School board discusses job bid visibility, solar, and security
By Christopher Miller
BALD EAGLE TOWNSHIP – The Keystone Central school board held their special voting meeting Thursday evening, a continuance of what was supposed to have taken place last Thursday, June 13 after the work session.
The question of attracting local companies to bid on school district jobs was a great matter of discussion Thursday night.
“There are some items here for bid that only had one bidder and that’s not enough to be competitive,” board member Chris Scaff said. “We need to make an effort to get bids, or formal rejections from companies who do not wish to submit a bid for the jobs we have.”
The question of advertising the jobs for bid was brought up at Thursday’s meeting.
“The jobs are advertised on the school district’s bidding website and the local newspapers,” Property Services Director Robert Pacella said. “We even post the jobs online on The Builders Exchange website.”
Board member Chris Scaff remarked how there are plenty of local people around who say they want the work, but don’t know how to go about finding the jobs for bid online. “Going forward we need to make an effort to seek out these contractors so we have a good bid pool,” Scaff said.
During the visitors portion of the meeting, resident Jennifer Walker addressed the school board Thursday evening bringing to light information regarding the proposed vote to elect Nittany Learning Services as the Alternative Education for Disruptive Youth (AEDY) program and her negative experiences with the organization while employed there.
Martin Lewis, representing himself and Bucktail High School, spoke to the school board regarding the student government relationship with Superintendent Dr. Frank Redmon.
“Already, Dr. Redmon has discussed some great ideas and changes for next school year and the following school years that I think will help move the district forward,” he said. “Dr. Redmon has shown us that he is here to help and that he wants to make Keystone Central a great school district, and that he is dedicated to talking about real issues in our district and buildings that our students, teachers, and community members deal with and face everyday.”
He then went on to say that he was disappointed with the conduct of some of the school board members during last week’s work session and voting meeting.
“I understand that the meeting was a very lengthy one, and lasted until very late into the night, but the conduct that was demonstrated during the board meeting last week is unacceptable. I have seen the same conduct slowly growing over the past few months and I was concerned enough to discuss some small aspects with the superintendent. This room, this board, must be a place of constructive discussion, deliberation, and respect. This is not what was demonstrated last week. This is not the conduct that should be modeled to our students, our staff, faculty, or community. As the President of our student government, I want to use this board as an example to our group and as a role model but this conduct is not what I want to model. While I am frustrated, I have seen this board function cohesively in the past and with respect and dignity and I know it can be done again, and I know it must be done again because it is the only way our district and our schools can succeed.”
In other news:
The vote to select Nittany Learning Services as the Alternative Education for Disruptive Youth program was tabled Thursday night for further research and discussion into other alternatives. Board member Elisabeth Lynch requested that the board reach out to and invite a guest presenter from Pennsylvania Department of Education or the AEDY office to discuss options with the school board.
School board member Jeff Johnston provided an update on the district solar energy project being spearheaded by Montoursville firm McClure Company.
“We had a productive meeting with them, looked at all three sites for solar and where they are proposing different locations for actual solar fields and we have two or three really good options for each school,” Johnston informed the board. “We will solidify some things next month with them going forward.”
Board member Elisabeth Lynch commented saying that usually rooftop solar construction generally lasts longer than on the ground. More information on the solar project will be available at the July or August school board meeting.
Six of the eight board members present voted in favor of retaining local attorney David Lindsay as school district solicitor.
“In the future I want to see school district administrators put our a new job description and see who else we can attract for this position,” board member Lynch said. “I think every once in a while we want to see what else is out there and revisit this, I am not speaking badly of the guy, I just want to see what we can do in the future and have more time to review this next year.” Board members Tom Cannon and Elisabeth Lynch voted no on this matter.
While reviewing the Negotiations portion of the agenda, member Chris Scaff brought up the idea school resource officers (SROs) are not being paid enough for the job they do.
“They are all keeping us safe and compared to neighboring districts, we are not paying them what they could be getting elsewhere,” Scaff said. “I think we should be paying them $28 or $30 dollars an hour at least.”
Assistant Superintendent Randy Zangara added that they attempt to get officers to a comparable amount for the districts around us, but also mentioned that some are paying their officers $40 an hour but they are located in areas with a different tax base than the Keystone Central School District.
Board President Butch Knauff recommended that the Security Committee meet with resource officer personnel to see what would work for them.
Lastly, board member Roger Elling congratulated outgoing board secretary Patti Stevenson on her upcoming retirement. “You were a wonderful person to work with, and I look forward to seeing you at the Moose Lodge,” he said.
All school board members were present Thursday with the exception of Polly Donahay.
