A fractured Blairsville-Saltsburg School Board voted on the election of School Board President and Vice President, and made a statement about legal proceedings in the wake of Superintendent Tammy Whitfield’s lawsuit against the District at Wednesday night’s meeting.
After one Jack Cambest was elected temporary president of the reorganization meeting, the board voted on School Board President and Vice President positions. Beverly Caranese will remain President and Holly Hall will remain Vice President. In both instances, board members Molly Stiles, Anthony Canzano, and Rick Harper elected Rick Harper, losing 6 votes to 3 each time.
Later, Cambest read from a prepared statement on behalf of the District pertaining to the Settlement Agreement reached between the District and Superintendent Tammy Whitfield. In summary, the statement says Whitfield’s initial suspension came as a result of a Performance Evaluation and subsequent Improvement Plan, which cite a range of unethical behavior and unprofessional conduct that violated District policy and Pennsylvania School District Codes. The statement says Whitfield filed a lawsuit against a family without Board approval, transferred teachers without Board approval, violated student expulsion procedures, broke confidentiality of students by speaking out on internal investigations, failed to properly supervise employees in her administration, and more. The statement goes on to clarify that the issue of district consolidation was never raised in Whitfield’s Improvement Plan or in a Notice of Charges for the Section 1080 Hearing.
In other business, the appointment of District Solicitor was tabled, as was the potential moving of monthly meetings to the third Tuesday of each month instead of the third Wednesday. It was found that this would conflict with the monthly ARIN meeting, and the discussion was tabled. As such, January’s meeting will still take place on January 17th.
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