The New Hope-Solebury Board of School Directors on Friday named Dr. Charles Lentz as their choice to fill the open Superintendent of Schools position for the district.
Lentz has served the Abington School District for the past 25 years as an elementary school teacher, secondary assistant principal, elementary principal, and assistant director of curriculum.
His appointment is subject to the execution of a final contract and vote of the board at a special meeting Oct. 11 at 6:30 p.m. Lentz will start his job on Dec. 12.
Community members will be able to meet Lentz at a forum on Monday, Oct. 8, at the New Hope-Solebury High School auditorium. The evening will begin with an informal meet-and-greet at 6 p.m. in the auditorium lobby, followed by the forum moderated by Dr. Mark Hoffman, executive director of the Bucks County Intermediate Unit, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m..
Local residents can submit questions for consideration online until Oct. 4 at 4 p.m. Hoffman will categorize the questions by theme, and pose them directly to Lentz at the forum.
Lentz holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a Master’s Degree in Education from Gratz College, a Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership from Arcadia University, and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Widener University. During his tenure in Abington, Lentz led numerous school district initiatives and projects, including School-Wide Positive Behavior Support programming, curriculum committees, and instructional program revisions.
Lentz has served on the Board of Trustees at Arcadia University, chairing the Academic Affairs Committee for many years. He also served on the boards of other community organizations, including the Abington Community Taskforce, the Briar Bush Nature Center, the Union Library of Hatboro, the Welsh Society of Philadelphia, the Kiwanis Club of Glenside, and the Optimist Club of Elkins Park.
The board began the search for a new superintendent in June following the departure of Steven Yanni. Of the 34 applications received for the position, 13 were selected by the search committee for initial interviews in August, and seven candidates advanced to the second round, and three to the final round.
Now the comments have reappeared. Weird.
Yesterday, I submitted a list of questions that I would ask the new superintendent of the New Hope Solebury School District in order to ascertain his thoughts on topics pertinent topics.
First my questions were listed. When they disappeared, I wrote to Mr. Sahner. Then the questions reappeared. Then I added some more questions. Now as I look at the Comments Page, once again, they disappeared. I would like an explanation.
Here are some additional questions for the new superintendent, Charles Lentz, to answer.
(7) Not to be held toa specific number, but on average, how often would you recommend that social studies textbooks be replaced with updated editions of the books? 5 years? 7 years? another number? And just to be specific, Non AP high school students at NHS who take 20th century American history course are using texts that were published in 2001.
(8) Hypothetically speaking, if the high school lunch hour were 45 minutes long which is not the case in NHS, ( 30 minutes here) but is the case in NYC schools, would you allow qualified students( which is the case in some NYC schools)to take AP courses during their lunch hour provided that permission is granted by the parents?
(9) At what grade level would you expect students who are rated proficient in math to be rated advanced in knowing their math facts? By advanced, I mean the ability to respond immediately to a flash card with the answer. A student seeing a flash card with 6X9 will say 54 rather than saying to himself, 9,18,27,36,45,54.
(10) In the teaching of reading, would you consider the teaching of sight words through repeated repetition [ Look and Say] and the use of experience charts writing down word for word what the child is telling about her experience) putting the cart before the horse, presenting written words to kids before they learn the skills to decode the words through phonetics?
Even though I have a number of questions, I have submitted just two,the maximum allowed per person. Hopefully,there will be people reading this article who have the same questions as I do or similar ones who may want to use mine ( that’s fine) who will submit them before Thursday’s 4 PM deadline. By the way, for the most part my questions are universal which means that they can be applied to any district in the country.
(1) For students to reach their maximum potential, at what grade level, if any, would you have students grouped by their academic achievement ( homogeneous grouping) in math and/or reading achievement whether it is non state testing prior to the third grade or state testing in grades 3-5 as opposed to heterogeneous testing?
(2) For maximum safety and welfare of our students, do you believe that at all times there must be VISUAL adult supervision of our students especially in the middle school and high school bathrooms and locker rooms where the adults will actually be inside the rooms, (not the stalls) walking around to prevent, bullying, horseplay and vandalism?
(3) With much being said about the negative effects of technology on a student’s health and student’s growing addiction to tech devices ( electronic opioids), for each grade level can you give us a ball park figure, an approximation as to how much time should be allowed daily to use these tech devices. Also would you be opened to allowing students to use these devices during recess and/or lunch?
(4) Will you be an advocate for this district, like thousands of districts across the country, to participate in the National Scripts Spelling Bee Competition which last year( 2017-2018) had 11,000,000 elementary and middle school students take part?
(5) Considering the fact that our country is now engulfed with an opioid and obesity epidemic, do you think that it is fair and reasonable to require our K-5 students to receive at least one 45 minute Planned Health Education period a week with at least one Planned 45 minute Physical Education lesson a week? By planned I mean the lesson has a specific aim, motivation, procedure for developing the lesson, evaluation and a plan for follow up lessons.
(6) In the interests of transparency, are you in favor of putting on the district website copies of the results of the district’s yearly Safe school Reports which is first sent to the state by July 31 each year? In addition are you in favor of putting on the district website the results of the Pennsylvania Youth Survey (PAYS) as soon as the district receives these results from the state which this past year was sent to the district back in April and still has not been put on?