Shifting teacher will hurt students, parents tell board
The superintendent’s decision to use an instructional coach to fill in for a third grade teacher who left Saucon Valley Elementary School mid-year, prompted an outcry from parents and the teachers union at Tuesday’s School Board meeting.
Language arts instructional coach Vivian Demko spent the first part of the school year teaching two classes of gifted students, working with children who struggle to read and assisting teachers.
Starting Monday, Demko will be teaching third grade, filling the shoes of a teacher who is leaving the district. Demko’s absence from her usual role will ripple across the district, with a different coach jumping in to teach one of Demko’s gifted classes, a math coach working with another, and Demko’s remaining students being placed in other rooms, raising the size of those classes.
“My 7-year-old said [to Demko] please don’t go,” Stephanie Schleef, one of many parents at the meeting, said afterward.
By moving Demko, the district is disrupting services to gifted students as well as those with the greatest need, Saucon Valley Education Association President Robert Kachmar told the board.
Superintendent Craig Butler said he wanted to get a better handle on the district’s staffing for next year before deciding whether to hire a new teacher.
“It’s my desire to fill the position temporarily until we can assess our overall district personnel needs, and also I think we’ll have a more favorable pool of applicants as we move into the spring,” Butler said.
He added that administrators have assured him no services will be compromised.
Some teachers tried to comment but were cut off by district solicitor Mark Fitzgerald, who said it was inappropriate to discuss personnel issues publicly.
“I don’t think this is a matter of public concern,” he said. “This is an internal operational issue in which we have the prerogative to say, this is not an issue to be discussed this evening.”
School board President Susan Baxter said she was disappointed in the teachers.
“The teachers are coming to the board and asking us to undermine the superintendent. I’m going to ask the teachers to support the superintendent,” she said. “It’s his job to determine what the best placement is for a variety of reasons.”
Demko said she teaches a total of 16 gifted children in first and second grades, four reading students in two sessions, and that she supports kindergarten teachers and students.
“It’s just impracticable this leaving in the middle of the school year,” said Nicole Spark, whose second-grade daughter has been receiving instruction from Demko. “These kids develop a relationship and get attached to the teacher.”
Spark said her daughter is “really sad” that Demko will no longer be teaching her and doesn’t want her to go.