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Senate, House OK plan to dissolve commission; hire city schools CEO
H.B. 70 and Amendment
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Academic distress commissions and education partnerships
COLUMBUS — The Ohio Senate moved amended legislation Wednesday that would transfer authority over the failing Youngstown City School District to an appointed chief executive.
The 18-14 vote, with Democrats and a few Republicans opposing, came after a delayed morning session of the chamber's Education Committee, which accepted the last-minute Youngstown schools amendment.
The Ohio House concurred on the amendments later in the evening on a vote of 55-40, without the support of Democrats, including one of the bill’s primary co-sponsors.
Youngstown schools have received failing grades on statewide report cards and have been in academic distress for a dozen years.
Sen. Peggy Lehner (R-Kettering), chairwoman of the Senate's Education Committee, said the existing academic distress commission isn't getting the job done.
"We have seen no improvement, so the time to keep doing what we've been doing is passed," Lehner said. "It is time to change the rules, change the approach, change the strategy, to try to do something to rescue these children who without an education are doomed to live a life of poverty."
She added later, "There's a sense of urgency here because we cannot let another year go by where we see no improvement in Youngstown."
But Senate Minority Leader Joe Schiavoni (D-Boardman) called for further hearings and consideration of a Youngstown school plan.
"We have a 66-page amendment that came in last night that everybody is scrambling to discuss and even find a half hour to talk about," he said. "... We're talking about changing the face of Youngstown City Schools upon passage of this legislation... This bill was crafted by eight people in the Mahoning Valley. ... This is not a plan that Youngstown has embraced."
HB 70 passed the Ohio House last month with broad bipartisan support. Originally, it outlined a mechanism for transitioning poor-performing schools into "community learning centers."
Earlier, the “Youngstown Plan” to reconfigure control of the city school district passed the Ohio Senate Education Committee this afternoon along party lines.
The vote by the Senate Education Committee also came over objections of Democratic members.
HB 70, which passed the Ohio House last month, would create a process for revamping failing school buildings into community learning centers.
The amendment calls for the state superintendent of public instruction to establish new academic distress commissions for failing school districts — those that receive overall grades of “F” for three consecutive years on state-level report cards or those that already have previous academic distress commissions in place.
A draft version of the amendment was obtained by The Vindicator.
Mahoning Valley legislators and city school board members oppose the plan.
“I’m very concerned about it if it takes any type of local control away from our school district,” Brenda Kimble, city school board president said. “I’m upset that the state and the governor continue to bring people into our district who know nothing about our district.”
Sen. Joe Schiavoni (D-Boardman) and state Rep. Michele Lepore-Hagan, D-58th, of Youngstown, said they didn’t find out about the amendment until Tuesday night and say the proposal is being rushed.
“There’s a lack of inclusion with legislators and the public,” Schiavoni said before he planned to testify in opposition to the bill. “There were no public hearings or open forums about this at home. It’s pretty important to get local input when you have something with sweeping changes.”
Schiavoni said he urged Lehner to postpone voting the amendment out of committee and on to the Senate floor today.
Schiavoni said he’s concerned that the new committee members would have a 3-2 advantage in favor of Columbus over Youngstown under the proposal, and that the three members appointed by the state superintendent already know who’ll be hired as the CEO.
When it was pointed out that three of the five members of the Youngstown academic commission are appointed by the state superintendent, Schiavoni said “that’s been an issue.”
The CEO would have complete control over the Youngstown school district and there’s no provision to remove or stop that person from doing anything, Schiavoni said.
Lepore-Hagan said, “The end result will be the dissolution of the [Youngstown school] system as we know it and it will force our children to attend failed charter schools, and I’m concerned about it. This board will have a lot more power” than the existing commission. “It’s what the governor wants.”
Lepore-Hagan said the city school system’s students “deserve a deliberate, careful plan instead of rushing something through. There was no community input. I’m really concerned about it and the process.”
Existing academic distress commissions, like the one in Youngstown, would be abolished and new ones would take their place. The panels would include three members appointed by the state superintendent, a teacher selected by the president of the district school board and a member picked by the mayor of the community where a failing school is located.
The commission, in turn, would appoint a chief executive officer for the district, who would have authority to replace school administrators and central office staff, close schools, hire new employees, set teacher class loads, curriculum, class sizes and compensation rates, among other administrative decisions.
The new CEO would have to have “high-level management experience in the public or private sector” and would “exercise complete operational, managerial and instructional control of the district....”
Within 30 days of being appointed, the CEO would be required to convene a group of community stakeholders to develop expectations for academic improvement and build relationships with business and civic groups to provide needed services to students.