I chose to attend the Port Allegany School Board meeting on September 10, 2018 in the High School Library at 200 Oak Street. The meeting was scheduled to begin at 7 PM that evening and I arrived a few minutes early, a few board members along with the superintendent of schools, Gary Buchsen and the District’s business manager Adam Moate had already arrived. Upon arriving I found that there seemed to be a brief meeting between the superintendent and the school’s food service manager, Kari Stake. The meeting was in regard to a meeting that other districts will be hosting at the district’s high school and the needs that will be fulfilled by food services.
At approximately 7 PM all but two of the board members had arrived, one of whom was on vacation and the other was running a bit late. The board members were as follows: President: Dr. Mark Carlson, Vice President: Erica Petruzzi, Treasurer: Dan Lane, general members Kerry Hawver, Don Tanner, Lisa Drabert, Cheri Nasto, and Jason Stake. The first thing that I found interesting was that one member, the treasurer was only present at the meeting to deliver the treasurer’s report, after which point he left. Something that was of personal interest to me was that I have known some of the board members since I was much younger. Dr. Carlson had been my dentist since I moved to this area in 1984, I went to school with Erica Petruzzi, Jason Stake and Kerry Hawver’s older brother. I have also known Don Tanner since I was young as he had been in charge of McKean County 4-H. I had been highly active in 4-H. It was nice to see all of them again and to see them in such a different light. I found the fact that the principals and vice principals were not in attendance to be curious, I had been under the assumption that they would naturally be in attendance. The meeting was called to order by the president with a moment of silence, the pledge of allegiance and a roll call.
The board’s first order of business was opening the floor to public comment. Aside from myself there was only one other member from the public, neither of us had any comments or concerns to bring forth. After the floor was closed to comments the agenda items were read and the meeting began in full. One of the first items discussed was the purpose of the district’s Title I and Title II funding. I was unfamiliar with both of these terms and had to look them up once I returned home. Title I funds are to be used in an educationally deprived setting where 40% of the district is in poverty. The funding is to be used for the following areas of education: math, language arts and reading. Title II funds are to be used to improve the skills of teachers and to assist in reducing class size. The funding from both of these were used for three professional staff members and three paraprofessionals. After going over the above items the president asked for a motion to accept the items, once received another member would issue a second. When the nomination to accept the item was seconded, the item was put to a vote and the items were passed unanimously. After the agenda items and Title I and II funding were discussed the board proceeded onto their next item of business. The next item of business was reading the minutes of the preceding meetings. On August 6 there had been a Committee-of-the-Whole meeting while the previous Regular Meeting had been held on August 13.
The Treasurer’s Report was the next item on the agenda. The Treasurer, Mr. Dan Lane provided that at the end of August the district had more than $6 million in the bank. He also explained that the receivables of the district had far outweighed the expenditures in the last month of summer, the receivables had been $448,655, while the expenditures had only been $32,448. It was revealed that the budget for the school year would be $1.7 million. I feel that this would be relevant to me as a teacher as far as salary and textbooks, as well as continuing education credits. Once again, the matter was put before a vote, the Treasurer’s Report was approved unanimously, and Mr. Lane exited the meeting. The next item on the agenda was discussing the district’s bills and payroll. As of September 10, the district’s General Fund held around $1.5 million. I had to fall back on my accounting experience from previous employment to understand what a general fund is. A general fund is the operating account for a school, this is where most money for a school is placed and taken from, however for a school district there are typically other accounts to be had for specially marked funds. It must be kept in mind that a school district may have only one general fund account. The Capital Reserve Fund was discussed next, this fund held $96,177.05 as of September 10. A district typically uses these accounts for funds marked for major projects such as construction or other special purchases. While this amount may not seem like a lot, there are two factors to consider: First, Port Allegany School District is a small district, I believe one of the upcoming graduating classes only has around 30 students in it. Second, over the summer the district recently purchased Chromebooks for all students from grades 6 through 12. Port Allegany shows a diverse culture in this aspect as a number of their students come from impoverished families, but there are students who are from relatively affluent families as well. Payroll was the next item to be discussed. For the month of August the district paid over $441,000. The obvious interest to me if I were a teacher in one of these schools would that my salary would be included in this district. This item would relate to chapter one as salary would be considered an extrinsic reward of teaching. There are of course other rewards of teaching, but for most (myself included) salary is important as we all need to be able to support ourselves. I am curious if this figure only covers administrators and support staff as school had scarcely started in August. There were a few bills that were discussed prior to voting on these items. The president of the board questioned the cost behind the purchase of workbooks. He stated that he had expected the amount to be less than what it was due to the Chromebook purchases. The superintendent reminded him that this program was still up and coming and that the younger grades would still need workbooks. Mr. Buchsen did state that while the program was still young he was eager to see if this program would reduce the amount of photocopying and paper that the district used. This would also affect me as a teacher in the district as my students would be using these, so I would also need to be knowledgeable in regard to them. Board member Stake questioned a line item that was being paid to the Coudersport School District. The superintendent and business manager informed him that this money was being paid for students with disabilities or special needs that the district could not provide. Vice president Petruzzi also inquired on this item wanting to know if this would be a monthly expense or if it was only to be paid periodically. Ms. Petruzzi was informed that this was the fee for the year for all students in the program. This item relates back to our brief class discussion on children with disabilities and special education “alphabet soup” as this line item is Port Allegany’s fee for Free, Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) that we discussed in more detail in Dr. Chitiyo’s Law and Special Education class. On a personal level this was of interest to me as my nephew Aidan was placed in this type of program last year and is now splitting his education between a general classroom at a school in his own district and his special education classes in a separate school. FAPE while technically not talked about in our text until chapter three, I feel that it could also fall under chapter two as it is part of schooling in today’s world. It has become a uniform practice with topics that are set in advance by school districts and often time the states. Another financial issue arose later in the meeting, this was the recommendation that there be a change in the county’s property tax assessments lowering the 2018 real estate taxes by $1,971.97 for the year. Surprisingly this item also passed unanimously.
