CAMDEN — During the Preble Shawnee Board of Education meeting held on Thursday, Oct. 12, President Candi Fyffe made a plea to the board candidates to consider all of the issues, not just the the levy issue.

“This job is not just about this levy. There are so many things that come with this job that has nothing to do with passing the levy,” she said. “When you have your Meet the Candidates night, be prepared to answer a lot of other questions. It entails different things from curriculum, discipline, policies, to negotiations.

“Just because you are well versed in the levy and you have an opinion on the levy, that is not all there is to it. There is so much that goes on with the five of us behind the scenes that you don’t really know about. Be prepared to answer those questions. Be honest and hopefully people can get good answers out of it.”

In other levy news, Superintendent Matt Bishop shared an email he received from the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission.

“Basically it says, in a nutshell, it is acknowledging that we are now a lapse district, because our 13-month period to pass the levy expired. We had two tries at it. We talked about it before, anytime you have income tax you can only run it twice in the State of Ohio. We ran it in November and May,” he said.

“The commission in paragraph three says, ‘The commission still hopes to be able to complete a successful building project with your district in the future. Before the commission can take any further steps we need to receive from the school district proof that you have received your local match and maintenance fund requirements. If and when you are able to do this, your school districts project will be given first priority for funding next time the commission has funds available for new projects.’

“There is no expiration date on your first priority status. Your school district can come back into our program one year, or 10 years, or more from now, given availability of funds.”

Bishop added, the Commission meets four times a year, not just once, for funding. He also noted, it has been verified Preble Shawnee will still receive the 65/35 split. Going into the November election, if passed, the school will receive the same funding amount as proposed before.

“There has been a lot of discussion about lapse district on social media,” Fyffe added. “It doesn’t have to be a derogatory term, it’s a very common term. So hopefully that explanation helps a lot of people.”