Directors discuss rowdy football game attendees
After an issue was brought up about rowdy kids at the high school football games, Uniontown Area School District Director Ronald Machesky said he would inform security to impose stricter measures at the stadium. Machesky said he will instruct security to give those guilty of causing problems one warning.
“We will give them one warning. If they’re not in their seat, they will be ejected from the stadium,” he said. “It will be addressed.”
The action was decided after Director Tammy Boyle suggested taking a “serious look” at controlling the younger kids at the games.
“I was standing with (school district security chief) Don Homer and (Uniontown city police chief) Kyle Sneddon and discussing the mayhem going on,” she said.
“They both feel it is a major safety issue. I mean they’re pushing each other and knocking kids into adults at the concession stand.”
Director Dorothy Grahek commented that the issue is brought up at a meeting every year.
Machesky said if the problem is not solved, “we’ll go back to the old way – students on one side and adults on the other.”
“I’m not opposed to that at all,” Boyle said.
Another suggestion was to broadcast announcements aimed to calm the crowd over the loud speaker system at the game.
However, one director said it is hard for the audience to understand what is being said over the speaker system.
“We spent a million dollars and you can’t understand what they are saying?” asked William Rittenhouse Jr., chairman of the board’s finance committee. “How much can an amplifier and a couple of speakers cost?”
President Harry “Dutch” Kaufman said the system has improved with the addition of two speakers on the press box, while Boyle said it might be an issue of merely moving the speakers to another location.
In other business, the school board:
– Clarified that students will not have to make up Friday, declared an Act 80 day because of the 84 Lumber Classic, at the end of the school year, and all activities scheduled for that night will go on as usual.
– Addressed an issue that students were stranded in Greensburg in the middle of torrential rains over the past weekend.
Boyle said it was extremely dangerous for students to be stuck in those conditions.
– Hired Todd Nicklow, custodial-maintenance employee for Menallen Elementary School; Joseph T. Carei, head cross country coach at Benjamin Franklin and Lafayette schools; Christie Fee, assistant girls’ track coach at the high school; Jonathan Gallo and Laurie Gallo, assistant girls’ soccer coaches at the high school; Stephen E. Dillard, volunteer coach for the high school football program; and Vincent Genovese, volunteer for the high school cross country team.