Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Pottsville Area School Board Suspends Staff, Moves Some Full-Time to Part-Time Positions

The monthly meeting of the Pottsville Area School Board Tuesday night brought many changes to staffing at the district.

During the meeting, numerous votes were held to rearrange administration positions as well as move employees from Full Time to Part Time positions and also suspend several employees as well.

The first vote created a new Special Education Supervisor position as JSC Elementary and was followed by a vote to transfer the Assistant Principal of JSC, Deneen Reese, to the new position.

The assistant principal position was then eliminated.

Next, 13 employees from across the district had their status changed from from full-time to part-time effective the 2020-2021 school year keeping their same rate of pay.

Those names included Michelle Aungst, Karen Bevan, Susan Griffin, David Hess, Bernadette Ott, Kimberly Pekarik, Tessa Remaley, Karen Runkle, Diane Schweikert, Brittany Stevenosky, Kathy Thompson, Christine Trapani, and Kathleen Weiss.  It was not said what kind of positions these employees held in the district.

The board then voted to accept a proposal to suspend 6 temporary and professional employees.  Those employees names were not announced but the board sited that the suspensions were because of "Due to the substantial decline in enrollment, in order to curtail its educational programs and conform with standards of organization and educational activities, as well as maintain a thorough and efficient public school system".

The board then voted to suspended 7 nonprofessional employees. These suspension also were reportedly "Due to the substantial decline in enrollment, in order to curtail its educational programs and conform with standards of organization and educational activities, as well as maintain a thorough and efficient public school system".

A final vote was held to maintain "Full Day" kindergarten in the district.  The district allocated funding through the Emergency Relief Fund to continue full day through the 2020-2021 school year.

This funding was noted that if it was not obtained, the board would have had to furlough the district's kindergarten positions.

Link to agenda for the full meeting