NE School Board Meeting Runs 3 Hours in Long and Often Contentious Session

You should have been there. The school board meeting Thursday evening, 2-20-25, covered a wide range of topics and ran over three hours in length. Anyone interested in recent issues and controversies would have found the discussion and comments from the administration, the board and the public enlightening, frustrating and concerning. Hmm … where to begin.

The meeting started with recognition of Micheal Heid, the Golden Apple Award winner, followed by student winners of various Road to Gold awards after which, the business of the board meeting began.

Technology and IT upgrades

Technology Director Tyler Wilson presented a rundown of the equipment upgrades planned for the upcoming years. Network switches, Chromebooks, laptops, iPads, servers, battery backups and various other items were listed as the current equipment was in some cases approaching or at end of life. Totals for everything came to approximately $250,000.

The question was asked about what was done with the old equipment and he said most of it was disposed of by companies that may be able to salvage parts and deal with e-waste.

One suggestion for some of it, laptops and servers for instance, could be to sell them at low cost or donate them to someone willing to refurbish the equipment, something easy to do, adding memory, installing a solid state drive, loading the open source operating system Linux and the result is a fully functional laptop or server with years of life still in it. Just a thought.

North East Virtual Academy and other cyber options

The next order of business was a rather long presentation by Assistant to the Superintendent, Brian Emick on the North East Virtual Academy. His focus was how the district’s own cyber learning offering was an alternative for students who were looking for a cyber solution instead of going to North East’s physical, brick and mortar school. He compared it to other cyber options outside the district and emphasized the contrast in costs to the district. He also emphasized the difficulty of talking to those students and their parents and getting good feedback about why they chose the cyber charter they did. He said some were unresponsive and other examples given, unfortunately, painted them in an unflattering light. He seemed unaware of the reasons many of us have heard, such as the presence of bullying in the school district and cases where some teachers were having discussions in class on topics and points of view the parents thought were inappropriate such as DEI and SEL.

A discussion of why cyber schools are chosen would benefit from public input and an openness that seems to be missing in school board meetings. A second presentation is scheduled in the future and perhaps the public will have an opportunity to weigh in at that time.

Public comments on agenda items

During the first public participation segment, Erin Beckes-Reese began commenting on the minutes from the previous meeting and comments made in that previous meeting. As she was speaking, Solicitor Sennett interrupted and said she must speak only on agenda items. She said she was and Sennett more vigorously interrupted and said she needed to stop speaking. Board President Jim Wargo then joined in and finally declared the meeting in recess for five minutes and asked the public to leave the room.

This is not the first time Solicitor Sennett has interrupted speakers which seems odd. He is an outside contractor, hired by the school administration to represent them in court and consult and give legal advice to the administration and school board during meetings when they request it. He appears to have created his own unique set of rules that allow him to jump in when he feels the need, preventing members of the public from speaking. Members of the administration and board members have not been around as long as Mr Sennett and evidently think his behavior is appropriate for board solicitors because they do not object and he takes advantage of their compliance to do things as he sees fit. The board president may wish to speak to the solicitor and suggest he keep his objections to himself and offer his opinion only when asked.

Approving previous minutes and video recording meetings

Another interesting exchange began when the board was asked to vote to approve the minutes of the previous meeting. Board member Glenn Craig noted that the minutes did not accurately reflect the public discussion as it pertained to the arch project, reducing it to a single line, not including his comments and questions and reducing NE resident Jen Kilgas’ comment in the same way. Board member Katie Phillips asked what the requirements are for recording minutes and Solicitor Sennett said they didn’t need to fully reflect the comments and were only required to note matters on which the board voted. Craig said if the meetings were recorded, this would not be an issue because there would be a record to refer to. This led to a discussion later in the meeting where the matter of video recording was on the agenda. Board member Charles Ferruggia added his support for video recording and said it would create more transparency as he had seen how there was an impression among many in the public that the board was less than open about their decisions and actions.

Surprisingly, every other board member disagreed. Mr. Wilson was asked if it was possible and if it would be costly to do so, and he said the capability was already there and the cost was essentially zero. Then several board members said privacy was the issue, but this is a public meeting and anyone who comes to the meeting is already aware of that. Mr Mobilia said that recording the meeting would reduce attendance and public participation at the meeting, which is an odd argument since there is currently so little attendance at most every meeting and those that regularly come would not be dissuaded by knowing the video would be available and public participation is tightly controlled and not limited by attendance. Then several members said it’s already live-streamed so those that can’t come can watch it online.

Video recording is just plain common sense. The occasional contentious disagreements over who said what are no longer a problem. With a recording, just watch the video. Also, video recording enables “time-shifting.” If someone is working or otherwise busy, they can watch the video later and see what went on. Rather than lowering attendance, it would actually increase the number of citizens who would see the board meetings, where they could see who said what and how they behaved. Transparency is dramatically increased. Why anyone would object to video recording is hard to understand. The final vote was 7 to 2, against. Glenn Craig and Charles Ferruggia, to their great credit, voted yes.

Atlas platform preview

Superintendent Hartzell gave a presentation of the Atlas platform which will enable visitors to the school website to see the entire curriculum class by class. Clicking on a class then takes you to a breakdown of individual topics taught and when, during the school year each one is covered. If sometime in January you want to know what your child is learning in a particular class you simply click on the class and look at the timeline. A lot of time and effort obviously went into the construction of this application and, in theory, it is very informative.

The accuracy of the Atlas project requires more than correct data entry, it also requires teachers to closely adhere to what is outlined and that, for a variety of reasons, may be a moving target.

Superintendent and business manager personal comments

Both the superintendent and the business manager near the end of the meeting made lengthy comments, defending themselves in regards to the arch project. The interactions between the administration and the borough were described at length by Superintendent Hartzell as well as Business Manager Fox and as presented suggest a series of miscommunications and assumptions by the parties involved are responsible for everything that transpired. Superintendent Hartzell said she would attend the next borough council meeting to clear the air.

There was more to the meeting, but after three hours everyone was ready to adjourn. If the meetings made public comment and discussion more accessible and open and less confrontational, the school administration, school board and the public would all benefit greatly. Perhaps, someday, hopefully soon.