August 18, 2015

With teachers in the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District about to start a new year without a new contract, money remains an issue in the district.

The teachers’ contract expired at the end of the last academic year and teachers have agreed to work status quo — under the old contract — until a new agreement is reached.

School Board President Vic Dupuis said during the Aug. 17 board meeting that a formal, closed-door, fact-finding hearing is scheduled for Aug. 25 with the state Labor Relations Board.

The hearing officer, Dupuis said, would publish a report by Aug. 31 for the board and teachers’ association. The board then has 10 days to approve or disapprove the report. The board has scheduled a public meeting for 7 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 8, in the district office for deliberation and vote on that report.

During school director comments, three directors made reference to the contract and teacher salaries.

Jeff Hellrung addressed the issue of salaries as they relate to retirement strategy. Most people have, or should have, a three-part strategy involving a 401(k) from work, their own personal IRA, and Social Security, which would equal about 80 to 90 percent of a person’s income.

“That’s the world for most of our constituents,” he said.

Teachers, however, are different. For those hired before July 1, 2011, the defined retirement plan is 2.5 percent of their salary multiplied by the number of years they teach, he said. For those teaching for 35 years, that would come to about 87 percent of their salary, just from the work component and not including personal IRAs and Social Security.

He also said teachers and the district also pay into a retirement system for them.

“Teachers have a very generous defined retirement plan. They’re entitled to it; they earned it. It was part of the deal they got. I don’t begrudge it,” Hellrung said. “But, it’s very expensive to the district.”

He said the biggest obstacle to work out is how to balance the state-mandated Act 1 limits on tax increases with the state-mandated retirement rate increases.

“For that reason, the salary increases are less than what I had hoped they would be,” he said.

Hellrung added that he’s hopeful the board and the teachers’ association will reach a solution satisfactory for both sides.

Keith Knauss then addressed a comment made by fellow Director Michael Rock during budget talks this past spring. Knauss took exception to Rock’s suggestion that the district is on an “incremental slope to degradation.”

Knauss then showed a graph that reflected continued improvement in SAT scores by district students during the last 17 years.

That graph showed the average combined math and verbal scores improving from less than 1,100 to more than 1,160, while the nationwide average remained about 1,020 for the same period of time.

“It’s time to celebrate the progress we’ve made for the past two decades,” Knauss said, adding that the improved scores reflected improved college readiness for the students and that the PSSA scores show a similar trend.

Those scores, along with the district’s improved rankings in national publications and the increase in the number of National Merit scholars and Blue Ribbon schools, all indicate excellence within U-CF, he said.

“Our district had been known for good schools; now we’re known for our great schools,” he added.

Knauss also noted that the progress was achieved during a time of “modest spending” and said it’s the “fiduciary duty to spend just what is needed.”

He then challenged Rock to explain his comment in June about incremental degradation.

Rock’s comment at the time came when the board voted for a 2.2 percent tax increase instead of a 2.6 percent increase.

Rock responded to Knauss with a 16-minute PowerPoint presentation titled “Cost Disease at UCFSD,” which cited various academic literature and studies.

He defined cost disease as a situation in which costs increase, but without an equal increase in productivity. Examples used included the increase in medical and legal services along with increased costs in wages at colleges and universities compared to the average increase in the Consumer Price Index. All of the costs increased more than the CPI.

And while he acknowledged the difficulty in getting increased productivity in education, he said the district should increase its costs by giving teachers more money to avoid incremental degradation of the district’s product, education.

Rock summarized his point in a telephone interview, saying that unless teachers are given salary increases beyond that of inflation, the better teachers are apt to look for other districts where they can make more money.

He said even giving increases equal to inflation would actually cause real wages to fall, which he called “a rising gap.”

“In the end, that rising gap will drive good people out of education and you’ll be left with lower quality people. That will translate into a lower quality product,” Rock said.

He also took issue with Knauss’ point that the teaching at U-CF is what has caused the increase in SAT scores. Rock said other factors could be in play, such as students’ taking SAT prep classes.

“I would never look at SAT scores or PSSA scores as a measure of student outcomes because those high-stake tests drive some teachers to teach to the test,” he said.

Rock said he wants the district to use the National Assessment of Educational Progress test, which students take three times during their K through 12 years.

He said it’s not a high-stake test because it has no effect on whether a student gets into college, so there’s no pressure on the teacher or student.

“It’s a truer measure of educational progress,” Rock said.

After a continuation of the spirited exchanges that have marked recent Pocopson Township meetings, the supervisors voted on Monday, Aug. 17, to put the Barnard House question-and-answer session on the calendar – the second such vote in less than a month.

Supervisors’ Chairman Barney Leonard and Supervisor Ricki Stumpo agreed that the date for the two-hour session would remain Sept. 21 at the Pocopson Home. Supervisor Georgia Brutscher was absent from the meeting and unable to connect electronically as planned.

