Academic Distress Commission Named To Begin East Cleveland Schools Takeover

Five people have been chosen to serve on a state-mandated academic distress commission to help improve East Cleveland city schools.

State Superintendent Paolo DeMaria nominated two people from northeast Ohio universities. Michael Schoop is the president of Tri-C’s Metropolitan campus. Tachelle Banks serves as Associate Chief Diversity Officer at Cleveland State University.

The third member appointed by DeMaria is Stanley Miller, former executive director of the Cleveland NAACP. 

East Cleveland’s mayor appointed his executive assistant Belinda Kyle and the school board chose elementary school teacher Karen Winston-Carpenter.

Once DeMaria names a chairperson for the group, the commission has 60 days to hire a CEO to run the district and implement an improvement plan.

East Cleveland schools recently filed a lawsuit to block the state from setting up the commission, which was triggered by the district’s third year of failing grades on its report cards.

East Cleveland is the third school district placed under an academic distress commission after Youngstown and Lorain.

Note: A previous version of this story called Tachelle Banks the Vice President of Institutional Diversity for Cleveland State University. She is Associate Chief Diversity Officer at Cleveland State University.