YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown Board of Education has unanimously adopted a resolution to support Ohio Senate Bill 322 that state Sen. Al Cutrona, R-Canfield, introduced earlier this month, and who is its primary sponsor.

The legislation would primarily dissolve academic distress commissions and replace them with required student support teams for certain low-performing and struggling schools.

The bill was referred to the Senate Education Committee on Nov. 18.

“We believe academic distress commissions should be a thing of the past,” Superintendent Jeremy Batchelor said after Tuesday’s regular board of education meeting at Youngstown Rayen Early College High School.

The Youngstown City School District, along with their counterparts in Lorain and East Cleveland, have met the essence of requirements to render ADC’s unnecessary and obsolete. The local district has proven that “we can govern ourselves,” Batchelor added.

Along those lines, the district continues to meet and exceed a number of benchmarks, as evidenced by results from the state report card, released in mid-September. Other improvements include a higher graduation rate and lower absenteeism, the superintendent has noted.

“The Youngstown City School District has taken great accountability and strides to improve the educational outcomes within our district. With pathways to college and career readiness, such as our 4.5-star Early College High School and 5-star (Choffin) career and technical center, we have seen firsthand the power of continuous improvement,” Stacy Quinones, district spokeswoman, said in an email. “Supporting these efforts were benchmarks on the most recent report card.”

Specifically, 69% of district second- and third-graders have met or exceeded growth expectations on an assessment to measure early literacy — surpassing this year’s 63% goal. In addition, 71.7% of algebra I and geometry students met growth benchmarks, slightly exceeding the 70% goal, Quinones noted.

Another significant achievement she cited was a 57.49% Performance Index figure, much higher than the 47% Academic Improvement Plan target. Also, more than 97% of graduating seniors earned at least two diploma seals, Quinones added.

Batchelor said he hopes other education-based entities such as the Ohio 8 Coalition will work with the district, including backing the legislation.

The coalition is a strategic alliance of superintendents and teacher union presidents from Youngstown and seven other urban districts: Akron, Cleveland, Toledo, Canton, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati.

“It aligns with the work we are all doing,” Batchelor said about the provisions in SB322.

Eliminating ADCs also would erase a key tenet of the highly controversial House Bill 70, known as the “Youngstown Plan,” which was adopted in mid-2015 and allowed for a state takeover of the district’s financial, academic and other decision-making powers.

Specifically, HB70 placed academically-failing districts under state-appointed ADCs, and a chief executive officer was tasked with handling everyday operations. As a result, the Youngstown, East Cleveland and Lorain school districts fell under the purview of HB70 and their school boards had little decision-making powers or autonomy.

Many educators, elected officials, school board members and others locally and regionally have contended that the state takeover, contrary to resulting in improvements to the three affected districts, has made conditions worse.

Quinones and Batchelor expressed gratitude to Cutrona for sponsoring SB322.

“We thank state Sen. Cutrona for recognizing and supporting that public schools should stay in local control,” Quinones said.

State Reps. Lauren McNally, D-Youngstown, and Juanita O. Brent, D-Cleveland, on Monday reintroduced legislation to end academic distress commissions, such as the one that used to run the Youngstown school district.

“There is no debate left to be had: the state takeover model didn’t work,” said McNally, D-Youngstown. “In fact, it made things worse.”

McNally said she attempted to amend the dissolution of academic distress commissions into a bill that eliminated obsolete provisions of education law during the Ohio House’s Nov. 19 session. But McNally said Republicans in the majority blocked the amendment.

McNally and Brent first introduced legislation on Jan. 29, 2024, to dissolve all academic distress commissions and repeal the law on establishing any new ones. The bill would restore all control to the boards of education of school districts under an academic distress commission.

The bill received a single hearing Nov. 20, 2024, by the House Primary and Secondary Education Commission and died at the end of last year.