By KRISTIE LINDEN
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Ringgold School District is using Lifetouch photography for its school portraits for the first time this year.
The topic came up at Wednesday’s school board meeting when parent Roderick Wilson criticized what he perceived to be a decision made by Superintendent Megan Van Fossan to drop local business Savarino Studio of Monongahela.
Wilson said Savarino has been in business 47 years and spent 30 of those years doing photos for Ringgold.
“We should go with local businesses,” Wilson said. “He’s very credible.”
Wilson said he was “informed that there was a gentlemen’s agreement” between Savarino and the late Dr. Karen Polkabla, who passed away early last year just before her planned retirement.
“I was told the new superintendent (Van Fossan) elected Lifetouch and that’s not right,” Wilson said.
He asked why some members of the school board didn’t personally reach out to Savarino and said, “You just don’t nix someone who has been in the community.”
Van Fossan corrected some of Wilson’s information, including that the decision not to renew a contract with Savarino was made before she came to work at Ringgold.
Van Fossan said there had been an issue for some time because the district required digital images for all of the students enrolled for safety reasons. She pointed out scenarios where a child might be in danger or missing and a digital image would need to be sent to law enforcement quickly.
“We had asked for a significant amount of time to digitize what we needed and that hadn’t been happening,” Van Fossan said.
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