Mazur

Mazur

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KINGSTON — Wednesday’s monthly meeting of the Wyoming Valley West School Board was short as far as board discussion and votes were concerned, but still stretched about 90 minutes with the overwhelming majority of that time filled with questions and comments — often contentious and at one time profane — by parents opposed to the state mask mandate.

The voting itself was dominated by a long list of appointments:

• Jeffrey DeRocco as Middle School assistant principal.

• Andrea Visneski as Middle School art teacher.

• Donna Guravich, Karen Ostopick, Jacquelyn Sitnick, Natalya Krasnova Jahmeka Chamberlain, Katherine Dyanick, Daniel Backman, Daniella DeAngelo, Harriet Swartz and Tammy Keefe as cleaning persons, all at $10/hour.

• Angela Iveson as computer aide at Chester Street and Third Avenue schools, $10.50/hour.

• Linda Accurso and Qiana Richardson as autistic support aides for $12/hour.

• Richard Harned for general duty/attendance aide at State Street at $10.50 per hour.

• Jamie Bartoo and Jotara Holmes for the emotional support class at State Street at $12/hour each.

• Cynthia Pelletier as substitute aide/itinerant at $10.50/hour.

• Christina Reynolds, Susan Bell, Renee Kayden and Danielle Ishman as Personal Care Aides at $12/hour.

• Mia Miller as learning support aide at Dana Street for $10.50/hour.

• Kawamasia Cunningham as an aide at State Street for $10.50/hour.

• Mayra Lorilla as life skills aide at Schuyler Avenue for $12/hour.

• Nerissa Lang as E-support aide at State Street, $12/hour.

• Katrina Fuller as life skills at Schuyler Avenue for $12/hour.

• Elizabeth Kane and Ashley Temarantz, as assistant cross country coaches (boys and girls) each getting $1,886.

The board also approved an agreement with Education Plus Health to offer voluntary COVID-19 testing to students and staff. After the meeting Pandemic Coordinator Anthony Dicton explained the program is intended primarily to test students who may risk quarantine because of suspected exposure to someone with the virus. The goal is to reduce the number of students kept in quarantine by showing which ones are not infected, thus keeping more students in schools.

The district also got an update on a debt refinancing plan previously approved and completed since the last meeting. While the board had voted for a total bond of up to $14 million, the final figure was about $7.6 million. About $2.2 million of that is new borrowing for an energy savings project that is guaranteed to pay for itself and even save about $110,000 over the life of the project. The rest of the amount is refinancing two prior bonds at lower interest rates — 1.88% average annually — projected to save the district another $479,075.

The first speaker during the public comment section asked why the board does not also offer a live-stream or taped online option for seeing board meetings, a question echoed by many other speakers through the night. She also talked for substantial problems her two children had experienced in trying to use the district’s cyber school option, with her older child not getting materials or being taught all the expected subjects. When Superintendent Dave Tosh started to offer to fix the issue, she interrupted “Don’t bother, I’ve withdrawn my children from this district.”

But a string of speakers after that criticized the state Department of Health mask mandate and the board for not defying it, making claims that masks do more harm than good and insisting parents know what’s best for their children and should have a choice. Most of those speakers were unmasked, despite a mask requirement for attending the meeting. One parent accused the board of requiring masks in order to get federal COVID-19 money, and rejected insistence by Board President Joe Mazur, the business manager and the district pandemic response coordinator that it was unequivocally not true.

Mazur noted the mandate is supported by some 70% of the population, but was cut off when one women yelled he was not talking about her child. “I am talking about your kid, I’m talking about my kids and all the kids,” Mazur replied. “We have 5,000 kids to worry about.”

One man said his child had briefly removed a mask “to breathe,” and that a substitute teacher said “You will get COVID and die.” Board members said that is unacceptable if true.

Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish