Valley View school chief expected to resign

Reed read the prepared statement in front of a crowd of hundreds at a community meeting being held to discuss the district’s financial situation and upcoming levy.

Parr, who has been superintendent at Valley View for 10 years, could not be reached for comment.

Martin Lewis, co-president of the Valley View Teachers Association, confirmed that teachers in the union passed a no confidence vote in regards to Parr earlier this month. The results were submitted to Parr and the school board.

Prior to that vote, members of the Valley View community began circulating a petition that called for Parr’s resignation or dismissal. The petition had gained more than 1,200 signatures in about 10 days, according to petition organizers.

Reasons cited for the petition included Parr’s failure to answer specific financial questions and a “culture of retaliation” allegedly fostered by Parr.

Jon Vincent, one of the petition organizers, said discussions about Parr’s resignation were welcomed.

“We now can move forward on getting our levy passed, which has been our focus from the beginning,” Vincent said. “We felt (Parr’s) presence was impeding that (process).”

Valley View has a five-year, 6.97-mill emergency levy on the Nov. 6 ballot. The Montgomery County Auditor’s Office reported that the levy would collect $1.5 million annually for the rural district, and cost the owner of a $100,000 home roughly $213 per year.

The levy has been requested, on top of $1.6 million in budget cuts announced by the district this spring, to address the district’s declining revenue.

The district’s five-year forecast, filed with the Ohio Department of Education in May, showed a fund balance of $6.9 million for fiscal year 2009 and a projected balance of $777,763 for fiscal year 2012.

The Valley View district enrolled 1,873 students for the 2010-11 school year, according to the most recent ODE report card data.

The district earned the highest report card rating, “Excellent with Distinction,” for the 2009-10 and 2010-11 school years. Results of the 2011-12 report card are expected later this month.

Students go back to school for the 2012-13 school year at Valley View on Sept. 4.