To those who have followed (or tried to follow) the shenanigans in our school district, the initials QCSD have been an acronym for Quite Commonly Secret District. And the title is well deserved: the 2005 disastrous midnight teacher contract; hidden survey results; dozens of meetings violating the Sunshine Law; ignored allegations of grade manipulation; failure to investigate board president Linda Martin's illegal political campaigning on school grounds; new exercise equipment locked away, unavailable and unexplained; and the unilateral scuttling of the McCain/Palin appearance here by Superintendent Dr Lisa Andrejko.
But QCSD has now taken on a whole new meaning - Quite Commonly Suppresses Dissent. And it is no surprise who the culprits are.
First, Andrejko dispatched the district's public relations director, Rikki Stein, to sit with the press during board meetings. Stein's job was to make sure that the journalists wrote only favorable things about QCSD, so she would offer comments and "corrections" about anything negative that was brought up by the community, or even board members themselves.
When a local paper did not follow Andrejko's positive-story-only edict, she refused to allow that paper access to graduation pictures, honor roll lists, and other information offered freely to others. Who was hurt? Only the students.
Andrejko also convened an unadvertised, illegal private meeting of the directors to discuss how to avoid the Sunshine Law, and how to limit information to journalists who reveal what Andrejko wanted kept secret.
And for the past year, QCSD has been eroding the community's only guaranteed opportunity to confront the board and administration - public comment. PA law requires that at every meeting of a public entity, including school boards, there be at least one period when anyone can speak. There is no requirement as to when in the meeting it occurs. Having it early on, before any action is taken, has some logic, assuring that residents don't have to give up their entire evening to be heard. Or, even better, there can be multiple opportunities, allowing input for each item on the agenda. Many towns, like Richland and Quakertown, follow the latter procedure, allowing a dialogue between elected leaders and the public.
But QCSD forces residents to wait though the entire meeting - usually three to four hours - before they can speak. And, of course, by that time the votes have already been taken. Frustrated citizens who actually make it through the night are limited to venting after the fact. They have no input into the actual discussions and votes.
And to make matters worse, each speaker is limited to three minutes, with a mechanical timer signaling the end. The board is not required to respond, or answer any questions. Given these draconian limitations, few people actually take advantage of this "opportunity" to be part of the "open meeting" process. So you would think that the board would not find it necessary to further hinder dissent. And, in QCSD, you would be wrong.
The word that best describes the QCSD attitude is Intimidation. It can be a very stressful situation for a lone citizen with a complaint to approach the microphone, and address an entire board and administration. And President Martin has made this even worse. She would leave her seat, and intimidatingly stand directly in front of the person, who could not step back because the microphone was on a fixed stand. Now the poor speaker had to deal with making his/her point in three minutes, with the president right in his/her face.
And it gets even worse. Speakers are now subject to immediate public criticism from Andrejko, who has taken it upon herself to "correct" comments at the time they are made. The speaker gets three minutes, but then Andrejko uses whatever time she feels is necessary to "set the record straight". She stated at the June 10 meeting that she was not going to allow misinformation from public comment to end up in the press, so she was going to immediately be "correcting" things. Take a stressful situation, such as making a public comment with a three-minute time limit, now add to that a president in your face, and criticism by Andrejko that you cannot respond to, and we have gone a long way towards completely eliminating any dissent in QCSD.
Fortunately, at least one local newspaper reporter saw through this ploy, and actually wrote about it. When Andrejko tried to outright lie to the public that the $233 PA gambling credit would cover this year's tax increase, the Intel's Amanda Cregan correctly wrote "Quakertown district residents who signed up for their slice of gaming revenue will receive $233. But unlike property taxes, where increases pile up year after year, the gaming credits to homeowners are not cumulative and don't keep pace with millage rates." You can bet that Amanda won't be on Andrejko's Christmas card list this year.
Director Paul Stepanoff was angry at Andrejko's unauthorized response to public comment, especially since she is doing it at a board meeting without first consulting with the board. "This is really bothering me. We either allow public comments to continue as they have been, or we allow an open dialogue between the public and the administration/board. At the very least, before we change our practice of conducting public comment in a BOARD meeting, the BOARD ought to at least talk about that rather than have the administration simply decide what is best in a BOARD meeting."
He also disagreed with giving Andrejko carte blanche to make speeches mischaracterizing the public comments. "At least half of Andrejko's comments targeting the public speakers were themselves wrong, or directed to a comment she 'thought' was made, when others heard the comments completely differently. For instance, Helen Kondracki said that she heard the school district 'may' make additional payments towards Andrejko's PSERS (retirement). And she wanted to know if any such payments have been made. When Andrejko addressed this in her 'correction', she said that she pays her own PSERS contributions. Well, that wasn't the question."
There were two more speakers after Kondracki. Andrejko rebutted them both. Stepanoff intends to bring the issue up at the next meeting in August.
And Stepanoff isn't the only person angry at Andrejko. At the high school graduation ceremony, she was clearly booed when she was introduced, and heckled during her speech. The mother of one senior commented "We were there since our daughter graduated. Andrejko was booed, and so was Linda Martin. Both had speeches that made no sense, and Andrejko had the gall to thank the kids for 'doing without' this year. Hmmmm...and after she gave herself a hefty raise?! There were a lot of interesting comments being shouted from the audience, such as 'why don't you do without', and 'get off the stage'. Other than the two of them, and their ridiculous speeches, the rest of the ceremony was very nice."
And a father explained "I would say that half of the people there booed, and most of the rest were from out of town and looking at those around them who were booing, in amazement. I was trying to explain to my brother why this was the reaction."
Apparently not all dissent in QCSD has been muzzled. Yet.