It apparently has been decided already not to go for an increase in the ceiling on the district’s operating tax until next year. Last year, both capital and operating rate increases were sought, but the 1999 referendum was called off because of pending release of the results of a state audit of district finances.

Also scheduled for the board meeting is approval of a plan for full-day kindergarten programs in some elementary schools, renewal of the policy of having an elected high school student sit with the board as a non-voting member, and approval of applications under the state’s public school choice law.

The posted agenda includes a section labeled ‘new [sic] Brandywine initiatives’, which lists: 

"· Board goal setting
· Board governance
· Subject matter experts
· Teacher retention
· Adoption of board policies – Code of ethics for school board members and conflict of interest
· Adoption of an audit committee"

Board member Nancy Doorey, at a workshop meeting early in February, circulated several proposals she said she intends to introduce at the March business meeting. Some appear to overlap some of those ‘initiatives’. Doorey said a previously scheduled family vacation will prevent her attending the Feb. 28 meeting.

The board also is scheduled to hear ‘comments from the Delaware Teacher of the Year’. She is Ronni Cohen, an economics teacher at Claymont Intermediate School.

The public session is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m., half an hour earlier than usual, in the district administration building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Radnor Green. The meeting room there has a capacity of about 150 people. The open meeting will be preceded by an executive session, closed to the public. That is common practice with Brandywine and other school boards.

Allen Kemp said he and Janice Tunell will present what amounts to a recall petition seeking resignations from the entire board with a proviso that those who desire seek re-election to their seats stand for election. Kemp said, "The situation in the district has so deteriorated that we need a new board and a new administration."

Since word of the petition became public, two members whose terms expire in June, board vice president Paul Hart and Lawrence Pelkey, have announced they will not seek re-election. Raymond Tomasetti has filed for re-election in May. Board president Ralph Ackerman and members Robert Blew and Harold Thompson have said they do not intend to resign, but Ackerman said he will not seek another term as president. Doorey has not specifically addressed the matter.

Like someone trapped in quicksand, the board and district administration seem only to sink deeper into the morass of controversy as they try to extract themselves.

A purported reorganization of top administrators -- which involved promotion of one, Donald Fantine, to be an assistant superintendent on an interim basis until July, and elevation of several job titles – was roundly criticized as token. Even board member Doorey, who absented herself from the ‘press conference’ at which the moves were announced, was highly critical, saying "much more is needed." Confirmation of the changes, if they are to take effect on Mar. 1 as announced, has to occur at the Feb. 28 meeting.

Engagement of William Metten, a public relations practitioner, led to further criticism as an indication of emphasis on covering over rather than reforming.

 (Jim Parks, editor of Delaforum, worked for the district as a public information specialist, with some public relations assignments, during the 1998-99 academic year.)

Karen Gordon, president of the Brandywine Education Association, the union which represents teachers in the district, said "an informal survey" is being conducted among members which could lead to that organization's taking a position on the various issues. 

There also is a public-opinion survey of district residents reportedly underway, focusing on the possible referendum.   It is being conducted by a professional polling organization, but it could not be determined who  is sponsoring it.

Superintendent Joseph DeJohn, in an interview with Delaforum, questioned why most published reports about the district "keep rehashing" already familiar details about the findings of the year-ago state audit, which brought the fiscal irregularities into public light and resulted in criminal charges against Lawrence Nicholson, a former board member, and former business manager Patrick Miller. "It’s like a 10th-grade algebra teacher beginning every class by teaching addition and subtraction," DeJohn said.

Despite straightforward and successively stronger apologies, DeJohn said, he is unable to shake association with acceptance of a gift refrigerator. He has admitted doing so was an error in judgement and has said he immediately reimbursed the cost when he discovered it had been purchased illegally using district funds. "That ought to be enough to put [that issue] behind us," he said.

More than that, he said he is "discouraged and hurt" by increasingly more hostile personal comments, both public and private, impinging his integrity. "I believe that people in Brandywine are rational people and when they have the information [about] both sides of the story, they will be understanding and accepting," he said.

"I want to [be able to] concentrate my efforts on teaching and learning."

DeJohn has been superintendent since July, 1995. Before that, he was principal of P.S. du Pont Intermediate and Maple Lane Elementary Schools and assistant principal and assistant principal at Burnett Intermediate. He came to Mount Pleasant High School 25 years ago as a business education teacher after beginning his career at Chester (Pa.) High School.