Brownville residents speak up about buying new books for students
BROWNSVILLE – The Brownsville Area School Board heard from local residents Wednesday who said they felt that the district should place more priority on buying news books for the students. Local resident Kelly Bayne alleged that students in one of her granddaughter’s classes at the middle school had to share books and could not take them home without permission because there were not enough for the entire class.
Principal Vincent Nesser said that students were not sharing books in any classes, and he assured the public that there are enough books to go around.
However, local resident Jeff Bayne said he believed it was more important that the board be informed of the deplorable conditions of some of the books.
He provided the board with a textbook that had been given to his daughter. It was falling apart and after looking at it, Director Andy Dorsey showed the rest of the board that it was full of profanities that had been written and etched into the book.
“It is shameful that this was given to a student and I’m speaking not as a board member but as a parent,” said Dorsey. “I don’t know how someone could not have looked at that and seen that it was filled with vulgarity.”
Bayne pointed out that even without the bad words written inside, the book still would have been too old.
“This book is 10 years old,” said Bayne. “I guarantee there is not s football uniform in the district that is 10 years old. I am asking one thing and that is for this to be resolved tonight.”
Bayne said the board should have a policy in place that books are to be inspected at the end of each year, and new books should be purchased on a more regular basis.
Superintendent Larry Golembiewski explained that the district uses a rotation system for purchasing books, and this year was the year to buy the books for the class Bayne was talking about.
Golembiewski agreed that the book should not have been given to Bayne’s daughter, and he said that most teachers do use “common sense” and check the books, but this one must have “slipped through the cracks.”
Director Ron Dellarose thanked Bayne for bringing the book to the board’s attention.
“Ultimately Mr. Golembiewski runs the school district but the principals and teachers run the schools,” said Dellarose. “We need to address these concerns to the teachers.”
Dorsey agreed that teachers would have to be held accountable for the condition of the books.
“When we were in school, if we turned in a book like that, we would have paid for it,” said Dorsey. “This was turned in and accepted by a teacher.”
President Rocky Brashear pointed out that it is not true that the board “chose not to purchase new books,” but they are only following the rotation system that has been set into place. He said that each year they are purchasing books for classes, they ask the teachers how many are needed, and they buy them.
Dorsey suggested that the board might want to consider prioritizing according to need, instead of using the rotation to decide when books are purchased.
In other matters, the board recognized senior student Tara Sharpe, who recently participated in activities at Westinghouse Corp. as part of her involvement with Women in Engineering.
Golembiewski praised the student’s accomplishments, and he commented that she has been accepted to several notable universities, including Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon and Princeton, and she has already completed most of her freshman year college credits at Penn State Fayette Campus.
“You are a credit to the school district,” said Golembiewski.
Assistant Superintendent Harry Miale also presented Golembiewski with the Fay-Penn Eberly Award, which he received for being the first superintendent in the county to bring Logic House computer software to a school district. Miale said Golembiewski also brought in $80,000 of funding to implement the program, and other districts in the area have chosen to use Logic House since it was brought to Brownsville.