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Youngstown school board discusses attendance, paycheck glitches
By Sarah Lehr
YOUNGSTOWN
The district does not yet have accurate attendance numbers for the first day of school, Krish Mohip, the Youngstown City Schools CEO, said during a special school board meeting Tuesday.
The district set a goal of 98 percent attendance for the first day of school, which was Aug. 22.
Mohip said staff are correcting for glitches such as students who were counted twice. He added that the district is implementing better attendance measures for the future and told The Vindicator he would have a figure today.
Also during the meeting, board member Michael Murphy asked if the district has been experiencing an unusually high level of problems with paychecks, saying he’s fielded complaints from employees.
“Honestly, that’s unacceptable,” Mohip said. “Our teachers are coming in, they’re working hard. They don’t get paid these exorbitant salaries. We need to start holding ourselves accountable.”
Several board members said they’ve noticed irregularities with their own paychecks.
“I will make no secret of this,” Mohip said. “You’re last on my priorities. I’ve got to get my teachers paid first.”
Murphy said his issue wasn’t simply not getting paid, but rather that the problems with board paychecks were indicative of systemwide failures.
Board member Jackie Adair expressed concern the board has not yet received reports from the academic distress commission. The board needs information from those reports, in order to fulfill its advisory role, Adair said.
The Ohio Legislature approved the Youngstown Plan in 2015, which established an academic distress commission to oversee the struggling district.
The commission was charged with appointing a CEO, who has broad authority over managing the district.
The school board, along with district employee unions, filed a lawsuit in 2015 in an attempt to block the Youngstown Plan from taking effect.