LocaL PostaL customer ecrWss/eDDm
Volume 51, No. 16
stanDarD Postage & Fees PaiD WiLLoughby, oh Permit 42
CHESTERLAND NEWS Wednesday, January 9, 2019
Your Community Newspaper Since 1967
Community Church of Chesterland Ready to Celebrate Bicentennial By Jennifer Mckevitt editor@geaugamapleleaf.com A lot has changed in 200 years, but the Community Church of Chesterland’s core mission of being welcoming and inclusive has remained the same. “We’re celebrating 200 years of being a church and for us, that means a welcoming, inclusive, justice-oriented community of faith,” said minister Jason Bricker-Thompson of the CCC’s bicentennial celebration this year. “That’s been a long part of our history.” The church, at the corer of Wilson Mills and Caves roads, will hold a special service Jan. 13 to kick off its 200th anniversary. The public is welcome to enjoy guest musicians Tina Bergmann and Bryan Thomas during the service at 10 a.m. Sunday. Cake and sparkling juice will be served, said Bricker-Thompson, adding celebratory events and free monthly meals will be held through-
“Other things change, but our essential core mission has remained the same.”
– Jason Bricker-Thompson
out the year in honor of the CCC’s bicentennial. “It’s really been a community church. We’ve changed denominations, we’ve changed names multiple times in 200 years and we’ve had churches merge together, but it’s always been a very diverse congregation in our community,” Bricker-Thompson said. “They’ve always been a real presence in this community and that hasn’t change. Other things change, but our essential core mission has remained the same.” That mission and history includes fighting for social justice, no matter the consequences, said church moderator Jody Kamensky. See Church • Page 10
Town Crier See Page 3
SUBMITTED
Jody Kamensky, church moderator for the Community Church of Chesterland, helped rebuild the free-standing bell structure in 2017 for the current church building using its original bell from 1819.
West G BOE Talks Open Enrollment, Newbury Consolidation By Jennifer Turkoc editor@geaugamapleleaf.com Open enrollment took center stage at the Dec. 18 West Geauga Schools Board of Education meeting. Amy Davis, director of pupil personnel for the district, discussed open enrollment and its policies and pitfalls. Davis said the caps on open enrollment and many of the numbers have stayed essentially the same.
“We did add to the guidelines two additional requirements that district-enrolled students who are open-enrolled, they have to register with their district every year to verify that they’re still living there, a residency requirement,” Davis said. “Then, anyone who’s open-enrolled out of our district must also double-check with us just to make sure that the residency has not changed.” The district has 141 total students who are open-enrolled and
Davis said the school districts they pull the most students from are South Euclid-Lyndhurst Schools, Mayfield Heights Schools, Richmond Heights Schools and Newbury Schools. Davis added “an interesting trend that Ian Cooper, our (education management information system) coordinator, has shared with us is that we’re getting a fair number of gifted students that are open-enrolling, which is just a little bit of a new trend.”
Davis said that could be due to some of the programming West Geauga is offering. “Basically, the reason the numbers are not changing too much (is that) we’d like to keep staffing numbers as they are currently,” Davis said. “The caps that we’ve set will give a little more flexibility in the middle school and high school. You’ll notice that it appears that we’ve reduced the 11th- and 12th-grade See School Board • Page 6
WG BOE Opens Consolidation Talks with Newbury See Page 5
West Geauga Soccer Club Season a Success See Page 12
Obituaries See Page 16
Classifieds Start on Page 17 facebook.com/geaugamapleleaf @geaugamapleleaf
facebook.com/chesterlandnews @chesterlandnews