Community coalition to save Youngstown schools in making, Kasich tells Vindy editors

Gov. John Kasich said the failing Youngstown school district is “my great concern” in the Mahoning Valley, but assistance from the local business community could save it.

Kasich, a Republican, said he’s enlisted the help of state Rep. Sean O’Brien of Bazetta, D-63rd, and their mutual friend, Thomas Humphries, president and chief executive officer of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, to talk with business leaders and develop recommendations for improving the district, and the state will do whatever it can to implement a plan.

“If it’s going to reform these schools, we’ll do anything we can to help and support it and get it through” the state Legislature, Kasich said Tuesday during a 90-plus-minute meeting with The Vindicator’s editorial board.

“I am somewhat optimistic we’re going to see a [group] of business leaders, community leaders get together to begin to address this for the first time,” he said.

The first meeting between Kasich and the newspaper’s editorial board in more than four years, when he was a candidate, went in numerous directions, including his campaign, mimimum wage and right to work.

Read more of the conversation in Wednesday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.