YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — School districts across the state are preparing for a school year like no other.


What You Need To Know

  • Financial situations are tough for many school districts

  • School districts, like the Youngstown City School District, are doing remote learning to start the year

  • The CEO says the district is using money from the federal CARES Act to pay for cleaning and virtual learning supplies

  • The Willoughby-Eastlake City School District is offering both in-person and virtual learning

When Justin Jennings became CEO of the Youngstown City School District, it would have been hard to guess the challenges ahead. 

“I don’t even have a year in yet and I’m knocking on wood. I dare to say, I don’t know what else could happen and what we could go through.”

His school district has made the decision to do remote learning to start the school year, using money from the federal CARES Act and help from Charter Communications and other telecommunications companies to provide students with laptops and broadband internet access. Charter is the parent company of Spectrum News.

"Through the pandemic, we’ve done a lot of surveys of who has high speed internet access or who has internet access. We had to go back, we had to modify that because a lot of people have internet access because they use their phone as a hotspot," said Jennings. "So, our goal is to make sure everyone has hardwired access and it’s affordable for them.”

School districts have had to spend more this year on supplies like hand sanitizer, and many school districts are asking for more help from the federal government.

"I would beg for it. We are, along with many other school districts, we just passed a levy and we’re spending three quarters of our levy proceeds to make up for state cuts and costs for COVID," said Steve Thompson, superintendent of Willoughby-Eastlake City Schools.

Thompson says his district received about $800,000 from the CARES Act, which he says isn’t nearly enough. With the district offering both in person and virtual learning, Thompson says costs for for cleaning supplies, technology, and additional staff are in the millions. 

“Across our district per year, we’re spending about $2 million a year on subs on a normal year. So, what will our substitute cost be for all district employees when we’re experiencing a pandemic? So, a little bit difficult to nail all down, but it is significant,” said Thompson.

Jennings says they’ve also gotten help from nonprofits like Rotary and the Youngstown Foundation to make sure a pandemic doesn’t end access to a student's ability to learn. 

"They were like ‘how can we help?' Because we were actually going in a totally different direction and when this happened, they just stopped and were like 'how can we help, what do you need?' And they’ve really reached out to help us.” 

It's a challenging time for schools in a year like no other.