Kennett school board elects new officers

Heather Schaen to serve as president, Douglas B. Stirling as vice president

By Kathleen Brady Shea, Managing Editor, The Times

School Director Aline Frank (from left) applauds as Heather Schaen wins approval as the next board president.

At the reorganization meeting of the Kennett Consolidated School District on Monday night, four reelected board members and one newly elected representative took the oath of office.

Douglas B. Stirling from Region A (Kennett Square Borough), Joseph Meola from Region B (New Garden Township), and Janis W. Reynolds and Heather Schaen from Region C (Kennett Township) returned to their seats while Kendra LaCosta of was welcomed as a new member in Region B.

The board voted unanimously to approve the 2014 calendar and to elect Schaen to a one-year term as board president. Stirling, who had served as president the previous year, was voted in as vice president. Stirling pointed out that Schaen had been his mentor during his presidency. “I hope to be able to support her as she supported me,” he said.

Taking the oath of office as school directors during the KCSD meeting are Douglas B Stirling (from left), Kendra LaCosta, Joseph Meola, Heather Schaen, and Janis W. Reynolds.

In other business, Superintendent Barry Tomasetti said the district had worked with the Kennett Square Police Department to submit a grant application that would fund a school resource officer, who would work at both the Mary D. Lang Kindergarten Center and the high school. He said the district should learn the outcome in late December.

Tomasetti said a Jan. 27 curriculum meeting has been moved to the high school, and he encouraged residents to attend. He said several teachers would discuss the effects of core standards.

The only public comment involved complaints about Common Core, an initiative led by the national Governors Association Center for Best Practices to establish uniform U.S. educational standards. Angie John, a social worker and vice-president of the Bancroft Elementary PTO, said she has studied Common Core and has found material that is liberal and one-sided. Referencing a Common Core textbook she brought to the meeting and passed around, she labeled some of the language offensive. A couple of board members suggested that she was taking the words out of context.

John was joined at the podium by Rogers Howard, an East Marlborough Township resident who said he had identified inaccuracies in some of the book’s facts. For example, Howard took issue with a passage suggesting that reducing the use of fossil fuels would reverse an overall global temperature increase of 1 degree F. He said looking at the temperature history of the earth supported the argument that climate change rather than global warming was responsible.

After about a half-hour presentation, Schaen thanked the speakers for their input and explained that the board needed to stay on schedule. She said members would take the information under advisement.  Tomasetti added that teachers are always encouraged “to make sure that both sides are taught.”

During committee reports, Board Member Aline Frank, who heads the Curriculum Committee, said the district received good news from recent standardized test results. For example, high school students showed an increase from 75 to 83 percent in reading proficiency on the Keystone exams, significantly higher than state averages, she said.

Dominic F. Perigo Jr., who heads the Facilities and Operations Committee, applauded the work that went into restoring the hanging light fixtures outside the high school entrance, recommending that people check them out, especially at night when they’re lit – for the first time in about 15 years. “I really think they’re just stunning,” he said, adding that district personnel helped save the district more than $14,000 in the process.

Mark T. Tracy, assistant to the superintendent, said that the district received a clean audit for 2012-2013 and that it would be posted on the district’s web site for review. The board voted to accept the audit report. It also approved a contract between the district and the Reschini Agency to handle the administration of employee benefits. Tracy said the option was considered after the district’s benefits coordinator retired and is estimated to save the district about $60,000.

In addition, the board approved second readings of policy changes in the grading system and assignment of students to classes and schools and the first reading of a policy on the organizational structure of the district.