Letters to the Editor for April 13

Here are today’s Letters to the Editors…

Submitted by Neshaminy School Board Member Stephen Pirritano of Lower Southampton

In response to your recent article involving the NFT’s 5th grade survey and its results, I truly do welcome the input of all stakeholders but I am not really sure if the NFT qualifies.  After years of divisive interaction with the Board, Administration, and Community, the NFT is now trying to repair their image by seizing on an opportunity of what I consider fear mongering.  To be able to use results or data derived from this survey, which had no controls at any level, and conclude that it represented the community’s pulse is a stretch.  While their survey had some interesting aspects to it, the questions asked of survey participants were designed to generate the result the author was looking for.  As a board member, I was more drawn to the free-form comments from the community.

It is hard for me and most people in this community to take any intention seriously from those that imposed a work-to-contract action, and then state it did not adversely affect students; a boycott of back-to-school night, and then state that is not part of their job; strip elementary classrooms and halls of student work and decorations, and then state the sterile environment would not affect young children’s moods and their potential for learning.  The leaders of the NFT Community Outreach team who created this survey are the same leaders who enacted those negative actions against the students of Neshaminy.   Hypocritical?  I will let the public decide.

This Board will always work with our teachers, those teachers who are vested in our children’s daily lives.  The NFT is, by definition, a labor organization whose sole purpose is to bargain for wages and benefits for their members.  When it comes to the daily delivery and implementation of education, the NFT is best left to being a labor organization, especially based on recent history.  What really happened with the 5th – 8th grade middle school concept?  The Board did exactly what it is supposed to do:  derive concepts to deal with issues related to operations and management of revenue while providing for the best educational opportunities for all our children.  The Board stated it wanted the Administration to develop a plan around a concept and render an opinion.  That is how the process is supposed to work.

During this entire debate the Board announced what we were doing and how it would be done.  Thus, we encouraged the public to comment and be involved.  We listened, we made ourselves available, we looked at other successful models, and we looked at a way to improve the entire middle school format and curriculum.   What did the NFT do?  They saw an opportunity to exploit the fears of parents instead of working with and collaborating with administration.   Change often generates fear, especially when the status quo is challenged.  But how do you grow if you do not challenge the status quo?  Instead of the NFT looking towards the future, they chose to look to the past and see if by supporting the status quo they could leverage this fear, nurture it to improve their image.  I would expect more support from a professional organization that is truly interested in improving education.

The NFT should have given our Administration a chance to put forth a plan before they condemned it.  They should have allowed the Administration to outline the direction of the concept and the plan as it could be described, then they would have been able to engage in the refinement, implementation and delivery phase of such plan.  In professional organizations this is how the relationship develops between management and those that are needed to implement and make any new concept successful.  This is how most, I think, expect a successful organization to operate.

Just as before, the NFT’s response is, “without (the NFT) developing any concept it cannot be successful,” or “Administration is required to ask our permission before developing any concept.”   Well, that is exactly what the “equal voice” debate was all about during the contract dispute, which was not continued into this new contract.  Our administration is acutely aware that we need teacher input to make any plan successful.  We need them to buy in and put 110% of their efforts into implementing it for it to be successful; that is how the team concept works.  To achieve that first you need a plan, and it develops in stages.  The NFT leadership has shown again that it is not willing to support any new concept unless it was their idea or they are involved from its very inception.  This NFT leadership is still living in the past and the glory of a contract this community forced them to give up.  Why did that occur?  Because the community learned that the previous contract led to our decline instead of our growth.

What the NFT stood up for in this instance is that nothing could or should ever change.  That despite the fact that other school districts in Pennsylvania have been able to implement a 5-8 middle school model, make it successful, and grow student achievement; Neshaminy is not capable of the same.  The message the NFT and its Community Outreach team are communicating is that Neshaminy is incapable of growing education, unable to embrace change, and that Neshaminy should live in fear!

So where does that leave us?  This issue is now in front of the Educational Development Committee where it will get additional opportunities to be analyzed and developed.  Our Superintendent, Mr. Copeland, is continuing to plan and develop, along with his staff.  This is where teachers and the public hopefully will remain engaged and open-minded, and aid us in doing so.  If our Administration recommends a plan to the Board for implementation, then the Board as a whole will take up the issue for final decision.  The Neshaminy School District will continue to provide opportunities and successful futures for all our children.

The next Educational Development Meeting is Tuesday, April 15th, 6:30pm in the Maple Point Board Room, where we will host guest speaker John Adiletto, Assistant to the Superintendent of the Merion School District.  Mr. Adiletto will discuss his experience in creating a 5-8 school model in the Merion School District.  This is the first in a series of public forums dedicated to examine this model in practice.  I hope to see you there!

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