Bullies Beware: Mentor Joins Our Lawsuit

June 16, 2026

Good Tuesday morning,

A week ago tonight, four school board members stood up for their local schools, their students, and their taxpayers and voted to join our lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the harmful EdChoice private school voucher scheme.

Bravo.

Mentor is a district in Lake County represented by state Rep. Jamie Callender, the sponsor of the School Bully Bill proposal that would punish school districts financially for joining our lawsuit.

Mentor is also the district represented by state Sen. Jerry Cirino, who supports Callender’s idea. Cirino’s daughter is on the Mentor school board and voted against joining the lawsuit.

Enough about them. Let’s talk about the public school heroes.

First, there is John Sanford, a retired educator who lives in Mentor. He organized an online fundraiser, and the community chipped in more than $14,000 to pay the cost of Mentor joining the lawsuit.

Then there are the four board members who voted yes: President Maggie A. Cook, Vice-President Lauren Marchaza, Robert Haag, and Daniel Hardesty.

Times are tough in Mentor thanks to lawmakers like Callender and Cirino who are steering $1.7 billion in state tax dollars to EdChoice vouchers while shortchanging public schools across the state by $3 billion.

Mentor has made $6.6 million in cuts to staffing, transportation and student services and they are going to ask voters, who rejected a 4.9-mill operating levy in May, to raise their local taxes again to make up for the state’s neglect.

As the state continues to shift money to vouchers and underfund public schools, local boards, superintendents and treasurers either have to cut services to their students or ask local taxpayers to increase their burden.

That over-reliance on local property taxes is one of the reasons the Ohio Supreme Court ruled the school funding formula unconstitutional in the historic DeRolph decision.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported on the meeting, and you can read the story here.

Some highlights:

Board member Lauren Marchaza said Mentor has already made hard choices, including redistricting, building closures and operational changes, while state leaders have continued to expand vouchers and limit public school funding.

Marchaza said more than $9 million connected to students attending private schools within Mentor’s boundaries are tied to voucher funding.

“That $9 million is money that could and absolutely should be staying right here to lower the financial burden on our local property taxes,” Marchaza said, adding the voucher program is “essentially charging Mentor taxpayers to fund a duplicate school system.”

Franklin County Judge Jaiza Page ruled a year ago in June that EdChoice vouchers are unconstitutional on three counts, including one count that vouchers create a separate and unequal system of schools.

More and more districts are joining our lawsuit because local board members understand that state lawmakers will continue to shift the burden of paying public schools to local taxpayers while they spend more and more on EdChoice vouchers that are going primarily to wealthy families whose children were already enrolled in private, mostly religious schools.

We believe this is unconstitutional.

Is your district part of our historic lawsuit? Check here.

If not, why not? Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio