Zahora's Final Meeting is Swift and Digital

Photo by Evan Brandt

Outgoing Pottstown School Board President Judyth Zahora ran her

last official meeting from Boston, via Skype.

Judyth Zahora's last meeting as the president of the Pottstown School Board, indeed as a member of the Pottstown School Board, was quick.

As she herself remarked, "my last meeting may well be my fastest."

Because Zahora's seat becomes vacant in the November election, there is no real reason to appoint a replacement.

As the meeting of roughly only 30 minutes wound down, various board members thanked Zahora for her service and warned her to get ready for some very heavy snowfalls.

Last winter, Boston broke its own record for snowfall, with the last of the pile of snow cleared from its streets not finally melting completely until May or June.

For her part, Zahora quoted Dr. Seuss and then found out that even when she thought she was done, she wasn't.

After the public portion of the meeting was over, she still had to participate in an executive session regarding negotiating a new teachers contract.

One more duty to perform...

Advice and Dissent

Photo by Evan Brandt

Now on display in the main hall of Pottstown High School.

Monday's Pottstown School Board meeting was a quick one.

But because I waited around for my son to be done with marching band, I had the opportunity to wander the halls of the high school a bit with my tour guide, the estimable John Armato.

Some advice from the high school's new principal

Danielle McCoy.

And he showed me something that I thought was pretty cool. Allow me to share it with you before we get into the particulars of the meeting.

Ask yourself this question: How many times have you wished you could go back in time and give your high school self advice? The romance never pursued, the class you wish you had taken, you get the idea.

Well until any of us bump into Doctor Who, time travel continues to elude us.

But a handful of Pottstown High School educators have done the next best thing at the request of the school's guidance department: coughing up their year-book photos from when they were students, they have offered up what they would tell their younger selves in the hopes of having a positive influence on those who actually are in high school right now.

Have a look.

Some more advice from teacher Michaela Johnson

Now, to the meeting.

As I said it was swift and although the board unanimously but regretfully accepted board President Judy Zahora's resignation, effective Sept. 30, there was some dissent on other matters, most specifically -- hiring.

Board member Thomas Hylton pointed out how much effort it has required to raise just $72,000 to "save the lights" at Grigg Memorial stadium. While praising the effort, he said it is an indication of how hard it is to come by money in the Pottstown community.

And he used that observation to pivot into a discussion about why he voted against the hiring of three new aides and a replacement school psychologist for the high school.

"There are 8,400 properties in Pottstown and 1,200 of them are in foreclosure," said Hylton. "We can't keep doing business as usual."

Zahora, who participated in the meeting by speaker phone, said while she understood Hylton's concerns, "it's not the children's fault where they were born and we need to provide them with the best education we can."

Vice President Andrew Kefer noted that it is the by-product of the borough's economic malaise that requires additional educational aides.

But why read it here, when you can read it in the Tweets below?

Zahora to Resign from School Board at End of Sept.

Embarrassingly fuzzy photo by Evan Brandt

Outgoing school board president Judy Zahora is
wished well 

by board vice president Andrew Kefer.

Certainly the "For Sale" sign outside her home at Wilson and North Franklin streets was a pretty good clue, but Pottstown School Board President Judyth Zahora gave notice Thursday night that she's moving.

To Boston.

And although she hasn't sold her house yet, she announced Thursday night what most of her fellow board members probably already knew, that she will resign her seat.

But because she won't resign until the end of September, it will not be necessary to name a replacement.

That's because she did not run for reelection and whoever wins her seat in the election will be sworn in Dec. 3, so an appointment would be moot, according to the advice of district solicitor Stephen Kalis.

"You'll just have to get along without me for October and November," she told the board.

Michael Peterman

We'll have a full story in The Mercury shortly, but let me be the first to say: "good luck and thank you for your service."

Another interesting thing, the surprising thing, to happen at last night's meeting were comments
offered by someone else who one might thank for their service.

Mike Peterman, a 2001 graduate and Army veteran spoke against the idea of sending new high school graduates into the armed forces.

