No arbitrary changes

To the editor: Earlier this year, another newspaper reported that advertised school board meetings should not be arbitrarily changed. The reporter was referring to a transportation committee meeting that was changed from 5:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. on February 13 .The reporter failed to provide you with the reason why the meeting was changed. At a January school board meeting it was announced that we would hold two meetings on Feb. 13, one for transportation at 5:30 p.m. at the DV campus and the second at 7 p.m. at the Shohola campus for special-education. Unfortunately we had two very serious procedural breakdowns by our bus drivers that involved the safety of our students. The first occurred while our swim team was on route to a swimming meet. It was reported that one of the two buses transporting our students was involved in an accident . The students were removed from that bus put onto the second bus and brought to the meet without first securing proper medical examinations for their injuries. Our attorney informed us that the bus driver was also responsible for leaving the scene of an accident. The second procedural breakdown was when one of our drivers after reaching his destination neglected to see if any children were left on the bus. As it turned out there was a seven-year-old child who had fallen asleep and was left on the bus in the parking lot. When she awoke she left the bus and was wandering around the parking lot. Fortunately one of our staff found her and brought her to the office. The school board did not find out about these two situations when they occurred. When it was brought to our attention it became obvious to me that we were going to need a considerable amount of time to correct these procedural breakdowns and it was for that reason that I informed our board secretary to reschedule the time from 5:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. I would think this would hardly be considered arbitrary. As it turns out the Sunshine law does provide for emergency meetings to be held without advance notice if the emergency involves potential danger to life or property, but our secretary did post the change on the administration building door and posted it on the DV website. At the end of each board meeting there is a time provided for the press to ask questions the reporter did not come to me and inquire about changes.Furthermore there were never any meetings held were there was an expenditure of money for hiring engineers, nor was there ever any meeting regarding the administrator compensation plan that the entire board was not aware of as was reported in the dispatch. I will address these two issues in a follow-up letter. Robert Goldsack, president Delaware Valley School Board