Group seeks talks with 3 on school board

By Harold Gwin

Some board members felt the concerns should be presented to a board committee.

YOUNGSTOWN — A local nonprofit organization that last month challenged the city school board to come up with a plan to advance pupil academic performance wants to meet with three specific board members to clarify some issues.

The task force set up by the FAMILY Empowerment Student Achievement Institute told the school board that it wants a meeting with members Jacqueline Taylor, Richard Atkinson and Shelley Murray and Superintendent Wendy Webb.

The goal is “to clarify perceptions that are still unclear and document realities that can be presented to the community during the next phase of our mobilization for Educational Excellence Campaign,” the task force said in a prepared statement presented to the board, adding that it would like the meeting to be scheduled the week of Nov. 17.

The school board did reply to the task force’s original challenge earlier this month, saying it agreed that academics need to improve but disagreeing on some of the group’s perceptions about city schools.

The request for a meeting with only the board members caught some by surprise.

“Why these three members?” asked board member Anthony Catale. The board has specific committees in place to deal with such issues and anything dealing with the curriculum should go through the curriculum committee, he said.

The board works as a whole and through committees, added member Lock P. Beachum Sr.

“We will have committees work with the task force on this,” said Shelley Murray, board president.

Two of the board members asked to participate in the meeting said they have no problems with the request.

“I’m willing and able to meet with them,” Taylor said.

If an organization wants to meet with individual board members, it has that right, Atkinson said, adding, “We serve them.”

Issues raised can be brought to a board committee later, he said.

Jimma McWilson, president and chief executive officer of FAMILY Empowerment, said members of the task force selected Atkinson and Taylor to meet with because they are elected officials with whom task force members are familiar — Taylor for her years on the school board and Atkinson for his years on city council.

McWilson said he suggested Murray be added to the list and the task force was comfortable with that.

The task force used 474 individual interviews with city residents to come up with a list of concerns and recommendations that it presented to the board in September.

Included on that list were perceptions that there is no clear strategic plan for taking the district from a state rating of academic watch to academic excellence, not all schools have a warm and welcoming environment, some police officers in the schools treat pupils like jailbirds and best academic-practice classroom teachers aren’t the norm in every school.

The board response said there is a strategic academic improvement plan in place and that efforts are being made to make a more user-friendly version for public consumption.

The board pointed out that 98 percent of its teachers are deemed “highly qualified” and that it believes all of the schools are “positive, warm, respectful and welcoming.”

The board agreed that it doesn’t want to see pupils criminalized, adding that it has provided professional development for all staff aimed at promoting positive relationships with pupils.

gwin@vindy.com