School Board Sparks Controversy Over Electronic Attendance

During the public comment section of the June 2024 Spring Cove School District Board of Directors meeting, former board president Brian Gahagan asked why board member Misti Fisher was never present at the meetings and only attending by phone, while she was at other school functions.

The number of times a board member could attend meetings electronically instead of in person was a topic of heated discussion at the Monday, August 12, meeting of the Spring Cove School Board.

The number of times a board member can miss a voting meeting in person versus by phone before the board could take action was changed to three.

This was put into motion and passed during the first reading by a 5-4 vote with board members Kevin Smith, Andrea Moses, Misti Fisher, and Gretchen Bettwy opposing the idea while John Biddle, Linda Smith, Amy Acker-Knisely, Chuck Gojmerac, and Troy Wright supported the motion as it passed.

Smith immediately asked why the policy was being revised as he believed it was because of board member Fisher who attends all board meetings and Committee of the Whole meetings by phone.

According to School District Solicitor Jen Dambeck, up to four members could attend by phone as long as five were present in person to have a quorum. Smith said this was a violation of the Sunshine Act.

Knisely said she had been at board meetings where she was singled out and criticized by public speakers.

“You must sit at a meeting and take whatever criticism comes your way”, she said. Knisely said that for months prior to becoming a board member, Smith would attend meetings and threaten to sue her. He then said he was still planning on it.

The motion of attending the board meeting in person versus electronically also passed in second and third readings by an 8-1 vote, with Smith opposing it because he believed it violated the Sunshine Act.

Superintendent Dr. Betsy Baker confirmed for the Herald that the board Reorganizational meeting was held on December 4, 2023 and Fisher was in attendance.

She also attended all January and February 2024 meetings in person and the March Committee of the Whole meeting . Her virtual attendance began with the March 18 Regular Board meeting and continued through August 2024.

Fisher resumed in-person attendance in September 2024 with the 9/9 meeting.

During a phone interview with the Herald, she said she had medical documentation for missing the meetings.

Fisher offered the medical documentation to the board , but they never took it.

“If you want to be on video or phone for your entire tenure then members can do so by the Sunshine Act,” she said. “You won’t get elected unless you are there in person. I wanted to get back to meetings as soon as physically possible. It is important to be there in person.”

Fisher said she did not work during her time of sickness.

She said she did go to some of her son’s little league games, but had to sit in the vehicle. Fisher went to graduation, but was not physically able to make it through the entire ceremony.

She said it is important to be there at meetings in person, but the new policy passed on electronic attendance had no teeth to it.

“The board wasted a lot of time on a policy which is really irrelevant to the students,” Fisher said. “Time should be better spent on what is best for the students.”

She did vote for the attendance policy in second and third readings. Fisher said the board could go with one meeting per month, could discuss issues then vote on them then.

Dambeck did say a board member could not be voted off for not attending meetings because they are elected by the voters, but could be asked to resign or possibly censured.

When questioned by the Herald, Smith said in February 2023 he sent letters to the whole board, not just Knisely, stating that they were in violation of the Sunshine Act and he could bring suit over this.

He said he is not going to pursue this however. Smith said he believes it is important to be at meetings in person, but says he has read the entire state law in regard to Pennsylvania educational laws and members can call into meetings for every meeting.

Smith said members could participate by telephone or video conference and this can count toward a quorum in a meeting, but five do need to be there in person to hold a meeting.

He is upset that the board never addresses the public at a meeting during the public speaking section of the meeting on advice of the solicitor.

The public deserves answers, he said.

“Public information should be shared,” Smith said.

He said he has spent three years studying school policy and the electronic attendance policy passed at the meeting doesn’t hold any water.

Smith said that the newspapers were inaccurate on certain things but could not cite any for instances or specific issues. He said his focus on the board is making sure policies and laws on school policy are followed as they were written.

During the June meeting of the Spring Cove Board of Directors, Tom Kozminski, stating he represented the group Citizens of the Cove, said Smith had engaged in actions unbecoming of an elected official when he colluded with page administrators of “ Issues in the Spring Cove School District” to propagate misinformation and engage in behavior unbecoming his position.

Kozminski said this behavior extended to spreading false information about events within the district and making statements that perpetuate discrimination across various spectrums.

He asked the board to suspend Smith pending an investigation by the appropriate authorities.

Kozminski urged Smith to consider resigning his position. When asked by the Herald, following the meeting, if he had a response to the statements from Kozminski, Smith only responded, “too much deception--I will not respond to any of them.”

Dambeck said the board can only remove a member for commission of a felony and certain other misdemeanor charges.