Choffin returns to half-day program

By Denise Dick

denise_dick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Because of overstaffing, Choffin Career and Technical Center will return next school year to a half-day program for juniors and seniors.

Beginning with the 2013-14 school year, Choffin changed to a full-day program for upper-class students in the career and technical fields. They stayed at the school throughout the school day for both the career and academic courses.

“We were having to staff academic programs at both East and at Choffin, and it was leading to some overstaffing,” said Douglas Hiscox, superintendent pro tempore. “And we were beginning to lose the identity of East because [those students] spend most of their time at Choffin.”

Before 2013-14, Choffin juniors and seniors spent half of the day there for the career courses and the other half at East High School for academic courses.

The district is returning to that structure.

Those juniors will be at the school for half of the day and seniors, the other half.

“There’s no difference in programming, just a change in location,” Hiscox said.

No one is being laid off because of the change, he said. More than 40 teachers already have informed the district of their retirement plans.

Discovery 3, staged this year at East, will move into Choffin next school year. The seventh- and eighth-grade program provides career courses aligned with Choffin’s curriculum.

Hiscox said it made sense to have D3 in the same building as Choffin as some instructors move between the two.

Students entering seventh grade either choose to attend D3 or end up in that program if they don’t choose any. Students may choose D3, Discovery 1 or 2, both of which offer courses in arts, music, foreign language and engineering; Rayen Early College Middle School or Chaney science, technology, engineering and mathematics or Visual and performing arts program.

For the past few years, the district has been undergoing grade and program realignment as it deals with fewer students and tries to bolster academics.

In the 2011-12 school year, district officials changed Chaney from a traditional high school to a STEM and VPA school for sixth-graders through seniors.

Since then, Wilson, formerly a middle school, became the district’s alternative school, Programs of Promise at Wilson. Volney Rogers, formerly a middle school, closed for a year, then became D2 for the 2014-15 school year.

P. Ross Berry on the East Side closed for a year and now is leased by the Mahoning County Educational Service Center for alternative-school programs.

Kirkmere, which used to be an elementary school, now houses D1 for third- through eighth-graders.