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Lordstown, Falls look to share services

Newton Falls Exempted Village Schools and Lordstown Local Schools announced Thursday a cost-saving agreement to share school psychologist services.

‘The superintendent there, and I have met several times to see where we could be more efficient,” said Terry Armstrong, the superintendent for Lordstown. “This was one area we’ve been working on for about a month or two to see if it would save both districts money, and this one worked out.”

Before the agreement is implemented, both districts’ boards of educations will have to approve it. Armstrong and Paul Woodard, superintendent of Newton Falls schools, said in a statement the agreement, if implemented, is projected to save Newton Falls $20,000 and Lordstown, $13,000.

“The financial situation in Newton Falls is pretty troublesome, and we are looking for any and every way to save money. This makes sense for us,” Woodard said.

Armstrong said Lordstown schools would try to redirect the savings to be used in the classroom.

“Whether it is allocating those to make sure another teacher stays in the classroom. I know sometimes with financial issues, you end up reducing your staff. This will help us keep our staff at full strength,” he said.

Armstrong said his district currently has a psychologist that mostly provides testing for special education services, and this service won’t be reduced with the agreement.

“We were paying, for a couple days service, a pretty high amount of dollars,” he said. “We think we will need the psychologist about 60 days a year. Newton Falls and Lordstown border each other, so the psychologist can get here rather easily. It just works out perfectly, neither of us have the need for a full-time psychologist.”

Woodard said the services at Newton Falls would change with the agreement.

“The school psychologist we currently have, we use five days a week; we are going to try to have her service four days a week and one day a week over at Lordstown,” he said.

Newton Falls and Lordstown currently have shared services agreements with Trumbull County Educational Services and the Lordstown district has agreements with LaBrae Local Schools for web services and Austintown Local Schools for food service management services.

Armstrong said Lordstown will continue looking for opportunities to save money through such agreements.

lbouquet@tribtoday.com

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