YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown Board of Education has adopted a resolution to begin moving forward on the first phase of a major reconfiguration project and development initiative to merge Chaney and East high schools into a single, central school.

During Tuesday’s regular meeting at Youngstown Rayen Early College High School, the board voted yes, with board member Brenda Kimble abstaining.

The two-prong project, which Superintendent Jeremy Batchelor announced during a May 9 news conference, also will entail consolidating Chaney and East middle schools into one school in the East Middle building, 940 Bryn Mawr Ave., on the East Side.

The new consolidated high school will be in the East High building, 474 Bennington Ave., on the East Side.

The primary push behind the decision to consolidate the schools is to decrease the size of the district’s footprint in a city with a shrinking population, yet continue to advance educational resources and opportunities.

Additional goals are to make sure students have access to career and college readiness, high-quality instruction and a “cohesive school identity while utilizing our resources responsibly and fiscally,” a news release last month stated.

Several issues, however, remain to be worked out, chief among them, transportation — largely because of a lack of bus drivers, Batchelor said previously. In mid-2024, the board voted to eliminate busing for most high school students and encouraged them to use Western Reserve Transit Authority city buses to get to and from school.

Another town hall meeting to gather attendees’ input and feedback regarding the project is set for 5 to 7 p.m. June 18 at East High, Juanita Walker, board president, announced at Tuesday’s session.

Also at the session, Gregory Kibler, the district’s data and accountability director, outlined in his presentation a series of results from most of the 24 benchmarks that are the core of the district’s four-year Academic Improvement Plan. The plan was implemented in the 2021-22 school year and ends this year.

Even though only five of the benchmarks have been met, the others are much closer to achieving that status than they were at the beginning of the plan, Kibler noted. Results are pending for two of them.

For example, pre-kindergarten literacy performance in the plan’s first year was 37% and reached 65.18% this year, with a target goal of 70%. Eighth-grade science performance improved slightly from 45.22% in the initial year to 47.58% this year, while fifth-grade science results showed a drop from 58.85% to 45.85% over that same time period.

Even though the latest figure is a long way from the target of 20%, chronic absenteeism decreased from 70% to 58.2% in 2022 and this year, respectively, according to the data Kibler presented.

The metrics don’t always align into ideal scores, though they do reflect that, as a whole, the district is moving in the right direction, he said.

“We’ve seen areas of growth of our students across many of our benchmarks. That growth hasn’t necessarily translated into proficiency scores we’d like to see, but we’re on our way,” Kibler added.

In other business, the board appointed three new administrators to oversee school operations and athletics in the new school year: P.J. Fecko as director of athletics and school experience; Dawn Walton as co-principal at Harding Elementary School; and Moris Jadue as principal of Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School.

Fecko served 20 years as Cardinal Mooney High School’s head football coach, Walton was an assistant principal at Chaney Middle School, and Jadue served eight years as Boardman High School’s assistant principal.

“The Youngstown City School District is excited to welcome some familiar and new faces to our school community. These appointments mark another step in our ongoing commitment to educational excellence, and developing and growing our teams to continue strengthening the district,” Batchelor said in a statement.