YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown Board of Education — along with the state’s other urban districts — is advocating for the protection and preservation of a series of vetoes Gov. Mike DeWine signed Monday regarding the state’s $60 billion Republican spending bill.

During Tuesday’s regular board of education meeting at Youngstown Rayen Early College, Superintendent Jeremy Batchelor said that eight of DeWine’s 67 line-item vetoes to the state’s operating budget, also known as Ohio House Bill 96, must not be overridden. Those eight fall under the budget’s education portion.

Specif-ically, the provisions DeWine cut would have established a 40% cap on school carryover balances; eliminated fixed-sum and substitute emergency, replacement and combined school district income tax and fixed-sum property tax levies; and prohibited districts from paying the employee share of the State Teachers Retirement System and the School Employees Retirement System contributions for treasurers, superintendents and principals.

The 40% cap would have required any amount over that figure to be refunded to taxpayers, a move that could have bankrupted districts and many individual schools, the Ohio Education Association had warned.

Other items DeWine vetoed were those that would have placed restrictions on public library displays of books about gender and sexual orientation, as well as a provision that would have formed an education savings account program for nonchartered and nonpublic schools, and one that would have required school board candidates to have partisan affiliations on the election ballot.

In short, the savings account provision would have allowed county budget commissions to take funds from passed school levies if members found doing so “reasonably necessary,” according to the OEA. Such a move would have forced the Youngstown City School District to place many additional levies on the ballot, Batchelor said.

He also is a member of the Ohio 8 Coalition, a strategic alliance of superintendents and teacher union presidents from the Youngstown, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo, Canton, Akron, Dayton and Lorain school districts. All of them support DeWine’s vetoes and are calling for them to be upheld.

“The core of public school districts, where over 90% of Ohio’s parents choose to send their children, will cease to exist if these vetoes are not preserved,” Jeff Talbert, Ohio 8 Coalition co-chairman and the Canton City Schools superintendent, said before DeWine’s signing.

The governor also rejected a piece of the budget that would have given about $2.5 billion over the biennium to Ohio’s voucher system and provided taxpayer money to allow students to attend nonchartered and nonpublic schools that receive neither state nor federal funding.

In other business, Batchelor provided a brief update on the district’s Academic Improvement Plan, saying that growth has been evident across many of the AIP’s 24 benchmarks. Even though data hasn’t been completed, it’s likely the high school graduation rate in the district this year will be 88% to 90%, the superintendent noted.

Certain benchmarks have seen growth, including high school algebra and geometry, while others, such as middle school math scores, have dipped slightly, Batchelor explained.

“We’re not where we want to be, but we’re where we used to be,” he said, adding that many gains have been made in the district overall.

Also at the session, the board recognized MyQuasha Robinson, the driver of a district transport van that caught fire early May 23 in the 2100 block of McGuffey Road on the East Side. Because of her actions, several Youngstown City School students were able to escape unharmed.

The cause of the fire in the vehicle, which had extensive damage, was determined to be a manufacturer’s defect and not an accident.

Robinson was unable to attend Tuesday’s meeting, but Robert Kearns, the district’s chief of staff, thanked the driver for her quick and decisive action.