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Replace schools superintendent, group says
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
The president of Youngstown’s NAACP branch says city schools Superintendent Connie Hathorn and the deputy superintendent lack the ability to improve district academics and should be replaced.
“The superintendent is fostering an illusion of progress,” George Freeman Jr. said at a news conference Monday. “The district has never been higher than a ‘D.’”
Hathorn and Doug Hiscox, deputy superintendent for academic affairs, should be replaced, Freeman said.
Hathorn, contacted after the news conference, maintains the district is improving but acknowledges it’s not at the rate he would like.
“Based on the data we get back from the state, we have made progress in 16 of the 24 indicators on the report card in regard to student achievement,” he said. “Am I satisfied with the amount of achievement? No, I am not, but the needle did not go backwards.”
Last week, Hathorn delivered his State of the School District address, talking about the progress made in the district. He referred to the increase in the district’s performance index score.
“If that group feels that way, I’m sorry they feel that way,” Hathorn said.
Hathorn has been superintendent since 2011 and has had more support than any other city schools superintendent, Freeman said, referring to the state-appointed academic distress commission and state officials.
Brenda Kimble, school board president, said she hasn’t talked to the full board to get all members’ views on the subject of replacing Hathorn and Hiscox.
“Right now, we’re just trying to move our district forward,” she said. “It’s not moving as quickly as we’d like, but there is some progress.”
She said both Hathorn and Hiscox have been working to move the district forward.
While there could be some changes made, such as ensuring that after-school programs in the district focus on tutoring to help students, she worries that replacing the two officials could cause the district to lose ground.
At this point, bringing a new superintendent and deputy who would be unfamiliar with the district and have to start over could set the district back, Kimble said.
“At this point, we can’t afford to go back any further than we are,” she said.
Freeman contends the district’s academic recovery plan, the document developed by the commission and approved by the state superintendent to guide the district out of academic difficulty, is “not designed to get us to excellence.”
It aims at a “C.”
The city school board needs a strategic plan with targets, he said.
“The failure must stop,” Freeman said.
Members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will attend tonight’s school board meeting to determine if the school board has a plan to improve, he said.
Freeman said the NAACP is taking a first step toward what state officials have suggested to improve the district with help from the community.
Last August, Richard Ross, state superintendent of public instruction, called on the community to come forward to help improve the schools.
Gov. John Kasich said the next month that he was enlisting political and other leaders to talk with business leaders and develop recommendations for improving the district. Kasich said the state would do what it could to implement that plan.