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A Youngstown City Schools community meeting is a topic of controversy among board of education members and the NAACP Youngstown Branch
YOUNGSTOWN
A Youngstown City Schools community meeting is a topic of controversy among board of education members and the NAACP Youngstown Branch.
The discussion for today’s meeting at Elizabeth Baptist Church, 1210 Himrod Ave., will involve House Bill 70 and those impacted by it.
The guests invited include the Ohio School Boards Association and members from Warrensville Heights Board of Education, Ohio State Board of Education and Lorain City Board of Education.
HB 70, commonly referred to as the Youngstown Plan, was signed into law by Gov. John Kasich in July 2015. It enabled a state-appointed academic distress commission to hire CEO Krish Mohip to lead the district. The bill gives Mohip complete operational, managerial and instructional control.
George Freeman, NAACP Youngstown Branch president, said in a Nov. 18 email to Youngstown Board of Education President Brenda Kimble that he will not be in attendance.
“The first time I attended a meeting you and the controlling members of the board held at Choffin [Career and Technical Center], you denied me the opportunity to speak by taking the microphone out of my hand when my turn came to speak,” Freeman said in the email. “That was not only rude, but very undemocratic, and I would not like to put myself or you in that position again.”
Freeman’s email continued: “Our priorities are different. We are very focused on: 1.) Academic achievement, 2.) Student support and 3.) Family empowerment. These priorities have not, in the past, been consistent with your priorities.”
Jackie Adair, Youngstown school board member, also has reservations about the meeting.
“I made the arrangements with the church in the name of the [school] board with the understanding that this group [the invitees] would be in the audience as any other informed invited groups,” Adair explained in a Nov. 20 email. “[I] do not know anything about them! Who are the members and most importantly what do they stand for? They have not been to board meetings, so, in my opinion they do not have first-hand knowledge of the items listed in the announcement.”
The announcement for the meeting lists student support, programs, the Ohio Department of Education report card, staffing and support services.
Both the email from Adair and a Nov. 20 email from board member Dario Hunter state that because the details of the event haven’t been voted on by the board, the event cannot go on.
Hunter said in his email that he will not be in attendance because “it is not truly a Youngstown Board of Education-sanctioned event.”