Without Apology

October 9th, 2003

Without apology, I maintain that the Saucon Valley School Board on which I have the honor to serve is one of the best in the state. Its accomplishments over the last eight years have been truly remarkable. I take little credit for those accomplishments as I have been a member for only about three years, but I am in awe of the progress my fellow board members have made. I am personally aware of the hard work, intelligence, selfless dedication and extraordinary amounts of time these people have given free to the community. I will detail these accomplishments in another column, but for the moment I need to get some resentment off of my chest.

For this service, the four members of the board who are running for reelection in November have received nothing but scorn, abuse and accusations that are downright lies by the five candidates designating themselves as TEACH. The TEACH candidates, Eric Schenkel, Karen Beyer, Karen Samuels, Ronald Reichard and Susan Baxter, would have you believe that the district is in bad shape, that the board has been unresponsive to the community, that it is educationally wanting and that the board has not been fiscally responsible. None of this is true.

It is especially ironic that these candidates ran under the banner TEACH as they have opposed educational excellence from the outset. For example, Karen Samuels became involved in school affairs when she led a group of parents passionately opposed to a new high school grading policy designed to aid retention of what is learned in each subject. As a matter of fact, that policy has been a great success, and no student who even half tries has been penalized by it.

Karen Samuels also led an effort to persuade you that it was foolish for the board to support the moving of the Lutz-Franklin School to the campus, and that somehow public money was being wasted on the effort. The fact is that it was always the intention of the board to have the move supported by contributions, and no public money was used in connection with Lutz-Franklin. Of course, courtesy of Ms. Samuels, the taxpayers of Lower Saucon are now paying for the reconstruction of the Lutz-Franklin School as a museum to which very few school children will have access. And given the usual indolence of the SV Historic Society, after several months of ownership, the leaking roof of the school is still covered with a tarp.

Moreover, despite charges that the district was storing the school’s artifacts badly and that some of them were moldy, and despite the fact that Ms. Samuels and the others insisted that they be turned over to them by the district right away, it took six weeks for the Historic Society to actually remove them from the district’s storage room and to move them to a place where they are obviously less safe than they were previously. (The mold, by the way, did not occur while the artifacts were in school custody. It was there when the district rescued the artifacts from the crumbling and damp Lutz-Franklin School.)

The supercilious Dr. Eric Schenkel, on the other hand, thinks the schools are not tough enough. He would have many more AP courses than are now offered in the high school. He has not recognized, of course, the vast number of such courses put into the curriculum since the reign of Susan Baxter as Board President eight years ago. He also argues that taxes are too high. Where he expects to get the money to pay for the teachers to teach the courses he recommends he does not say. Moreover, he had lived in our community for all of four months when he ran in the primary, and his own children are not in the district’s schools. His girlfriend makes no bones about the fact that she pushed Schenkel into running because after only a few months she was dissatisfied with her daughter’s situation in school. Talk about community involvement! The man has none whatever.

When Susan Baxter was president, the district was perhaps at its lowest point in its history. Board members worried over the effect of pumsey puppets in bewitching the students. It used textbooks that were thirty years old. It illegally fired a superintendent, hired a lawyer to represent it in a kangaroo hearing who subsequently went to jail, violated the Sunshine Law, failed to revise the curriculum and educated students for the world of 1950 rather than the twenty-first century. Mrs. Baxter is a nice lady who hasn’t the slightest clue of what to do on a board and has a history of screwed up service that should certainly debar her from office.

Karen Beyer is a Republican activist. This is not a crime, but it is not a reason for running for school board. She has authored many of the lies told about the board. She has made such foolish statements of denying any connection between property values in a community and excellent schools. She has told me that she looks forward to having great fun on the board. Forgive me if I don’t think it is fun. I think it is hard work, work, which Beyer is unlikely to give it. Moreover, it is quite clear that she wants to be elected to the board as a stepping stone for higher office.

Ronald Reichard is a teacher who is about to retire and thinks serving on the school board would give him something to do in his retirement. Unfortunately, his concern for students is shown by the fact that he is now participating in a teachers’ strike against the Hatboro-Horsham School District, a district which presently has one of the highest rates of pay for teachers in the state. How will he stand when our district’s teachers seek a new contract in the future?

This group of candidates has yet to state a program, which does not parrot what the present school board is already doing. This may in part be explained by their ignorance. For example, they proposed that Pennsylvania history be taught in the schools but did not know that Pennsylvania history is already taught in the fourth grade. They proposed that AP courses be increased without knowing that is exactly what has been happening, and will continue to happen, each year. They haven’t the foggiest notion of school financing and therefor have limited themselves to suggesting that when in office they will undertake a full review of the subject. To me that is no suggestion at all. As Finance Chairman and Treasurer of the board, I know that I and my predecessor as Treasurer, David DeRemer, have constantly reviewed the district’s fiscal policy. We have been able to refinance old debt at very low rates with considerable savings to the district. We have been able to obtain new loans to finance school construction at extremely favorable rates. And we have made and will make changes in our business department that insure that money is well accounted for and the results available to the public whenever requested.

If the TEACH candidates are all elected, control of the board will be in their hands and their nominees will head the various board committees. Are there those among TEACH who are competent to manage the district’s finances, or its labor negotiations, or to plan and manage the district’s construction projects? I think not. Is there any among them who are as well versed in education issues as Dr. Linda Krentz or have the vast experience with other school districts as John Freund? I think not. Will anybody be able to manage as well as Janie Hecker the interface between the administration and the board, or bring to the table her experience as an educator? I doubt it. Has any among TEACH the experience and the community involvement of Tom Macarro, or our new candidate, Sandra Miller? Certainly not. And although Sandra Miller has yet to serve on the board, she has attended every board meeting over the last several years as a representative of the district’s parents. None of the TEACH candidates have done anything of the kind.

In short, our district is on the edge of a disaster. Parents and citizens are justly alarmed at the possibility. They must do everything possible to elect Miller, Macarro, DeRemer, Hecker and Freund in November.

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