A school board can do many things without raising so much as a whisper from the public, but don't mess with Kennywood day.
The Bethel Park School Board found this out Wednesday night when parents complained about the annual Kennywood picnic day being changed from June 14 to June 7, the same day as this year's graduation. The district's original calendar still showed the day as June 14.
District resident Valerie Johnston presented a petition signed by 230 students and teachers requesting that Kennywood day remain June 7, the first Friday in June, and that graduation be moved to June 6, a Thursday and the last day of school.
Recognizing the problems the changed date may cause, the board has scheduled a second Kennywood day for May 29, when students will be released early.
The district and Kennywood blame each other for the mix-up.
District spokeswoman Shari Bruce said Kennywood verbally confirmed in October 2000 that the district's Kennywood day for 2002 would be June 14. Bruce said the district didn't realize there was a problem until June 2001, after last year's Kennywood day when correspondence from the park showed the June 7 date for 2002.
The district's calendar showing June 14 already had been printed and distributed, Bruce said. She said the park claimed to have no record of agreeing to the June 14 date. It wasn't until October that the district learned it could not get the June 14 date and it was also when the district scheduled the May 29 backup date, she said.
But Mary Lou Rosemeyer, a Kennywood spokeswoman, said the district and the park had agreed in June 2001 on two dates, May 29 and June 7. She said Kennywood never had Bethel Park scheduled for June 14. Rosemeyer said Kennywood did try to find a date other than June 7 for Bethel Park but was unsuccessful. Because of Bethel Park's size, no other districts come to the park on its Kennywood day, she said.
"Switching them would be a very difficult thing to do," she said. "It could involve dozens of school districts. We did try to switch them, but with the limited possibilities in our scheduling, it was not possible."
Kris Kessler, co-president of the Parent Teacher Student Organization at Independence Middle School, chastised the board for not doing enough to get word of the change out to parents, some of whom she said have scheduled June 14 off from work and now won't be able to get off work on June 7.
Superintendent Victor Morrone said revised calendars were sent to the schools but conceded that if the district can do a better job announcing calendar changes, it will.
Morrone said school officials tried to get another district to change its day so Bethel Park could go on June 14.
"No matter what we did, no one would change their date," he said.
Morrone said Kennywood day will return to the first Friday in June for 2003 and that his recommendation will be that the 2003 graduation be held on a Saturday. He called what happened this year a "one-year problem."
