Special Board Meeting - May 29, 2007
Minutes
BETHLEHEM AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT
BOARD OF SCHOOL DIRECTORS
SPECIAL MEETING
MAY 29, 2007
SPECIAL MEETING
A Special Meeting of the Board of School Directors of the Bethlehem Area School District was held
on Tuesday, May 29, 2007, beginning at 6:05 p.m. in the Dining Room at the Education Center, 1516
Sycamore Street, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
MEMBERS PRESENT
The Board Secretary called the roll:
Members present: Directors Amato, Craig, Dexter, Heske, Koch, Leeson, Rowe, Williams, and
Haytmanek - 9. Student member representatives Anna Smith, Amanda Kostalis, and Robert Sawyer were
also present.
OTHERS PRESENT
Others present: Dr. Joseph A. Lewis, Superintendent of Schools; Stanley J. Majewski, Jr., Board
Secretary; administrators, members of the press, and other interested citizens and staff members.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
At this point in the meeting, the Pledge of Allegiance was recited.
SILENT MEDITATION
President Haytmanek requested that the audience observe a moment of silent meditation.
COURTESY OF THE FLOOR TO VISITORS
President Haytmanek offered courtesy of the floor to visitors. Speakers are asked to come to the
podium, stating their name and address. Public comment in the first session is limited to 30
minutes. Speakers are limited to three minutes each. The board requests that, when possible, all
individuals supporting a like position on a topic select a speaker to present their views to avoid
repetition. If that is not possible, all are welcome to speak. As per school board policy,
generally, speakers are limited to taxpayers, residents, or employees of this school district. At
the conclusion of the regular school board meeting, another block of time will be allocated for
public comment. At that time, the same rules will apply. It is asked that speakers observe
proper decorum, without personal attacks towards a specific individual or individuals. It is not
the custom for the board to enter into a dialogue at these meetings about concerns. However, the
board does listen with care to issues raised. Speakers will receive responses, in some form, by
the administration. The following person addressed the Board of School Directors:
1. Stephen Antalics, 737 Ridge Street, Bethlehem, concerning the final report submitted by the
legal firm, stated he is looking at four levels of response: a - the administration b - the
board of directors c - the media and d - the public. The public's interest is primarily the
welfare of the community so he places great credibility on what they have to say. The media
is not judgmental. They may be accurate but also they might be selling "copy" so he doesn't
imply that it's totally factual. He stated it is clear to all of us how the media has
responded to this--outrage, and secondly, the community--outrage. The community raises
important questions. He questions if the board of directors will look at this report formally
and either accept or reject it as nothing accurate based upon what they have seen and what the
report says. Lastly, he addressed the administration. He appreciates the fact that this
group that did the investigation was previously employed by the district to do other
investigations so in his estimation there is an implied conflict of interest because if they
want to come back for more business--let's give the good report. His question for
administration based upon first the board taking a formal report and review and either
accepting or rejecting based upon what they have observed versus what the report says; either
accepting or rejecting it. Lastly, if administration feels that there has been negligence or
whatever implied in the report; are they planning to present a formal public press response to
a report? But unfortunately, we in the public cannot evaluate the value of that response if
they decided to do so because we don't have a full copy of the report. Mr. Antalics stated
the report should be made responsible to the public since they are paying for it and have the
school district; the board of directors take a formal position on the report and asked for the
administration to respond to the report based upon the facts, as the public is aware of the
facts.
Mr. Antalics asked if anyone cared to respond.
Dr. Lewis noted that the administration is preparing a series of implementations in the form
of a proposal and that will be a public document.
Mr. Antalics asked if the initial document would be made public so that the public can make an
evaluation or comparison as to what he is saying.
Dr. Lewis stated that it is a decision for the nine board members present to decide. He can't
answer that question.
Mr. Antalics stated that he is not pointing fingers. He is interested in what really
happened, what was going on and what is going to cure the situation.
PRESIDENT'S COMMUNICATIONS/UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Director Leeson said she is agreeing to follow up on what Stephen Antalics was just speaking
about. She referred to an incident that occurred in our district that brought international
disgrace to Bethlehem and although we are all very happy to see that normalcy has returned to
Nitschmann in the day to day operations, the board still has a responsibility to the public to
investigate and to make sure that we thoroughly investigate and make the changes and ask for
accountability. At this juncture she believes that the board has two questions before them. The
first one - "Is this a complete report?" "Are we satisfied with the report?" The second question
- "Where do we go from here and what exactly are we going to do?" She stated that she is not
satisfied that this is a conclusive report. She feels that it is a very inconclusive report. The
report that was received was an extended summary and did not contain testimony as much as the
public seems to think. It was the opinion of the investigators and it was not backed with facts.
