City schools’ staffing to get needed independent review

When officials of the Ohio Department of Education were making the case for the Youngstown Plan, the statutory blueprint aimed at re-engineering the academically challenged Youngstown City School District, they handed out a fact sheet about the urban system that was an eye-opener – even for those of us who have more inside information than John Q. Public.

Of particular interest were two revelations: the district’s total budget is $127 million; and, 37.2 percent of the money is spent outside classroom instruction. In other words, $47.2 million is being spent outside the classrooms. To put that in perspective, this spending is second-highest among districts of similar size in the state.

Just how big is the Youngstown district? According to the state’s fact sheet, there were 5,037 students attending city schools in 2014, compared with 5,252 students living in the district who attended schools outside the district. In pure dollar terms, the per-student spending in Youngstown was $13,111, while the state average was $9,189.

Against that backdrop, we unequivocally support a special independent audit designed to answer this question: Is the district’s payroll bloated? Or put another way, does the Youngstown schools system have too many employees?

It has long been shown that more than 60 percent of a public entity’s operating budget is for employee costs – wages and benefits – and that the first place to cut in a difficult economy is payroll.

However, in a school system, a distinction must be made between teaching and nonteaching staff.

In the case of Youngstown, which has had the distinction of being the worst academically performing public school system in the state, and also has had to contend with state-declared fiscal emergency, teachers are the most-important cog in the education wheel.

Thus, we would hope that the Cuyahoga County Educational Service Center, which has been contracted to conduct the special audit on staffing, would not only identify the areas that are afflicted by bloat but would determine if the number of teachers is adequate to deal with the systemic problems that have plagued the urban school district. Foremost is the dysfunctional home life of many inner-city students that does not lend itself to learning in the classroom.

ASLEEP AT THE DESK

Many students in Youngstown attend school ill-prepared to learn – falling asleep during the school day is a common phenomenon – and, therefore, require a great deal of individualized attention from the teacher. This short- changes those students who are eager to learn.

A teacher in Youngstown is oftentimes required to serve as a social worker, which also undermines learning in the classroom.

The special audit on staffing is important because it will provide a detailed look at what has been going on in Youngstown.

The report will be a valuable tool, not only for the Youngstown Academic Distress Commission, which hired Cuyahoga County Educational Service Center, but for the reconstituted commission defined in the statute.

It will also prove invaluable to the new chief executive officer of the school district. The CEO is to be appointed by the new academic distress commission.

This audit should be only one of many that needs to be conducted in Youngstown. Over the years, with special federal and state dollars flowing into Youngstown because of the high-poverty rate among students, a large number of after-school programs were created by individuals in the community.

We would be interested to see how many of those programs, whose importance have been diminished by the continuing academic failure of the schools, still exist today and how closely they are monitored by the administration.

The bottom line is clear: With the Youngstown City School District sporting a budget of $127 million, the question that taxpayers can be expected to ask is this: Where’s the money?

Every time the $13,114-per-student spending in Youngstown is seen in print, the reaction from the public is universal: If students aren’t learning with so much money being spent, doubling the amount would not guarantee success.

That is why we remain unwavering in our support of the Youngstown Plan. The only hope for the district is a top-to-bottom shake-up.