Youngstown school district mulls bringing back program called Capturing Kids’ Hearts

YOUNGSTOWN — City schools CEO Krish Mohip is considering hiring a company that emphasizes building relationships between students and school personnel.

Capturing Kids’ Hearts, a program from the Texas-based Flippen Group, stresses creating healthy relationships as a step to increasing attendance, bolstering achievement and improving the graduation rate in schools.

“I was introduced to them when I was in Chicago,” Mohip said. “It’s about school personnel knowing what’s happening in students’ lives.”

Mohip said he wants to hear from principals “to see if this is a direction we should take.”

The district contracted about 10 years ago with Flippen to bring in the program, training teachers and administrators to be effective leaders.

But the district didn’t retain the program.

Mohip wonders if the problem was a lack of implementation.

He hasn’t decided to hire the company.

Debbie DiFrancesco, principal at Rayen Early College Middle School, believes it’s a good program and it has potential.

“I think what was good about it was it brought the staff together,” she said. “There was sharing and crying and learning stuff about each other that we didn’t know. But we never followed through. The administration had really good intentions. It just didn’t stick.”

For the complete story, read Sunday's Vindicator and Vindy.com