Youngstown BOE 'facing difficult future' state leader warns

YOUNGSTOWN — The state superintendent of public instruction delivered a somber message to the city school board Tuesday.

“This is a sobering time for the Youngstown School District,” Deborah Delisle told the board as she announced that a state Academic Distress Commission soon will be in place to guide the district’s efforts to improve student achievement.

The commission has broad powers, including the authority to terminate administrators.

Delisle said the five appointments to the commission — three by her and two by the school board president — must be made within 30 days, and the commission will have 120 days after its first meeting to come up with an acceptable academic-recovery plan.

Delisle said then that Youngstown would be the first district to get the services of a distress commission under a 2007 law that requires a commission appointment in a district that has been declared to be in academic emergency and has failed to make adequate yearly academic progress for four or more years.

“You are facing a difficult future as a board,” she told the school board.

For more details, read the full story in Wednesday’s Vindicator.