Youngstown Academic Distress Commission tightens controls on school board

YOUNGSTOWN

The Youngstown School District Academic Commission has high goals for city schools’ improvement and is stripping the local board of some of its authority on the way to getting there.

The commission adopted a draft of the updated Academic Recovery Plan at its meeting Thursday, sending it to Richard Ross, state superintendent of public instruction, for approval.

The draft plan, if approved, also takes away some of the authority of the school board.

All administrative appointments will be recommended to and approved by the commission, not the city school board. That includes principals, leadership or special assistance positions.

In recent months, the commission had appointed a handful of principals who had been recommended by Superintendent Connie Hathorn but rejected by the school board.

President Richard Atkinson and Michael Murphy were the only school board members who attended Thursday’s commission meeting.

Atkinson said the commission’s taking over administrative

appointments won’t make much difference.

“They do it anyway,” he said.

One of the plan’s priorities is leadership and governance. It recommends training for school board members, between next month and January, “to clarify roles of the board and the professional staff and to eliminate micromanaging actions by the board because micromanaging can slow down or even upend critical decisions and actions that affect student achievement,” the draft plan says.

Read more of the new plan in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.