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Three skip special board meeting
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
It came down to four resolutions – none of which had direct effect on city schoolchildren or their academic achievement.
Three board members – Dario Hunter, Jackie Adair and Corrine Sanderson – all skipped Monday’s special Youngstown Board of Education meeting. The panel includes seven.
“It’s an illegal meeting,” Sanderson said. “I’m not getting caught in that mess.”
Brenda Kimble, school board president, called it game-playing by the three members.
“They don’t understand what we have to lose,” Kimble said.
She referred to the Youngstown Plan, also called House Bill 70, the state legislation that called for a new academic distress commission for the city schools. That commission selected Krish Mohip as the district’s chief executive officer, a first for the district.
That law sets deadlines for improvements to be made, and Kimble worries that if those deadlines aren’t met, the city risks losing its public school district.
Sanderson and Hunter on Aug. 25 called for a meeting Monday, listing transportation concerns, appointment of board members to delegate and liaison positions and board members’ declining pay for Monday’s special meeting.
That followed the full board at last week’s regular meeting setting Monday for a special meeting to discuss the appointment resolutions and the hiring of several employees.
District personnel, at Kimble’s direction, on Aug. 25 sent out a media advisory, listing personnel recommendations and board resolutions as the reason for the meeting, according to Sanderson.
But Kimble didn’t sign that notice, so the meeting wasn’t legitimate, she said.
The treasurer, board president or two board members can call for a special meeting, but whoever calls for it is supposed to sign the notice.
Hunter and Sanderson each signed their notice.
They contend Kimble’s notice, because she didn’t sign it, is illegal.
Kimble argues that because board members voted last week to schedule Monday’s meeting, she didn’t have to issue a notice calling for it and didn’t have to sign it.
The four members who attended Monday’s meeting approved resolutions appointing Kimble, Adair, Jerome Williams and Michael Murphy as the district’s representative on the National School Boards Association, Ohio School Boards Association, the Tax Incentive Review Council for the city and as legislative liaison, respectively.
Mohip, who didn’t attend Monday’s meeting because of a scheduling conflict, sent an email earlier Monday recommending the board postpone the meeting scheduled for Monday to Wednesday.
“My understanding of the rules for special meetings were not followed specifically and may cause a challenge,” Mohip wrote. “We still can meet Wednesday and have all resolutions passed prior to Sept. 1.”
Hunter said he supported that idea.
“If they took any action, it’s questionable if that can stand,” Hunter said. “Why you would put the board in that position when you could just wait until Wednesday doesn’t make sense to me.”
He said that while Monday’s meeting was going on, he was talking to parents and school bus drivers at the bus garage. Though the board’s majority accuses other members of not doing things to move the district forward, he said he was.
“Children can’t learn if they can’t get to school,” Hunter said.
Sanderson said she believes Kimble issued a media advisory for the board meeting, leaving off the issues that Hunter and Sanderson wanted to discuss because Kimble didn’t want the issue of board members’ pay discussed.
As far as the personnel appointments that the board had wanted to vote on last week, its vote is moot.
Stephen Stohla, interim superintendent, sent an email to board members: “Our CEO has instructed me that all personnel names are ‘for information only and do not need to be voted on’” by the board, he wrote.
The Youngstown Plan allows Mohip to hire and fire personnel. The board can vote to recommend or not, but the authority is Mohip’s.
Adair said she didn’t attend Monday’s meeting because of the question about its legality. But she cited another reason, too: “I was not in the mood to get into a knock-down, drag-out fight,” she said, referring to recent disagreements among board members.
She thinks the board should vote on personnel appointments.
“I think we have an obligation to the community to tell them why we’re voting for or against these people,” Adair said. “Even if the board is just advisory, don’t you want informed advisers?”