Youngstown schools progress on academic recovery plan

Boardman

A plan to dig the Youngstown City Schools out of its academic difficulties is 25 percent implemented.

The Youngstown Academic Distress Commission was appointed by the Ohio Department of Education after the school district failed to make progress on state report cards in selected groups of students.

It developed a plan aimed at improving school test scores with an eye on moving the district to continuous improvement by 2015.

The 2010-11 school year was the first year that parts of the plan were implemented in the schools.

“The academic recovery plan is a four-year plan,” Debra Mettee, commission chairwoman, said at a commission meeting Friday. “This was the first year.”

Commission members must submit a report on that first year to the state superintendent for public instruction who will then determine how the plan should proceed, she said.

Stan W. Heffner, the state superintendent, is expected to attend the commission’s next meeting Sept. 14.

Preliminary data show that Youngstown schools improved from academic emergency to academic watch on the 2010-11 state report cards that are to be released Wednesday.

“What’s been done with the plan involves students in kindergarten and first grade, and they haven’t even been tested year,” Mettee said. “In the next year or two, we’ll see even more significant improvement.”

The plan called for a 15 students-to-one-teacher ratio in kindergarten and first grade.

Mettee said the commission wants to see the district develop a plan for each school building of how it will improve on the next report card.

Superintendent Connie Hathorn said the district would work on that in the next several weeks.