Interviews to fill vacancy are conducted
By Karen Cresta, Staff Writer, The Times
EAST MARLBOROUGH – The Unionville Chadds Ford (UCF) School Board work session meeting was held on Monday night and lasted over three hours long only to be continued at next week’s work session meeting. It was full of tension as board member Greg Lindner criticized fellow board member Jeff Hellrung on how he handled the recent election. Discussions on class sizes, specifically at Hillendale, raised much contradiction among school board members.
Prior to the statement read by Lindner, interviews of three candidates, Elise Anderson, Jeanne Best and Albert M. Iacocca, Esq., were conducted to fill the vacancy left by retired school board member Keith Knauss. Each candidate made statements and answered questions from the board. The board requires five affirmative votes at next week’s meeting to fill the position.
Lindner requested to speak for ten minutes regarding the recent election. He was re-elected along with the team members who ran against him – Carolyn Daniels and John Murphy. He ran for re-election with board member Kathleen Do and newcomer Beverly Brooks for Region C – Chadds Ford and Pennsbury Townships.
As Hellrung sat next to him quietly, Lindner stated, “If Mr. Hellrung or any other board member wants to get involved in an election outside their region, that is their right, but to torture the truth in order to get people elected is not okay, at least not okay for a school board election, and Mr. Hellrung did all those things in an editorial in [on-line media]. Mr. Hellrung, among other things, said our political team was composed of political operatives. If that is the case, Kathy Do, Bev Brookes and I are a sad team of political operatives because we have no party machinery and a political committee that included only the three of us.”
Lindner referred to a letter that Hellrung sent local media on October 30, criticizing Lindner, Do and Brooks’ platform that proclaimed ‘Education not Politics.’ He applauded their involvement in political action but stated, “that campaign slogan is very inappropriate when each of them is an experienced political operative and each of their opponents is highly inexperienced in politics.” He continued to write that “candidates Daniels, Murphy and Rumunno are all political newcomers. Their primary interest is nothing other than ensuring that we continue to deliver an outstanding education to our students at a reasonable cost of our taxpayers. I hope that our voters in Region C will go beyond the slogans and make an informed decision on Tuesday, November 3.”
Lindner continued his angry comments geared toward Hellrung and concluded, “Mr. Hellrung, you can twist the truth with the best I have seen. That will be the prison in which I view your future comments. For the other team of candidates, the election is over and you deserve current congratulations and won the election. I personally have run in my last school board election so there will be lessons to be shared should someone want the support of people that believe that the support of the school board elections should not be determined by those who have the most money and political clout… Finally, the minimum requirement for being on the school board should be recognition by candidates that you owe the community a couple of debates where the issues are raised and you are put on the record with your views. If the election for school board is treated as a popularity contest, with one side able to enormously outspend the other side and not participate in public dialogue, then our community and our children will suffer.”
Lindner ended his statement with applause. Hellrung did not comment.
The tension between board members continued – as the debate took up much of the meeting’s time- on class sizes for third graders at Hillendale for the third consecutive week. Parents took time during public comment to express their views of the overcrowding.
Board member and president, Victor Dupius, informed the audience that class size has been an issue in all the elementary schools in various grades and thought that the discussion should focus on the guidelines and situations where exceptions are made to those guidelines.
Superintendent of schools John Sanville explained that in 2008 – 2009 there was a guideline in the elementary schools of 22 students in grades K -2 and 25 students in grades 3-5 and there were budgetary issues that raised class size by one student for all elementary classes. According to Sanville, this remained the guideline ever since, but never became a policy, and there were times that the class size went over this guideline.
“When we go over the guidelines, we add additional supports and this board has been good about providing those supports, in the form of paraprofessional support, or we’ve added sections in math and we’ve added a section in another building and language arts.”
Sanville added, “ I’ve never asked for a position that the board has turned down,” Sanville stated.
Dupuis responded and said that he thinks what is going to be heard by the administration is that is “pretty comfortable with what we’re doing right now for third grade” but said that the guidelines could change to add additional classrooms, space permitting.
Board member Do urged the board, “Please don’t do this to these kids in the fourth grade,” after sympathizing with them having already dealt with the overcrowding during their second and now third grade years.
Dupuis commented about the solution to the issue being redistricting but that the community did not want to do that so Plan B needs to be figured out. Sanville stated that redistricting would not solve the issue it only changes how many students are at each elementary school and not the class size. He said that what addresses the class size issue is the policy.
Dupuis said that there is not a majority on the board to change anything and cautioned the board what is being asked for may mean trailers at Pocopson Elementary. He is not of the opinion to vote on this issue this year that we may not solve. The better discussion is to talk about next school year and have a positive impact beyond.
Sanville acknowledged that he will accept the board’s decision but urged the board to make one.
Dupuis said that the immediate relief is about posting a .4 position for a language arts section at Hillendale third grade. An informal headcount for adding a part-time position indicated four members out of the eight in attendance were in agreement.
Out of fairness, the board mentioned that positions at all elementary schools may be needed and may have to change the policy to remain consistent across all the schools at the elementary level. The board called for discussion of the guidelines in accordance to the current policy and comparison to other school districts, budgetary implications to the district, space allowance, etc. and to allow time to be prepared to do so. The board decided to add it as an agenda item next week.
A response from Hellrung indicated his frustration. He said, “The problem is that the person and the team that has the most information to decide on the exceptions are the superintendent and his team. I think for the board to overrule that is, I think, egregious – very disappointing.”
The board moved on to a prelude to the achievement report of testing results, specifically for the PSSAs and will be going over in more detail at future meetings.
At the 10:15 p.m. mark, Dupuis said the remaining agenda items would be continued at next week’s regular session on November 16, at 7:30 p.m. in the district office.
