8 Dallas Post Dallas, PA Thursday, September 12, 2002 i! i HN § POST PHOTO/ELIZABETH ANDERSON James Mahon, left, and John Holland shared a moment of relief af- ter the Lake-Lehman School Board voted 5-4 to approve a fact find- er’s recommendation to settle a new teachers’ contract. Contract (continued from page 1) Coombs, Moderno Rossi and James Mahon cast affirmative votes. Joseph Kapitula, Charles Balavage and Sheila Gionfriddo joined Board President Charles Boytin in voting against the agreement. “lI have no problem with the 3.4 percent pay raise,” said Boytin. “I have always said we have excellent teachers and I do not begrudge them the pay raise, but in today’s world, I do not see where they need to get a free ride for health care and not pay one penny for it when in any other industry, we pay for part of our health care.” “The board has spent about $100,000 on attorney's fees,” said Rich Cronin, one of the union negotiating team mem- bers, agreeing with Attorney John Holland, who noted the negotiations should have been settled six months ago. “They could have saved, maybe, $50,000.” The teachers’ negotiating team, Holland, Williams, Phil Lipski, and Cronin spoke after the meeting with board member James Mahon, whom they cred- ited as being very important to the settlement. “It's fair to the teachers. It's “It’s fair to the’ teachers. It’s fair to the children. It's fair to the administrators.” James Mahon School director fair to the children. It’s fair to the administrators,” said Ma- hon concerning the agreement. “Everybody wants to look at health care. The school board and the teachers will have to work together to solve that — which we will do.” Mahon added that the state should look at how school dis- tricts are funded. “It can not be property taxes alone,” he said. “We are pleased that there were five board members who had the courage to stand up and vote for the interest of the community, the district, the students, the staff and the tax- payers,” said Holland, “Because it did take a lot of courage for them to get up there tonight and vote for the right thing. We're pleased with that.” Ground zero (continued from page 1) Speaking Tuesday from the floor of the Stock Exchange, Townsend described how Sep- tember 11 has impacted every- one in New York. He explains the biggest change he sees is how people in New York have become “more conservative, more rational.” “People used to go to the Jer- sey Shore and the Hamptons in the summer. People would go “I have to walk by it to get to work so I'm reminded of it every day.” Dave Townsend Dallas native out to the clubs, spend lots of money, not be cognizant. Now it's like ‘Do I want to spend 300 dollars on this bottle of vodka and drink with movie stars or save for a house?’ ” Townsend said it is true what people say about 9/11 causing self reflection and reevaluating. “Its made me re-evaluate a lot of things, what's important to me and who my friends are.” Townsend says he now spends more time with his family, trav- eling home to Dallas on week- ends, when in the past he would have stayed in the city. “It's the kind of thing you want to keep out of sight and out of mind, which is just diffi- cult to do.” 9/11 changes (continued from page 1) ceived from the federal govern- ment about terrorism detailed that while police have to be care- ful of profiling, it is not illegal. Gary Beisel, Supervisor of Safety and Police Services at the Penn State Wilkes-Barre Cam- pus, illustrated the heightened sensitivity to security still felt a year after 9/11 when he was asked what had changed on his campus. He declined to detail the changes, stating “Any extra measures that we've taken since 9/11 we'd like to keep private so as to not defeat their purpose.” “9/11 has made us much more pro-active,” said Paul Mur- phy, Director of Campus Securi- ty at College of Misericordia. Murphy said the most enduring security change at Misericordia has been the creation of a once a semester evacuation drill. Administrators at Dallas School District and College of Misericordia said that as a result of 9/11, emergency response desk-top reference cards were developed and now sit on all em- ployees’ desks. In addition, some safety procedures were formal- ized and became more rigorously enforced. Dallas School District formalized and made public its safety plan that details what te do in case of situations such as “a gas leak, chemical problem, nuclear power plant threat, ac- cording to Assistant Superinten- dent Michael Speziale. At Lake-Lehman, security badges that were implemented after the Columbine shooting in- cident are now strictly enforced. All of the school administra- tors interviewed for this article talked about how 9/11 had been incorporated into their academic content in one form or another. “It (September 11) has perme- ated the curriculum at many lev- els,” said Jim Roberts, Public Re- lations Director for College Mis- ericordia. “It has impacted U.S. culture, it's clear it has to be- SAT Review ...the area’s leader in test preparation for the SAT * Classes begin September 22 Sunday Sessions * Math & Verbal * Parent Evening Information Session: September 15th, 7 p.m. St. Joseph Oblates, Rt. 315, Pittston Professional Tutoring Center The Oblates of St. Joseph, Laflin ¢ 655-6766 or 343-2014 come a part of educational in- struction.” Roberts said Misericordia’s de- cision to host a professor from Bethlehem University to talk about the Israeli/Palestinian Peace Process was in large part due to the higher level of sensi- tivity on campus that has result- ed from 9/11. Both Superintendent Roberts of Lake-Lehman and Assistant Superintendent Speziale of Dal- las talked about the task of bal- ancing the subject in the class- room: “We don't want to put their heads in the sand, but at the same time we don’t want to over-expose them,” said Roberts. Different schools have inte- grated the topic into their cur- riculum in different ways. One example is Dallas Area’s decision last spring to address the issue of diversity by participating in a forum put on by the Northeast PA Diversity Education Consor- tium. Speziale said the forum was in direct response to some residual effects of 9/11. The fo- rum arranged for Muslims to talk to high school students about Islam and their beliefs. Mary Tigue, Principal of Gate of Heaven School, said that along with 9/11 having found its way into class assignments, a spiritual component has been added. “There are lots of things we can do in a Catholic school that you can't do in other schools; we can pray for peace and work toward peace and the best way to do that is to work for justice,” she said. Since December of last year, children at Gate of Heaven have committed themselves monthly to the Pledge for Peace and Non- violence. The pledge asks the children to work toward peace by starting with themselves. The children have taken the pledge every seventh of the month since its inception. EINE VN Te: ¢ 216 Parrish Street, Wilkes-Barre ht C. W, SCHULTZ & SON INC. od The Service Experts Since 1921! PLUMBING + HEATING + AIR CONDITIONING WATER TREATMENT + SEWER & DRAIN CLEANING C. W. SCHULTZ & SON INC. | An annual pre-winter furnace tune-up avoids mid-winter problems. THE BASIC PRINCIPLE: Check it! Fix it! 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