CEO spends first school day visiting buildings

By Denise Dick | denise_dick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

It will take a few weeks before Krish Mohip, city schools CEO, knows if he met his 98 percent attendance goal, but he’s setting his expectations high for both students and employees.

Mohip, who started in late June as the district’s chief executive officer, spent Monday morning, the first day of school for students, visiting the buildings.

By late morning, he had stopped at Wilson Programs of Promise, Discovery Transition to Careers at Volney, Martin Luther King Jr. and Williamson Elementary schools and East High School.

At MLK, Mohip checked on an office computer, scrolling through the schools and the number of students versus those who came to school the first day.

“I’m having them update the attendance hourly,” he said.

East seniors surprised him.

From what he had heard and read, he expected chaos.

“It’s a pretty organized place,” Mohip said. “The kids are ready to learn, and they’re students that teachers can teach.”

A wing of the high school is designated as the Freshmen Academy with an assistant principal assigned specifically to it.

“The kids need that nurturing,” Mohip said.

He told students gathered in the school auditorium that he wants to listen to them.

“I want this to be the best high school in Youngstown,” the CEO said.

Tyrone Olverson, the district’s chief academic officer, encouraged students, too.

“If you fail, we’ve failed you,” he said. “If you fail, we’re not doing our job.”

Mohip greeted students and teachers as he walked the halls of each building.

He counseled one student who had been sent to the hallway by a teacher for disobeying her. The boy returned to class, a smile on his face.

At MLK, teachers, administrators and staff formed lines along the sidewalk to the school, clapping, cheering and waving pompoms as students got off the school bus.

Inside, Mohip heard parents’ complaints about their children having to walk to school.

“We just changed the routing for the first time in 14 years,” he said, adding that the first day usually is hectic.

Mohip also talked with a woman whose son was coming to MLK from a charter school. The woman wanted her son to be held back in first grade.

Mohip told her the boy should be evaluated first to determine if he has a learning disability and give him the help and support he needs. He said research varies on the effectiveness of not promoting children to the next grade, but children who are held back a year are more likely to drop out of school.

The woman decided to allow her son to move into second grade.

The CEO checked in on classrooms at Volney.

In one eighth-grade social-studies class, each student got a can of Play-Doh and was asked to sculpt something that represents him or her.

Mohip joined in, crafting in purple clay.

“This is a mountain,” he told students. “I believe we should be at the top of this mountain.”

At MLK, Mohip chatted with Rashad Williams, an incoming kindergartener, and the boy’s mother, Kadijah Williams, as Rashad ate breakfast in the school cafeteria before class.

At each building, Mohip was checking what he termed the culture and climate. If students arrive to a classroom and it’s barren, that sends them a message, he said.

Teachers should decorate their rooms to let students know they care, he said.

Mohip, who must develop a strategic plan for improving the district to the academic distress commission by Sept. 6, said he plans to block off his mornings in the coming weeks to visit schools. That’s when he’ll determine if students are engaged and how to boost student achievement.

The CEO already knows at least one area in need of improvement.

“As a district, we have to work on customer support,” he said. “If a parent calls with a concern, they should get a response within 24 hours,” Mohip said.