By Matt Schickling
Wire Staff Writer
There are some who believe Neshaminy School District is a sinking ship, but rather than waving their hands and calling for help, they’re trying to change the course.
The Save Our Schools (SOS) initiative is a citizens committee made up of parents of Neshaminy students and residents of the district who disagree with several major decisions the current school board has made in recent months.
“A lot of what the board does right now, I think, treats each child and a lot of the teachers like a dollar sign,” Staci O’Brien said during the group’s weekly meeting on Feb. 23. “They’re not looking at them as people with needs. Education is not being put first.”
O’Brien, who is the mother of two students, one in second grade and one in third, at Oliver Heckman Elementary in Langhorne, is running for the Region 3 school board seat. She, along with Robert Sanna and Bob Feather of Levittown and Karen Lowry of Lower Southampton, are looking to be elected to the board in November to counter actions already set in motion by the current board.
Their platform is based on three major goals:
- To stop the proposed movement of fifth-graders, who are currently designated to attend elementary schools, to the middle schools.
- To stop the closing of Samuel Everitt, Oliver Heckman and Lower Southampton elementary schools set to begin next school year with the closing of Everitt.
- To stop the proposed building of an 800-student “mega” school at the Takawanka site in Lower Southampton, which would relocate several students and require redistricting.
Sanna, who is running in Region 2, said that much of the reason for these moves is based on the “personal agendas” of current board members. He is also the father of two students, a first-grader and a sixth-grader, in this region.
“The role of the school board is to show direction in a positive way that takes into account the will of the community,” he added. “The schools are more than just, as a lot of the board members say, ‘brick and mortar’. They’re staples in these communities, and not only for education.”
A major problem with the current board, according to the members of SOS, is the alleged non-transparent communication between the school board and members of the community.
“Communication is one of the things we’ve been lacking from our current board and I think we can do a better job communicating, not only internally, but externally,” said Feather, a father of two daughters who graduated through the Neshaminy School District.
O’Brien suggested that many of the major decisions of the board are discussed at committee meetings, which are not televised, or during board meetings that are not advertised properly to the community.
“When there’s bad weather and the schools are closing they send a out a push notification to your cell phone, they send a message to you via email, they send a message on Facebook, but when they’re holding a school board meeting to discuss closing your schools, it’s completely silent,” she said.
If communication was better, Sanna said, these decisions may have been weighed more heavily.
“I don’t think we would be at this point,” he added.
Lowry, who is running for a Region 1 seat in Lower Southampton, believes that moving fifth-graders to middle school, where they could be in regular contact with older students, could bring an unwanted influence to the younger students. She cited the recent sexting scandal in Bristol Township School District as support.
“They look up to them,” she said.
“There’s a difference in age and maturity,” Feather added.
Another initiative of SOS is to create “fluency” amongst the elementary schools so that when the children get to middle school, they will all be on the same page.
“What happens in one school doesn’t necessarily happen in another,” O’Brien said. “It needs to be more uniform.”
On Feb. 25, the candidates even filed a petition with the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development to seek a Declaratory Order against the current school board’s plan. The filing came after the school district allegedly failed to provide a prompt response to the candidates’ right-to-know request for public documents regarding debt previously authorized by the district.
They made this request “to clearly object to the process by which the current board has handled this project and how it has failed to provide the public with correct or accurate information,” the press release said.
Still, there are two sides to this argument. Current board member Stephen Pirritano, of Southampton’s Region 1, said that moving forward with the consolidation plan is in the best interest of the district and taxpayers.
“An overwhelming majority of the board believes the ‘roadmap’ for Neshaminy’s future is the right plan for this district,” he said. “I’m willing to consider other plans. I’m willing to listen when other people speak, but concepts are not plans.”
Pirritano called the “lack of a valid strategy” by the SOS candidates “worrisome,” and criticized them for “[arriving] at the 11th hour to debate against what took various boards and community members seven-plus years to develop.”
“In lieu of addressing facility issues, you are going to have two choices moving forward: cutting the discretionary budget or you’re going to have to raise taxes,” he said.
The consolidation plan, Pirritano argued, will save the district money in the long run, but the SOS candidates disagree, and would instead opt for a solution that involves keeping the neighborhood schools in operation.
Ron Rudy, current board member for Langhorne’s Region 3, meets with the SOS members regularly. He said that while addressing the infrastructure is important for the future of the district, it’s not something that has to be done hastily.
“Structurally and mechanically, they’re fine. Could they be better? Sure,” Rudy said.
“None of it is absolutely necessary.”
He suggested that using a capital reserve fund of just over $9 million earmarked for renovations could be used to begin improvements on the district’s infrastructure. Those funds were secured from the sales of Eisenhower Elementary and Neshaminy Middle schools and through $500,000 set aside each year for necessary improvements.
Rudy also suggested that renovations, coupled with closing one of the district’s underutilized middle schools, could be a solution to some of the issues facing Neshaminy.
He said that the current consolidation plan favors the Lower Southampton portion of the district.
“The Middletown faction feels that this has been rammed through by the Southampton members and their allies,” he said, which has resulted in “very tense” relationships between them and dissenting board members.
This debate will surely rage on. If some of the SOS candidates get elected in November, which is likely, the board will have to find a way to work together.
O’Brien and Sanna have been endorsed by the Middletown Democratic Party, and Feather has been endorsed by the Middletown Republican Party. Pirritano has been endorsed by the Lower Southampton Republican Committee.
If successful in the May 19 primary, O’Brien said that she would approach the board to request that they hold off on their plans until after the election.
“We’re getting together ahead of time. We’re making plans,” she said. “That way, when we take our seats in December, we’re not starting from square one.”
The next Neshaminy School Board meeting will be held on March 17 at 7 p.m. at Maple Point Middle School, 2250 Langhorne Yardley Road in Langhorne. For more information on the Save Our Neshaminy Schools initiative, visit www.facebook.com/pages/SOS-Save-Our-Neshaminy-Schools/335736599964218?ref=br_tf.
