For parents not on Pennsbury’s email list, a notice was sent out at 4:33 PM yesterday, announcing that the school had decided to shift from In-Person to Virtual learning. This decision was made unilaterally by the administration without any parental involvement or feedback. The reason given for the switch…wet grass! For those that have repeatedly attended Back To School Night at PHS, only a handful of cars park on the grass. further, we have had ran and snow on Back To School Night in years past, yet the show still went on.

Back To School Night being held in-person has been a contentious issue with Superintendent Dr. Tom Smith during School Board Action and Committee Meetings. There are allegations that he has tried to leverage COVID-era policies to diminish another aspect of parental involvement in our children’s education. The reality that Smith and the Board fail to recognize is that Virtual Back To School Night is as ineffective for parents as Virtual Schooling was for our children. Back To School Night provides the community with two valuable evenings a year where we can meet our children’s teachers, see their classroom environments, and evaluate the conditions of the facilities—not only as parents but also as taxpayers.

What Is The Purpose Behind Not Wanting To Be In-Person

Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that we will ever understand the true reasons behind the decision made by Smith and his administration. Under the Right To Know Law (RTKL), pre-decisional communications are exempt, and Pennsbury’s Solicitor, Erin Aronson, often earns her fees by blocking visibility into decision-making. Even if this weren’t the case, they would probably switch to Google Chat and intentionally destroy records—an issue that Pennsbury will face head-on at a State Senate Hearing on March 24, 2025.

Why was the switch to virtual learning made due to wet grass? We can only speculate. Regular attendees of School Board Meetings have noted an undertone suggesting that Pennsbury is opposed to parental involvement and has publicly claimed that the District is well-equipped to fill the parental void. In the past, contributors to PSD411 have used Back To School Night to verify the District’s claims about purchases, such as the ~$250K spent on video cameras for classrooms. These cameras were never utilized and were not found in any classrooms checked in PHS East and PHS West during those evenings or when public access was granted at the start of the new building project.

Last year, PSD411 contributors inspected the PHS West building to verify student access to restrooms. They confirmed student complaints about limited restroom access, which the District attributed to security concerns from past altercations. These closures violated the PA School Code, which mandates a specific number of toilets and sinks based on the number of students. Complaints were filed with the Bucks County Health Department in the summer of 2024, leading to the reopening of all restrooms in September 2024.

Given the past instances where community members have inspected buildings when they are open to the public, it’s possible that this history contributed to the decision to shift to virtual learning due to “wet grass.” Recent meetings have been tense, especially concerning the Federal Government’s executive orders requiring the removal of DEI from school buildings. Progressive School Board Members Delwiche, Petrecco, and Palsky have clashed with Donna Aherns, verbally accosting Ahrens for suggesting that any political symbolism be placed in a showcase cabinet for a desired constituency group rather than within the classroom setting.

While the Pennsbury School District preaches about how transparent they are with parents and the community, actions like these do nothing but create pause for concern that decisions being made are not in the best interest of the District but instead they are made on the personal whim Administrative staff and the inattentive School Board.