PirocchiOASB-FairShare

By Dominic J. Pirocchi

Appeared in the April 17, 2013 Chester County Press. I had the date of the meeting wrong in that article and have corrected it here to October 19, 2009.

I can not speak for Mr. Gaspar, but I myself agree with you that fair share is an unfair practice for our teachers. In my opinion fair share violates our teachers' "Freedom of Association" guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Rather than relying on fair share the union should be focused on customer satisfaction where the teachers are the union's customers. If the union provides exemplary services then teachers would be lining up to pay their dues for those services. On a similar issue I believe we should hold the contract negotiations in public for everyone to witness. Often directors are informed that this is personnel issue and therefore legal to be conducted in private. I will argue that the exception for personnel to the sunshine laws are to protect individuals. Collective bargaining is for a group as a whole and there are no individual names that need to be protected; therefore, negotiations should be open to public. In fact, some other States actually require this. In addition, once an agreement had been reached then it should be go through the same process as a policy with first, second, and third readings giving the public ample chances to comment on it prior to the school board voting on it.

I respect your writing and even followed a regular column you use to write in the opinion section back in the day. I am up for re-election this year and filed only as a Republican in Region II and at-large. I supported at-large elections for OASD. This would have given every resident the chance to cast a vote for every school board member, a practice common in over sixty percent of Pennsylvania's other school districts. I believe that this would give voters greater choices when voting for school board members. This year only six people ran for four seats. With at-large, that would have given all OASD voters a greater choice in casting ballots for candidates they like. Local representatives of both the Republicans and Democratic parties fought this at our meetings, in the press, and in court. Why? Ask your elected representatives. In Region I there is only a registered Democrat running, cross-filed as running for both the Republican and Democrat candidate. Voters in Region I have no choice this election. For the rest of the positions there are only registered Republicans running, with all except myself cross-filed on both the Republican and Democrat ballots. I only registered as a Republican for both Region II and at-large. I have to win in the primaries as a Republican to give a choice to all voters in the general election as my registered Republican opponents are unopposed on the Democrat ballot. If you are a registered Republican in OASD please consider me as your candidate for Oxford Area School District.

Dominic J. Pirocchi Oxford Area School Board