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Bethel Park makes staffing changes for new school year

By Cara Host for The Almanac writer@thealmanac.Net 3 min read
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Cara Host / For The Almanac

Bruce Thompson, left, and Mike Mathias of the Bethel Park Soccer Boosters Organization show off the new warmup outfits that the group purchased for the boys’ and girls’ soccer teams in the school district. Donna Cook, school board president, gave a commendation to the boosters at the Aug. 28 board meeting.

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Cara Host / For The Almanac

Bethel Park police Chief Timothy O’Connor accepts a certificate of appreciation from Donna Cook, school board president, on Aug. 28. Bethel Park police donated a Ford Explorer to the school district.

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Cara Host / The Almanac

Bethel Park School District’s cafeteria management company, Metz Culinary Management, recently presented an award to Bethel Park food service director Joe Consolmagno. Donna Cook, school board president, also recognized him at the Aug. 28 meeting for finding innovative ways to nourish both the students and the community. For instance, Consolmagno invited police officers and other first responders to eat lunch and play games with the children during recess.

Bethel Park School Board voted to eliminate five full-time paraprofessional positions and create nine part-time positions.

The eliminated positions are vacant, so no one will be laid off or demoted to part-time.

The closed positions are four full-time special education paraprofessionals and one full-time computer paraprofessional. The new positions are seven part-time special education paraprofessionals, one part-time computer paraprofessional and a part-time instructional aide.

During public comment, two parents asked the board to revisit the district’s policy regarding transportation to day care centers. The district provides busing to the locales only within each elementary school’s attendance zone.

The parents of kindergarten-aged children asked the board to reconsider, since the day cares within their attendance zones may not provide the best care for their children’s special needs.

About seven years ago, the district bussed students to virtually any day care center in Bethel Park, but costs for doing that proved too high. The district started providing transportation to only the day cares near each elementary school starting with the 2012-13 year. Parents asked the district to make exceptions for children with special needs and to bus them to any day care center within the district.

Donna Cook, board present, said the board will consider the request and discuss the matter in greater detail next month.

In another matter, the district will likely replace the speakers at the high school stadium to improve sound quality.

District maintenance workers dealt with problems with speakers shorting out as well as inferior sound quality last season. However, the cost to replace the audio system was estimated at the time to be about $50,000, so the board decided to try a cheaper upgrade over the summer by replacing the wiring in the hopes that would improve the sound quality.

Superintendent Joseph Pasquerilla said the new wiring eliminates the short-circuit problems, but the speakers are still old and in need of replacement. Fortunately, he found the speakers at a much lower price, around $20,000, through the state’s cooperative purchasing system. Pasquerilla hopes to have the speakers installed by early October, if the new equipment can be shipped to Bethel Park in time.

The superintendent also warned the board of a possible expensive upgrade to make to the high school’s air-conditioning system. The system does not seem to have adequate capacity to cool the building completely on hot days.

District officials will investigate the issue to determine what can be done to improve that building’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning system. The board will discuss the matter further in subsequent meetings.

Officials are also dealing with Internet connectivity issues that surfaced with the start of the school year. Pasquerilla said members of the district’s information technology staff are working to rectify the problems.

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