Ellwood City’s School Board Meeting Brief

Yesterday night Ellwood City Area School District held their monthly school board meeting; many topics were discussed regarding school matters.

The meeting had more visitors than normal and a large majority of them were district school bus drivers who wanted to attend the school board meeting in regards to a recent personnel incident involving a school bus driver who was fired- which they believe was unfair. Not much information about the incident is being released currently, but the school board informed the visitors they do not handle the hiring and firing of bus drivers since it’s handled privately by the bus transit company, however, the board ensured the incident would be further discussed in an executive session.

A member of the Senior Student Council went before the school board to formally thank them for the wonderful start to the school year; she mentioned several of the activities the Senior Student Council has already arranged and completed with great enjoyment including acquiring and donating boxes of school supplies to schools in Africa who greatly needed them, Spirit Week activities/themes, homecoming, and their current endeavor of selling candy. They have a trip to a scare house scheduled this month with an open invitation to anyone on the school board to attend.

A topic that was discussed yesterday was about the schools, Northside, Perry, Hartman, and Lincolns’, academic performance compared to other schools in the area and throughout Pennsylvania (compared via state tests and attendance). Pennsylvania has spent over a billion dollars on state testing alone, so the state expects schools to reach a certain percentile of proficient academic performance within a certain number of years. To learn more about this and to see how the Ellwood City Area School District’s schools compare to other schools in the area you can visit the official state website here.

Another hot topic of the meeting was that the Borough supposedly invoiced the school in an approximate amount of $5,000 for an increase in cost to hire crossing guards. According to the Borough, the increase is to accommodate for uniforms, workers compensation, and social security. The school said they were not given any notice about the increase until the Borough sent the invoice. One of the school board members mentioned that it’s the Boroughs responsibility to provide crossing guards, but either way whether the school pays the bill or the Borough, ultimately it will be the tax payers paying it.

Side note: the Borough has yet to resolve the ongoing issue to provide security at the local sport games– the district is still paying for private security at games, although, private security is slightly cheaper to hire.