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Wilkes-Barre Area superintendent: No jobs ‘created’ during furloughs

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Light the Fire rally inspires faith in area youth

<p>EXETER &#8212; The combination of a 5 percent tax hike and hiring another administrator &#8212; with the specific title &#8220;assistant principal of discipline&#8221; &#8212; drew public rebuke at the Wyoming Area School Board meeting Tuesday, but Superintendent Janet Serino insists the new post is not only needed, but had existed in the past.</p><p>&#8220;Several years ago, we had a second assistant principal who passed away and was never replaced,&#8221; Serino said Wednesday.</p><p>The need to meet mandates and implement new state initiatives like the Pennsylvania Core standards and a more complicated teacher evaluation system demands more time from administrators, Serino said, yet &#8220;we&#8217;re finding principals are spending a lot of time on discipline.&#8221;</p><p>A quick check suggests having three administrators for a school the size of the district&#8217;s Secondary Center is not unusual, locally. The Secondary Center has more than 1,100 students in grades 7 through 12, about 100 less than Wyoming Valley West High School, which houses grades nine through 12. WVW lists a principal and two assistant principals on its website.</p><p>Two of Wilkes-Barre Area School District&#8217;s three high schools &#8212; Coughlin and Meyers &#8212; have about 900 students each and have a principal, assistant principal and dean of students in administration.</p><p>Hazleton Area High School, with an enrollment of more than 3,000, has an assistant principal for each grade.</p><p>Serino said administrators are dealing with discipline problems, including tardiness, cafeteria issues and incidents in the restrooms. The school has a police officer and two hall monitors, but the current principal and assistant principal are often grappling with the discipline issues.</p><p>&#8220;I need to be able to free my building principals to concentrate on what is happening in the classroom,&#8221; Serino said. &#8220;They need to be able to coach teachers, mentor them and monitor them.&#8221;</p><p>Getting into the instructional side of the job is important because of extensive changes required by the new state standards, and because the new teacher evaluation system adopted by the state under Gov. Tom Corbett requires much more classroom observation, as well as interviews with teachers both before and after that observation.</p><p>State annual &#8220;Safe School Reports&#8221; show an overall decline in incidents in recent years. The district reported 45 incidents in 2009-10 for the Secondary Center, and 60 incidents in 2010-11. In succeeding years, the total hovered in the low 30s except for 2013-14,when the district reported only 19 incidents at the school.</p><p>The incident data is self-reported based on various definitions set up by the state, and it is up to a district to determine when an event meets the state definitions requiring reporting.</p><p>Serino also said that, despite perception, district demographics are changing, with students bringing more complex problems to school. &#8220;The social and emotional needs of the student are growing,&#8221; she said.</p><p>State data shows the district has become a bit more diverse in recent years: About 6 percent of students were non-white in 2011-12; it was 8.4 percent in 2014-15. The students are also a bit poorer: According to the state, 30.4 percent of students were from economically disadvantaged families in 2012-13, while in 2014-15 it was 38.6 percent.</p><style>
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<div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/web1_serino.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Serino Janet</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/web1_serino.jpg</photo0><caption0>Serino Janet</caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Superintendent defends new administrator post at Wyoming Area