YOUNGSTOWN

City school board members argue they should not be penalized for the district’s fourth overall Ohio School Report Card failing grade, because all power was stripped from them and given to the district’s chief executive officers with the passage of House Bill 70 in 2015.

Now, under HB 70, also known as the Youngstown Plan, the Youngstown Board of Education may be eliminated because the city school district in four years has not improved its overall grade to at least a C.

Because of the district’s newest overall F grade, the state superintendent is now allowed to dissolve the existing school board and by Jan. 1, 2020, establish a new board.

Brenda Kimble, board president, emphasized that state academic distress commissions have been in the district since 2010.

“The school board has not been running the district,” she said. “We did not have the authority.”

Read MORE in Sunday’s VINDICATOR Edition of the Tribune Chronicle.