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Danville board previews hires, recommends CSIU school-psychologist contract and debates reopening support-staff contract
Summary
Administrators told the board they will present recommended hires and extracurricular advisor approvals at the June meeting, recommended contracting with the CSIU for in-person school-psychology evaluations, and the board debated whether to reopen the recently negotiated support-staff contract to address hourly wages.
District administrators told the board Tuesday they will request approval next week for several personnel items — including three special-education teacher hires, custodial hires, building and curriculum leads, extracurricular advisors and five teacher tenure recommendations — and recommended contracting with the Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit (CSIU) for on-site school-psychologist services instead of current, remote evaluation vendor Presence.
Why it matters: staffing decisions affect special-education evaluations, class coverage and program continuity; the contractor chosen for school psychology affects evaluation modality, cost and district relationships.
Human-resources items previewed for the June agenda included recommendations to hire three special-education teachers (16 applicants, 11 interviews), one first-shift custodian and two second-shift custodians; approval of building leads and curriculum leads for 2025–26; annual approval of extracurricular advisors; and five teachers recommended for tenure.
On school psychology, administrators presented two options: continue using Presence (a national online service used this year for approximately 60 evaluations at a cost of about $63,000) or contract with the CSIU for in-person services. The CSIU option would charge about $600 per day: two days per week would provide roughly 30–40 evaluations (~$43,000) and three days per week would yield about 50–60 evaluations (~$64,000), according to the presentation. The superintendent recommended contracting with the CSIU to provide in-person evaluators and local relationship benefits; board members verbally agreed to proceed with that recommendation and administration said it would bring a contract for board consideration.
Board members then engaged in an extended discussion about whether to reopen the recently negotiated support-staff union contract to revisit wages. Several board members said the support-staff contract had been negotiated recently and included substantial raises and expanded health-care benefits; they cautioned that reopening a single contract soon after ratification could be fiscally risky and might set an unwanted precedent. One board member argued a higher living wage remains an issue for support staff and asked whether an MOU limited to wages could be considered; others responded that reopening the contract without a directive from the union or a clear fiscal plan would be inappropriate. No formal motion to reopen the contract was made during the meeting.
Speakers: administrators (hiring and program leads), the superintendent and multiple board members participated; quotations in this article are attributed to speakers who spoke on the record.
