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Process to replace Youngstown superintendent unclear
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
Connie Hathorn Resignation
Document
Resignation letter of Youngstown City School District Superintendent, Connie Hathorn.
Exactly what role the academic distress commission, city school board and Ohio Department of Education each will play in selecting a replacement for Superintendent Connie Hathorn, who leaves the job June 30, remains up in the air.
“Because there is an academic distress commission there and that commission has the authority to weigh in on that decision, I don’t know how much we will want to participate,” said John Charlton, an ODE spokesman.
The superintendent of Lorain City Schools, where an academic distress commission also is in place, will retire, leaving a similar question in that district.
ODE could decide to play different roles with the appointment of each of those superintendents, he said. A decision is expected at a meeting next week among ODE representatives who work with the academic distress commissions.
Joffrey Jones, chairman of the Youngs-town City School District Academic Distress Commission, said he has to discuss how Hathorn will be replaced with school board President Brenda Kimble.
“There are options that we have, but we need to discuss them privately first,” he said.
To Arkansas
Hathorn, superintendent since 2011, announced his resignation Friday at a gathering of parents at Stambaugh Auditorium. He also sent a letter to school board members. He has accepted the superintendent job at Watson Chapel schools in Pine Bluff, Ark.
Hathorn acknowledged a sometimes fractious relationship with some city school board members, although he wouldn’t identify them.
“They questioned everything I wanted to do,” he said in an interview.
He pointed to board members’ getting involved with personnel matters.
“I didn’t feel like I could pick my own team,” Hathorn said. “If you’re going to hold me accountable, let me pick my own team.”
The community, however, has been good to him. He said he had the support of business people, students and the district staff.
At Friday’s gathering of parents and supporters, Hathorn blasted George Freeman Jr., president of the NAACP’s Youngstown chapter, and Jimma McWilson, who led a group called the Community High Commission, for what he said were their continual efforts to undermine his work to improve the district. Neither Freeman nor McWilson ever spoke to Hathorn one-on-one regarding their concerns, he added.
At a January news conference, Freeman said Hathorn and Doug Hiscox, deputy superintendent for academic affairs, should be removed because of a lack of progress on the district’s state report card.
After that news conference, Hathorn got a phone call from a search firm, notifying him of several superintendent openings. One of them was in Pine Bluff where Hathorn worked as a coach and teacher from 1979 to 1983. Hathorn also graduated from and played football at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
“It seemed like it was a homecoming,” he said.
Hathorn said he hadn’t been job hunting.
Neither Freeman nor McWilson could be reached.
Hathorn’s advice to his replacement: “Good luck.”
“They’re going to have their hands full trying to keep this community together,” he said. “I think this community was coming together.”
Troubled district
The district hasn’t been losing the high numbers of students as it was in previous years. The new superintendent also must support district employees, Hathorn said.
When he accepted the job, Hathorn didn’t know all of the challenges he would encounter.
“There wasn’t any kind of structure in the district,” he said. “It was fragmented. There were so many programs in the district that weren’t working. There were low expectations for the district, and morale was bad. I’ve worked on that.”
Kimble said she isn’t surprised. The board president wants to ensure a smooth transition between Hathorn and whoever replaces him so that students don’t lose ground academically.
She said Hathorn expressed to her that requests for so many reports from both the school board and the commission caused him stress.
There are some board members who try to micromanage, Kimble said.
“I do think board members need to understand what their roles are as board members and what that’s supposed to stand for,” she said. “Whoever we appoint, we have to be able to work as a team.”
Jackie Adair, board member, said she’s happy Hathorn is leaving the district.
“I did not see us working with Dr. Hathorn to a point where we can turn things around in the district,” she said.
Student test scores haven’t improved or improved only slightly during his tenure, Adair said.
“I like him personally — he’s a nice guy,” she said. “But I don’t have a personal relationship with him. I have a business relationship with him. No other company I know of would have kept a manager, a CEO, as long as we have, including the academic distress commission, with that kind of record.”
She said she’s ready for a new superintendent with fresh ideas.
“It’s just chaotic,” Adair said. “The commission is worthless. The board is worthless. Student outcomes in the district are just abysmal. We all play a part in this, but as we’ve been told, he and the commission are the academic experts and the fingers are going to be pointed at them. In that regard, goodbye, Dr. Hathorn. Let’s try someone else.”
More reaction
Richard Atkinson, board member, learned about Hathorn’s resignation from The Vindicator, and said he is shocked.
Marcia Haire-Ellis, board member, said Hathorn was able to hire the administrators that he wanted, acknowledging that in some instances that occurred through commission action.
“I didn’t see the type of academic improvement I would have liked to have seen,” she said. “I think he was probably frustrated by that also.”
Michael Murphy, board vice president, said he’s sorry to see Hathorn go and tried to persuade him to stay.
“They just drove him out,” Murphy said of other board members, declining to identify them.
During his five-year tenure, Hathorn has at times battled some board members who questioned his administrative appointments and criticized him for a lack of more dramatic student academic progress.
In 2010, before Hathorn became superintendent, the academic distress commission was appointed to oversee district academics and try to guide the district out of the academic morass.
The commission, the first in Ohio, was appointed because the district failed to make adequate yearly progress for four years and was designated in academic emergency.
The school board fought against the commission and against Hathorn, Murphy said. “They question everything he does. ... He was in a no-win situation,” he said.
Last fall in its updated Academic Recovery Plan, the commission directed that all administrative appointments be made by the commission upon Hathorn’s recommendation, removing the school board from those decisions.
Murphy also worries about the difficulty of finding a quality candidate to replace Hathorn.
“I don’t know who will want to come here now with the commission and the board the way it is,” he said.
Kimble doesn’t think that will be an issue. She said she might like to see someone from within the district selected so they’re familiar with the programs and plans in place.
Jones said he’s disappointed but understands the superintendent’s decision to return home.
Heading home
“I think he’s had a challenge in Youngstown and he’s had difficulty with the board a little bit,” Jones said. “The stress of that and all of the focus is getting to him a little bit. He’s a well-intentioned guy and a smart guy, and he’s doing all he can to help the schools improve. It’s worn him down and he has the opportunity to go home.”
Mayor John McNally, who has been a Hathorn supporter, is disappointed to see him leave.
“He’s been a good person for me to work with and I enjoyed working with him,” he said. “I’m sorry to see he’ll be gone. I think the biggest factor for him in his life is he’s going back home.”
In 2013, Hathorn was a finalist for schools superintendent in Little Rock, Ark.
Lock P. Beachum Sr., who served on the school board for 16 years, was on the board that selected Hathorn. He wrote a recommendation for Hathorn for the Watson Chapel job.
“It’s Youngstown’s loss,” he said. “I think he made every effort he could in order to right this district,”
Hathorn will earn about $142,000 annually in his new position. After he retired and was rehired in 2013 in Youngstown, his salary was reduced to about $119,000, but he also was able to collect his retirement.
Watson Chapel enrolls about 3,000 students in five school buildings. About 5,000 students attend Youngstown’s 13 schools and programs.