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Youngstown school board member wants to censure president
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
The lines have been drawn on the city school board – with three members often on one side and the majority on the other.
The latest episode occurred at this week’s regular board meeting.
Dario Hunter, who was elected as a write-in candidate last November, made a motion to censure Brenda Kimble, school board president, “for engaging in actions outside of her authority as board president, exceeding the bounds of ethics as a public servant, withholding vital information from board members and the general public and suppressing the necessary agenda of the school district, including but not limited to publicly addressing the state of affairs at East High School.”
Hunter also requested Kimble resign as board president.
Jackie Adair, board member, seconded Hunter’s motion and Hunter, Adair and Corrine Sanderson, who also was elected last November, supporting the motion.
Kimble, who didn’t resign her presidency, and board members Michael Murphy, Jerome Williams and Ronald Shadd voted against it.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Kimble said Wednesday. “Since Mr. Hunter and Jackie Adair have been on the board together – and Ms. Sanderson some of the time – they’ve done nothing to move the district forward.”
She referred to Hunter and Adair voting no or abstaining from votes to approve meeting agendas and minutes. Both Hunter and Adair have previously said they want more detail of what occurs at meetings recorded in minutes.
Murphy said he didn’t like the way Hunter went about making the motion and he didn’t agree with it.
“I didn’t know what he was talking about,” he said.
Kimble said the three members are aligned with House Bill 70, the state legislation that created the Youngstown Plan, a framework to allow a chief executive officer to oversee the school district.
Hunter said that’s not true, adding that he spoke “vociferously” of his opposition to the law when he was campaigning for office.
He said it’s undemocratic and that the legislation is flawed.
Regarding his motion to censure, Hunter pointed to Kimble filing a motion to appeal a judge’s decision regarding Kimble’s appointment to the academic distress commission.
She filed the appeal, for which the district is footing the legal bills, before bringing the matter to the full board for a vote.
Kimble appointed a principal to the commission which is to select a district CEO.
The legislation calls for the school board president to appoint a teacher and the teachers’ union filed a lawsuit to stop the principal, Carole Staten, who is also Kimble distant cousin, to the panel. The union contends Kimble should have appointed an active classroom teacher.
A judge agreed.
Adair agreed with Hunter.
Kimble has “commented that she is entitled to a defense,” she said. “Absolutely. She is, however, not entitled to have the public pay for that defense.”
Murphy said that the full board consented to Kimble appointing Staten to the commission. That was last year before Sanderson and Hunter were board members.
Hunter also said that Kimble, who both he and Adair say maintains an office inside the school administration building, has directed district employees and had them report to her.
Kimble contends the office is for a group she is reviving called Public Education Works. It’s similar to the former district business advisory committee and she said it will help to create internships and job shadowing opportunities for students.
She said she uses the office, located across the hall from the superintendent’s office.
“I do have a lot of contacts to make,” she said.
Kimble said she has nothing to hide and that anything she has done has been to save the public school district, fight a state takeover and move the district forward for the benefit of the students.
Hunter also is critical of Kimble’s failure to address the dire straits that East High School is in. Several fights at the school this week resulted in police being called and classes canceled.