01/30/2026

Washington County schools partner with ESC after developmental disabilities funding loss

Chase Campbell

MARIETTA, Ohio (WTAP) - The Ohio Valley Educational Service Center will provide special education services to Washington County students after the county’s Board of Developmental Disabilities was forced to reduce services following a failed levy.

The Washington County Board of Developmental Disabilities has provided educational services to school-age students with special needs at the Ewing School for over four decades. After voters rejected a levy in November, the board is no longer able to subsidize those services.

The students’ educational costs now revert to their home school districts. The six Washington County school districts are partnering with the Ohio Valley Educational Service Center to continue serving those students, ideally in the same Ewing School building.

The ESC already works with school districts in Washington County to provide similar educational services to students through the Opportunity School, located at the Putnam Elementary School in Devola.

ESC Superintendent Dalton Summers said the organization is prepared to take in the students whom the developmental disabilities board can no longer serve.

“We definitely have the ability, we have the resources, we have the background to educate the students, special ed students, students with special needs and high special needs, if that be the case,” Summers said. “The districts already have contracts with us, already have relationships with us.”

Summers said the ESC hopes to make the transition seamless for students in terms of personnel and educational curriculum.

“Hopefully we’ll keep the same teachers,” Summers said. “As far as curriculum, we will use, we’re already sending our people in there. I think I have a team there right now as we speak, actually, watching and looking and seeing what they’re doing. So obviously we want to work with the Ewing administration as much as we possibly can.”

Developmental disabilities board superintendent Tiffany Neill said she believes the school districts and ESC will be able to maintain a high level of service for the students.

“We’ve appreciated the districts entrusting us for the past four years to support their kiddos,” Neill said. “And we are saddened that we can no longer do that. But I personally have confidence that the districts will, you know, they have our kiddos best interest at heart as well.”

The transition will mean greater costs for Washington County’s public school districts. In a letter signed by the superintendents and treasurers of the six districts, the school officials note they will potentially be able to apply for partial reimbursement from the state of some of the increased cost.

Pre-school age children currently served by the developmental disabilities board will transition to pre-school classrooms in their home district. The transition to ESC services is expected to take effect with the start of the next school year.