Plan for schools gets final approval

City teachers union forgoes challenge

By HAROLD GWIN

gwin@vindy.com

BOARDMAN

The union representing Youngstown city schoolteachers won’t challenge a portion of an academic-recovery plan that bypasses seniority rights in the teacher contract.

The state Academic Distress Commission set up to devise a plan to help Youngstown move from academic emergency to continuous improvement on its state local report card gave final approval to that plan Monday.

One portion of the plan calls for the hiring of an estimated 30 teachers to reduce the student-to-teacher ratio in all kindergarten and first-grade classes to 15-to-1, something Tom Reed, the consultant who drafted the recovery document, called “the cornerstone of the turnaround plan.”

That portion of the plan comes with a $2 million price tag. It also gives the school district and the distress commission authority to assign those teachers without regard to employee seniority.

“That goes against our philosophy,” said William Bagnola, president of the Youngstown Education Association, the union representing district teachers.

It also would be a violation of the current teacher contract, which requires classroom assignments be made on an employee-seniority basis, but Bagnola said the YEA won’t challenge it.

Teachers like the idea of smaller class sizes, he said, noting that the commission is taking back some management rights under the terms of the recovery plan.

Bagnola said he has some concerns regarding the constitutionality of the law that created the distress commission, questioning whether the state has the authority to supersede terms of a negotiated labor agreement or the right to pass that authority on to the commission. That’s an issue that will require some research, he said.

The commission is sending its plan to Deborah Delisle, state superintendent of public instruction, who has 30 days to approve it intact or in part.

Delisle greeted commission members by video conference at Monday’s meeting, thanking the five members for their service and promising to review and act on the plan as quickly as possible.

“It’s all about the kids. We should never forget that,” she said.

Reed presented the commission with a revised version of the plan it reviewed a week ago, pointing out that the annual projected cost of implementation has been reduced from nearly $4 million to about $3.2 million.

He said the state fiscal-oversight commission controlling school-district finances while Youngstown is in fiscal emergency has assured him that there are sufficient funds available to cover those costs, tapping federal stimulus dollars, federal Title I money and some grant funds.

In addition to reducing student-teacher ratios in kindergarten and first grade, the plan calls for double-literacy classes in the elementary and middle schools, double-literacy and double-math classes in the high schools, the implementation of various intervention and learning acceleration efforts and the appointment of literacy coaches to work with principals and teachers.