YOUNGSTOWN — Nearly 180 people from Youngstown, East Cleveland and Lorain pledged during a virtual town hall meeting to pressure Ohio Senate Education Committee members about bills that could effectively end state control over their school districts.

The Rev. Kenneth Simon, who moderated Tuesday’s event, insisted the state takeover of school districts to address academic shortcomings has failed and should be reversed.

“There is no accountability to taxpaying citizens,” Simon said. “House Bill 70 was designed to end public education.”

State Rep. Michele Lepore-Hagan, D-Youngstown, said 11 other Ohio school districts would have been taken over under HB 70, but legislators from both parties worked to put a moratorium in place.

“If it is not good enough for Columbus and other districts, why are East Cleveland, Lorain and Youngstown still under state control?” she said. “The creation of the bill was racially motivated from the start. HB 70 has been a failure.”

State Rep. Joseph Miller, D-Amherst, suggested that a bill before the Ohio Senate’s Education Committee would address some issues created by HB 70, by providing wraparound services that can address issues affecting students from outside of their school buildings.

“We have 30 to 40 percent of children attending schools that need reading glasses,” he said. “There has been very little progress on HB 154 since the bill was sent to the Senate in May.”

Hagan asked participants to sign a petition to send to members of the Senate Education Committee to move the bill. “We have to hold their feet to the fire,” she said.

State Rep. Kent Smith, D-Euclid, representing East Cleveland schools, described East Cleveland as the poorest community and school district in Ohio.

“We are a high poverty district,” Smith said. “We are likely the poorest city in Ohio, if not the nation. The median income of residents is just over $19,952 per year, which is about a third of the average median income in the state.”

Before East Cleveland schools became the third district to be taken over under HB 70, it was moving in the right direction, Smith argued. Shaw High School still received an “F” on its state report card, but the other schools in the district were improving.

“The biggest challenge of all three districts that were taken over was poverty,” Smith said. “What is holding up passage of laws ending the state takeover is the governor’s office and the state Senate.”

“We are hoping to get back local control of our schools,” he said.

Youngstown’s schools have been under an academic distress commission since January 2010 in an effort to improve academic performance where local leaders had not. HB 70 was introduced in February 2015, and an amendment required that the commission appoint a CEO, with complete control, for any school district that received an overall “F” grade on its state report card for three consecutive years.

Youngstown school board member Ronald Shadd said the district had a $23 million surplus when the CEO model was introduced to the district and now, even with the passage of a proposed renewal levy, the district is facing a $30 million deficit.

“Programs that helped students , such as STEM and after-school tutoring, have been removed and not replaced,” Shadd said. “Our new CEO Justin Jennings wants to keep the model that lost us millions of dollars. We want local control and accountability.”

Mark Ballard of Lorain Local Schools, emphasized that school likely will not be the same when it resumes in the fall.

“The lack of state testing means we’re effectively losing a year, where we could have moved out from under the control of the academic distress commission,” he said. “There is no benefit to continuing ADC oversight.”

Larry Ellis of the Youngstown Education Association emphasized that HB 70 has done nothing except left Youngstown schools failing.

“Teacher opinions are not valued,” Ellis said. “We had an explosion of more than 30 administrative positions that we cannot get job descriptions for.”

rsmith@tribtoday.com