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Youngstown BOE approves Stohla’s 6-month extension
Members also OK hiring new treasurer
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
Stephen Stohla will serve in the interim superintendent role at the city school district for another six months.
School board members voted 6-0, with member Michael Murphy absent, to reappoint Stohla to the post through June 30.
He will earn $60,000 for those six months, the same salary he earned for July, when he began working in the district, through this month.
The board also approved a contract to hire Sherry Tyson, an assistant treasurer, as the new treasurer, effective Jan. 1.
Treasurer James Rein-hard is moving to a part-time position in the treasurer’s office.
Despite the approval of both Stohla’s and Tyson’s contracts, efforts by The Vindicator to obtain copies of either proved fruitless.
Milton Walters, assistant superintendent of human resources, said he was told The Vindicator could get a copy today after the documents are signed.
Stohla said he didn’t have copies, and Brenda Kimble, board president, said she didn’t have copies either.
Stohla said the contract for his reappointment differs from the original six-month pact only in that it includes a provision allowing him and the district to sever ties with a 30-day notice, if both parties want that.
The provision doesn’t include a payout, he said.
The board also hired Jerron Jenkins as the new head football coach of the East High School Panthers. The previous coach, P.J. Mays, resigned. Jenkins served as an assistant. His salary will be based on a percentage of a teacher’s salary, but that wasn’t available Tuesday night, either.
Jenkins’ hiring had been on the agenda at the Dec. 8 school board meeting but was tabled. It wasn’t on Tuesday’s meeting agenda, but Richard Atkinson, board member, made a motion to hire Jenkins after the board returned from an executive session.
The vote followed an impassioned plea by another assistant coach who told board members that a coach had to be appointed soon because he feared players leaving and enrolling in other schools.
Mark Greene, an assistant coach, said every day students who were on the team ask, “who’s the new coach?”
He supported Jenkins’ getting the job.
“If we want kids to stay in this district, you have to put someone in this position yesterday,” Green said.
The Rev. Kenneth Simon of New Bethel Baptist Church told board members that he’s been disturbed by the court battle between the board and the teachers’ union about Kimble’s appointment to the new academic distress commission.
The Rev. Mr. Simon was a member of the former commission that was disbanded when the Youngstown Plan took effect earlier this year.
The plan created a new commission that will appoint a chief executive officer who will have broad authority in managing and operating the school district.
The commission consists of three appointees by the state superintendent of public instruction, one appointee by the mayor and one, a teacher, by the school board president.
Kimble appointed Carol Staten, a retired principal who now serves as a substitute principal to the seat. That drew the ire of Youngstown Education Association, the teachers’ union, whose members contend the appointee should be an active classroom teacher.
They took the case to court and a magistrate in Mahoning County Common Pleas agreed, ordering Kimble to appoint an active classroom teacher. Atty, Ted Roberts, who represents Kimble in the case, said last week that he would file an objection to the magistrate’s decision.
A judge will then decide.
“The real enemy is House Bill 70 [the Youngstown Plan],” Mr. Simon said. “It’s not this board and it’s not the teachers. It’s a battle for public education.”
It’s about the children of the school district, he said.
The teachers’ union and the school board are on the same side in a legal battle in Franklin County Common Pleas Court against the Ohio Department of Education. That lawsuit seeks to have the Youngstown Plan declared unconstitutional.
While an injunction to stop the plan from kicking in was denied by the Columbus judge, the case remains active.
Youngstown Plan opponents should concentrate on the fight to preserve public education rather than on who will be the commission appointee and “just a voice that doesn’t matter because the decision has already been made,” Mr. Simon said.