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Monday, July 7, 2014

Everything Wrong with the Scranton School Board (in one short paragraph)

From the Scranton Times, July 3, 2014 edition:

"Mrs. McGuigan, a member of the minority, also questioned whether Mr. Casey, Mr. Douaihy and Mr. Martinelli should be involved in negotiations. Mr. Douaihy and Mr. Martinelli are retired Scranton teachers, and Mr. Douaihy’s wife, Mr. Martinelli’s daughter and Mr. Casey’s mother are all Scranton teachers."

Article link HERE.

By way of context, the school directors noted above went to meet with the state appointed arbitrator involved in board and (teacher's) union negotiations.

So what we have are three sitting board directors who have close family members that would benefit from a contract favorable to teachers.  In fact, Director Douaihy would personally, financially benefit from such a contract.  This is, in fact, wrong on so many different levels.

Please, someone try to defend this nonsense.


2 comments:

Mike Sporer said...

Now that says a million words! My Dad served on the Scranton School Board for 12 years. He believed that teachers did not belong on school boards. I agree....

Stephen Albert said...

Mike,

Thanks for commenting,

If this doesn't meet the definition of a conflict of interest, then nothing does. I wonder if the directors in question will refrain from voting on the contract?

Here's one more question: why weren't these relationships widely discussed PRIOR TO the last board election?

Regards,
- Steve