The Coalition

Who We Are &
Why We Fight

Fix Ohio Schools was built by two people who have spent years watching Ohio's school funding system fall further behind — and who decided it was time to put the data in front of every Ohioan who cares about their children's future.

"As an elected official myself, I believe most public servants genuinely want what's best for their communities. We just disagree on how to get there — and that's what makes democracy work. But education isn't a line item. It's the one investment that touches every family, every business, every community in this state. Educating our children isn't a policy preference. It's a constitutional duty. And right now, all of us share responsibility for where we are. If we don't act now, the crisis becomes insurmountable. Not in a decade. In years. Help us fix this — before the window closes for good."
— Jeff Gore, Co-Founder & Mayor of Huber Heights

A Statewide Crisis. A Local Starting Point.

Fix Ohio Schools started in Huber Heights — but this is not a Huber Heights issue. What began as a slow erosion of school funding over five decades has now become an avalanche. Ohio has 611 traditional school districts and 49 joint vocational/career-tech districts — 660 in total. All are operating inside a funding system that has frozen voted levy revenue since 1976, a Fair School Funding Plan that was never fully implemented, and a voucher expansion that now diverts over a billion dollars in public funds to private schools with no comparable accountability to taxpayers. A dedicated statewide school sales tax would fund every deficit district without raising property taxes by a single dollar. Our district search tool tracks all 660.

We built this coalition because the data demands it. When 595 of 660 school districts are headed for fiscal distress — and the state's own legal thresholds confirm it — silence is no longer an option.

Our Founders
Jeff Gore, Mayor of Huber Heights and Co-Founder of Fix Ohio Schools
Jeff Gore
Co-Founder, Fix Ohio Schools
Mayor, City of Huber Heights
High School Career Tech Teacher
Co-Founder & Mayor

Jeff Gore sees Ohio's school funding crisis from angles that almost no one else can. He is simultaneously the Mayor of Huber Heights, a high school career tech teacher, a product of Ohio's public schools, and a grandfather watching his grandchildren sit in those same classrooms today. That combination doesn't just give him perspective — it gives him standing to speak that no state official can dismiss.

A 1990 graduate of Wayne High School in Huber Heights, Jeff spent 24 years in private business before returning to school to pursue a second calling. He earned his Master of Education from Antioch University Midwest in 2018 and began his teaching career working with students with special needs — an experience that changed his perspective on education entirely. Seeing how many students needed pathways beyond traditional college led him to pursue his Career Technical Teaching License from The Ohio State University in 2024. Today he teaches Business Education and CTE courses, helping students discover their own paths to success — whether that leads to a university, a trade, or straight into a career. He's watched firsthand how underfunded schools limit those paths for the kids who need them most.

Jeff was first sworn in as Mayor of Huber Heights in January 2018 and has been re-elected twice, beginning his third term in January 2026. As mayor, he serves on the Ohio Mayors Alliance and its Education Advocacy Committee, the Greater Dayton Mayors and Managers Association, the Dayton First Tier Suburbs coalition, the Military and Veterans Affairs Commission, and the Huber Heights Kiwanis Club.

"The more conversations I had with state elected officials about school funding, the more alarmed I became — not just by the broken system, but by how little understanding existed at the statehouse about what HB 920 actually does to districts across Ohio."

In May 2025, Jeff testified before the Ohio General Assembly's Local Government Committee and closed with a direct challenge: HB 920 must be reformed if lawmakers are serious about fixing school funding. In the nine months since, the situation has gotten worse — more state funding cuts, and over $1 billion per year now flowing to private schools through EdChoice that can use alternative assessments instead of state standardized tests, have no obligation to disclose how voucher funds are spent, and set their own admissions criteria while public schools must accept every student in their district.

Jeff is not running for higher office. He is the mayor of a city he grew up in, whose three adult sons all graduated from Ohio public schools, and whose grandchildren attend those same schools now. He has nothing to lose by telling the truth — and that is exactly why he will keep telling it.

Mayor, Huber Heights — 3rd Term M.Ed., Antioch University Midwest Ohio Mayors Alliance Education Advocacy Committee Career Tech Teacher — 9 Years Wayne HS Class of 1990
Co-Founder & Board President

Shannon Weldon didn't arrive at this fight through ideology or party politics. She arrived through a room full of people — county superintendents, treasurers, and board members from districts across Ohio — who were all carrying the same fiscal crisis home with them. Looking around that legislative briefing and realizing that every single one of them was facing the same math, in varying degrees, and that no one had been offered a path forward, produced one clear response: a determination to build one.

That determination is what drives Fix Ohio Schools. Not political frustration. Not abstract policy disagreement. The specific, earned conviction of someone who has sat in enough budget meetings, read enough forecasts, and talked to enough families to know that common-sense solutions exist — and that the people who can deliver them need to hear from the communities they serve.

Shannon is now in her seventh year of service to Huber Heights City Schools, serving her second term as Board President. Before entering public service, she spent 13 years in retail, the final five in management overseeing operations, multimillion-dollar budgets, staffing, scheduling, and human resources. That private-sector background shapes how she sees the school funding problem — not as an unsolvable complexity, but as a simple issue that has been deliberately muddled.

"We are all in the same situation, in varying degrees, yet we aren't being listened to for a solution."

Outside of her board role, Shannon works to expand access to high-quality early childhood education — work that has sharpened a conviction she already held: that every community's schools should be funded well enough to give their children a strong foundation. The quality of a child's education shouldn't depend on whether their district can pass another levy. The state constitution agrees. And after five decades, it's time the funding system did too.

Shannon co-founded Fix Ohio Schools because her community elected her to speak up for them — and that is exactly what she intends to do. Not as a partisan actor. Not as someone seeking a larger platform. As a board president who has watched a broken funding system grind down a district full of kids who deserve better, and who believes that when elected officials at every level work together with the facts in front of them, Ohio can fix this.

Board President, HHCS — 2nd Term 7 Years Board Service Early Childhood Education Advocate Operations & Budget Management
Shannon Weldon, Board President of Huber Heights City Schools and Co-Founder of Fix Ohio Schools
Shannon Weldon
Co-Founder, Fix Ohio Schools
President, Huber Heights City Schools
Board of Education

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Fix Ohio Schools is a statewide effort. If you believe every Ohio child deserves a fully funded public school, we need your voice.

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