Youngstown superintendent to organize task force

By Denise Dick

denise_dick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The city school board president has directed Superintendent Connie Hathorn to organize a task force to implement the district’s academic recovery plan and President Barack Obama’s executive order.

The directive follows requests from members of the Family Empowerment Student Achievement Institute that the president’s order, which challenges the country to ensure that black students receive an education that prepares them for college and careers, be implemented in the city school district.

“It will be at the discretion of the superintendent to choose members of the task force who are committed to the best interest of all students,” said Richard Atkinson, board president, at Tuesday’s meeting.

The task force will review the next updated version of the recovery plan, expected this spring, and include strategies to provide support to implement it.

The recovery plan is the document approved by the state-appointed Youngstown City Schools Academic Distress Commission to guide the district out of academic strife.

“I am pleased and thrilled that the community is willing to be a part of the education our children,” Atkinson said.

In other business, members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., Youngstown Alumnae Chapter, donated books, math and reading flash cards and other educational materials for students at Martin Luther King Jr. and Williamson Elementary schools.

All third-graders will receive a learning packet that includes grade-level science and social studies readers along with math and word cards. The sorority also donated African-American history books for both schools’ libraries.

Michelle J. McCollin, organization president, said the items for the third-graders are for them to use at home with their parents and their siblings as a way to improve literacy.

Marcia Haire-Ellis, school board and organization member, also emphasized the importance of reading in children’s lives and education.

She urged parents, grandparents and other family members to “read with our children every night for at least 30 minutes.”