Superintendent honored

The honoree was the first female superintendent in Mahoning County.
NEW MIDDLETOWN -- Debra A. Mettee, superintendent of the Springfield School District, has been awarded the Exemplary Leadership Award for Region Four of the Buckeye Association of School Administrators.
She was nominated and selected by a panel of superintendents from the region for "outstanding leadership which has resulted in the enhancement and improvement of educational opportunities for the elementary and secondary students of Ohio."
Springfield has 1,230 pupils.
Mettee has been superintendent for 10 years and was the first female superintendent in Mahoning County when she took the position in 1997.
Under her direction, Springfield has achieved the "excellent" designation on the Ohio Department of Education's annual local report card program.
Background
Before coming to Springfield, Mettee worked in the Youngstown city schools, serving as executive director of human resources for three years, coordinator of bilingual education and English as a second language for 10 years, and a teacher of Spanish and English as a second language.
She also taught bilingual education methodologies at the Findlay College in its master's education program.
Mettee has a bachelor's degree from Youngstown State University and earned a master's in educational administration from YSU as well. She earned her law degree at the University of Akron School of Law. She has completed all of her doctoral course work at YSU and is finishing her doctoral dissertation.
She is the recipient of the YSU Beeghly College of Education's Outstanding Alumni Award and the Organizacion Civica y Cultural Hispana Americana Outstanding Service to the Hispanic Community and Teacher of the Year Award.
She is a member of the boards of directors of the Mahoning County Insurance Consortium, On TASC and the NEOSERRC, and a member of the Inter Tri-County Athletic League Board of Control, BASA Legal and Membership committees, Mahoning Valley Opportunity Center Governing Board, the Ohio Council of School Board Attorneys, the Ohio Association of Local School Superintendents, Phi Delta Kappa, the Buckeye Association of School Administrators and the National Association of Bilingual Education.
Mettee lives in Boardman with her husband, Richard S. Scarsella, a teacher in the Youngstown schools as well as a local author and historian, and daughter, Natalie Scarsella, a senior at Boardman High School.