Y-town super wants alternative school for troublemakers

The superintendent is looking for parent volunteers to help monitor schools.

By HAROLD GWIN

VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — The city school district wants to create an alternative education program for high school students who fail to correct their disruptive behavior.

Dr. Wendy Webb, superintendent, said Tuesday that she is working to find the funds to launch the program that would remove repeat troublemakers from the regular classroom.

Those children still need to be educated, but the district isn’t about to give up control of its schools to those who don’t want to learn in the traditional environment, Webb said, after reports of a student-started fire and an assault at Chaney High School over the last couple of school days.

Webb said she is also looking for parent volunteers to help monitor school hallways and restrooms. The parents won’t be in the buildings to administer discipline, only to monitor pupil movement, she said, adding that the district will provide appropriate training for the task.

Interested people should call her office, Webb said.

Five Chaney ninth-grade girls have been suspended and face expulsion as well as criminal charges in connection with a fire started in a third-floor women’s restroom at the school Monday.

Two boys, ages 15 and 17, have also been suspended from the school and face criminal charges after being accused of choking a 16-year-old girl with a computer cord in a classroom Friday.

The city fire department estimated the restroom fire damage at $16,000 to property and contents, but school officials said the loss is probably closer to $1,600.

Students were evacuated from the school when the fire alarm sounded on the third floor around 8:30 a.m. A sprinkler head that activated in the restroom caused extensive water damage to the first, second and third floors, reports show. School maintenance workers used shop vacuums to pick up water from the hallway and rooms and shut off the water.

Burned paper was found in a restroom stall and there was soot on the walls. An arson investigator was called, and a school district spokesman said security personnel reviewed security tapes and identified the five girls, four age 14 and one age 15, as leaving the restroom at the time of the fire.

The five were arrested on charges of inducing panic, aggravated arson and obstructing official business.

The school spokesman said the sprinkler head was destroyed, an indication that a burning object, perhaps a cigarette lighter, was held close to it to activate the sprinkler system.

Police said the boys accused of trying to strangle the girl with the cord from a computer mouse, around 10:30 a.m. Friday, ran from the classroom but were later found in the school by officers.

The victim was able to identify them and they were taken to the Martin P. Joyce Juvenile Justice Center to each face a felonious assault charge.

The girl’s mother said her daughter had a difficult time getting teachers to listen to her about the attack and eventually went directly to the office to report it. The girl now doesn’t feel safe, her mother said.

A school district spokesman said the two boys also face possible expulsion.

Webb said the boys later claimed they were just joking around, but pointed out that the young woman was traumatized by the attack.

Creating an alternative educational program for troublemakers takes time and money, the superintendent said, explaining that the ratio of teachers to pupils in that environment must be almost 1-to-1 to be effective.

“The parents have to help us every day,” Webb said, urging parents to tell their children to go to school and do what they are supposed to do.

Webb said that she’s not trying to minimize the seriousness of any offenses but that things have improved at Chaney with changes in scheduling and dismissal times that automatically break up the crowd of 1,200 teenagers leaving the building at the end of the day.

That school and East High School are still “in transition,” she said, noting that East opened for the first time this fall with students from the former Rayen High School and half of the former Wilson High School students. Chaney, expanded and remodeled, reopened this fall with students from Chaney and the other half of Wilson.

East hasn’t had the same types of incidents as reported at Chaney, she said.

gwin@vindy.com