(Matt Drzik/Beaver County Radio)

The New Brighton School Board met for its first–and only–meeting of November 2022, thus making it a regular voting meeting instead of the usual planning meeting that preludes the voting meeting that would take place two weeks later.

In this meeting, the board unanimously accepted the resignation of Travis Whalen from the School Board. School board President John Ludwig thanked Mr. Whalen for his time and service to the board, and Whalen responded in kind. “To everybody here, thanks for being such great colleagues. We have great leadership here, and great board members,” Whalen said. “I’m not going very far, I’m literally right there.” Whalen joked that he is relocating to the “wrong side” of Wises Grove Road; his resignation takes effect on December 6, 2022.

The board also unanimously approved the building of a new playground by Snider Recreation at a cost not to exceed $70,000. “This will replace what I call the ‘original’ playground, the main playground that’s closest to the building,” stated Superintendent Dr. Joseph Guarino, saying that it will not replace the newer playground donated by HeadStart that is located outside the high school gymnasium.

“The original playground has far exceeded its life expectancy,” he added, “and it’s starting to need serious repairs, which obviously is not worth it for playground equipment.” Guarino said that the funding for the playground comes from surplus money held back from as far back as the 2018-19 school year, and that the timeline for construction relies heavily on the supply chain.

Also approved by the school board were the implementation of Act 57 of 2022 Property Tax Penalty Waiver Provisions, as well as a 10-year agreement to renew the lease between the New Brighton School District and New Brighton Youth Baseball. There will be no additional meetings by the School Board for November; their next meeting will be their Reorganization meeting on December 5.