Ohio’s two-year budget provides three school districts with an “escape hatch” to regain full control from the Academic Distress Commissions – and relinquishes most of the “operational and managerial control” to the local school authorities.
YOUNGSTOWN – Six years, hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, multiple lost court cases, and multiple legislative proposals since it was originally passed – Ding, Dong – the Youngstown Plan is dead.
Most of time.
In 2015, HB put 70 failing school districts in Ohio under a CEO hired by state-appointed emergency academic commissions. Currently, the school districts of Youngstown, Lorain, and East Cleveland are controlled by state-appointed academic emergency commissions.
Ohio’s biennial budget provides these districts with an “escape hatch” to regain full control from the Academic Distress Commissions – and gives most of the “operational and managerial control” to the local school authorities.
The provision – which did not originally apply to Youngstown – overcame its final hurdle in the early hours of Thursday morning when Governor Mike DeWine left it in the version of the budget he signed.
Life and death of HB 70
Youngstown School Board lost control of the city’s school district did not start with HB 70.
From 2006 to 2011, the Youngstown City School system was in a state-declared financial emergency. In 2011, the state stepped in to put Youngstown in an academic emergency after failing test scores. This led to the establishment of the Youngstown Academic Distress Commission.
HB 70 dissolved this commission in favor of a new commission that appoints a CEO.
If you ask almost everyone in the Mahoning Valley – except for a select group that included Youngstown State University President Jim Tressel, former director of the Youngstown-Warren Chamber, Tom Humphries, late Bishop Murray, and former Senator Sean O ‘ Brien – Belong, They Will Tell You You the Youngstown Plan was conceived under the guise of secrecy.
In one day the “Youngstown Plan” from a 10 to 67 pages Document. The amendment that disempowered the district boards was added the same day the law was passed.
As soon as Governor John Kasich’s bill – which also played a role in its origins – went into effect in July 2015, the Youngstown Board of Education attempted to overturn it, claiming HB 70 would cause irreparable damage to the failing district. It filed for an injunction with the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas to stop HB 70 from being effective.
When the Board’s motion was denied, it appealed to the 10th District Court of Appeals, which upheld the Franklin County Court’s judgment.
In May 2020, Ohio Supreme Court approved the constitutionality of legislation.
Meanwhile, a group of local political officials, led by Rep. Michele Lepore-Hagan of Youngstown, D-58th, led several efforts to overturn HB 70.
The latest legislative tool to restore local control, Senate Act 165, was included in the biennial budget.
An “escape hatch”
The bipartisan measure in the state budget provides for a procedure to return the districts to the control of the local school authorities.
According to the prescribed procedure:
- Districts must develop and implement a three-year academic improvement plan and submit annual reports;
- The State Superintendent reviews the plan and suggests changes;
- ADCs will continue to exist with the removal of the CEO. ADCs will provide assistance but give up operational control;
- The state auditor must conduct a district performance review while the improvement plan is being implemented;
- If a district meets the majority of the improvement metrics, the ADC is resolved;
- If a district does not meet the metrics, it becomes subject to an ADC and CEO.
Districts can request up to two year extensions to the plan. You can also hire current CEOs as superintendents under the new process.
What’s next?
After DeWine signed the budget on Thursday, Ronald Schadd, President of the Youngstown School Board, said tiredly, “We’re excited. It’s been a long fight.”
Lepore-Hagan said she heard from voters who were “restless but excited”.
“It was the right thing,” she said. “It was just so frustrating waiting for the rest of the state and the leaders in our state to realize it was wrong.”
Schadd hopes that “good things can arise” from the process of creating and implementing an improvement plan.
“The most important thing is that the state and our local community have support and assistance to move this plan forward,” he said.
Over the next year, the school board will work with CEO Justin Jennings to create an improvement plan.
Schadd said Jennings’ priorities for the coming year will remain.
As for next steps, Lepore-Hagan said she plans to hold a meeting with Senator Michael Rulli of Salem, R-33rd, to discuss what the changes mean for the district.
But “we have to let the professionals – the education professionals and the elected officials, the school board members – do their jobs without us getting in the way,” she said.
Lepore-Hagan noted that she watched the members of the Youngstown school committee work feverishly … drive to Columbus to testify, keep track of everything, and simply be 120 percent involved in the whole process. I think the school board is competent and capable and serious.
“I will defend this elected school council to the end,” he said.
