43
A city school board member says clarification is needed regarding academic recovery plan
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
A city school board member wants legal clarification regarding the portions of the district’s Academic Recovery Plan that address the number and content of school board meetings.
“I recommend we seek legal clarification on the rights we have as elected members of the Youngstown City School Board,” said member Jackie Adair at a Tuesday school board meeting.
She said she wants clarification on several items contained in the Academic Recovery Plan developed by the Youngstown School District Academic Distress Commission and approved in November by Richard Ross, state superintendent of public instruction.
Among those items is the requirement in the plan that school board meetings include a portion recognizing student achievement and a limit of two meetings per month for which board members get paid.
Those issues address board action rather than the district’s academic recovery, Adair said.
Both President Brenda Kimble and member Ronald Shadd agreed, though no action was taken.
Adair said she’d like the board to get the clarification from a Cleveland law firm that was recommended by the Ohio School Boards Association.
The distress commission was established in 2010 when a school district failed to make adequate yearly progress for four years and was designated in “academic emergency.”
The five-member panel, including three members appointed by the state superintendent and two by the school board president, writes an academic recovery plan designed to guide the district out of the academic morass. The plan must be updated annually.
The most recent update stripped the local board of some of its authority, including taking the power to appoint administrative personnel from the board and giving it to the commission.
Recommendations about curriculum, instruction and assessment as well as matters regarding support services for students also are presented by the superintendent to the commission for approval, not to the school board.
Tuesday also marked the board’s annual reorganization meeting. Kimble was elected board president and Michael Murphy, vice president. Only Kimble sought the presidency, nominated by both herself and Richard Atkinson.
After Marcia Haire-Ellis declined Jerome Williams’ nomination as her for vice president, Atkinson nominated Murphy and Haire-Ellis nominated Adair.
Shadd, Kimble, Atkinson and Murphy cast votes for Murphy with Adair, Williams and Haire-Ellis voting for Adair.