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Does Brenda Kimble have an office inside the school administration building?
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
Her re-election campaign literature is inside it.
A fellow board member says she ordered him out of it.
And people at the city schools administration building refer to it as such, but Brenda Kimble, school board president, insists the space across from the superintendent’s suite is not her office.
Kimble said the office is used for a committee she’s reviving called Public Education Works. The idea is to get people from the community involved in the schools to adopt families and mentor them, she said.
“It’s something that’s good for the community,” Kimble said.
It’s similar to the business advisory committee started by former Superintendent Connie Hathorn, she said.
Last month, Kimble told The Vindicator that the committee would set up internships for students.
“This is actually a superintendent’s committee,” Kimble said. “It’s not my committee. The superintendent is allowed to set up any committee. I’m just gathering people because something needed to be done.”
A public records request from the newspaper to the school district, however, found no resolution creating or otherwise pertaining to a Public Education Works committee. There’s no list of members or statement of the goals or funding for that committee.
“That’s because it’s just getting together,” Kimble said.
She said that Dr. Derrick Jackson, a podiatrist, is spearheading the effort and she’s working with him and they meet in the office. Dr. Jackson was out of town and couldn’t be reached Friday.
The committee is expected to get started in August, beginning at William Holmes McGuffey Elementary School with third-graders, Kimble said.
Posters on the office wall and door and a nameplate on the desk proclaim, “Public Education Works,” with the district logo at the bottom of both posters. A computer, telephone and in and out trays sit atop the desk.
“It’s not my office,” Kimble said.
Last week, a letter opener adorned with Kimble’s face along with campaign cards, both urging her re-election, were on the desk and in the trays, respectively.
“That’s something that a group made for me with my picture on it,” Kimble said of the letter opener.
The cards have been in the office for a long time, she said, adding that someone didn’t pass them out.
Kimble was elected to her second term last November.
Stephen Stohla, interim superintendent, gave a similar description. Kimble meets in the office with Dr. Jackson about the committee.
“They’re gathering families, and it’s going to start next school year,” Stohla said.
He said he prefers that any board members who come to the building go to an office other than his.
“I don’t have time to have them in my office,” the interim superintendent said.
Kimble has not accepted repeated phone calls from The Vindicator seeking comment on a variety of stories since April 8. On Friday, she answered a call from an unfamiliar cellphone number – and then responded to a reporter’s questions about the office.
Lock P. Beachum Sr., who served for 16 years on the school board, including terms as its president, said no president had an office at the administration building during his tenure.
“According to past practice and board policy, the only two rooms that a board has are the board caucus room and the board room for their use,” he said.
Employees inside of the administration building, though – who didn’t want to be identified – refer to the space as “Brenda’s office.”
“I can’t help it what they call it,” Kimble said.
A school board president having an office inside of a school administration isn’t common practice. School board presidents in Boardman, Austintown, Warren and Canfield, for example, don’t maintain offices in the school buildings.
Dario Hunter, school board member, believes it’s Kimble’s office.
He said he and Kimble were talking inside the office recently when Kimble became angry, raised her voice and said, “‘You need to get out of my office.’”
Kimble disputes Hunter’s account.
“It’s not my office, and I never said it was,” she said.
The board president said Hunter came into the administration building last January to get his board member badge made. She informed him that she was assigning him to the board’s sports and extracurricular committee. He told her he wouldn’t accept that assignment, she said.
Kimble said it was Hunter who got angry and loud. When a district employee came in to ask the two if everything was OK, she said Hunter needed to leave the office, she said.
Jackie Adair, school board member, said that when she asked Kimble about the office, the board president denied it was hers and told Adair the space is for the business advisory-type committee. Kimble told Adair that she sometimes uses the computer in the office when she experiences problems with her home computer, Adair said.
But Adair said Kimble hasn’t shared information about the committee with her fellow school board members, and the board never voted to authorize office use for the committee.
“They don’t have an office in our building,” Adair said.
Adair said there’s nothing wrong with Kimble having an office at the administration building if the board approves it and votes to provide funds for the utilities, supplies and staff that Kimble uses. But that hasn’t happened.
“We didn’t vote for that thing in the first place,” Adair said.
Kimble said she doesn’t ask district employees to do her personal tasks. Anything she asks employees to do is for school board business, she said.
It’s her job to set up meetings and coordinate dates for school board members, Kimble said.
“I’m there because I’m dedicated,” she said.