Finalist from Akron has local ties
On Monday afternoon, with schools closed for Presidents Day, Akron Superintendent David W. James was making the two-hour drive to Columbus to interview for the top job in the state’s largest school district.
James, 56, is the only relative outsider among three semifinalists chosen by the Columbus Board of Education for its superintendent opening.
James told the Akron Beacon Journal in November that his plan had been to stay on in Akron until retiring in 2021 and then look for something new. But after news broke that James had applied to be Columbus’ next superintendent, he acknowledged that “Columbus was a district that I kept my eye on.”
Akron has 50 school buildings, more than 21,000 students, nearly 4,400 employees and a general-fund budget of about $335 million, according to its website. Columbus has 110 buildings, more than 50,000 students, about 9,000 employees and a general-fund budget of $878 million.
Both are among Ohio’s “Big 8” urban school districts, which are characterized by high student poverty, high numbers of immigrant students learning English, and low overall academic performance.
James hasn’t worked in the Columbus district, unlike his competitors — interim Superintendent John Stanford and former Euclid, Ohio, Superintendent Keith Bell — but he’s no stranger to the state’s capital city, either.
The number of vacant and abandoned houses in Columbus has declined by close to 40 percent since 2012, and the city’s land bank is beginning to move away from acquiring more properties in rebounding neighborhoods.
In 2012, in the wake of the housing crisis, the land bank had 6,284 properties in its portfolio. By 2017, that had dropped to 3,817 through a combination of demolitions and home and lot sales.
The land bank did acquire 566 properties in 2017. But John Turner, the land bank’s administrator, expects there will be fewer in some of the city’s hotter areas. That would include parts of the Near East Side, including Olde Towne East; parts of the South Side, such as Merion Village; and some sections of Franklinton undergoing a renaissance.