To The Editor:
I was astonished with the lack of knowledge of some Board members on what is happening in the district as demonstrated in their criticism of my letter dated Jan. 19, 2014. As always I did my homework and the letter of the 19th is based on fact I never consider rumors.
There are at least two students illegally attending our schools from outside our district. Rumors abound that there are several more. Dr. (John) Sanville is very aware of the two students as he sent at least two letters informing the parents of these students that they could not attend UCF schools from outside the district.
In another follow up letter Dr. Sanville agreed to a deal with the parents by which their children could attend our schools. I question if this is even legal. I also note that the agreements conditions are not being met by the family. Apparently, Dr. Sanville has done no follow up to confirm the conditions are being met.
These students should be immediately expelled.
The data cited on the number of resignations was taken directly from the board’s agendas. I would also note that there have also been a higher number of retirements this year. I do not know how many of these were early retirements and thus did not include them in my previous letter. The UCF District has lost an abnormally high number of employees in the first half of this school year. This cannot be good for the district.
The decline in academic performance was front-page news in The Chester County Press. The paper provided details that supported their conclusions. The board has not challenged this press coverage. Apparently, my conclusions are justified and correct.
These three problems help demonstrate how poorly Dr. Sanville has performed as the UCF Superintendant. He should not be offered a new contract.
The board should immediately start a search for a new Superintendant to start in the 2014-2015 school year.
Java John must go now.
Bruce B. Yelton
Pocopson Township
Mr. Yelton is a graduate of Unionville High School and a former Pocopson Township Supervisor. The statements published above are solely the opinions of Mr. Yelton and have not been in any way verified or vetted by this publication or its editors (which is our normal policy on letters to the editor). We note this again, because of recent controversy about our publishing previous letters. We are committed to providing a full spectrum of community opinion and discussion and invite you to comment — or write your own letter to the editor in response. We do ask that you be civil and avoid personal attacks.
One more comment. It is our right as citizens and tax payers to challenge public officials strongly. These people have extreme power over our lives and have chosen to hold the position.
They have chosen to open themselves up to questions by becoming public officials, by legal definition, and they have a lot of power over our lives from how much they tax us to how they treat our children.
The Supreme Court has ruled that you get to say what you want about public officials. It is constitutionally protected so that citizens are protected from public officials censoring them.
Mr. Yelton,
I do not believe one of your board members are naive. There is no possible way every single one of them do not know in detail the events about which you write. I believe they do not want to answer your questions. When this happens, public official often define confidentiality rules and then hide behind them. If a citizen, parent or tax payer dares to confront them, they are blamed, labeled and marginalized. It’s probably harder for them to marginalize you since you are a former township supervisor.
Public officials have extreme power over tax paying citizens. The fact that at the end of this letter, in italics, it says “because of recent controversy about our publishing previous letter”…………This is very disturbing to me. There was nothing wrong with your letter and the statement implies that maybe there was. It just goes to show how much power these officials have. Having said that I would like to sincerely thank the editor for his apparent courage ( shouldn’t need any but clearly he does) in publishing this.
Thank-you for your courage.
There is a good conversation going on at the Community Matters website in Tredyffrin. Keith Knauss has stated that John Sanville reads it as do other of you board members. Keith uses TE as justification for his postion on aides and paras and outsourcing so it would benefit your community to have a look. Thanks.
Mr. Yelton: could you please provide a link to The Chester County Press publication (or at least the date of the publication) showing a drop in test scores? I searched that website and never found such an article but, of course, I could have missed it. I would be interested in reading that article.