Community members weigh in at today's Youngstown education summit

YOUNGSTOWN

Emotions ran high at an education summit called to rally opposition to the Youngstown Plan.

About 100 people attended the summit this morning at Choffin Career and Technical Center where representatives from the city school board, American Federation of State, County and Municipal employees, the Ohio and National school board associations and the Community Leaders Coalition for Education said the plan is harmful to the city school system.

The plan allows a new city schools academic distress commission to appoint a state-paid chief executive officer to run the city schools. The plan is stuck in court in a dispute about one of the commission appointees.

Jack Filak, regional director of AFSCME Region 8, said people agree that something needed to be done to address the problems in the city schools which has seen poor academic performance and low student test scores for years. But the Youngstown Plan isn’t the solution, he said.

Read more of the remarks in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.