Youngstown school district must pay fee for adviser

By HAROLD GWIN

gwin@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The state Academic Distress Commission created to help the Youngstown city schools improve student academic performance wants the school district to pick up the tab for a consultant to work on creating an academic- recovery plan.

The commission passed a resolution this week directing the Ohio Department of Education to prepare a request for proposals to seek bids for the consulting work. The consultant will be paid by the school district, said Debra Mettee, commission chairman.

The commission, which began meeting earlier this month, is under a very limited time frame to devise a recovery plan. The state superintendent of public instruction has said it must be presented to her within 120 days of the March 1 initial meeting of the commission.

The commission is meeting weekly to gather data on the Youngstown schools but needs the services of a consultant or consulting company to analyze the various improvement plans the district has in place or is proposing and put them into a format the commission can use as it develops a comprehensive approach to district and individual building improvement, Mettee said.

It is a big task, she said, explaining that the consultant will produce the nuts and bolts of the data the commission is gathering to help put a recovery plan together.

The Ohio Department of Education suggested the consultant approach to aid the commission, which is made up of five people working part time on the plan, she said.

Anthony Catale, Youngstown school board president, said the cost of such a consultant could be in the “six-figure range.”

The school board needs to talk about that, he said, adding that he doesn’t know yet if the district will be able to tap federal-stimulus dollars to pick up the cost.

Youngstown has been in state-designated fiscal emergency since November 2006.

The district is getting some $8 million in stimulus funds over a two-year period to be used to improve student-academic achievement and has earmarked $1.2 million of that amount to implement whatever changes the distress commission proposes. Some research will have to be done to determine whether a consultant can be paid with that money, he said.

Youngstown is the only school district in the state to be assigned an Academic Distress Commission, due to the district’s academic- emergency rating on its 2009 state local report card. Youngstown is the only district in the state to receive that rating.