School board shirks state mandates while DV’s education ratings take a nose dive

Editor’s note: The Student Safety First school board candidates presented the following statement before the Delaware Valley school board recently.

The school board has voted to defy the state mandate under the guise of prioritizing parental choice. Our district has retained three attorneys who have unanimously advised the board to require medical documentation when granting a mask exemption. A vote to grant exemptions based on parental requests would effectively undermine the mandate and will exacerbate this public health crisis.

Granting parents the authority to demand accommodations for undocumented and unsubstantiated medical claims for their children, sets a dangerous precedent. In our schools, children with documented disabilities are required to go through a rigorous review and approval process for a 504 plan. A team of school staff coordinate with the student’s doctors and specialists to determine if the student qualifies to receive reasonable accommodations for a disability. Granting fraudulent accommodations for students is unethical. It will result in harm to others during this pandemic and it will irreparably damage the systems in place which provide reasonable and necessary accommodations to students with disabilities.

I addition, I find it incredibly disturbing that our current school board is able to find time to call emergency meetings to shirk state mandates, but does not have the time or inclination to call emergency meetings for the following:

Why are we not calling an emergency meeting to address bullying issues in our schools or the fact that children have brought weapons to school.

Why are we not calling an emergency meeting to address recent sexual harassment of our students?

Why are we not calling an emergency meeting to address the fact that we can spend millions on a multi-purpose room but I have bus drivers calling me personally to ask me to donate PPE supplies.

Why are we not calling emergency meetings to address the fact that are teachers who are already payed below the state average, still have to dip into their own pockets to purchase supplies for their students?

Why are we not calling an emergency meeting to determine why our education ratings have taken a nose dive?

Niche Source ranks the district at 78th overall, when I moved here we were ranked 32nd in the state.

When I moved here Delaware Valley High School had an overall rating of 9/10, it has since slipped to 6/10.

At graduation only 75% of our students are proficient in reading and only 53% are proficient in math.

This is what be what we should be calling emergency meetings for!

John Johnson

E.K. Guyre

Meg Rosenfeld

Student Safety First candidates