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Youngstown Plan goes to court Sept. 29
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
The city school board will learn after Sept. 29 whether provisions of the Youngstown Plan will begin to take effect in mid-October.
A hearing on a motion for a preliminary injunction is set for 9 a.m. Sept. 29 before Judge Jenifer French of Franklin County Common Pleas Court.
Atty. Ted Roberts, who represents the school board, said the attorneys will be ready.
“We’re preparing,” he said. “We feel strongly about the case and we’ll be prepared.”
Michael Murphy, school board vice president, is hoping for the best.
“I hope we’ll get a stay,” he said.
A stay would allow formulation of a plan for the city schools to involve more people, he said.
Without the injunction, the plan’s provisions will begin in mid-October.
The school board, the Ohio Education Association, the city schoolteachers and classified employees unions and a city school district teacher and resident filed a lawsuit last month seeking to have the Youngstown Plan declared invalid and unconstitutional. The suit names the state, its department of education and Richard Ross, state superintendent of public instruction, as defendants.
The motion for a preliminary injunction would stop the Youngstown Plan from taking effect while the case moves through the court.
The law, approved by both houses of the state legislature in late June and signed by Gov. John Kasich in early July, would abolish the school district’s academic distress commission in place since 2010. In its place, a new five-member commission would be appointed.
Three members of the new commission would be appointed by the state superintendent of public instruction, one by the mayor, and the fifth, who must be a district teacher, would be appointed by the school board.
The new panel would appoint a state-paid chief executive officer to manage and operate the city schools.
The CEO would have wide power including the authority to reopen contracts, hire and fire administrators and turn failing schools over to outside or charter school operators.
The new commission would be appointed in mid-October.
The lawsuit argues the plan is unconstitutional based on three points.
The first contends that a provision of the law was violated that requires that every bill be considered on three separate days by both state houses. The Youngstown Plan was introduced and passed by both houses all on the same day.
Secondly, it allows for complete elimination of a city school district without “consent, debate or input from the voters in the city school district.”
Lastly, the plan district removes residents’ right to vote, the suit alleges.