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Youngstown School-board president seeks help with determining cuts
By Denise Dick
Youngstown
The city school-board president says everything must be considered in the decision of where to make cuts and he’s asking the community for help to make those determinations.
“Something has to be done with our finances,” said Lock P. Beachum Sr., school board president, during a school board meeting Tuesday. “Where are we going to save the money?”
The district learned this month that because of a loss of more than 500 students as determined by the state’s official October enrollment count, it would receive about $4 million less from the state than it expected.
As a result, the school board pulled a levy from the March ballot. That levy was to renew and reduce the amount collected from a 2008 levy that expires at the end of this year.
He said there should be no sacred cows in making the decisions, but academics have to be the first priority.
“We cannot continue cutting staff,” he said. “If we continue to cut staff, that means weaker academic programs and then we’ll lose more students.”
Richard Atkinson, board member, agreed.
“The only thing sacred is our students and a quality education,” he said.
Beachum said he’s looking for recommendations from board members, from the community.
“I am not going to the people and asking for a levy if we have not done our own work,” he said.
In other business, the board heard from Jimma McWilson of the Community High Commission, a group aimed at closing the achievement gap for black students.
McWilson said the commission wants the school board to set academic excellence as the goal for all students, “meeting all state and federal categories on the state report card.”
After two years of the city schools Academic Distress Commission being in the city and a lot of money being spent, the community sees “African descendant students” scoring below proficient in science by 78 percent, in social studies by 63 percent, in math by 59 percent and in reading by 47 percent, he wrote in a letter to the school board.
The commission wants meetings with the board, as part of the regular board meetings of March 13 and March 27.
If the board doesn’t agree to those meetings and dialogue with the group, “all of our followers would then be advised to take advantage of all legal means and all avenues available to them to get their children the best education possible outside of Youngstown City Schools,” the letter said.
The letter asks for a response by Friday.
Beachum hadn’t read the letter Tuesday evening so he said he hadn’t made any decisions.