A school board is generally supposed to have nine people, but in the Harmony Area School District in southern Clearfield County, they’re coming up short.
We have more on just how many members they need now.
In December, the board had declared three seats vacant at re-organization, according to the minutes.
“We were three individuals short and now this makes number four,” says board member William Boring.
Then on Tuesday, member Don Hauser resigned after taking a new job, and now they only have five, Boring said.
“It makes it very hard to make sure you have a quorum at every meeting and there’s a lot of things coming down the road with the budgets and everything,” says Boring.
If any members are absent, they won’t have a quorum. and what if board members have to recuse themselves?
Boring says since his son is an elementary teacher, so he doesn’t vote on field trips for that class, or serve on the negotiations committee.
Board president Jason Sunderland was told to recuse himself from transportation since his parents run a school bus company, Boring said.
Susan Gallaher says her kids graduated here and she served two terms, but stopped going to meetings in her second term due to a family illness.
“You need to be well informed in order to be an effective board member, but as far as the time commitment to the monthly meetings, they’re usually only one or two a month and they usually last about an hour,” says Gallaher.
“People want to talk about what’s going on on the board. I’m one of the less fortunate ones here in town because they catch you going back and forth to the post office,” says Boring.
Gallaher says while she was there, they increased teachers’ contribution for their own health care, offered early retirement that some teachers took, and cut gym, music, Spanish and art into half-time positions.
“It’s extremely difficult to make those decisions and as a board member, unfortunately most people aren’t happy with you. Some people are usually never happy with the decisions because it’s going to affect someone,” says Gallaher.
Ex-member Roberta Bradford said she didn’t want to run again because she’s caring for her ill mom, while Chris Kurtz said he left because he didn’t like the direction the board was going.
Boring says he is also battling an illness and might not be able to finish his term. He is hoping more people will join the board.
Another problem is the vacant seats are in regions, not the at-large seats, so people have to live in a certain area of the district to run for the terms, which last either two or four years depending on the seat.