Teachers show in force tonight to protest Kimble's appointee to distress commission

YOUNGSTOWN

Despite opposition from teachers who showed in force at tonight’s city school board meeting, President Brenda Kimble is sticking to her decision to appoint a substitute principal to the new academic distress commission.

Other board members support her.

Teachers attended the meeting, carrying signs with messages, “United for student success,” “Teachers need to have a voice” and “Listen to your teacher.”

They’re upset that Kimble appointed Carol Staten, a retired school principal, to the commission. The new commission will choose the chief executive officer who will manage and operate the city schools.

The school board president gets one appointment to the commission, which the law says is to be a district teacher. The mayor gets one appointment and the state superintendent of public instruction appointed the other three.

But Kimble points to a section of Ohio Revised Code that defines a teacher as “all persons licensed to teach and who are employed in the public schools of this state as instructors, principals, supervisors, superintendents or any other educational position for which the state board of education requires licensure.”

She said Staten has worked in several capacities, including as a teacher, in several buildings across the district. Staten now works in the district as a utility principal, a person called in by the district to fill in for a certain number of hours.