Canton Chamber has taken no action regarding Youngstown lawsuit
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
A vice president at the Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce says that body has taken no action regarding the Youngstown Board of Education and the Youngstown Plan.
Brenda Kimble, school board president, announced at Tuesday’s regular board meeting that the Canton organization had passed a resolution endorsing the Youngstown board’s lawsuit against the state, the Ohio Department of Education and Richard Ross, state superintendent of public instruction.
David Kaminski, vice president for public policy and energy at the Canton chamber, said that’s untrue.
“I have no idea where that came from,” he said Wednesday. “We have not discussed this. There’s been no vote at the board, no vote at the education committee. It hasn’t even been a topic for us except maybe in some casual conversation. ... This is out of whole cloth.”
Kimble said she got a “piece of paper” with the information she announced at the meeting.
Stephen Stohla, interim superintendent, said the information came from him.
Stohla said he heard the information from the superintendent of the Stark County Educational Service Center, who he said told him he’d read it in a newspaper article.
“Blame it on me then,” Stohla said.
Attempts to reach the Stark County official were unsuccessful.
The Youngstown Plan was approved in late June by both houses of the state Legislature and signed in early July by Gov. John Kasich. It would abolish the Youngstown City School District Academic Distress Commission in place since 2010 and appoint a new commission.
Three members of the new commission would be appointed by the state superintendent of public instruction, one by the mayor, and the fifth, who must be a city school teacher, by the school board.
That commission would appoint a state-paid chief executive officer to manage and operate the city schools. That person, who need not have an education background, according to the legislation, would have wide authority in running the school district.
The CEO’s powers would include authority to hire and fire administrators, reopen employee contracts and turn failing schools over to charter or other outside operators.
Last week, the city school board, the Ohio Education Association and the city schoolteachers and classified employees unions filed the lawsuit in Franklin County Common Pleas Court seeking to have the law declared unconstitutional and invalid.