Youngstown NAACP leader not sorry superintendent is leaving

April 21, 2015 at 7:20p.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

The president of the NAACP’s Youngstown chapter isn’t sorry that city schools Superintendent Connie Hathorn is leaving the district.

When announcing his resignation last week, Hathorn called out George Freeman Jr., president of the Youngstown Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Jimma McWilson, a leader of the Community High Commission, saying they tried to undermine his work in working to improve the schools.

Freeman, at a January NAACP news conference, said that Hathorn and Doug Hiscox, deputy superintendent of academic affairs, should be replaced because of the district’s lack of academic progress.

He said Tuesday that people asked him how he could not support a superintendent who was good for the school system.

“I said, ‘How can you say he’s a great person in charge of the school system when they’re rated at the bottom of the barrel?’” Freeman said.