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Youngstown school board considers commission replacements
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
City school board members interviewed three people as possible replacements for the board president’s appointments to the Youngstown City School District Academic Distress Commission.
Richard Atkinson, board president, said no decision has been made about whether to replace either Susan Moorer or Betty Greene. It’s possible that neither will be replaced, he said.
“We’re just in discussions,” he said. “We need to improve communication.”
The board, at its meeting Tuesday, interviewed Barbara Brothers, retired dean of Youngstown State University’s College of Arts and Sciences; Atty. Lori Shells, an assistant Mahoning County prosecutor; and William Blake, director of student diversity programs at YSU, as possible replacements.
Each candidate said he or she would communicate openly with board members.
Greene, a retired city school principal and an instructor in YSU’s Beeghly College of Education, is the commission’s only original member, originally appointed in 2010. Moorer, coordinator of P-16 outreach and assessment at YSU, was appointed in late 2011.
The other three members, including the chairman, were appointed by the state superintendent of public instruction.
In other business Tuesday, board members tabled awarding a contract for in-school suspension program at East High School to D&E Counseling Center and rejected a recommendation from Superintendent Connie Hathorn to award a contract to Thompson Enterprises for mental-health services at Programs of Promise at Wilson.
Atkinson and Michael Murphy voted against tabling the in-school suspension resolution. Hathorn had recommended D&E, but the board heard presentations from both D&E and STARS of Youngstown.
Board member Marcia Haire-Ellis said the board wanted more time to review both proposals.
Murphy and Atkinson voted in favor of awarding the other contract to Thompson, with members Ronald Shadd, Jerome Williams, Jackie Adair, Haire-Ellis and Brenda Kimble opposed.
Haire-Ellis said the curriculum committee had recommended a 90-day contract for Thompson with reports every month because there were concerns about the success rate of the vendor last year.
Hathorn said it’s not fair to a vendor to ask them to take a 90-day contract.
Kimble said board members have brought up their issues with the vendor before.
“They don’t have to meet the needs of us, but they have to meet the needs of our students, and we didn’t see that last year, and we told you that last year,” she said.