YOUNGSTOWN — Shawnese Belcher wanted the city schools’ top official to have an envelope that turned out to be what many likely would consider to be a treasure trove of positivity.

“If you have good rapport with parents (and students), you will have that kind of relationship,” Belcher, a 16-year city bus driver, said.

During the regular Youngstown Board of Education meeting Tuesday afternoon at Youngstown Rayen Early College High School, Belcher handed Superintendent Jeremy Batchelor a manila envelope that contained 50 to 60 letters from students and parents that, she said, contained two central themes: Students and their bus drivers overwhelmingly have positive relationships with one another, and parents are against outsourcing transportation services in the district, including to Warren-based Community Bus Services Inc.

“(Batchelor) says students’ voices matter, so hopefully he’ll take their feelings into account,” Belcher said, adding that she also wanted the board to read testimonials regarding why many parents are against outsourcing as a means to solve an ongoing and acute bus driver shortage that plagues Youngstown and many other urban school districts. “We have to sit down and work together.”

Those who transport students to and from school daily are more than bus drivers, however, Brenda Moore, a longtime driver, said. They also are seen by many as role models who have the students’ best interests deeply implanted, she added.

Moore cited the example of a student who had great difficulty sitting still in class as well as on his bus. Instead of merely sanctioning the student, she gleaned ideas from his teacher and a few others, which resulted in a reward system for the student when he complied with being seated on the bus, Moore said.

Joni Allen, a 20-year driver, recalled one day having witnessed a student in distress shortly after she had dropped him off. After realizing the student had suffered a seizure, she offered assistance and spent time with the parent, Allen said.

Exclusively outsourcing transportation to CBS or another outside entity has several built-in problems, such as a lack of a consistent driver-student relationship, along with being aware of students’ individual needs, Allen said. She contended that CBS is poorly handling the administrative end of the district’s transportation department, which lacks a full-time supervisor.

In addition, this is the third time the company has had that role, Allen said.

OTHER BUSINESS

Also at the session, Batchelor said he received a set of preliminary state test scores Tuesday, but had yet to review the results. A complete picture of the district’s progress will more fully emerge when the state report cards are released in September, he said.

Batchelor added that efforts are continuing to remove Youngstown as Ohio’s only school district under academic distress. The state has hired several administrators from the district, along with others, so he doesn’t understand why the Youngstown City Schools remain under that status, the superintendent said.

“I’ll just say, we continue to do the work as we move forward,” Batchelor added.

During his report, board member Joseph Meranto read aloud an excerpt from the 2025 Diane Ravitch book, “An Education: How I Changed My Mind about Schools and Almost Everything Else.” In it, Ravitch, an education historian, shares her journey from having gone from being a conservative education reformer to a public school advocate, as well as how she challenges standardized testing and school privatization efforts, with a focus on poverty’s impact on learning.

While reading the portion from Ravitch’s book aloud, Meranto made what he sees as the pivotal connection between the health of public schools and a democratic society.

“We can restore public education to its role as a key foundation of our democracy. … We must have a more generous, contemporary vision of public schools and what they can be. The movement for community schools points us in a new direction, toward schools that truly serve families and their children with medical clinics, food pantries, adult education, counseling, summer programs, after-school programs and connections to other supports that help students and their families to thrive.” Meranto said, adding that Youngstown provides all of those offerings.

“If we work with determination, we can drive out the billionaires, the grifters, the heartless libertarians and the religious zealots who now seek control of our public schools. If we push back hard enough, we can reclaim the public schools that belong to all of us,” Meranto continued.

“It starts here with us,” he added.