, and I believe in some way I would not disagree with that compulsion, they are also under an obligation to provide a full measure of options for parents. And again, so while that worked great for your family to be able to independently provide an Ignatius education, that's not going to be the case for a lot or even maybe most Ohioans. And so I believe the state has a vested interest in providing that type of option for all of them. The second way that I would answer that is I think it's a little bit disingenuous to use the school's choice moniker. And trust me, I've got a lot of respect for you, Brendan, but I think it's just a little bit disingenuous because it implies kind of what you're tagged to that was, that chartered non-public schools are only choosing the cheapest and least expensive and easiest students to educate. And that is not the case. I can take you to any dozens of our member schools, one located on the west side of Columbus in the Hilltop area. Out of 75 students, 70 of them are low income and pulled directly from the neighborhood. With no admissions testing, we're there to serve the kids in the neighborhood. And the test scores coming out of that school are incredible. I could take you to Garden Christian Academy in Cleveland, closer to you. same story 70 kids urban kids low-income kids receiving a classical education in a way that just does incredible work I'm on the board of of a Christian school startup that's going to be opening in 2027. It's exclusively designed to serve students with learning differences. So many of our schools are providing those same services to kids. We're not just choosing the cheapest and easiest students to educate. And so I think that's a bit of a misnomer.

We can agree to disagree. but a follow-up to that is if parents can vote with their feet, but a school chooses not to take their child, and we know this happens. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that?

No, thanks. Do any members who did not yet ask a question have a question? Seeing none. Do any members that had remaining time want another question? Seeing none. Thank you very much for your testimony today. This is, we do have some written testimony in the tablet, and this will conclude the third hearing on Senate Bill 7. It says third. This is 7. I apologize. wrong folder. Let me back up. There are written testimonies. It's the second hearing on House Bill 715. Thank you. All right. So that I don't get this one confused, let's do this one next. I would now like to call up Substitute Senate Bill 7 for its third hearing. We received no testimony. Is there anyone present that thought that they submitted testimony for this bill? All right. Seeing none, this will conclude the third hearing on Senate Bill 7. All right. We do have a number of witnesses for our next bill, which is substitute Senate Bill 328, which I am going to call for its second hearing. I do want to let you know that at 3.25 we will be taking an undefined recess. So we will pause at whatever point that we're at then and come back. First I have Ms. Cassandra Polsgrove with Ohio Excels. Welcome. And we are going to have a three-minute time limit. Great. Thank you. I'm ready. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you for trying to stick with the timeline. Do we have any questions for Ms. Palsgrove? I guess you're getting off light today. Thank you very much for your testimony. And I know you had some additional written comments, and so this will be true for all of the testifiers today, I'm sure. So please be sure to read all of the written comments when you're reviewing the bill. Thank you. Thank you. Next, I would like to invite Bailey Culp with the Ohio Federation of Teachers to offer a testimony. Welcome to committee.

and helps families make more informed decisions about education and training after high school. And a link is at the bottom of my testimony. I encourage you to watch that video. I also want to respond to a number of questions that this committee raised, the bill sponsored during his testimony, and what we view as positive changes that have been made to the bill following similar feedback. Following constructive feedback, the bill now provides districts with multiple pathways to deliver career exploration instruction for students grades 6 through 8. Rather than requiring a standalone course, districts may now meet the requirement through a dedicated career exploration course, incorporating instructions within currently existing eligible career technical education courses, or by using a locally developed and state-approved career exploration plan. This added flexibility recognizes the diverse needs and capacities of Ohio schools while preserving the bill's core objective of expanding career exploration opportunities. Additionally, the bill has been revised, and it revised its implementation timeline in a way that provides districts with time to thoughtfully plan, develop, and implement any of these new requirements. Delaying implementation until the 27-28 school year will help ensure that districts can build effective programs instead of rushing to comply with new mandates without prep time. We want to thank Senator Kaler for his collaboration with stakeholders throughout the development of this legislation. That collaboration has strengthened the bill, helped to address concerns raised by educators and other partners, and allowed for the bill to pass unanimously out of the Senate. As these and other education initiatives move forward, OFT remains ready to partner with lawmakers and other stakeholders to ensure that schools have the support necessary to provide high-quality opportunities for students all across Ohio. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Chair. Bailey, good to see you here. So I'm looking at this. I love the idea. I believe it's due time to get this back into the schools. My question to you is, do you foresee, maybe I foresee it, do you see this the same way that we're going to have to either shift responsibility of counselors or some of how teachers work with this expectation? and where do we get the people power to make sure that students have the access, exploration, and availability to see all these different careers Because that my concern is we added a great opportunity but again there no funding in here There nothing that supporting staff getting retrained paid to get retrained or additional people picked up Do you see this as a possible problem?

Thank you. Would you like to continue?

All right. Do we have any further questions from members for this witness? Seeing none, Thank you for your time. Next, I'd like to invite Cindy Gardner with Close That Work. Welcome to committee. You'll have three minutes.

Thank you very much for your testimony. Do we have any questions for this witness? Seeing none, thank you for your comments today. Next, I would like to invite Devin Babcock with Excel and Ed to offer testimony, and you will have three minutes as well.

Thank you very much. Do we have any questions for Mr. Babcock? Seeing none, thank you for your testimony. Thank you, Chair. Next, I would like to invite Lindsay Daniels with the Ohio Manufacturers Association. And, Lindsay, it's going to be three minutes as well. So you may start whenever you are ready and prepared. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Representative Miller is recognized for a question.

