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Youngstown distress panel can’t meet now, appeal court rules
YOUNGSTOWN
The Youngstown City Schools Academic Distress Commission won’t be permitted to meet anytime soon.
But the dispute over the teacher’s position on the five-member commission will get expedited treatment by 7th District Court of Appeals standards, with oral arguments set for 10 a.m. April 7.
After a half-hour hearing, a three-judge panel of the appeals court on Tuesday overruled the state’s request for a stay, which was related to the dispute between the city school board president and the teachers union.
The state unsuccessfully sought an appeals-court stay of Judge Lou A. D’Apolito’s order barring the commission from meeting until Brenda Kimble, city school board president, appoints a teacher to the commission.
“If we don’t act now, if we don’t at least start the process, we’re going to lose another academic year for the children of Youngstown,” Michael T. Fisher, an assistant Ohio attorney general, told the judges in Tuesday’s hearing on the state’s request for a stay.
“We empathize with your time situation,” replied Judge Carol Ann Robb.
However, she added: “The statute’s very clear. It requires the committee to be comprised of five members.”
Four of the five commission members have been appointed and are not in dispute.
However, the Youngstown Education Association, which is the teachers union, sued to block Kimble’s appointment of Carol Staten, a school principal and Kimble’s cousin, to the commission, saying Kimble should have appointed a classroom teacher.
Kimble maintains Staten meets Ohio’s legal definition of a teacher.
Judge D’Apolito, of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, barred Staten from joining the academic distress panel, but stayed his order requiring Kimble to make a new selection pending Kimble’s appeal of his decision.
“If the commission is allowed to go forward without its fifth member ... that fifth member’s rights are nil,” observed Judge Cheryl Waite.
The distress commission was created by Ohio House Bill 70, which is known as the Youngstown Plan.
Although they are on opposite sides in the dispute over Kimble’s appointment, lawyers for Kimble and the YEA argued against the state’s request for the stay that would have allowed the commission to meet.
“The commission is asking for more than a stay. The commission is asking for a go, and they cannot go without the fifth member, who has been barred from taking her seat,” Atty. Ted Roberts argued on Kimble’s behalf.
“The current statute does not allow a mere quorum to meet,” he added.
“We respectfully request that the toothpaste not be allowed to be squeezed out of the tube, because you can’t put it back in,” Roberts said.
“The purpose of a stay is to preserve the status quo,” argued Charles Oldfield on the YEA’s behalf.
“What they’re asking this court to do would destroy the status quo,” he said of the state.
City schools students are achieving academically, and the school district “is not in immediate doom,” Roberts argued.
“In recent kindergarten- through third-grade reading scores, we are better than every other urban district in the state,” Roberts said.
Besides Judges Waite and Robb, Judge Mary DeGenaro is on the appeals panel considering this case.