It was strictly their opinion so it makes it very difficult to evaluate where their opinions might
be coming from. Director Leeson said that she certainly, as many of the public, finds it very
hard to buy the conclusion that there was no indirect danger to students when we know drug dealing
was going on in our school at the time that students and parents were in the school. She also
found it difficult to understand or to accept that there was no indirect knowledge. She accepts
that there probably was not direct knowledge but indirect knowledge of what occurred and she would
like to recommend that time be set aside to discuss and to evaluate this as a board and it be done
on an evening where there are not too many other things to do so that the entire board can
thoroughly discuss the matter. She continued to say that "we have not had this opportunity and
were given the summary report at approximately one o'clock and the attorneys came in to give us a
verbal summary fifteen minutes before the public meeting. We really have not as a board had any
opportunity to thoroughly discuss the report or the implementation of any of the recommendations
or perhaps more recommendations that the board might want to implement."
Director Dexter echoed that she agreed with Director Leeson, stating that time is needed as a
board to give thoughtful consideration and discussion to this report even if one looks at only the
conclusion of the thirty-seven pages, it talks about recognition of the board's responsibility and
commitment to this district. She said that she appreciates that Mr. Gross is working on the
recommendations or will be if he has access to the report. That aside, the board has a duty to
look at the report and determine whether we agree with all of those recommendations. The board
might have supplemental recommendations in the interest of the district and really the
responsibility of all of this does fall with the board, the ones that commissioned the
investigation supposedly and the ones that are required to analyze it. She agrees there is a need
to set aside the time. The other issue which was raised by Mr. Antalics as well as by many, many
members of the public this week, with personal contacts as well as media contacts; the question
again is raised, "Why is this report held confidential?" This is thirty-seven pages of a report
and she proposes that at the very minimum the solicitor be contacted and asked to do a thorough
review and tell the board what pages of the report need to either be partially redacted or removed
from the release to the public in order to protect legally required confidential information; not
information that the board would prefer to keep quiet or to keep confidential but what pages are
required under law to be protected. Then an informed decision can be made about what the board
would release. Director Dexter stated that a vote was taken last week but some of the board
members hadn't even seen the report until just minutes before they went out into the public. She
reviewed that some careful analysis and some thoughtful consideration needs to be done and part of
that will be the solicitor's opinion about what must and what may be kept confidential. It is her
view that even if the full thirty-seven pages are released, there are still many unanswered
questions and that is why she is echoing Director Leeson's comment that the board needs to set
time to discuss this report amongst ourselves and also be permitted to ask questions of the
investigators so that supplemental information can be obtained. Some of the suggestions and
conclusions were rather vague and it is not easy to discern where a conclusion comes from without
asking more questions. She continued that a H.R. Meeting is on June 18th and suggested that time
be set aside at this meeting and make the priority of that particular agenda to be consideration
of this report.
President Haytmanek stated that he read the whole thirty-seven pages as Director Leeson did and
continued to say that there is really no smoking gun there and he thinks she and the public will
be disappointed when they see the whole thirty-seven pages. There is not a whole lot more
information that can be deemed from the report than was included in the summary.
Director Koch commented that she agrees with Director Dexter in that she didn't have enough time
to read the report, to know and couldn't vote to release something if she didn't know what was in
there. She suggested that it wouldn't hurt for the board to have a little time set aside and talk
about it in private but thinks maybe part of the disappointment on part of some people in the
public is they were expecting the criminal report after reading some public comments and letters
to the editor and so forth. It was her understanding that "we were not allowed to go there by the
district attorney; we were not to be doing a criminal investigation because they (the district
attorney's office) was doing that." If somebody is waiting for that kind of a report, they've
got to wait until after the trial. It is not going to be coming from us. Ours is more of the
professional or the educational aspect of it and how those things are written in.
Director Craig commented that he read it as many did. Some need more time to digest things than
others. He thinks the bottom line is "there are people out there that want to hang somebody."
"There are people out there that want somebody's head other than the person who is presently well
known to everybody." He stated he is getting the message from a lot of people - let's get this
district healed and move on. That is not to say that the board should not discuss the report. He
has no problem setting some time aside to do that but not intent for the purpose of trying to
blame somebody or trying to express extreme displeasure and mistrust of the administration and the
law firm that did the work because he believes they did what the district told them to do. He
said that he heard the figures; interviewing thirty-five to thirty-six employees and
administrators in the district from Nitschmann. Despite what some people think, this was not
opinioned by the law people who wrote the report. A lot of conclusions were drawn from
discussions with employees. While they may not have said, "John Doe said," it is quite clear if
you talk to people at Nitschmann as he has that there is no question that probably every comment
or innuendo could be identified as to the person who made the statement. When the district sent
these folks to do that one of the things talked about was confidentiality. That makes some folks
in the district bristle because they don't care about confidentiality. When the district told
people that the full report would not be made public to protect the interests of people, the board
is faced with the decision to honor the statement made to 35 plus people who came forward or say
that it has reconsidered and will make it public anyway. He thinks that is a danger the board
must be very careful of. He has no problem discussing the report as a board. Lets move on from
this. This is bordering on obsessive.
