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Youngstown schools CEO scraps uniforms
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
City school students don’t have to wear uniforms anymore.
Krish Mohip, school district chief executive officer, will announce today that students may continue to wear the clothes they have since the beginning of the school year. The decision comes after meetings last week with parents to gather their input.
“We met with parents and the margin, 2-to-1, was to follow a dress code, not uniforms,” Mohip said.
Before the beginning of the school year, the CEO decided to review the district’s uniform/dress code policy, in effect since the late 1990s.
During that review, students didn’t have to wear uniforms, which consisted of blouses or polo shirts and pants, shorts or skirts. They were permitted to wear what they want as long as it was appropriate for school.
That’s the new policy, too. It establishes the same policy throughout the district.
At the end of the 2014-15 school year, a group of Chaney Visual and Performing Arts students petitioned the school board and administration to allow them to opt out of wearing uniforms. They reasoned that as artistic youths, they should be able to show their creativity in the way they dress. The district allowed it last school year, but the uniforms were required at other district schools.
Mohip said he understands some parents won’t be happy with the new policy.
“People have been saying that they had no opportunity to voice their opinions” about the uniform policy when it was implemented several years ago, he said.
“We’ve shown we are listening to them,” Mohip said. “The overwhelming majority wanted the dress code, not uniforms.”
In a personnel matter, Harry Evans, the district’s chief of operations who is also in charge of business and maintenance, notified the school district he will retire at the end of the calendar year.
“It’s time to go,” Evans said Tuesday. “I want to enjoy life, enjoy my grandchildren.”
Evans started as the district’s chief of maintenance 27 years ago after 21 years in the private sector. He worked as an electrical contractor and was a business owner.
It was sort of a fluke. His wife was looking for a job and she spotted the advertisement in The Vindicator for the maintenance chief job.
“She said, ‘Why don’t you apply for the job,’” Evans said.
He didn’t want to, but his wife persisted and he was one of 135 people who applied. Evans was among the 30 interviewed. He got called for a second interview and got the job.
Evans said nothing happened at the school district to trigger his decision.
Last month, a group of residents, led by the Rev. Kenneth Simon, pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church, attended a school board meeting, saying they heard rumblings of Evans’ ouster.
Mohip at the time said those rumors were false.
Evans said friends with whom he graduated from high school have died this year and that made him think. Others have looked forward to their retirement but died before they could enjoy it. He wants to avoid that fate.
“There’s more to life than working,” Evans said.