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CEO could take away Youngstown school board’s authority
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
If the chief executive officer of the city schools wants, he or she can assume all of the responsibilities of the school board except for tax levies, under the new Youngstown Plan.
“However, the CEO may also choose to give the board a prominent role in the district,” Michael Sponhour, an Ohio Department of Education spokesman, said in an email.
The Youngstown Plan, approved by the Ohio Legislature and signed last month by Gov. John Kasich, disbands the school district’s academic distress commission and replaces it with a new one.
That new five-member panel – three of whom will be appointed by the state superintendent of public instruction, one by the mayor and the fifth, who must be a teacher, by the school board – appoints a CEO who will have broad authority. That individual will manage and operate the district.
“The board has an opportunity right now to work with the community and come up with ideas to improve the district,” Sponhour said. “This way, when the CEO starts, the board can help him or her hit the ground running. The board can be a powerful partner with the CEO to create and implement an improvement plan. Ultimately, when the ADC transitions away, it will be the board that continues the improvement in the district.”
Brenda Kimble, school board president, said that neither the school board nor the community has been given much specific information about the implications of the plan.
“A CEO would have to get some input from the board especially if [that person has] nothing to do with education,” she said.
The board may act as an advisory panel, the CEO could keep the board in place to approve contracts or choose to take all of the board’s authority, Kimble said.
She believes the CEO will need the board at least in the early days.
“Even if it’s someone from the area, even if they just use us to sit down with the board to learn the status of the district,” Kimble said.
The plan has met opposition from many factions of the community. Teachers decry it as a first step to privatize public education in the state.
The CEO has the option to reopen collective-bargaining agreements and turn poor-performing schools over to outside operators.
State Sen. Joe Schiavoni of Boardman, D-33rd, and state Rep. Michele Lepore-Hagan of Youngstown, D-58th, are conducting meetings with community members to develop an alternative plan.
The two legislators are meeting with teachers, retired teachers, business people, law enforcement, mental health and social/emotional service providers to gather input.
“We want to come up with a plan that builds upon Youngstown City Schools rather than just creates a framework just to tear it down,” Schiavoni said.
He said he expects to have something ready by mid-September, when the next legislative session begins.
That doesn’t mean that improvements have to wait until then though, Schiavoni said. Even without legislation, service providers can work with the school district now to help students, he said.
“We can show Columbus that we’re giving students the opportunity to succeed this year,” Schiavoni said.