After censoring public comments at a board meeting, multiple people emailed the school board to alert them to the fact that comments had been censored.
9:52AM 01/26/2021 The Superintendent (Scanlon) emails the board president (Chris McCune). Scanlon tells McCune that Dr. Sokolowski (who was at that time the Assistant Superintendent) edited the comments to remove personal references and to keep the comments under 2 minutes. Scanlon is lying about the nature of the comments. Comments were already under 2 minutes, and the content that was edited did not contain student information. You can see time stamps and full comments here.
10:39AM 01/26/2021 This author (Rachel Langan) emailed Chris McCune about my comment being edited and cited the district's lack of transparency. I also mentioned (bottom of image) the failure of the board to discuss the failing grades. (We'll come back to this topic in January.)
10:53AM 01/26/2021 McCune responds to me and says he will check on the censored comment and says "We are going to have to agree to disagree on the transparency issue".
McCune does not intend to check on my censored comment. He has already heard from Scanlon on this topic and believes that my comment was not edited, or if it was that it deserved to be. (By the way, in PA it is a violation of the Sunshine Law to edit public comments and it's also a federal violation of free speech.)
McCune doubles down, telling me that the district does not have a transparency issue and suggests that the reason I am upset is because schools were closed.
He then fuels the fire by suggesting that I should not have an opinion on school matters since I had pulled my children out of the district.
Remember when we talked about how Scanlon hand-picked board members and what happens when superintendents have unchecked power?
This is the result of Scanlon hand-picking board members: he had the power to do what he wanted without board interference.
When questioned by McCune, Scanlon lied, and McCune believed him.
The other eight board members neglected to question Scanlon on this issue.
We trusted the board to do the right thing and be transparent. They weren't.
The board trusted Scanlon to be transparent and to do the right thing. He did neither.
And Dr. Sokolowski, his accomplice, was promoted to Superintendent 7 months later when Scanlon retired.
PS: there will be a school board meeting tonight at 7pm at the Spellman Education Building, 782 Springdale Drive, Exton PA.
The meeting will be live streamed here.
If you’d like to make a comment at the meeting, you’ll need to attend in person. See this page for information on making public comments.
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