Good morning.
Valentine’s Day in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 51. Sunrise is 6:53 and sunset is 5:25 for 10 hours 32 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 8.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1952, NBC’s long-running morning news program Today debuts, with host Dave Garroway.
Dr. Caroline Pate-Hefty served as superintendent of the Whitewater Unified School District from 2020 to 2025. She left the Whitewater School District to become superintendent of the Manheim Township School District near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. One now reads from professional reporting that Pate-Hefty’s time with that district has been one of uncertainty and controversy. Ashley Stalnecker writes Manheim Township School District mum on staff departures, superintendent’s status:
Answers about leadership matters are hard to come by from Manheim Township School District officials. Three top administrators resigned their posts in the past three months; a fourth gave notice but later rescinded the resignation.
Calls and emails to the district’s superintendent, Caroline Pate-Hefty, have gone unanswered. She was absent from Thursday night’s school board work session, a meeting she typically attends.
A source said Pate-Hefty did not work from the district’s office all week, and did not appear at a scheduled event at Bucher Elementary School on Tuesday. LNP | LancasterOnline agreed not to name the source because the person did not have permission to speak to the press on the matter.
See Ashley Stalnecker, Manheim Township School District mum on staff departures, superintendent’s status, LNP | LancasterOnline, February 13, 2026.
Stalnecker also reports on an astonishing portion of Pate-Hefty’s contract with the Pennsylvania school district:
The silence of district staff and the nine elected board members might have something to do with Pate-Hefty’s contract, which includes a clause that shields from public disclosure any board-led investigation into her conduct or performance.
Pate-Hefty’s contract also prevents the board from speaking during or following an investigation into her conduct or performance.
“Any investigations undertaken by the Board shall endeavor to complete any such investigation in private and both Parties shall endeavor to avoid any public disclosure by the Board or Superintendent of the commencement or progress of the same,” the contract states.
[…]Additionally, her contract requires the board to “speak in one voice” rather than “averaging the feedback” of individual members to synthesize private critiques by individuals into a single consensus report.
Stalnecker further reports that Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, said the provision in Pate-Hefty’s contract restricting public disclosure of an investigation is “troubling from a transparency perspective.” Indeed, in Wisconsin and in Pennsylvania, this contract provision would be subject to attack as null and void as against public policy. Litigation, however, takes time and is expensive.
(Solid reporting from Stalnecker and LNP | LancasterOnline. Quite admirable. We’ve not had reporting like this for Whitewater since WhitewaterWise.)
Whether litigated or not, the Manheim Township School District’s board, representing six thousand students, foolishly and recklessly cast aside open government for the convenience of Pate-Hefty.
Astonishing on its own, yet predictable from past performance. See FREE WHITEWATER posts about Pate-Hefty’s career in Whitewater.
Whitewater deserved better over those five years from 2020 to 2025. One now wishes better for the students, families, and residents of Manheim Township, Pennsylvania.
Gold thief flees scene of the crime on donkey in central Turkey: