Friday, March 25, 2016
RELATED: Additional suspects in East High fight arraigned
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
There were plenty of empty seats in the East High School auditorium, but the parents and community members who did attend a Thursday evening parent summit didn’t hold back in voicing their concerns.
About 60 people attended the meeting called by school board members Jackie Adair and Dario Hunter to hear from the public about issues at the high school.
Those two board members as well as Brenda Kimble, board president, and member Ronald Shadd, as well as the district’s interim superintendent, assistant superintendent and other staff attended the meeting. Also there were Mayor John McNally and state Sen. Joe Schiavoni of Boardman, D-33rd.
Attendees talked about their children not being able to bring home textbooks, students’ lack of self esteem and those involved in a series of fights earlier this month at the school being charged with felonies.
The event stretched to about 2.5 hours.
Patricia Crockett’s grandchildren attend East and they don’t have textbooks, she said. Students feel like teachers don’t care about them, she said.
“Our kids need to feel good about being in a school and they do not feel that way about East,” Crockett said.
Community member Dan Smith said the problems are universal, but especially in urban, public schools.
It’s a generation of people who don’t respect authority, he said.
Those students who cause problems have to be separated from those who want and are willing to learn, Smith said.
“Instead of wondering what our mascot would be — a Golden Bear or a Panther — we should be thinking about the curriculum,” he said.
Another community member, Lloyd Hughes, said he was at East the day the fight broke out and said the police followed protocol. He thinks the media made more of the incident than it was.
“It was bad, but it wasn’t as bad as the media portrayed it to be,” Hughes said.
Students who cause problems are a small percentage, he said. People from the community and students’ fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers need to show students that they care, he added.
Shienne Williams, 20, a graduate of Youngstown Early College, is preparing to graduate with her bachelor’s degree in African-American and Africana Students in May from Youngstown State University.
She lives on the East Side and wants to help.
“We’re young, we figure they’ll listen to us,” Williams said.
When a friend of hers offered at the school to help, he was rebuffed.
After Thursday’s meeting, she said it was a good event, but she’ll wait to see if anything changes.
“We always talk,” Williams said. “We need action.”
Keith Logan Sr.’s son is an East freshman who is struggling with math. When he instructed his son to bring home his book so he could help, his son informed him that they’re not allowed to bring the books home.
“I didn’t believe him,” Logan said.
He talked to his son’s teacher who verified the policy. That teacher gave Logan a computer access code he could use to access the information on his home computer. But that didn’t work.
Tim Filipovich, the school district’s curriculum director, said his office is conducting an inventory to determine the need for textbooks. The district had been moving away from textbooks to a more digital emphasis, but that’s not a quick process. He said students in sixth through 11th grades, though, should have math workbooks to take home.
Cynthia Williams’ son was charged with two felonies and two misdemeanors stemming from the fight earlier this month. He’s not a student who gets into trouble, she said. She thinks the student’s history should be considered in determining how they are charged.
Jaietta Jackson, a former schools employee who now works at YSU, said some students don’t have respect for teachers or administrators who don’t look like them.
“We need to teach our children that education is important no matter who is teaching it,” she said.
Jackson also believes students would benefit from people in the community mentoring them.
“We need to create some pride in these students,” she said.
Candy Tarpley questioned the students involved in the fights being charged with felonies and sitting in detention. She called it an overreaction.
“Our mayor is not getting a felony,” she said, referring to McNally’s guilty plea to misdemeanor charges related to the Oakhill Renaissance Place case.
Jessica Tarpley, Candy Tarpley’s daughter, said she removed her children from the city schools to schools in Akron. She said she loves Youngstown, but she wanted her children to enjoy school. She moved her son to an Akron school because she believed his girlfriend was distracting him from his work. Her daughter had problems with a teacher.
She tells her children, “Don’t embarrass me,” and she wants to help the schools. But the schools and school personnel have to reach out to the community too.
Jessica Tarpley believes people should have been permitted to keep talking at Thursday’s meeting. The meeting was set to run for two hours and Adair said they had to wrap it up after it ran almost a half-hour over.
Adair said another meeting will be scheduled.
Jessica Tarpley doesn’t know if her comments resonated with the school officials.
“I think I was heard, but I don’t know if it was comprehended,” she said.