Specifically, he said, the military does not always teach people to be better citizens or better people and he asked the school board to give second thought to allowing the JROTC program at the high school to continue.

We'll have more on that in subsequent Mercury coverage  also.

And finally, Business Manager Linda Adams announced that she will begin talks short with an organization that wants to lease the closed Edgewood School.

I suspect we'll more about that shortly.

In the meantime, here are the Tweets from the meeting.

Another Lesson in Transparency

As forecast, Jeff Sparagana is
Pottstown's new superintendent

Sadly, no one took me up on my bet, made in this Nov. 30 post, that the school board was poised to appoint Jeff Sparagana as the district's new superintendent.

This means no extra money for Christmas presents at my house now that they did last night.

Although sad for what won't be under the tree, it's not really a surprise.

After all, people in Pottstown have become quite used to promotion from within.

Sparagana represents the fifth time in a row that the Pottstown School Board has chosen a superintendent from within its own administrative ranks.

Which, all in all, doesn't say much for my powers of prognostication.

But that's not really the point of today's post. It's not worth much to crow about predicting something everyone pretty much knew would happen anyway.

(Further, if any of you are pausing during the onslaught of the Mayan apocalypse to read this, you know my powers of foretelling are sadly lacking indeed.)

Besides, I like Jeff Sparagana and I think he'll do a pretty good job.

He has already put Pottstown on the map with its early education initiatives and is known state wide, if not nationally as an expert on the subject.

As a principal, he always ran a pretty tight ship and as the assistant superintendent, who has the unenviable responsibility of dealing with personnel issues, he's already proven himself in what is probably the most difficult part of being a leader in a large organization.

What we're here to talk about today is the dog and pony show which led up to Thursday night's expected but unannounced vote.

Judyth Zahora

The ring leader of this performance is School Board President Judyth Zahora, who talks the talk but rarely walks the walk when it comes to public participation.

To be sure, other members of the school board bear a responsibility to speak up for the public's involvement as well, but they rarely object to the hypocrisy of decrying public apathy while repeatedly preventing public involvement.

Listen, it's understood that in a matter as delicate as hiring your chief administrator, some things have to remain private, but somehow, by some miracle of science, other districts seem to find ways to involve the public in ways Pottstown would never dream of.

They form citizen committees; or, (horrors!) allowing the public and staff to interview the final candidates.

Zahora said publicly that she wanted the public to be involved this time in the search for a new superintendent, that it was a big decision.

Zahora told the board at the Nov. 1 school board meeting that she would like public meetings the board would hold on the superintendent matter to be in the large group instruction room in the middle school where the board meets for regular meetings.

“I’d like the meetings to be here and I would hope we’d have a big crowd here and for these to be as public as possible,” Zahora said. “I’d like to believe we’ll have a large amount of public interest.”

Later in the evening, referring to the district’s use of electronic communication to keep in touch with families, Zahora said, “The more communication we have, the better for our staff, our students and our parents.”
That would be the talking the talk part of the equation.

What happened next?

What happens when Lucy offers to hold the football for Charlie Brown?

First, the board held a closed-to-the-public executive session with Jerry W. Shiveley, the executive director and CEO of the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit on options it could consider in its search.

Why the public could not know these options remains a mystery Scobby Doo and the gang could not solve.

Then a set of several public meetings on how the board could proceed were tentatively scheduled.

None of them ever occurred and no explanation was ever offered.

Instead, suddenly, as so often happens with the Pottstown School Board, a decision emerged from nowhere and the public is left scratching its head, and subsequently chided by Mrs. Zahora for never attending public meetings.

Small wonder.

I'll forgo going through the list of similar public-excluding actions taken by the board over the years. (I don't want Amy Francis yelling at me again on Facebook).

But if you're interested, they're outlined in this Nov. 4 article I wrote for The Mercury.

I would rail against constant contradiction, but I've done that before and, unlike so many things in Pottstown, I think I'll pass on doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Instead, I will resign myself to the Pottstown axiom  "that's the way we've always done it," to which I will ask why we wonder that things keep turning out the same way....