{"id":12471,"date":"2015-11-13T05:20:14","date_gmt":"2015-11-13T10:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=12471"},"modified":"2015-11-13T05:07:21","modified_gmt":"2015-11-13T10:07:21","slug":"tension-runs-high-at-ucf-school-board-meeting-over-recent-election-tactics-and-classroom-size-for-elementary-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=12471","title":{"rendered":"Tension runs high at UCF school board meeting over recent election tactics and classroom size for elementary schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interviews to fill vacancy are conducted<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Karen Cresta,<\/strong><\/span> Staff Writer, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2013 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\u2019s work session meeting.\u00a0 It was full of tension as board member Greg Lindner criticized fellow board member Jeff Hellrung on how he handled the recent election.\u00a0 Discussions on class sizes, specifically at Hillendale, raised much contradiction among school board members.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Each candidate made statements and answered questions from the board.\u00a0 The board requires five affirmative votes at next week\u2019s meeting to fill the position.<\/p>\n

Lindner requested to speak for ten minutes regarding the recent election.\u00a0 He was re-elected along with the team members who ran against him – Carolyn Daniels and John Murphy.\u00a0 He ran for re-election with board member Kathleen Do and newcomer Beverly Brooks for Region C – Chadds Ford and Pennsbury Townships.<\/p>\n

As Hellrung sat next to him quietly, Lindner stated, \u201cIf 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].\u00a0 Mr. Hellrung, among other things, said our political team was composed of political operatives.\u00a0 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lindner referred to a letter that Hellrung sent local media on October 30, criticizing Lindner, Do and Brooks\u2019 platform that proclaimed \u2018Education not Politics.\u2019\u00a0 He applauded their involvement in political action but stated, \u201cthat campaign slogan is very inappropriate when each of them is an experienced political operative and each of their opponents is highly inexperienced in politics.\u201d\u00a0 He continued to write that \u201ccandidates Daniels, Murphy and Rumunno are all political newcomers.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I hope that our voters in Region C will go beyond the slogans and make an informed decision on Tuesday, November 3.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lindner continued his angry comments geared toward Hellrung and concluded, \u201cMr. Hellrung, you can twist the truth with the best I have seen.\u00a0 That will be the prison in which I view your future comments.\u00a0 For the other team of candidates, the election is over and you deserve current congratulations and won the election.\u00a0 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\u2026 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.\u00a0 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lindner ended his statement with applause. \u00a0Hellrung did not comment.<\/p>\n

The tension between board members continued – as the debate took up much of the meeting\u2019s time- on class sizes for third graders at Hillendale for the third consecutive week.\u00a0 Parents took time during public comment to express their views of the overcrowding.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Superintendent of schools John Sanville explained that in 2008 \u2013 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen 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\u2019ve added sections in math and we\u2019ve added a section in another building and language arts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanville added, \u201c I\u2019ve never asked for a position that the board has turned down,\u201d Sanville stated.<\/p>\n

Dupuis responded and said that he thinks what is going to be heard by the administration is that is \u201cpretty comfortable with what we\u2019re doing right now for third grade\u201d but said that the guidelines could change to add additional classrooms, space permitting.<\/p>\n

Board member Do urged the board, \u201cPlease don\u2019t do this to these kids in the fourth grade,\u201d after sympathizing with them having already dealt with the overcrowding during their second and now third grade years.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 He is not of the opinion to vote on this issue this year that we may not solve.\u00a0 The better discussion is to talk about next school year and have a positive impact beyond.<\/p>\n

Sanville acknowledged that he will accept the board\u2019s decision but urged the board to make one.<\/p>\n

Dupuis said that the immediate relief is about posting a .4 position for a language arts section at Hillendale third grade.\u00a0\u00a0 An informal headcount for adding a part-time position indicated four members out of the eight in attendance were in agreement.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The board decided to add it as an agenda item next week.<\/p>\n

A response from Hellrung indicated his frustration.\u00a0 He said, \u201cThe problem is that the person and the team that has the most information to decide on the exceptions are the superintendent and his team.\u00a0 I think for the board to overrule that is, I think, egregious \u2013 very disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

At the 10:15 p.m. mark, Dupuis said the remaining agenda items would be continued at next week\u2019s regular session on November 16, at 7:30 p.m. in the district office.<\/p>\n

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Interviews to fill vacancy are conducted   By Karen Cresta, Staff Writer, The Times   EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2013 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\u2019s work session meeting.\u00a0 It was full of tension as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[615],"class_list":["post-12471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-unionville-chadds-ford-school-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12472,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12471\/revisions\/12472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}