An evenly divided state Supreme Court upheld Thursday the removal of eight North Schuylkill school board members in 2009 due to their failure to appoint a superintendent.
The two-sentence opinion, which did not contain any explanation for the decision, leaves in place the 2010 Commonwealth Court ruling that affirmed county Judge, now Senior Judge, D. Michael Stine's removal of all but one of the board's members.
"The removal of the school board members will stand as ordered," Fountain Springs lawyer Lloyd R. Hampton, who represented the 54 school district residents who brought the lawsuit that led to the board members' dismissal, said Friday.
The vote by the state's highest court was 3-3, with Justice Joan Orie Melvin, who is facing criminal charges for allegedly using state workers in her campaigns for the court in 2003 and 2009, not participating. The opinion does not indicate how the other six members of the court - Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille and Justices Max Baer, J. Michael Eakin, Seamus P. McCaffrey, Thomas G. Saylor and Debra McCloskey Todd - voted.
Stine removed eight members - President William Rogers, Vice President Jane Rapant, Treasurer Christine Heyer, Robert Wetzel, Phil Rapant, Edward Balkiewicz, John Motsney and John Misiewicz - from the board June 23, 2009, for failing to elect a new superintendent after accepting the resignation of Robert E. Franklin Jr. in May 2007.
Instead, the board in May 2008 chose solicitor Mark Semanchik, Frackville, as interim superintendent and tried to persuade the state Department of Education to allow him to become superintendent on a permanent basis. However, the department rejected three mandate waiver applications the district submitted on Semanchik's behalf.
Stine ruled the board did not show it was "impossible or impracticable" to elect a permanent superintendent when it picked Semanchik, as the state School Code requires for selection of an interim superintendent.
Stine on June 25, 2009, appointed four new members, President Robin Hetherington, Grace Glowacki, Debra Hampton and Kelly Moran, to replace Rogers, Balkiewicz, Heyer and Phil Rapant. North Schuylkill voters elected Hetherington, Debra Hampton and Moran, plus Suzanne A. O'Neill and Daniel J. Holderman, to full four-year terms on Nov. 3, 2009.
North Schuylkill voters elected Roy C. Green, Charles Hepler, Raymond K. Reichwein and Mark Kessler in 2011 to fill the remaining four seats, thereby bringing the board back to full membership.
Victor P. Stabile, Harrisburg, who represented all of the board members except Misiewicz in the appeal, was not available Friday for comment on the case.