The supervisors passed the same motion at the July 27 meeting; however, that proposal got derailed. At a supervisors’ meeting held on Monday, Aug. 10, at 8:30 a.m. – controversial because of its timing – Leonard publicly accused Elaine DiMonte, who is running unopposed for supervisor and suggested the Q&A, of making the issue political and failing to collaborate with him on the format.

At the Aug. 17 meeting, DiMonte suggested that Leonard was out of line to criticize her at a meeting that most working residents in the township, including herself, were unable to attend. Moreover, she said she would be happy to share the emails they exchanged, which she felt contained a nasty tone on his part.

Leonard said he believed the communication had been misinterpreted. “I’m sorry that happened …,” he said, “because I’d rather talk to you directly than have to make this a whole public circus, which wasn’t intended ever.”

The Barnard House, once a stop on the Underground Railroad, is being renovated for use as the township municipal building and the home of the Kennett Underground Railroad Center, a project that has become increasingly contentious. Some residents have raised concerns about shoddy workmanship, ineffective oversight, and spiraling costs, and some township employees have questioned whether the historic building is well-suited to township administration.

The Aug. 10 meeting gave rise to a suggestion that the supervisors use a survey to poll residents on the Barnard House as well as the earned-income tax (EIT), which some residents associate with the renovations; however, Leonard said after giving that idea some thought, it didn’t seem likely to provide the litmus test the township was seeking.

Leonard suggested adding the township’s earned-income tax to the Sept. 21 Q&A, but several residents responded that too many questions have surfaced on the Barnard House to make the dual topics practical.

Stumpo and Leonard agreed that DiMonte would collaborate with township residents Sarah Mims and Holly Manzone to come up with a procedure that would enable residents to get their questions about the Barnard House answered and provide members of the Barnard House Steering Committee ample time to research the answers.

Resident Sean Rafferty also took issue with Leonard’s comments at an earlier meeting. In response to Rafferty’s criticism on July 27 that a new floor had been damaged during construction at the Barnard House, Leonard said the floor wasn’t new. Rafferty said he filed a Right-to-Know request that indicated it was. Rafferty also questioned the fact that all three supervisors are serving on Barnard House committees.

“The committees are supposed to advise the supervisors, not be the supervisors,” he said, suggesting the possibility of bias.

On a related issue, Rafferty asked about the state ethics review the township sought in response to potential conflict-of-interest issues Rafferty raised at the July 27 meeting involving Richard Jensen, the township’s zoning-code enforcement officer.

According to township records, Jensen, who had been paid an extra $50 an hour to serve as the project manager for Barnard House, issued a building permit for the Barnard House about three weeks after Keystone Municipal Services, the township’s building inspector, recommended denying it unless specific conditions were met. The supervisors voted to have Jensen withdraw from the project at the July 27 meeting.

Leonard said the township received a response to its inquiry from the State Ethics Commission that “was so confusing that our solicitor had to get clarity.” The commission declined to rule after the fact, Leonard said, adding that he would recommend having Keystone resume its role as the Barnard House inspector. He and Stumpo voted to authorize a meeting on that subject that would include Jensen and Keystone.

In other business, the Kennett Library Task Force appointment was tabled after Stumpo and Leonard disagreed on its merit. Leonard said he had spoken with Kennett Library Board President Susan Mackey-Kallis and felt she should be given time to “solve her own problems” without interference from a task force.

Leonard said not all of the municipalities served by the library were participating in the task force, just the ones that have been dissatisfied with some of the decisions made by the library board, including a controversial name change and conflict over the location for a new library.

According to Pocopson Township minutes from May 2013, Pocopson’s supervisors learned that the library board had rejected its two nominees for a seat on the library board and decided that Pocopson would not contribute any funds to the library without representation, a situation that continues.

Stumpo said she felt that Pocopson should have a voice in the library’s future. “I think we should be represented on a task force,” she said.

The supervisors agreed that while efforts are underway to disseminate information electronically, a mailed township newsletter still serves a valuable purpose, and one will be distributed soon. It will include material on Founders Day as well as information provided by Sarah Mims regarding a volunteer day on Sept. 10.

Mims, a member of the township’s Historical Committee, said the outreach is part of a global day of giving that will involve 10,000 people worldwide, an initiative of her employer, XL Catlin. She said eight volunteers are lined up from the company’s Exton office to scrape paint at the Locust Grove Schoolhouse.

In other schoolhouse developments, the supervisors approved a $2,472 request to use Historical Committee funds for the installation of most of the school’s original slate blackboard. Randy Mims, who is also on the Historical Committee, said that the slate came from E. Barnard Baily and Mary Beth Drobish, who have been storing pieces of it; the funds will cover its cutting and mounting.

After the meeting, Sarah Mims said she hopes other companies might consider similar outreach to aid the schoolhouse project. For more information on efforts to restore the one-room, late 19^th-century schoolhouse and what is known about its colorful history, visit  http://locustgroveschoolhouse.org/.