Interest growing for shared services among schools

In the current political climate, there is a growing interest in the possibilities of shared services, especially when it comes to schools.

Many folks find shared services appealing because they can lead to greater cooperation among arms of government and increased efficiency and thus less time, effort—and importantly—money being spent on tasks that don’t truly need to be repeated in multiple locations.

Shared services have defined, in part, the ESC of Central Ohio’s distinguished past. Much of the agency’s identity and core functions are rooted firmly in services to populations of students with special needs located in multiple schools and districts. We bring together these scattered students to be served by you, our experts, forming the perfect example of shared service.

We also offer our partners shared purchasing consortiums or contracted services that allow districts to provide services through a regional consortium that could not be offered economically on a local basis.

By consolidating these services, the ESC saves districts and agencies thousands of dollars and gives school leaders more time to concentrate on other pressing issues.

Additional specific examples of our current shared service offerings include professional employment services (shared payroll and human resources services), our wide array of professional development services, substitute staffing, printing and publication services, dual credit enrollment and many more.

We are hard at work responding to the changing educational climate and the needs of our partner districts developing new shared service options.

One service in development that has received much outside attention and has great potential is shared transportation services.

With several area partners—including the Mid Ohio Regional Planning Commission and The Ohio State University—we have closely examined how much redundancy is currently in place when districts need to transport just the subset of students that attend a school outside the districts (such as charter and parochial schools).

Even though this is a small group of students—about 350 in Franklin County—they are currently served by 43 buses. There are millions in possible savings annually if districts can work together to find the right shared routes.

That’s where we come in. That’s where we’ve always come in.

The ESC is here to help schools and students achieve more, often by spending less.

We are confident that with our past successes in delivering collaborative service models we are well positioned to take a region-wide leadership role in assisting school districts and other nonprofit entities realize the efficiencies in shared services and free up time and funds for other critical services.

In Service to Children,
Bart Anderson
Superintendent, ESC of Central Ohio