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City school board questions Youngstown Plan
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
City school board members want representatives of the Ohio Department of Education to attend a meeting to answer questions about the Youngstown Plan.
“I would like the Ohio Department of Education to speak to our board about House Bill 70 and allow us to ask questions and learn the implications,” Marcia Haire-Ellis, school board member, said at Tuesday’s regular meeting.
Stephen Stohla, interim superintendent, said he asked ODE representatives to do that at a private meeting he attended with them and members of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber.
“They said they would consider it,” Stohla said after the meeting.
Haire-Ellis said she wants to know what the board’s role is under the plan.
The Youngstown Plan, approved last month by the state Legislature and signed by Gov. John Kasich, abolishes the sitting school district academic distress commission and appoints a new panel in its place.
That five-member panel will have three members appointed by the state superintendent of public instruction; one member by the mayor; and a fifth, who must be a district teacher, by the school board.
That panel, which is to be appointed by October, will select a chief executive officer who will operate and manage the school district. The CEO will be paid by ODE.
That official will have broad authority, including the ability to reopen contracts, hire and fire administrators and close schools.
It marks the first time such a move has happened in an Ohio school district, and opponents worry it’s the beginning of a state effort to privatize public education.
State Sen. Joe Schiavoni of Boardman, D-33rd, and state Rep. Michele Lepore-Hagan of Youngstown, D-58th, are conducting meetings with interested parties – teachers, retired teachers, business people and other community leaders – to gather input that will be used to craft an alternative plan or amendment.