Youngstown City School District is looking to trim costs the 2020-21 school year with administrative changes within the district.

The district is ending the contracts with the Mahoning County Educational Service Center through which some employees worked in the district. Some of those employees will become district employees. 

Additional cost reductions will also come from not filling positions of some administrators who are resigning. The contracts for the principals of the district’s pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade schools are also being reduced from 12 to 11 months.

All of the changes amount to a savings of more than $1.4 million.

“We’re making some changes to better meet the needs of our scholars and the school district,” said CEO Justin Jennings.

Choffin Career and Technical Center will reduce the number of principals from three to one. 

Michael Saville will be the school’s only principal next year. All three of the principals had been employees of the Mahoning County Career and Technical Center.

Beginning July 1, Saville will be a YCSD employee.

“We plan to maintain relationships with both the Mahoning County ESC and MCCTC in other ventures,” CEO Jennings said. “The partnerships for Choffin and with the ESC for some administrative employees served the district well for the last few years. We’ve now reached a point at YCSD where we believe we can meet our needs and the needs of our scholars in house.”

Bridget Lambright, who joined Choffin as a principal for the 2019-20 school year, will serve next year as the principal at Rayen Early College Middle School. Deborah DiFrancesco, REC’s principal for the last several years, will move to Central Office.

Tascin Brooks, food service coordinator since 2016, will become chief of food services, effective July 1. Susan Paris, who has filled that role for many years, is retiring June 30.

Jason Yemma, who has served as an instructional framework specialist for three years, becomes Chaney’s new assistant principal beginning in the 2020-21 school year. Before becoming an instructional coach, Yemma worked as a teacher at Chaney so the latest move is a sort of return to his YCSD roots.

The ninth-grade academies at East and Chaney are being eliminated. Roshay Huff, who served as principal of East’s ninth-grade academy, will be principal at Kirkmere Elementary School beginning next year.

Eboni Williams, Chaney’s ninth-grade principal, will be co-principal at William Holmes McGuffey Elementary School. She will oversee sixth-through-eighth-grades while Aaron Bouie will be over the school’s lower grades.