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Parents discuss Youngstown high school reorganization plan
TweetYOUNGSTOWN — More than 60 parents either vented their frustration or voiced support at the first of two informational meetings about Youngstown City Schools reorganization.
Superintendent Connie Hathorn urged parents tonight to support the plan, saying change is necessary.
“We’ve got to do something different,” he said at Chaney High School on the city’s West Side. “Doing something wrong is better than doing nothing at all.”
But some parents wondered why they weren’t consulted in the decision-making process. June Drennen, school board member, said educated administrators made the decision, and that they should be trusted.
“I appreciate your master’s degree but you should appreciate some of the parents’ input — and I don’t care if it takes a year,” said resident Donna Zordich.
“We would meet to death before we came to a decision,” Hathorn answered.
The next informational meeting will be at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Wilson Middle School on the South Side.
Most of the parents’ concerns at Chaney dealt with the way the two high schools would provide different opportunities.
For the complete story, read Tuesday's Vindicator and Vindy.com
Comments
“Doing something wrong is better than doing nothing at all,” or
“If I don’t do anything, it’s going to sink, folks.”
Just when you thought that you had heard it all from Superintendent Hathorn, he makes even more incredible comments.
He was hired to do something, and that was to fix the system, not to just do things spending tens of millions in hope that it will work.
This is a school system that spends about $105 million in operating expenses alone, not including any major building or equipment expenses. And that is for a school system with less than 7,000 students, and the number is declining. That is $15,000 per student. For that amount of money he should get it right, the first time.
And the leader says, doing something wrong is better than doing nothing. Sounds like that has been the motto of the school system administration for decades.
If the school system needed to continue to do something wrong, why bother to change superintendents?
Many of the fights in the schools are the result of kids from different parts of the city not getting along. This will only exacerbate that situation, and probably result in even more fights.
Since only about 25% of the school district's revenues come from Youngstown taxpayers, these expensive mistakes are being paid for by taxpayers around the state, and those who pay the bill should be paying attention. Forget that.
The $182 million in tax dollars, again with only a small portion paid by Youngstown taxpayers, was spent to improve the system. Backed by naive organizations who take pride in having engineered such an enormous waste, the new buildings appear to have done little to help.
And now doing something wrong is not considered a problem.
Maybe it is time to do something, or better yet, everything right. And the first thing to do right is to look for someone who thinks that way to fill the post of superintendent.
Why is everyone in this town so resistant to change? It might be a good thing, you never know. There is no set-in-stone solution to fixing the school district's problems. The only way to fix things is to try something new and see if t works, if not, try something different. It's like going to the doctor- you describe your symptoms, he makes a recommendation based on his education and his experience and you both go from there. If you get better you never think twice, if you are still sick you go back and he tries something different.
Let's give it a shot, what has the district got to lose? Youngstown is already worst in the state in academics and just got out of fiscal emergency....why do nothing and risk staying on the bottom?