Hathorn urges contract renewals

By Denise Dick | February 15, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Youngstown City Schools Superintendent Connie Hathorn

BOARDMAN

Youngstown’s schools superintendent will recommend that contracts for all city school principals be renewed for next year.

Connie Hathorn said at an Academic Distress Commission meeting Monday that it would be unfair to hold principals accountable if they haven’t been trained to provide instructional leadership. Some principals have told consultants that they were hired to get discipline under control and to manage the school building.

That instructional leadership training is being provided this year, he said.

“We’re going to make progress,” Hathorn said.

His comments were in response to a Vindicator article Sunday that detailed January reports from Mosaica Turnaround Partners, one of the consultants contracted to implement the district’s academic-recovery plan.

The report said that though 14 principals were making progress, three were having trouble implementing improvements. The article also said that the district’s website had job postings for elementary, middle and high school principals for next school year.

Hathorn said those postings are a proactive approach in case a principal decides shortly before the start of the school year not to return.

Mosaica, an Atlanta company with offices in Columbus, was contracted to improve leadership within the district. The contract is capped at $405,000.

John Porter of Mosaica said at Monday’s commission meeting that the principals are now “working very well with the team.”

The coaching process is continuous and as different students are in different places in their learning, so are principals.

“We’re here to help,” Porter said.

At Monday’s school board meeting, Hathorn expanded on the principals’ progress.

“I am satisfied with the direction the principals are headed,” he said.

Not all principals are at the same level.

“We’re in the process of training principals for something they have not done before,” the superintendent said.

They need to be help accountable, but they have to be given the training first, he said.

“I support them 100 percent,” Hathorn said.