District furloughs staff, cuts busing
POTTSTOWN » As coronavirus impacts continue to ripple through the rhythm of “regular life,” the Pottstown School Board is taking steps to adapt.
Thursday night, the board voted unanimously to allow the administration to furlough workers whose work has vanished with the absence of students and teachers in the borough’s school buildings.
As much as possible, said Superintendent Stephen Rodriguez, hours will be reduced or work re-purposed to keep as many people on the payroll as possible.
Even for those who are furloughed, or have their hours reduced, the district will continue to pay its share of their medical insurance, explained Deena Cellini, the district’s personnel director.
The district has also come up with a way to continue to distribute breakfasts and lunches to its students while they take classes at home.
Every Monday, anyone with one or more students in school
can come to Pottstown High School between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. and pick up five breakfasts and five lunches at the cafeteria door adjacent to the auditorium at the front of the school.
Unlike in the spring, Rodriguez said there will be more variety in the meals.
“All students are eligible,” he said, urging parents to take advantage of the benefit and using the money saved for other needs.
Those without vehicles, or who are otherwise unable to come and pick up the meals, can register to have them delivered, said Rodriguez.
They will also be delivered on Mondays, between 8 a.m. and noon.
“This is so much better than the spring,” Rodriguez said. “I honestly feel this is the best distribution plan in the entire state.”
Rodriguez also told the board that the district has been aided by $1.7 million provided by Montgomery County out of the $15 million the county received from the federal CARES Act.
“And they distributed it based on our Title 1 population, which was nice because it means we got money proportional to our need,” Rodriguez said.
“It has to be spent on COVID-related expenses, but that’s OK because we’ve got lots of them,” he said.
Although some employees are being furloughed, there is still hiring going on at this time of year. One such hire was the replacement of yet another vice principal at Pottstown Middle School.
Kimberly Boswell, who held the post since November 2018, has resigned. She will be replaced by Danielle Davis, who will start in October and be paid $82,781 per year.
Ironically, the measures that gave the board the most pause Thursday night was the decision to stop providing busing, as neighboring Pottsgrove did last week.
It’s ironic because Pottstown is a walking school district for the most part, and the district does not provide busing to its elementary school students, all of whom live within a mile of their school in the 5-square-mile district.
The result of this decision is that the district also will not provide transportation to students who attend
non-public schools.
Last year, Pottstown provided transportation to 28 private school students at a cost of $50,000.
Pottstown’s total transportation budget last year was about $1.5 million.
It is not immediately clear how much the district will save by this move as inperson classes, and busing could resume later in this school year.
“I was really hoping Pottstown would be providing transportation for nonpublic school children,” resident Amanda Godshall posted in the comments during the board meeting, which was streamed live in the district Facebook page.
“Your decision not to is going to create a hardship for many families. I would think that providing transportation would be helpful with regard to giving people their jobs back after being furloughed for so long,” she posted.
But board member Raymond Rose worried that the decision not to provide busing “will ultimately hurt students, even if they’re not our students.”
However, given that the district is not transporting its own students, Rose “reluctantly” joined the other board members in voting to discontinue busing.
The board also discussed the upcoming opening of school, unlike any other year.
Teachers, said Rodriguez and Federation of Pottstown Teachers representative Kelly Leibold, have spent the summer learning new technologies.
“We’re all first-year teachers again,” said Rodriguez who began his career as a special education teacher.
“I’m exhausted, but we’re all learning,” said Leibold.
So when board member Thomas Hylton suggested that board members review the recordings of the lessons “and get a flavor for what’s going on,” and idea supported by the rest of the board, Rodriguez asked for a grace period.
“There is a lot of fear, stress, anxiety, excitement about what we’re headed into,” he said. “Give us a couple of weeks to get our sea legs.”