Firing always an option, BOE prez says of Webb

YOUNGSTOWN — In its annual evaluation, the city’s board of education told Superintendent Wendy Webb that the school district’s state designation of academic emergency “is unacceptable and considerable strides [toward] an improvement designation must be made.”

The evaluation, provided by the Youngstown Board of Education after a records request by The Vindicator, also states: “Anything less than meeting the defined areas noted in this memorandum will continue to be unsatisfactory to us.”

Commenting on the evaluation, Anthony Catale, school board president, said, “It’s a mixture of strengths and weaknesses.”

At the top of the list of improvements Webb must make is “significant progress on our state report card. It’s how we’re gauged as a school district,” Catale said.

The annual state report card, released in August, had Youngstown as the only public school district in Ohio in “academic emergency,” the lowest rating the state gives.

“We haven’t set a certain number of standards we want met [for the 2010 report card], but there has to be an improvement or else we’ll have to move on,” Catale said.

While the school board hasn’t discussed firing Webb, superintendent since November 2003, “I’m not going to take that off the table. It’s always an option, but it’s not being considered now,” Catale said.

For the complete story, read Thursday’s Vindicator or Vindy.com