YCS receives group’s Honor Roll Award

Staff report

Youngstown

The Ohio Coalition for Quality Education has presented Youngstown Community School with its 2010-2011 Honor Roll Award.

OCQE is a grass-roots advocacy group for public charter schools.

In 1976, Sister Jerome Corcoran founded the Millcreek Children’s Center, a preschool serving Youngstown children age 3 to 5. Millcreek provides a quality early learning program that has been helping lower-income working families for more than 30 years so that their children get an early boost to succeed in kindergarten.

Parents asked Sister Jerome for a high-quality elementary school, so the YCS elementary school opened its doors in 1998 with 36 kindergarten pupils and since has added grades first through sixth, totaling 327 children in the 2010-11 academic year.

YCS alumni totals 308 students.

Under the guidance of Sister Mary Dunn, YCS has excelled, which is reflected in their two most recent State Report Ratings of Excellent and Effective. The school has class sizes of one teacher to every 16 students and 96 percent student attendance.

Student character building is also important at YCS, with programs such as Great Expectations Awards. It encourages and recognizes students monthly who display good citizenship, honesty and respect for their parents, teachers and community. The school has a long student waiting list.

Youngstown Community School is sponsored by the Mahoning County Educational Service Center.