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Diamonds to Lake-Lehman School District for reversing three furloughs approved in May as a a cost cutting measure. Facing chronic budget shortfalls, the board had agreed to layoffs of six full-time and two part-time aids used in special education classes. Even then, Superintendent Jim McGovern promised that, if scheduling didn’t work out in a way that assured the best situation for those students, he would ask that some of the furloughed aids be restored. That’s what happened at Monday’s meeting. The district’s financial struggles remain, and closing Ross Elementary is still very much a possibility, but at least for now it appears McGovern is trying to balance the budgetary constraints with the needs of the district’s most vulnerable students.

Coal to Wilkes-Barre City Councilwoman Beth Gilbert on three counts (indeed, because there are three): First, for publicly calling for someone to commit vandalism and remove the controversial brick in a monument on Public Square (the entire monument has since been removed), second for downplaying her statement in a Facebook post, and third for following her call for vandalism to the monument with a lament of vandalism in a city park, where basketball hoops were stolen. Any one of these stances would be fine and respected. All three form a contradiction that suggests she suffers from an irony deficiency.

Diamonds to Borton Lawson and other area businesses for opening their doors to the idea of internships. On Friday, the firm hosted Eileen Cipriani, who bears the long title of state Department of Labor & Industry deputy secretary for workforce development. Cipriani was touting Gov. Tom Wolf’s expanded effort to provide college students with real world experience through internships, but the real stars were the interns Borton Lawson invited to speak. There is a well-documented shortage of qualified applicants in the high tech world, and as CEO Frank Joanlanne noted, luring more people into those fields “is no longer an ancillary part” of the business, it’s essential.

Coal to the Wyoming Valley West School District for sending out letters nearly everyone involved (except solicitor Charles Coslett) agreed were excessively harsh in suggesting parents who fail to pay overdue lunch money bills could face dependency court and the risk of seeing a child placed in foster care. That risk was realistically zero, as two Luzerne County administrators pointed out in a letter to the district, even if hypothetically possible. Doubtless it is frustrating for the district to see parents repeatedly ignore requests to pay the bills or at least visit the office to work out the issues, but this clearly was a threat to far. On the other hand, coal as well to anyone who could afford to pay the bill but didn’t, or to those who just ignored the previous notices. The district — and by extension, residents who dutifully pay their taxes in a timely fashion — should not have to cover $22,400 owed for lunches provided in good faith.

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