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Akron educator wraps up forums
By Denise Dick
Board meeting to discuss finalists for schools chief
By DENISE DICK
youngstowN
It will take a team effort from employees to parents to the community to turn the city school district around, said the last finalist for the superintendent job.
“There will be no more excuses,” Connie Hathorn, executive director of student support at Akron City Schools, told about 50 people gathered Wednesday at a community forum. “We’ll create a no-excuses school.”
There’s a perception that urban black students cannot learn. That’s false, said Hathorn, who has a doctorate in educational administration.
“We’re not going to accept the fact that because a kid comes from a single-parent family, he’s poor, he’s black and he has an anger problem that he cannot learn,” he said.
Anthony Catale, school board president, said the board plans a special meeting at 4:30 p.m. Friday to discuss the superintendent candidates in executive session. At 6 p.m., an open session will be conducted where members may make a decision.
The forums, conducted for each of the five finalists for the superintendent job, allowed public input. The Community Mobilization group distributed forms, soliciting ratings from those attending about each candidate.
Questions included the candidate’s ability to address “diverse challenges that are unique to urban school systems” and ability to “represent the best interest of the students in the management of personnel, including collective bargaining.”
Group members will compile those responses and make a recommendation to the board members based on them.
Hathorn said the parents, teachers, administration and community have to work together to formulate a game plan to improve the district.
“When I look at your test scores, I say to myself, ‘That is child abuse,’” said Hathorn, of Copley.
He wants to establish professional learning centers where teachers and principals could get additional training. That training would cover instruction as well as behavior, he said.
“If you don’t control your classroom in the very first two weeks of school, you’re going to have problems,” Hathorn said.
One student can’t be allowed to disrupt the learning of the rest of the class.
“We have to teach them what to expect,” he said. “You [teachers] can’t give any idea that you’re afraid of kids, and you don’t confront him in front of his friends.”
It’s about developing relationships and showing the students that you care about them. Also, discipline must be administered with respect.
“You have to treat kids with respect just like you want to be treated with respect,” Hathorn said.
The city schools would become a data-driven school district with all decisions based on data, if he is named superintendent.
“There’s a saying, ‘In God we trust; everyone else must have data,’” Hathorn said.
He would analyze the data and work with staff to improve the academics in the district.
He also said, if hired, he’ll work with city council to try to get a law passed establishing a daytime curfew. Between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., children can’t be on the streets.
Hathorn said he wants to come to Youngstown to make history. It’s the first district to have a state-appointed academic- distress commission.
“I want to be the superintendent that gets you out,” he said.