Director Amato said it is amazing to him how the public wants an ugly situation that was found and
detected in time to be cured and then it became an uglier situation. He is sure if that was let
go and detected eight or ten months from now, there would have been heads, that everybody wants,
rolling in the aisles. There would have probably been some drug sales in that school. He heard
Director Leeson state that we know there are drug sales in that school. If the police who
investigated this could have found that there were drug sales in that school, they would have come
down on the district with all barrels shooting; that's what they love to do. This wouldn't be
discussed today if there were heads that rolled but an independent source investigated the
situation. Time had to be taken to have people participate because they did not want to come
forth and make statements and have it come back to haunt them. They were told about
confidentiality. All of that stuff could be put on a table and one could say that the community
wouldn't know "who said what" which is a correct statement - exactly, but the Nitschmann Community
would know "who said what," just like Director Craig said. That is bordering on nobody trusting
anybody in this district. Nobody can say, "You help us try to find out what really happened here
and put the cards on the table and you won't have to worry about any repercussions." But now we
say we were only kidding, because now we want heads to roll, haven't seen any rolling. This isn't
ugly enough for the public. We discovered something that was ugly before it got uglier. Eight or
ten months from now it would have been drug sales in that school and a real mess. It was caught
in the nick of time. He asked if there is anything wrong with catching it at the right time and
going on with life.
Director Williams said she heard a few comments she agrees with. The board's concern is, was, and
always has been student safety and employee safety. There will always be unanswered questions
when something of this nature arises. "We are not going to get all of the answers--ever--and
maybe that's not the crucial part." In fact the most important part of this report is the
recommended course of action and the board probably needs to decide if they and administration
agree with the recommended course of action that the attorneys have put forward in the report.
She believes those recommendations were also put in the public report. Director Williams
expressed that the optimum thing that can come out of the situation, is that one can turn failure
into success, quoting - "failure is not failure if you learn from it." This is a terrible thing
that happened. If the district is able to learn from it, if administration can put things in
place that will help something like that to not happen again. You can put safety measures in
place but you cannot guarantee that crazy things will not happen. She thinks the most important
piece is to move on as Director Amato said. Look at what positive outcomes can come out of this,
what things can be put in place that will help in the workplace and help people get beyond this
and mend what needs to be mended.
There was some discussion between Directors Leeson, Amato, and Haytmanek regarding obtaining a
motion to table the discussion. Director Amato wanted to table the discussion. Director Leeson
stated there was no motion on the floor to table the discussion.
Dr. Lewis stated that the appropriate motion is one to end the discussion.
Director Amato said if he wants to end discussion he will table it.
Dr. Lewis explained that he cannot table it because there is no motion.
President Haytmanek agreed because Director Amato wants to end discussion.
Dr. Lewis added that a second and a vote are needed.
Director Heske said he thinks the discussion should be done at the HR meeting.
President Haytmanek stated that that is a second. It is a nondiscussable motion. President
Haytmanek polled the directors asking if they wanted to end the discussion. A voice vote
indicated a majority favored ending the discussion. Director Leeson said she did not want to end
discussion if there is something else to be said.
Director Leeson said she only wanted to clarify what Director Amato seemed to get wrong. She did
not say that the directors knew about drug sales; she said indirect knowledge. She commented that
Director Amato must have been reading a different report because they already talked about
promises to 35 people. People are not mentioned in this report.
President Haytmanek told Director Leeson that she was out of order. The board has voted to end
discussion. It is done.
Director Amato said he still has unfinished business. A couple weeks ago he brought up the
subject of students from out of the district still going to Liberty High School. He asked the
status of that concern. An opinion s been received from our solicitor. The district better start
to follow the guidelines because it will open up Pandora's box if one set of standards is not
adhered to.
Dr. Lewis stated that an opinion has been elicited from the solicitor and the board received a
copy of the report. Mr. Gross reviewed with his division, what evidence was presented and it met
the standard. From administration's perspective, the matter is closed.
Director Amato questioned if those students can go?
Dr. Lewis responded that he did not write the law.
Director Amato argued that he didn't read the same thing as Dr. Lewis. He spoke with the
solicitor the other night regarding this matter.
Dr. Lewis said that they presented two verifiable pieces - a driver's license of the mother with
the address and an income tax return with the address of the mother.
Director Amato questioned if he read the first thing in the whole report, that they had
established their main residency and it's out of the district. That takes the priority. Their
main residence is in Saucon Valley.
Director Dexter requested that the president keep order in the meeting.
