Academic commission leader unaware of member involvement in Youngstown Plan

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

City board of education members expressed frustration Thursday during a joint meeting with the district’s academic distress commission with how a plan to restructure city school governance came about.

The Youngstown Plan, approved last week by the state Legislature, got its start with a group of 10 people who started meeting last fall. The group worked to devise a plan to help the city schools improve academically, which was initiated by Thomas Humphries, president and chief executive officer of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber.

The Rev. Kenneth Simon, who’s been an academic commission member for three months, alluded that there might have been commission members involved with the Youngstown Plan meetings.

“I felt betrayed,” he said. “The board knew nothing, some commission members knew nothing.”

Joffrey Jones, academic commission chairman, said he was not involved with meetings – and he wasn’t aware of any commission members going to the meetings.

“I can only speak for myself,” he said.

The plan will replace the commission with a new five-member panel. Three of the five members will be appointed by the state superintendent of public instruction, one member will be selected by the mayor and the fifth member must be a city schools teacher appointed by the school board president. The commission will then appoint a CEO to run the district. Brenda Kimble, the school board president, and other city school board members criticized how they were excluded from those meetings. “There was no communication,” she said.