Youngstown schools leader seeks options to avoid suspensions

By Denise Dick

denise_dick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The city schools’ interim superintendent is researching ways to address high student suspensions.

“I’m working on a bunch of different options ...,” Stephen Stohla said. “I’m trying to find a course of action to put in alternatives to allow kids to graduate.”

On the most-recent school report cards released by the Ohio Department of Education, Youngstown schools earned F’s for both the four- and-five-year graduation rates of 65.4 percent and 77 percent, respectively.

High suspensions of students also have plagued the district in recent years and were a source of concern for former academic distress commission members as well as some members of the school board.

In 2014, the city school board, at the direction of the Youngstown City School District Academic Distress Commission, approved a roughly $300,000 contract with D&E Counseling Center of Youngstown to run the in-school suspension program at East High School in the 2014-15 school year.

An April 2015 midyear report by the agency on the program found that the agency’s program didn’t effectively reduce the school’s overall suspension rate.

In-school suspension rates showed some improvement, but there weren’t enough students participating to affect the overall numbers, the report said.

“Rather than expel kids and suspend kids out of school, I’m looking at a lot of different areas,” Stohla said.

He listed the Mahoning Valley Opportunity Center, the virtual online school and possibly sending some students to the Mahoning County High School. That school is a credit-recovery school for troubled students operated through the Mahoning County Educational Service Center.

“If I’m a kid who is a repeat offender and I’m put in a position where I can’t change my grade anyway, I’m not going to work very hard,” Stohla said.

At the same time, a school district can’t just decide not to suspend at all, he said. That would allow students who act up to disrupt those who want to learn, the interim superintendent added.

He wants to offer a situation where students have the opportunity to recover credit and either graduate or return to school.

Jennifer Merritt, superintendent of Mahoning County High School, said a student suspended for 10 days from a city school, for example, could attend MCHS during those 10 days to ensure they received instruction rather than being at home.

“I don’t want one kid to be out of school for 10 days,” she said.