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Magistrate orders Kimble to appoint teacher by Friday
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
City School Ruling
Document
Youngstown Education Association OEA/NEA vs Brenda Kimble, et al
A Mahoning County Common Pleas Court magistrate gave Brenda Kimble, board of education president, until Friday to appoint a city school teacher to the academic distress commission.
The decision came Wednesday afternoon from Magistrate Daniel Dascenzo, but the parties have 14 days to object to the magistrate’s decision. Judge Lou A. D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court must issue a ruling.
Paula Valentini, a vice president of the Youngstown Education Association, the teachers union, was happy about the decision,
“We just hope she accepts the ruling,” she said of Kimble.
Atty. Ted Roberts, who represents Kimble, doesn’t know yet whether he will object.
“It’s too early to tell,” he said. “I’ll have to meet with the client.”
Kimble couldn’t be reached.
The action was brought by the YEA after Kimble appointed Carol Staten, a substitute administrator in the district, to the commission.
Dascenzo’s ruling prevents Kimble from appointing Staten, or anyone who isn’t a district teacher, to the commission.
The academic distress commission will appoint a chief executive officer to manage and operate the city school district.
The legislation, called the Youngstown Plan, calls for three of the commission’s five members to be appointed by the state superintendent of public instruction, one by the mayor and one, a teacher, by the school board president.
Kimble has contended that Staten is a teacher, and Roberts. in a hearing earlier this week on the issue, referred to a section of Ohio law that defines teacher as people licensed to teacher who are employed by Ohio public schools including principals, superintendents and supervisors.
Attorneys Charles Oldfield and Ira Mirkin, who represent the union, argued that Kimble’s appointee should be a full-time, active classroom teacher in the district.
Dascenzo wrote in his decision that “the plain meaning of teacher, in the given context of this statute, is someone whose occupation is teaching others, especially children.”
He further said that the board president’s appointee should “be an individual whose occupation is teaching children in the Youngstown City School District.
“Staten is not currently employed as a teacher by the school district,” Dascenzo wrote. Her occupation is “not that of a teacher.”
Teacher and substitute principal are separate and distinct positions, the magistrate wrote.
“And under no common, ordinary interpretation could one reasonably conclude that these different titles are synonymous,” the ruling said.
Valentini said the union wasn’t trying to prevent the commission from doing its work by filing the action.
“We believe [the ruling] affirms what we’ve argued from the beginning” that the appointee is supposed to be active teacher, she said.
Although the commission hasn’t been able to meet formally because of the court action, the four sitting members toured schools Tuesday, meeting teachers and administrators. The four members met in pairs so as not to violate state open meeting laws.
Valentini said Brian Benyo, commission chairman, is willing to meet with teachers and some were able to talk to him this week.