Staff photo / Raymond L. Smith Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor sits behind a laptop during arguments about the constitutionality of House Bill 70 during a hearing Wednesday morning at Montpelier High School in northwest Ohio.

MONTPELIER — Depending upon who is being asked, Ohio House Bill 70 either improved education in Youngstown or was ramrodded through to strip power away from the school board and place it in the hands of a “dictator CEO.”

The constitutionality of HB 70 was argued Wednesday before the Ohio Supreme Court, but no timeline was given for when the court will decide the case.

Attorney Charles W. Oldfield argued during a hearing at Montpelier High School the Ohio Department of Education, former Gov. John Kasich and a few local leaders in 2015 hijacked what had been a 10-page bill giving bottom-up local control to school districts. They turned it into a 67-page bill that was top-down and gave appointed CEOs broad powers and created a mechanism to eliminate elected school boards, he said in arguing HB 70 is unconstitutional.

The state Supreme Court is to decide whether the steps to create HB 70, also known as the Youngstown Plan, are constitutional. If so, the CEO position in Youngstown would be eliminated and the effort to replace the city’s elected school board with a five-person, mayoral-appointed school board would end.

Oldfield described how supporters of HB 70 took the proposed legislation, which already had two readings and was headed for a vote, and overnight made significant changes without giving anyone the opportunity to review or challenge them.

“We have evidence they purposely planned to spring it on the legislators,” Oldfield said.

Oldfield argued the Ohio Constitution requires three readings, so supporters as well as opponents can make arguments before legislation is signed into law.

“The legislation that passed has no resemblance to what was originally presented,” Oldfield said.

Oldfield argued he has evidence that Kasich and ODE officials purposely did not make the additions to the legislation public until the last minute to prevent arguments against them — and that makes the law unconstitutional.

About 30 people from Youngstown took a bus to observe the hearing. Afterward, school board member Tina Cvetkovich said she is hopeful because the board’s attorney provided a solid argument the legislation was not given three readings as required by law.

The Rev. Kenneth Simon of New Bethel Baptist Church, an opponent of HB 70, said it’s too early to guess what the court will do.

“The original HB 70 was vitally altered,” he said. “It was changed from a bottom-up legislation that affected buildings to a top-down legislation where a dictator CEO can make changes on a district-wide level.”

Brenda Kimble, school board president, said she hopes the court will look at the impact HB 70 has had on the Youngstown City School District and take that into consideration.

Oldfield argued the legislation stripped all power from the elected board of education and placed it in the hands of a chief executive officer. The state’s constitution, he argued, states an elected school board must have a level of power to affect the district.

“Youngstown’s does not have any power,” Oldfield told the court. “It is all in the hands of the CEO.”

Questioned by Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor about the power of the elected board and whether it could work with the CEO to move the district forward, Oldfield said nothing in the legislation suggests the board has any power, except what is bestowed upon it by the CEO.

“That has not been the board’s experience,” Oldfield said.

Asked by the court if the board had power to place a school levy on the ballot, Oldfield said, in his reading of the law, it is in the hands of the CEO.

Attorney Benjamin Flowers, representing the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, said overturning the law would bring serious questions about the separation of powers between the legislators and the courts. The courts would have to try to get into the heads of legislators when they vote on legislation, he argued.

In addition, Flowers argued opponents of the bill had opportunities to review the legislation on social media.

Flowers added the intent of the legislation remained the same — to improve education — even if substantive changes were made in the language.

Justice Melody Stewart questioned why the bill needed to grow from 10 pages to 67 pages and then had to be passed immediately.

“No matter how it is modified, is it OK?” Justice Michael P. Donnelly asked.

“Don’t we get to determine what is extremely altered?” Stewart questioned.

“The intention was to improve the legislation,” Flowers responded.

Flowers argued the elected board still has some power to influence decisions.