PROCTORVILLE - Area residents had a rare opportunity Tuesday to express their concerns, needs, suggestions and questions to politicians with open minds and open doors.

State Representative Clyde Evans (R-Rio Grande) and State Senator John Carey (R-Wellston) held an open door session at the Proctorville branch of the Briggs Lawrence County Public Library.

The hour-long gathering offered constituents the opportunity to drop by to discuss regional and state issues, or to get assistance in dealing with state agencies.

Education was definitely on the minds of area school and community officials Tuesday. Rock Hill Elementary Principal Fred Evans, County Commissioner Jason Stephens and Ohio Educational Developmental Center Director Dan Pallante came to discuss the Collaborative Language and Literacy Instruction Project (CLLIP).

This is the second year the school has participated in the program.

"(Rock Hill Elementary) is very serious about improving literacy competency," Pallante said. "What we show is that through these improvements is that students actually do better in math and science as well.

"ŠOur goal is to bring Rock Hill and Washington-Nile into levels of competency so that they perform at an excellent status."

The project is a scientifically based literacy initiative supported by the General Assembly since 1999, Pallante said. Five school districts currently participate with more than 5,000 preschool to sixth grade students and 220 teachers and administrators in all.

It improves knowledge and skills of teachers at all levels of service and experience by providing intensive professional development in language and literacy for two years.

For Fred Evans, the hard work has been worth the effort because it allowed teachers to become experts in their field, enabled them to train new staff and improve overall skills.

"The ones who have been through the program for a year are excited about the results that we saw last year when we gave all of our state testing," he said. "Of course, it's tough. It's required a lot of changeŠbut it's really a good program."

Pallante's goal is to increase current funding by the General Assembly and Ohio Department of Education and to flow those funds directly to OEDC, a non-profit agency.

Meanwhile, the goal of Collins Career Center Superintendent Steve Dodgion is to push for the creation of a community college in Lawrence County. Obviously passionate on the subject, he spoke to Evans and Carey about the need for such an institution closer to home.

"We're 40th in the United States in degree attainment," Dodgion said. "Something needs to happen. If the state continues to thwart theseŠopportunities that might come up (for a community college), then how are we possibly going to tackle that problem?

"We have a county here that's severely depressed economically that is one of the lowest in the entire state in terms of degree attainment, and if we can't get this school down here, then how will the state ever get any better?" he said.

Dodgion outlined his plan for providing college credit without requiring any capital funding for additional buildings. Instead, the monies would go toward paying for non-technical courses at the existing CCC campus. (Grants are already provided to cover the cost of technical courses.)

Currently, associate degree students pay $50 per college credit hour at CCC through a partnership with Marshall University, Dodgion said. He argued that government proposed partnerships with other schools such as Rio Grande Community College, Shawnee State University or Ohio University would result in higher tuition rates-particularly the 45-55 percent of students who hail from out-of-state.

"The entire thing is done on my campus," Dodgion said. "My students never set foot on Marshall's campus."

An expansion of the current MU partnership would prevent that increase and the building of a new facility, Dodgion said. It would also eliminate the need for additional administrators and staff because qualified individuals are already available at CCC and MU. Instead, the money could go toward expanding current offerings and introducing much needed programs.

While Evans and Carey could not promise anything definite, both said they were eager to go about the business of building upon education in the area.

"In the 80s and 90s, when we talked about infrastructure, we talked about roads and bridges, utilities and energy," Evans said. "Now we have to think in intellectual terms. If we're going to compete with the rest of the United States and the worldŠthe intellectual infrastructure is what we have to focus on."

Carey agreed with his colleague.

"The challenge in Ohio is that we have 615 school districts," he said. "We want to have local control for districts like Rock Hill and all the districts in Lawrence County. But at the same time, it's the state's responsibility to provide an adequate education. So the challenge is to balance the state's supportŠwhile allowing the people locally to make decisions regarding education."

Prior to meetings with school officials, some local citizens stopped by to express their concerns about jobs and health care, Carey said. Evans pointed to the two issues as reasons for tax reform and focus on the state budget-the biggest obstacle the legislature faces in the coming year.

"The combination of the economy not moving as quickly as we would like, plus the increases in those areas are going to cause a real challenge in the budget," Evans said.

That challenge will not allow for business as usual, Carey said.

"When we go into the next General Assembly, we'll be challenged in the legislature to do things differently," Carey said. "ŠBack in the 90s, revenues grew such that they were able to deal with problems by throwing money into the situations. But we don't have that luxury, so we want to do some reforms in order for us to balance the budget."

Both men said they benefited from holding these open door sessions. The process is a two-way street: It enables them to learn what is important to their constituents and gives the public a more personal access to government for help and insight.