Editor's Notebook: Week in Review, Sept. 12 - 18

With the first day of school for Kindergarten students on Monday, Sept. 13, summer officially ended for all of the school-age children (and parents of school-aged children) in Lower Merion Township.

The end of summer means busy schedules, cooling weather (average highs for this week dropped below 80 degrees for the first time in months) and a return to regular business for the local township and school boards.

The school district announced big news at their Monday, Sept. 13 special meeting, ratifying a new contract for professional and support staff. The new two-year contract calls for a 1.2 percent raise in addition to regularly scheduled payscale increases based on years of experience and education. For the first time, district employees will also pay a percentage of their salaries toward covering their healthcare costs, as well.

Some less pleasant news also surrounded the district in regards to ongoing lawsuits. The attorney for the nine students who sued the district over 2009 redistricting filed a notice to appeal the case to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third District on Friday, Sept. 17, and the Main Line Media News reported that the same attorney plans to bring a third webcam-related suit against the board sometime in the future. Patch also reported on the ongoing efforts to close the achievement gap in the Lower Merion School District, with recently released 2010 data showing a gap greater than 20 percentage points separating the standardized test scores of the district as a whole from the scores of African-American students in the district.

In township matter, the big news was a two-hour-long hearing on a proposed anti-discrimination ordinance. The new law would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, currently legal in Pennsylvania. The ordinance as written was deemed inadequate, and three of the township's commissioners formed a subcommittee to rewrite the proposal on Wednesday, Sept. 15.

In even years, the fall also means a fresh waive of political activity as local committees gear up for November elections. The Democratic Committee of Lower Merion and Narberth officially endorsed three local state representative candidates at their meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 14, and, former U.S. President Bill Clinton stopped in to Wynnewood on Monday, Sept. 13, to help campaign for U.S. Senate candidate Joe Sestak.