Letter to the Editor: School Board VP Responds to Buzzatto's Remarks

Peters Township Board of Education Vice President Cindy Golembiewski wrote a letter to the editor, dated March 31, in response to Dr. Mark Buzzatto's statement in our March 25 article, "." Her letter is as follows: 

I am not interested in bantering back and forth in your publication, but I believe it is only fair that you allow me the favor of a response, as I am directly affected by your article.

While it is fair to say that it is certainly Dr. Buzzatto’s freedom of opinion to state that he is not happy with how the district does business, I believe that his comment would be fervently disputed among his current boardmates.

Of course, there is often too much talk about lawsuits in the board room and never enough talk about educating the kids. On that note, I agree, but we are living in a litigation-mentality society; therefore, it is the nature of society and public school districts at large to deal with such issues.

Unfortunately, we cannot ignore what comes before us. However, the statement in which you have quoted Dr. Buzzatto stating that the school district refused Dr. Buzzatto’s offer of providing continuous process improvement services at no cost to the district is simply not factual. I do not have personal experience with Dr. Buzzatto’s company or its daily operations; however, I concur that when this offer was first extended to the school board, Dr. Buzzatto did offer these services to the district at no monetary cost.

When satisfying the request of the school board to have an advisory letter from the Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission stating that there was no conflict of interest, the original presentation of the offer was changed. In the letter from the ethics commission that Dr. Buzzatto provided to the school board, four items that were not part of his original proposal were included. They are as follows:

1. Generating reports for the school district that would display his company's logo, or cite his company or him as the author of the reports.
2. Stating in conversations or citing in documents, or on his company’s website, that Peters Township School District was his and/or his company’s pro bono client.
3. Writing and sharing a case study that reflects the experiences and results of the relationship between the school district and his company.
4. Receiving an endorsement or testimonial from the school district school board and/or the school district superintendent. 

A decision was made by the members of the school board that the four items above could be viewed as "payment by favors," although not in monetary form, still payments for the services of Dr. Buzzatto’s company.

Therefore, the school board did not pursue legal advice on this matter as it would apply to the public school code, which would be necessary for final implementation.

I take great exception to the inference that the school board did not seriously consider the opportunity to engage this service and without consideration disregarded the offer showing some sort of fiscal irresponsibility. We spend countless hours both at committee meetings and regular board meetings looking at ways that we can eliminate waste, while making informed educational and fiscally-responsible decisions that would best benefit our students.

The current school board and all who I have ever served with, including Dr. Buzzatto, are very hard-working responsible community members whose main concern is always what is best for the students and the community at large.

The effort to make conscientious data-driven decisions, maintain a lean budget and engage in serious soul searching, while keeping our students as the top priority, is a part of what every board member sees as their responsibility to the community.

The most challenging aspect is the confidentiality board members must adhere to and legal issues that stifle us in formulating replies to certain questions or concerns. That has a tendency to leave an open forum for supposition, rumor and innuendo to which we may offer no response. That is not the case in this matter as the letter is available to the public. Please note, as I stated, that the five-page letter from the Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission, dated Sept. 24, 2010 and addressed to Dr. Buzzatto, is a public record and may be made available to the public at their request.

Respectfully,

Cynthia Golembiewski

Letters to the editor are always welcome. Please email your letter to andrea.bosco@patch.com.