Youngstown schools commission opts for high school monitor

By Denise Dick

denise_dick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

At its next meeting, the Youngstown City School District Academic Distress Commission will consider appointing an academic monitor for the high schools similar to the one operated in lower grades this past school year.

After an executive session at a special commission meeting Wednesday, Adrienne O’Neill, commission chairwoman, said the high-school academic monitor for student success and quality control would work in the high schools and report monthly to the commission.

Last October, the commission appointed Edward A. Bernetich as its supervisor for prekindergarten through eighth grade. Bernetich, a former Beachwood Middle School principal, visited all prekindergarten-through-eighth-grade schools.

He reported on the quality of the school climate, whether classrooms were being instructed at or below grade level, information about suspended and expelled students, monthly grading reports, teacher meetings and interventions designed for students not likely to meet standards. He was paid $450 per diem, including expenses.

Bernetich’s reports were delivered to the commission behind closed doors.

Clairie Huff-Franklin, director of academic distress commissions and education reform for the Ohio Department of Education, said students in those lower grades showed consistent growth throughout the district.

“We want to do that at the high-school level,” O’Neill said.

The monitor selected for the high schools also will report to the commission in executive session, she said.

The commission’s next meeting is June 26.

The panel opted for that action rather than implementing a higher high-school-principal salary schedule. That strategy had met with opposition from city school board members who contend the district can’t afford it.