Resident accuses board member of misconduct
Mitzie King-Nehls publicly accused school board member Bill Rittenhouse Jr. of benefiting from his position at the regular school board meeting Monday night. King, speaking during the public comment portion at the tail end of the meeting, said Rittenhouse, owner of Rittenhouse Insurance Agency in Uniontown, provides insurance to Southwest Regional Tax Bureau, the executive committee on which he sits.
The board appointed Rittenhouse to serve on the executive committee at the December 2008 reorganization meeting. The appointment expires the first week of this December. Rittenhouse was absent from that meeting during which the appointment was made.
Rittenhouse was appointed in August as a voting delegate on the countywide Act 32 Tax Collection Committee. By serving on this committee, Rittenhouse will be voting for the tax collector he insures, King-Nehls said.
One of Rittenhouse’s first actions after becoming a school board member 12 years ago was to vote to promote his wife, Debbie Rittenhouse, to the position of curriculum coordinator for the district, said King-Nehls.
She also alleged that Rittenhouse handwrote bus contracts for the district even though he does not sit on the transportation committee, and that he attended meetings at school board President Ken Meadows’ home, while other board members were excluded from the meetings. The latter could be a violation of the Sunshine Law, she said.
Rittenhouse, who commented on the accusations after the meeting, called the allegations “bold-faced lies.”
He said he does not insure Southwest Regional Tax Bureau, he abstained from the vote to hire his wife, he did not write the bus contracts and he was never involved in such meetings at Meadows’ home.
He said he did not sit through negotiations regarding the bus contracts, noting that the solicitor writes those contracts. He said he was not involved in negotiations related to his wife’s employment with the district. He challenged King-Nehls to call Southwest to review its insurance policies.
Solicitor Michael Brungo stopped King-Nehls at one point during her address, asking that she refrain from mentioning a district employee, in this case, Debbie Rittenhouse, because it is a matter of personnel. King-Nehls argued that she was referencing only public officials, and Brungo permitted her to continue.
King-Nehls is the daughter of Herbert King Sr., who sat on the Uniontown Area School Board for more than 20 years. She said she attended the meeting, representing her father, whom is physically ill.
She called Rittenhouse “self-serving” and said he is serving at the expense of the taxpayers. She advised voters to not re-elect him.
“It’s (a school director’s) responsibility to recognize when someone is out of line and you’re out of line,” King-Nehls told Rittenhouse.
Rittenhouse is seeking re-election to the school board in the Nov. 3 general election.
In other business, Dr. Charles Machesky, district superintendent, issued new guidelines regarding student absences in light of H1N1 or swine flu.
He said any student who stays home because they are exhibiting flu-like symptoms will not be marked absent. He also advised the principal of each school to report to parents measures taken to sanitize their building. Parents, he said, should let their child stay home if exhibiting those symptoms.
He said there’s not much else the district can do next to closing schools.
“If we’re going to close schools, we’d have to close them during flu season, from now until February,” Machesky added.
Two official cases of H1N1 have been reported in the district: one in a mountain school and another in a valley school, Machesky said.
Illness has contributed to absenteeism, he said, with around 20 percent of the student body absent in two schools Monday. Marclay School’s attendance stood at 23 percent Monday, while 20 percent of Ben Franklin’s students were absent the same day.
The percentage of students absent Monday in other district schools was as follows: 16 percent at Lafayette Elementary; 15 percent at Lafayette Middle School; 12 percent at A.J. McMullen; 11 percent at Wharton School; 9 percent at the high school; and 6 percent at both Franklin and Menallen schools.