The Youngstown School District and Teachers Union will be back at the bargaining table Wednesday afternoon.

 

Negotiations are set to begin at 1:00 p.m. at East High School and continue for four hours.

 

Both sides are also scheduled to negotiate for five hours on Thursday and five hours on Friday. 

 

Teachers had asked back in March for negotiations. At that time Justin Jennings was the Superintendent. 

 

While the strike continues, the Superintendent has a message about online learning for parents of students. 

 

Youngstown Superintendent Jeremy Batchelor in his online message wants parents and students to recognize the importance of online learning while the teacher's strike continues. Many parents complain their kids don't learn as well online as with teachers in the classroom.

 

"We do encourage you strongly to engage in this online learning platform, and hopefully we will continue to work with our association and get back in front of our scholars in person, sooner rather than later," Youngstown Superintendent Jeremy Batchelor said. 

 

The superintendent said this about teaching methods.

 

"I tied my contract to our performance to my evaluation so I believe in Youngstown scholars, I believe in Youngstown. In order for us to continue to do what we do, we have to make sure we continue innovative practices, not going back to old antiquated practices that could hurt our ability to lead to our academic improvement plan," Superintendent Batchelor said.

 

But the Youngstown Education Association says nothing they're asking for will move learning backward.

 

Spokesperson Jim Courim says teachers know their students better than anyone. 

They just want a voice at the table to help decide how to best educate students since NOT all students learn the same way.

 

 The Union wants language that mentions the powers of the Academic Distress Commission removed from the contract. 

  

The Superintendent maintains the district can not change the language because Youngstown schools are clearly in academic distress. 

 

But the teachers Union counters a Superintendent is now in control, and the board and district are no longer under the authority of a commission put in place under a CEO. 

 

The YEA spokesperson tells WFMJ News teachers want their students to meet their fullest potential. There is a lot of greatness in them and we want to help bring that out. We understand the only way for us to get out of academic distress is for us to be in the classrooms. It sounds like we have common goals, we just have different views on how to get there.