Dr. Lewis stated that he will move at the direction of the board on this and if anyone wishes to
have it further investigated, Mr. Katz would give an opinion based on the information submitted
and he does not think it would be different from his opinion based on his written interpretation
of the law.
Director Amato expressed that they sit down and go over this with Ellis Katz because this is
opening up more than just three students.
Dr. Lewis responded that he doesn't disagree with Director Amato regarding the law and that it is
loose.
Director Amato said he doesn't know what Mr. Gross did but he and Attorney Katz discussed two
items the other night - the driver's license and the first priority is the location of their
established residence.
President Haytmanek requested to discuss with Attorney Katz.
Director Craig stated there is an inconsistency between what is being done here and what is being
done in the district with regard to athletes in our schools. When an athlete comes to Liberty,
Freedom, East Hills or Nitschmann or any of our schools that have PIAA Membership, they are told
that they must "sleep" in the residence within the schools. As members of PIAA; that is our rule.
Dr. Lewis responded to Director Craig that his reference is to PIAA.
Director Craig said that he understands that. If there is justification one way, in one area,
then a logical reasoning should be given as to why it is not justified that way with all students.
President Haytmanek stated a solicitor is needed and it will be clarified this week.
SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT
Dr. Lewis recognized the student representatives present, calling Anna Smith to the podium
acknowledging her contribution as student board representative for the 2006-2007 term. He
presented her with a gift and certificate.
Robert Sawyer was recognized as the alternate student board representative for the 2006-2007
school year and it was noted by Dr. Lewis that he was very visible and he looks forward to working
with him in the upcoming year.
Amanda Kostalis, an alternate student board representative, was also given recognition for her
efforts in the 2006-2007 school year.
Dr. Lewis also acknowledged student board representative, Teresa Hesener who could not make the
meeting and commented positively about her efforts with appreciation.
The efforts of all student representatives were responded to with applause.
Dr. Lewis stated that page 11 which was merely a numbers adjustment was the only change to be
noted and the agenda stands as it is.
RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE ADMINISTRATION
Dr. Lewis presented the following recommendations of the administration.
NEW AND MISCELLANEOUS BUSINESS
Director Koch stated that she omitted one item from her report regarding the PSBA Meeting of May
18th because Director Craig was not present. One of the jobs done at PSBA is to appoint the
people for the PIAA Boards. For District 11, Director Craig was appointed again and she commented
that she appointed him once before but there was another appointment to be made and that was to
appoint an alternate PSBA member to the PIAA Board of Control. She isn't exactly sure how
everything works and will allow Director Craig to explain in a minute. This was something all
regional directors voted on for that one particular office and she was informed by Tom Gentzel is
that there wasn't any other person who even came close to competing with Director Craig regarding
his background and experience.
Director Craig commented that the board of control is the State Athletic Board which runs the full
state of Pennsylvania and he has been fortunate enough to be elected by the school board
association to be one of their representatives on the PIAA Board. This is a great honor for the
school district because it gives Bethlehem another voice on the state level which he thinks can
help down the road.
Director Craig was recognized with applause.
COURTESY OF THE FLOOR TO VISITORS
The following person addressed the Board of School Directors:
1. Stephen Antalics, 737 Ridge Street, Bethlehem, based upon comments from citizens who have a
direct interest in the welfare of the school district are very concerned with the report. To
dismiss their comments and looking to hang somebody is grossly irresponsible. The community
has spoken; read the papers. The people have spoken very honestly about their concerns and
all they're simply asking for is resolution to a problem that is deeply bothering them. They
are not out to hang anybody. They want to know what is best for the community and that is all
they're asking. Take that into account when people make absurd accusations about the general
public.
BOARD VACANCY INTERVIEWS
Dr. Lewis asked if the board could agree on an appointment to the board on June 11 and direct Mr.
Majewski to advertise a special meeting for general purposes. The solicitor felt that would be
the most appropriate appointment and that individual could then be seated. It would also give
administration an opportunity to start to prepare orientation materials for the individual. The
board agreed.
DIRECTOR WILLIAMS' LAST MEETING
Director Craig commented that this is the last meeting for Director Williams. It was a short one.
He is sorry it got so contentious at times. He told Director Williams that she will be sincerely
missed. She carried herself as a lady and always did what she thought was best despite what
others thought. After being associated with her for 10 years, he will miss her greatly and is
sorry to see her go, wishing her good luck.
Director Williams responded with some commentary saying that the school board directors are not
sitting here to carry favor but to do what is the right thing to do.
ADJOURNMENT
Directors Craig and Amato moved to adjourn the meeting which carried by voice vote. The meeting
adjourned at 6:50 p.m.
The board agreed to take a five-minute break before beginning interviews for the board vacancy.
Attest,
Stanley J. Majewski, Jr.
Board Secretary
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