Y’town schools CEO sets a high bar for attendance

A 98 percent attendance rate for Youngstown City School District students may seem overly optimistic, but optimism is an important factor in preventing a total collapse of the troubled system.

Krish Mohip, the new chief executive director who has been on board since late June, is well aware that the recent academic and fiscal failures have shamed the city of Youngstown. The situation had become so desperate that Ohio Gov. John R. Kasich stepped in and asked a group of area business and community leaders to recommend a cure for the ailing district.

Thus was born, through state legislation, the so-called Youngstown Plan. The centerpiece of the plan is the chief executive officer position that was filled by a reconstituted academic distress commission.

The commission, chaired by Mahoning Valley businessman Brian Benyo, conducted a national search and selected Mohip.

The former Chicago city schools administrator used Monday’s start of the academic year to signal that student attendance, long a problem in Youngstown, is a priority.

Mohip instructed the staff to update Monday’s attendance figures hourly.

Last week, he told Vindicator Education Writer Denise Dick that he has set a 98 percent attendance rate for the district. That would be comparable to two of the leading school systems in the region, Canfield and Poland.

Here’s why the CEO’s goal may be overly optimistic: In the last state report card, Youngstown’s student attendance stood at 91.8 percent.

And, the district’s chronic absenteeism was 31.4 percent. At East High School, attendance was only 85.9 percent, while the chronic absenteeism was 54 percent.

Pitiful report card

It has been said many times in many different ways: If students, especially those from the inner city, aren’t in the classroom, they aren’t learning. Hence, Youngstown’s pitiful state report card. The Ohio Department of Education placed the district in academic emergency in 2010, thus triggering the creation of an academic distress commission to oversee the recovery. Today, the system is in academic watch – as a result improved attendance.

Mohip told Reporter Dick that it would take several weeks to determine if his 98 percent goal was met. But having students in the classrooms is only one aspect of the district’s academic road to recovery.

The broader question has to do with the desire to learn. Over the years, the exodus of Youngstown students to adjoining districts or charter schools has been blamed on the lack of discipline and decorum in the classrooms.

Parents who pulled their children out of Youngstown expressed concerns about safety and the disruptive nature of some students.

That reputation has undermined the city system’s recovery, which is one of the issues Mohip must address as he develops his academic recovery plan.

The draft of the plan, which state law requires the CEO to submit to the distress commission, must be ready by early September.

The state law that is the blueprint for re-engineering the Youngstown City School District envisions an holistic approach to education. In addition to what takes place in the classroom, the law calls for the creation of community centers tied to the district that would provide after-school programs, recreation and even basic health care for the city’s young people.

This concept has proved to be successful in the Cincinnati system, which has attracted national media attention.

One of Mohip’s key decisions in the brief time he has been here is the hiring of Tyrone Olverson as chief academic officer. Olverson was superintendent of Finneytown when he applied for the CEO position. He was a finalist.

On Monday, in a meeting with East High freshmen, Olverson offered this statement that highlights the philosophy that now exists in the Youngstown district:

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

The bottom line is that everyone – students, parents or guardians, teachers, administrators, staff and business and community leaders — has a role to play in the district’s quest for academic success.