2 named to panel for better schools
By Harold Gwin
YOUNGSTOWN — The president of the Youngstown school board has made his two appointments to the state Academic Distress Commission charged with helping the district improve student academic performance.
Now, it’s up to the state to act.
The Ohio Department of Education announced last August that Youngstown would be getting an Academic Distress Commission to offer guidance to help move the district out of academic emergency, the lowest state rating for academic achievement on the annual state local report card.
However, it wasn’t until Jan. 12 that Deborah Delisle, state superintendent of public instruction, came to a school board meeting to announce the state was ready to move.
This is the first commission of its kind in Ohio, and ODE wanted to be sure the intent of the law setting up the system was clear and the system was ready to go before the commission was activated, Delisle said.
She said the five-member body was to be appointed within 30 days — two by the school board president and three by her — and she would come back to Youngstown to open its first meeting.
Anthony Catale, school board president, announced his appointments last week, naming Kathie Garcia, a former teacher living in the city, and Betty L. Greene, a full-time faculty member in Youngstown State University’s Department of Teacher Education.
An ODE spokesman said Delisle hasn’t made her appointments yet.
The school district isn’t just sitting around waiting for the commission to be formed.
Superintendent Wendy Webb said a five-year strategic plan to improve academic performance is being finalized by the district, and the public will be asked to offer suggestions to the plan in two public sessions Monday — 9 a.m. at Choffin Career and Technical Center and 6 p.m. at Chaney High School.
Having a strategic plan in place is something the commission would be expected to require, Webb said.
Youngstown also has been working closely with ODE to find a way to improve, she said, noting that an ODE assessment team found that the district’s academic goals are aligned with state educational standards, but what is being taught in the classroom doesn’t always fall in line with those standards.
The commission has extensive authority, even holding the power to fire, hire and reassign administrative personnel.
However, Delisle has said she’s looking at a collaborative approach in an effort to identify the best practices and procedures and come to a mutual agreement with the school district on the best course of action.
The commission has 120 days from its first meeting to devise an academic-recovery plan to submit to the state superintendent. The commission can remain in place until Youngstown achieves a continuous-improvement academic rating on its state report card for two of three consecutive years.
Youngstown never has reached that mark, consistently being ranked in academic watch or academic emergency, the two lowest rankings, since the state began giving report card ratings in 2000.
The appointees:
Kathie Garcia majored in history and minored in English and philosophy at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, Ill., and taught history and geography before moving to Youngstown.
Here, she enrolled at Youngstown State University to become a special-education teacher.
She served as education director for Youngstown’s first full-year Headstart program and later taught in the city schools, the Niles schools and the Mahoning County Juvenile Justice Center.
Betty L. Greene holds a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a master’s in curriculum and supervision from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
She has taught in Ohio elementary schools, served as regional director of the Ohio State University’s Young Scholars Program, worked as an elementary-school principal and held other administrative posts in the Youngstown schools and teaches at YSU.
gwin@vindy.com