Yeah. Yes, through the chair to the representative. One of the cool opportunities that I've been part of is working with the OMA on the Career Ambassador Program, and so that's training K-12, or excuse me, that's training manufacturers to go into the K-12 space. And it's creating a more systemic process to do that. And so although we're not going to directly change the funding that necessarily happens at the school level, I think it gives us a more robust and strategic way to go into the school system and to be consistent. So hopefully that streamlines their process as well. You're not getting a bunch of manufacturers saying, hey, can we do this? Can we do this? We have this process in place that hopefully streamlines it for them, even if maybe they are operating with less of a workforce on their end.

Madam Chair, Fowler, Arthur, Ranking Member Brennan, committee members, thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony in support of Senate Bill 328. My name is Kevin Cryer, and I serve as a career pathway navigator at Foxfire High School in Muscangham County. I'm also a retired high school principal and 36-year educator who has spent my career helping students identify pathways to success. I strongly support Senate Bill 328 because it recognizes something that I have learned throughout my career. Students are more engaged, motivated, and successful when they can connect their education to a meaningful future. Foxfire High School is a dropout prevention and credit recovery school. Every student we serve is identified as at risk. Many come to us with significant credit deficiencies, chronic truancy histories, and personal trauma that has impacted their educational experience. By the time they arrive at our school, many struggle to see a connection between education and their future. Through our partnership with the GRIT Project and Future Plans Ohio, we have implemented many of the same strategies outlined in Senate Bill 328. The results have been transformative. Over the past two years, 241 Foxfire students have completed career assessments. 218 have participated in individualized coaching sessions. These experiences have helped students identify careers aligned to their interests, strengths, and aptitude, while giving them a renewed sense of purpose. The impact extends beyond career awareness. We have used the GRID assessment data to develop industry credential pathways, internships, work-based learning opportunities, and pre-apprenticeship programs that align with our students' interests and abilities. Students who once struggled to answer, why am I learning this, are now discussing college, apprenticeships, military service, industry credentials, and career opportunities. Senate Bill 328 builds on these proven practices, requiring career exploration, coaching, and individualized academic and career planning beginning in middle school. Our experience shows that students make better decisions when they understand their strengths, interests, and opinions before entering high school. I am particularly supportive of the bill's requirement for individualized academic and career plans. Too often, students complete high school requirements without understanding how their coursework connects to life after graduation. Senate Bill 328 shifts the conversation from simply earning a diploma to building a pathway toward a successful future. The goal is not for students to simply graduate from high school, but to graduate to something. College, technical training program, a meaningful career, or service in the military. If these practices can help students at a dropout prevention and credit recovery school overcome the barriers that they face, then they can benefit all students in Ohio. Thank you.

I'm Travis Goulding. I'm the CEO of the Simon Kenton Council, a regional council of Scouting America, and I'm here today to testify as a strong proponent of the goals of Senate Bill 328. We commend Senator Kaler for his sponsorship and the leadership of proposing legislation that will better prepare Ohio students for future careers. The Education and Workforce Return on Investment Initiative, paired with the new middle school career exploration requirement, represents the kind of forward-thinking policy Ohio needs to strengthen its workforce pipeline. The Simon Kenton Council serves more than 11,000 young people across 18 counties in central and southern Ohio, and we're supported by more than 4,500 adult volunteers. While scouting is typically known for outdoor adventure, Our core mission is preparing young people to become capable, confident, and contributing members of their community and of our workforce. This bill's career exploration requirements, including research projects, job shadowing, professional skill development, and exploration of Ohio careers clusters, are already woven throughout our program. Scouting America offers merit badges spanning engineering, robotics, programming, AI, cybersecurity, and dozens of other workforce-aligned fields. These are all hands-on experiences guided by working professionals who volunteer their time to connect young people with real career pathways. The bill's requirement that every eighth grader develop an academic and career plan mirrors the leadership development model scouting has long used to attain the rank of Eagle Scout. Unfortunately, since the COVID-19 pandemic, 74% of Ohio school districts provide limited or no access to Scouting America or other similar federally chartered patriotic youth organizations. As a result, our membership has declined nearly 50% since 2019. Not because our program's lost value, but we've lost the primary pathway to be able to explain to families about the opportunities that we provide. To address this, we respectfully urge the committee to consider an amendment ensuring equal school access for youth patriotic organizations. Specifically, we recommend allowing these organizations to recruit in public and charter schools, including brief presentations of no more than 10 minutes and distribution of informational materials. Time spent participating in these presentations should count towards the bill's requirement for career exploration hours. Similar legislation is passed with bipartisan support in Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, and Tennessee. Organizations like ours bring mentors, merit badge counselors, and career professionals into communities across Ohio who are already doing the work envisioned by the legislation. Welcoming them as partners would help ensure career exploration opportunities reach both inside and outside the classroom. In Scouting America, we stand ready to help bring this bill to life. Thank you for your time, and I'd be happy to answer any questions the committee may have.

Thank you to the chair, and thank you so much for that testimony. Simon Kenton has become one of my heroes, so I'm glad to hear you guys recognize his name. So you mentioned a potential amendment.

How did the sponsor feel or others who promote this feel about this potential amendment?

Any further questions from committee? Yes. Seeing none, thank you for your testimony. Thank you. Next, I'd like to invite Evan Calicote with the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation. I apologize. He got called to testify in another committee, and we will come back to him at the end. is oh yes all right I apologize I was losing track of time multiple members of this committee have to be in other committees so we will be recessing we will reconvene at the call of the chair we will try to give you a five to ten minute notice depending on where we're at but it probably will not be longer than that thank you we are recessed.