Academic recovery blueprint holds promise for Youngstown

In Tuesday’s general election, Youngstown residents went for experience and enthusiasm in the candidates they chose for the Youngstown Board of Education. We trust they made the right decision, given the enormous challenges confronting the troubled urban school district.

Indeed, a visit later this month to Youngstown by the state’s top public education official will, we hope, answer the many questions that surround the system’s academic future. The district has been in academic emergency since 2010, and a state-mandated academic distress commission has been working to turn things around.

A recovery blueprint — it combines seven improvement plans that had been in place — was adopted Monday by the commission. The plan was sent to the Ohio Department of Education a week and a half ago. Stan Heffner, state superintendent of public instruction, the deputy superintendent and two others from Heffner’s staff will be in Youngstown on Nov. 29 to review the blueprint with the state panel. The state superintendent had sought the consolidation.

At the meeting, we would urge Heffner to give the community an unambiguous answer to this important question: Who has ultimate responsibility for implementing the academic recovery plan?

We ask it because during the election campaign, the two incumbent board members on the ballot who won second four-year terms Tuesday, Richard Atkinson and Michael Murphy, discussed in great detail how they intended to help the district move up from academic watch. The third incumbent in the race, June Drennen, who was appointed to the board in 2009, lost her bid for a full term.

The change in designation from academic emergency to academic watch was achieved because of improvement in student attendance.

During his last visit to Youngstown, state Superintendent Heffner said publicly that he expects the district to be in continuous improvement when the state report cards are released next year.

That’s a tall order, but Atkinson and Murphy insisted it is realistic. That was also the opinion of Marcia Haire-Ellis and Brenda Kimble, who won the seats now occupied by Drennen and Anthony Catale, who chose not to seek another term.

The other candidate in the race was Jackie Adair. What was encouraging about the election is that all the candidates had a clear understanding of the challenges confronting the district.

Therefore, it would be a shame if the school board, including the new members, were not given an opportunity to participate in discussions relating to the implementation of the recovery plan.

Schools superintendent

Likewise, it would be a waste of the talents and commitment of schools Superintendent Dr. Connie Hathorn to have him simply carry out the dictates of the distress commission.

There are three entities, the state panel, the superintendent and the school board, that should have a role in the academic turnaround, just as there were three involved in the district’s emergence from fiscal emergency: a state fiscal oversight commission, the superintendent and the school board.

Because Youngstown is the first and only district under the state’s thumb with regard to academics, there isn’t a template for how to deal with its recovery.

State Superintendent Heffner should be clear as to what he expects from the commission, Hathorn and the board of education. What the Youngstown district does not need is a distraction, such as a turf war, from the ultimate goal: Educating students so they can demonstrate progress in the state tests.