Verbal fireworks erupt over math debate

Dissatisfaction by some Pottsgrove School Board members over the speed with which the administration is working to improve student math performance boiled over into shouting and angry accusations Tuesday night.

At issue is an elementary math program called “Every Day Math,” which has been the target of school board President Rick Rabinowitz’s criticism for months in the wake of poor performance on standardized math tests.

“In November, I said this was an emergency,” Rabinowitz said as Curriculum Director Daniel

Vorhis outlined steps the administration as taken so far — including enlisting the help of the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit to analyze the flaws in the program.

“This feels like plodding, methodical, figuring out what we’re doing and trying to do it better. I was hoping for something more significant,” said Rabinowitz.

Board member Al Leach said the fact that after three years, no teacher was rated as “an expert” in the program. He further said the current goal to increase those teachers rated as “proficient” by 20 percent and have none of them be experts “is unacceptable.”

But it wasn’t until board member Bill Parker began to speak that the wheels came off the cart completely.

In a heated exchanged that lasted nearly 10 minutes — and was partially captured on video by The Mercury — Superintendent Shellie Feola and board Vice President Matt Alexander both clashed with Parker as much over the manner in which Parker was excoriating Vorhis as the content of his comments.

At one point, Feola and Parker each talked over the other. As Parker said something needed to be done to improve the situation before school starts in the fall, Feola was saying at the same time “I can’t force teachers to work over their summer vacation, it’s not fair to them.”

“We’re doing the best we can with the tools we have, don’t point the finger at Mr. Vorhis and say this is his problem,” said Feola. “You can’t expect him to fix something over the summer when teachers are on vacation.”

“He’s had a lot more than this summer,” said Parker.

“You need to tell us exactly what you expect to be done then,” said Feola.

“We’re not the education experts,” said Parker.

“Well, you don’t value our opinion, so it doesn’t matter,” she said.

“We’re getting continuous feedback from staff, teachers, the scores that the program is not appropriate, its not meeting the needs,” Parker said. “We’ve had a lot of time. We can’t have another year of analyzing this and analyzing that, just to get them what they need so the students can be productive in their math program.”

“All year, we’ve been reporting out, and at every curriculum committee meeting, we’ve been reporting about math,” said Feola. “We’ve brought coaches in here, we’ve been drilling the staff all year, we haven’t been sitting on our hands until June. And I thought you were going to be part of the collaborative process, not someone who shoots darts at us as we come up here every week.”

Parker shot back with “historically, this board has been controlled by the superintendent, that’s why I and many others ran for office and we’re here to take back control; not to make educational decisions, because that’s not our role, but to give direction on spending, because taxes are out of control in this district, and our curriculum.”

At this point, Alexander weighed in to the exchange, saying the administration had done “exactly what they said they were going to do when we started this.”

He then criticized Parker’s behavior at board meetings.

“If you are going to sit up here at every meeting and go off on people, you will continue to be just one voice because it makes nobody want to work,” said Alexander. “It’s intimidating and it’s over the top in my opinion.”

Saying responsibility for direction lies with a majority of the board, Alexander said “it was a different board sitting here that gave (the administration) a direction to go and do what they did. If you didn’t like it when you came in, you’ve had since December to say something.”

“Now I’m not going to sit here and say I’m happy with our performance or happy with this math program, but if at every single meeting, everyone that reports knows they are just going to get browbeaten, it’s way over the top, it’s unprofessional and nobody’s going to get anything done,” said Alexander. “If they know they are going to come up here and get browbeaten for doing exactly what we OK’d them doing, then nothing’s going to get done and they will spend their time figuring out what to say when they report to us so they won’t get yelled at.”

“If you want something to happen,” Alexander concluded, “you should be talking to the board; not Shellie and not Daniel, because you need five to nine people to agree with you and it’s not happening they way that this is being presented by you.”

”I’m not going to stop speaking my mind,” Parker replied.

“You can speak your mind constructively or you can be completely unconstructive when you speak your mind,” said Alexander.

“It’s just that one year is too long,” said Parker. “Students only get third grade once, or fourth grade once. We can’t dilly dally.”

One thing the district can’t do is get a refund for the $400,000 program, although Rabinowitz would like to.

“They sold us a bill of goods,” he said.

Board member Ashley Custer also complained about a similar program called “Cognitive Tudor,” a companion math computer tool, which she said students have told her is “more of a baby sitter. All it does is teach them how to use an ineffective computer program,” she said.

Ultimately, it was veteran school board member Robert Lindgren who brought the discussion back to the point.

“We can’t throw out the old system and buy a new one, because we’re not going to spend another $500,000,” said Lindgren.

“So what do you do? You put a patch on it and try to come up with supplemental materials to make it work within the system,” he said.

“If you are going to sit up here at every meeting and go off on people, you will continue to be just one voice because it makes nobody want to work.” Matt Alexander, Pottsgrove School Board Vice President