The agenda’s next few items, the Committee Reports, Superintendent’s Reports and Communications were short items as this was the first school board meeting of the 2018-2019 school year and there were no important issues in any of them. After unanimous votes on the above items, the board moved into New Business, specifically personnel. Item A under personnel was in regard to Act 93. Act 93 covers the salary for the superintendent and administrators. The board voted to approve the Compensation Plan for the following school years: 2018-2019, 2019-2020, and 2020-2021. The next item was the recommendation to accept the resignation of Mrs. Betty Niles, the high school’s head cook, beginning at the end of the calendar year after 31 years of service. Mrs. Niles’ resignation was also approved unanimously. There were more personnel matters discussed and voted upon, including appointing homebound instructors, resignations and hiring of sports coaches (including volunteer coaches), and the hiring of substitutes. All items on the agenda under this section passed unanimously. I found a few things about this process interesting, first I hadn’t realized that if you volunteered to coach a sport with paid coaches that you would need board approval, I had assumed that you would need the same clearances as anyone else working with children, and second I understand now that this is most likely the final step in being hired as a teacher for the district.
The final items on the agenda passed quickly, with little discussion. The buildings and grounds were discussed briefly with the main concern being one of the outer walls at the high school. There had been a planter that over the years had rotted the cement causing it to crumble and break off, Mr. Stake was concerned that this could pose a danger to students. He was assured that the situation had been repaired over the summer to eliminate any danger, leaving only cosmetic defect which would be an upcoming project once the weather broke. The curriculum and instruction for both schools was discussed next. Dr. Carlson opened this section by stating that he would not open the floor to motions to approve the resolution as it was stated. His concern was a section on disciplining students in the elementary school. The method of discipline being proposed was eliminating physical activity, specifically recess as a punishment. He felt that this would come back to the board with negative consequences, however he also stated that he understood the need to discipline students, but that they needed to look into this idea further. We have discussed the concept of limiting or even eliminating recess in classes this semester. After our class discussions and my substitute teacher training I agree with Dr. Carlson, limiting physical activity for young children is not an effective strategy. Younger children are not designed to sit still, they tend to become bored and “zone out” and fidget and often times this can cause children to act out in response. I too understand that there needs to be some sort of discipline however this is not it. In one of the classrooms that I observed the teacher had created her own method of reward and discipline. She had created a chart listing different things, the positive items ranged from praise to a small prize and parent contact, the negative items were simple: stop and think, teacher’s choice, parent contact. Teacher’s choice punishments were small items from things like cleaning the boards and limited free time in class. The students had a clothes pin that had their name on it and they all started on a neutral tile at the beginning of the day if the teacher felt that the student’s actions required a response they were told to level up or down accordingly. The nice thing about this method was that the student had a chance to recover from punishment throughout the day (as well as level down from good behavior) so that they were not stuck on a negative consequence once they arrived there, they had a chance to correct their behavior. The concept of discipline is part of life in elementary school as set forth in chapter two with the teacher being the granter of privileges. In the end the board decided that the idea of limiting activity should be tabled until the next meeting in October. The final item of interest that was discussed was the concept of forming an alliance with Smethport School District to form a joint wrestling team for this school year. I think that the reason this was interesting to me is that Smethport and Port Allegany have always been rivals since I moved to Port Allegany 34 years ago. To see them join together is a novel concept. I have heard of other districts doing similar things over the years and the collaboration being met with mixed results. With this exception all other items in the categories of: Buildings and Grounds, Curriculum and Instruction and Transportation, the collaboration with Smethport and the revised policies put before the board were approved. The final item put before the board was the Pennsylvania School Board Association Election. Truthfully this item was pushed through as none of the names on the ballot were familiar to the board members. I imagine that in larger school districts they would be more familiar with these names and it would be of more import.
The meeting adjourned and as members began filing out I used the opportunity to introduce myself to the superintendent. I found him to be a very friendly gentleman and we talked for a few minutes. He and Dr. Carlson had admitted that they were curious as to why I had been in attendance, which made me wonder if I should have used the public comments time frame to introduce myself to the board. I had felt at the time the floor was opened for public comments that it was more in regard to any concerns within the district and the functions of such so I remained silent. One thing I found frustrating with the meeting is that while the public had a copy of the agenda, they did not receive copies of the budget/Treasurer’s Report, there had also been other hand out’s that the general public did not receive that may have been useful to the public in their understanding.
The most interesting parts of the meeting for myself were the discussion about the Free and Appropriate Education Act. I say this because it helped drive home the concepts discussed in both Introduction to Education and the Law and Special Education. It helped to see how one district will work with another district to assist the students with disabilities. As I mentioned previously it helped me to further understand what had happened with Aidan, who helps me to put a known face to these topics. The other item of interest to me was Dr. Carlson’s concern about limiting recess and activity. Not only had we discussed this topic in classes at Pitt, it was also a topic of discussion at the IU9 during substitute teacher training. Going into the school board meeting I had already observed one second grade class and I cannot see these students being denied recess. Throughout the time I was with these students, the teacher had them up and stretching or moving every 25 minutes or so. As the time between moving stretched out you could see the children becoming restless and fidgeting in their seats. As I said before, children are not designed to sit still. I found the school board meeting as a whole quite interesting. It was nice to see how each part of the school is accounted for by the board, from hiring support staff to the budget, and to the bigger topics of special education and discipline.