Lawsuit aimed at killing the Youngstown Plan will lay bare secrecy charges

To hear leading opponents tell it, the state initiative to save the academically troubled Youngstown City School District was couched in secrecy from the get-go and, therefore, lacks legitimacy.

Not so, says one of the architects of the so-called Youngstown Plan, and he has a log of 242 conversations he had with various political and community leaders to prove it.

“They all came out and said they knew nothing about this committee, and this was done in secret,” Tom Humphries, president and chief executive officer of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, told Vindicator education writer Denise Dick. “How is it a secret when I’m telling them?”

It’s a question that we trust will be answered – under oath – in court as the lawsuit filed by the Youngstown Board of Education to block implementation of the Youngstown Plan unfolds. The plan is to take effect next month.

The lawsuit is challenging the constitutionality of the law that was passed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly and signed by Republican Gov. John R. Kasich.

One of the points of contention is that under the Youngstown Plan, the elected school board would be stripped of its powers. A chief executive officer appointed by a redesigned state academic commission would have complete control over the Youngstown City School District.

In addition to members of the school board, parties to the lawsuit include teachers and classified employees unions.

Although the group that met starting in 2014 to discuss the future of the city school system was made up of prominent business and community leaders, school board members and local politicians contend they should have been included. The group went by the name Youngstown City Schools Business Cabinet. Members included Humphries; Herb Washington, a leading Valley businessman; former Youngstown schools Superintendent Dr. Connie Hathorn; and Bishop George Murry, head of the Youngstown Catholic Diocese.

Partisan politics

We supported the decision by Humphries and others not to include politicians in the cabinet because we believed that partisan politics would rear its ugly head and undermine the development of the plan.

The predominantly Democratic region has been at odds with the Republican governor and the Republican Legislature on several major issues.

The cabinet was under pressure by Kasich to come up with an alternative to the current failed education system in Youngstown.

From the time he took office in 2011, the governor has made the education of Youngstown’s students a priority. He let it be known that time was running out and that the continued state-declared academic emergency was not a long-term option.

The development of the Youngstown Plan, while controversial, is the appropriate solution to a long-standing problem. Although there has been a state academic distress commission in place, some members of the board of education have been uncooperative.

Indeed, former Superintendent Hathorn, who had the full support of the commission, blamed some school board members for his decision to take a job in Arkansas.

Hathorn, who came to Youngstown from Akron and had launched major academic initiatives that were beginning to show results, contended that he was constantly undermined by some members of the board of education.

It would explain his support of the Youngstown Plan that establishes a chief executive officer position with the power to hire and fire, for example.

One of Hathorn’s major complaints about the school board was that some members wanted to have a say in the hiring of administrators and teachers. Such micromanaging is a recipe for disaster – as the academic implosion of the city school system has shown.

The lawsuit filed in Franklin County challenging the constitutionality of the Youngstown Plan hopefully will reveal whether the politicians and other so-called leaders in Youngstown are telling the truth when they assert that they were kept out of the loop by Humphries and other members of the cabinet.

Everyone will be under oath, and claiming not to remember important details will be frowned upon by the judge.