YOUNGSTOWN School board hires two new principals

They will be working at Wilson High and Cleveland Elementary.
YOUNGSTOWN -- The school board has hired two principals from other major urban school districts in Ohio.
Linda Farkas, who most recently was an elementary principal in Cleveland, becomes principal at Cleveland Elementary School here, succeeding Mary Byrd Clark.
On Tuesday, the board also hired Hubert Watson as principal at Woodrow Wilson High School, succeeding Larry Lushinsky. Watson was previously a Cincinnati public school principal.
Clark and Lushinsky both came out of retirement to assume the local posts. Salary information was not available Tuesday night.
The board also promoted Timothy Kelty from assistant principal at North Elementary School to assistant principal at Wilson; Lori Kopp from special education teacher at Williamson Elementary School to supervisor of programs for disabled children; and Laurie Parise from teacher on special assignment at East Middle School to assistant principal at North Elementary.
Projects
The board also agreed to advertise for bids for site preparation for West Elementary to be built at Schenley Park, where construction is scheduled to start next month.
The board also approved design documents for the renovation and expansion of Chaney High School and authorized advertising for bids for site preparation for the addition. Groundbreaking for the first phase of the Chaney addition will be this fall, according to Bradley Adams, construction manager for Heery International, which has an office in downtown Youngstown.
The board heard Lisa Cummings, an interior designer with Olsavsky-Jaminet Architects of Youngstown, present the color scheme for the renovated and expanded Chaney High School, which she said will be burgundy and gray with soft green on the first floor -- a toned down variation of the school colors of scarlet and gray.
Edward Cvelbar, account manager for Johnson Controls in Youngstown, said his company has trained representatives of four minority-owned companies to work as subcontractors on the heating, ventilating and air conditioning aspect of the district's $182.5 million, six-year schools construction and renovation project.
He said his firm's objective is to at least meet the board's goal of 20 percent minority participation in the project.