State signals fall opening for Southside Academy

By HAROLD GWIN

gwin@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The Ohio Department of Education says a new city charter school, Southside Academy of Youngstown, appears to be on track to open this fall.

The school will cater to the same student demographic — kindergarten through eighth grade — that attended Eagle Heights Academy at the same location at 1833 Market St., the former South High School.

The state ordered Eagle Heights, the largest charter school in Youngstown with about 750 students, closed in June because of its poor academic performance.

Southside Academy will open in the Eagle Heights building. It is being sponsored by the Ohio Council of Community Schools based in Toledo, the same sponsor of Eagle Heights.

Scott Blake, ODE spokesman, said the state is finishing its review of the new school’s sponsor/governing board contract, and it appears to be in order.

The Rev. Kenneth Simon, who served as president of the Eagle Heights governing board, is also a member of the Southside Academy governing board.

He said the new school has contracted with White Hat Management of Akron to provide the educational programming for Southside Academy.

White Hat is the largest for-profit charter school operator in Ohio and the third largest in the nation. It operates more than 50 schools in six states with an enrollment of 23,000 children.

White Hat is in a legal battle with 10 of the Ohio charter schools it manages in Cleveland and Akron. The schools filed a lawsuit against the company in Franklin County Common Pleas Court in May claiming that state law allows it to exert undue authority over their operations and that its for-profit operation conflicts with the schools’ goals to educate and show student progress. The suit asks that the contracts with White Hat be voided and that the company be made to provide a full accounting of all state and federal educational dollars it has received.

Locally, White Hat manages the LifeSkills Center of Youngstown and the LifeSkills Center of Trumbull County in Warren.

Southside Academy is expected to open in late August. It has already made a temporary change to the Eagle Heights sign to reflect the new school. name.

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