Peters Township competitive dance team members and parents of the dancers made emotional pleas to the school board Monday to keep their longtime club sponsor, Barb Deliere.
"Barb is the heart and soul of the Peters dance team," Sydney Scott, a dance team member, tearfully told the school board. "Everything we've ever done wouldn't be possible without Barb."
After a 5-4 vote to table the matter and a 30-minute executive session in the middle of the board's special meeting, the board voted to make the JV coaches, Ashlee Olivo and Megan Chicone, the temporary co-sponsors of the varsity and JV teams so the program "has no interruption."
Deliere told Patch she started the competitive dance program with her daughter and current varsity coach, Nique Shuster, eight years ago. She would like to continue being the dance program's sponsor, and said she doesn't know why some of the school board members appear to not want her to be the sponsor next year.
School Director Sue Smith appeared to speak out in favor of Deliere during the meeting, accusing some other board members of removing Deliere from the agenda for a "public vote."
The board's vice president, Lori Cuervo, appeared to be against reappointing Deliere as the club's sponsor, but said she did not ask have Deliere's name removed from the agenda. She said she did not attend an executive session that took place before Monday's meeting because "misinformation" about her "was provided by certain board members and down through the sponsors."
Cuervo told Patch after the meeting that she could not comment on the dance team's sponsor issue because it was a personnel issue.
The varsity dance team won a national championship earlier this year in Orlando.
Dance team supporters created an online petition asking the board members to keep the current coaches and sponsor. As of Monday night, the petition had 950 signatures.
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