Penn Hills School Board members have censured one of their own for comments made about Superintendent Nancy Hines.

The board voted 8-1 at Wednesday night’s meeting to censure Rob Marra, finance committee chairman.

Marra cast the dissenting vote and called the action by his colleagues a surprise.

Marra said the board’s action is in retaliation to comments made at a meeting with several teachers, their union leadership and other district officials on April 11, and at a safety/buildings and grounds committee meeting the following day.

Board President Erin Vecchio confirmed she was at both meetings mentioned by Marra, but declined to discuss what took place.

According to Marra, teachers at the first meeting said there were fights and other incidents every day in Penn Hills’ schools. Those incidents are then logged into Skyward, a parent portal that families can access to track grades and other reports of their children.

“We further discussed that there seems to be a breakdown in the reporting from Skyward, and to what we see in that weekly report (from the superintendent),” Marra said. “Dr. Hines gets the information for her weekly report from the building principals each week. We’re not seeing the same thing as we’re hearing from the teachers.”

Another issue that was discussed was students bringing two cell phones to school. They use old phones to put in the district’s Yondr pouches to store and lock phones.

They then keep their personal phones on them throughout the day — subverting school policy, Marra said about the teacher discussions.

“We’ve seen that there are many cell phones in the schools,” Marra said. “I said that this would be very embarrassing for the district if this got out about how this policy is actually working. Especially since Dr. Hines has gone to the media numerous times and talked about how well our policy is working.”

Marra said Hines attempted to move a discussion of metal detectors and bag searches at the committee meeting to executive session. He opposed the move.

“On all of these occasions, I, at no time accused Dr. Hines of lying to us, of withholding information from us, or trying to deceive the board,” Marra said. “I know that perception is reality in the eyes of the perceiver. She may have perceived, or thought as a reality, that I was trying to offend her. If that’s the case, I apologize for that.”

Marra said he intended to resign, but changed his mind following comments from the district’s financial recovery officer, Dan Matsook.

Matsook asked Marra to hold off from that decision until he could meet with Hines, the solicitor and himself to address what took place.

Matsook also would have had to approve Marra’s resignation since the district is still in financial recovery with the state.

Resident Becky Fenoglietto questioned why the board would censure Marra.

“If this board was trying to make Dr. Marra be quiet and not bring up his concerns, you have failed miserably,” she said.

Solicitor Dayne Dice said it was an admonishment from the board. He said why the board did it was up to the board members.

Vecchio said censuring was due to potential litigation.

“It is what had to happen,” board member Meryl Thomas said.

Other board members did not comment on the issue.

“I think I gave an accurate description of what transpired,” Marra said. “There are many, many witnesses to the meetings that were there.”

Hines was not at the school board meeting and did not return calls seeking comment. District officials said she was at a conference in Chicago.

Marra is in his sixth year on the school board and is running for reelection this year.

He said after the meeting that the censure move was about public embarrassment, and it will have very little impact on his service on the board.

“If I have to worry about every word I say and can’t be open, and I’m going to hurt someone’s feelings if I bring something up, I can’t work in an environment like that,” Marra said.

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