Norwin School District announced that one of its employees will leave this year and voted to keep another one.

At Monday night's meeting the school board accepted the retirement of Dr. Janet Franicola, assistant superintendent of elementary education. She will retire following the last administrative work day on June 30.

Franicola, who has worked for the district for 16 years, spent the last two as assistant superintendent. Prior to that she worked as the director of secondary education and director of human resources and special education.

Franicola started her career at Norwin as the principal of now-closed Pennsyl-vania Avenue Elementary. She worked there for three years before moving to the administrative office.

The meeting also saw the anti-climactic end to a controversy that had bubbled for several weeks. The board voted 6-3 to retain high school girls soccer coach Dana Ferry and his assistant Troy Shasko.

The vote took place with little fanfare and even less comment. About two dozen parents and students attended the meeting, but when the board reached the public comment phase of the meeting, no one spoke. At the end of the meeting, when the board again asked for public comment, the public remained silent.

Some people did not even realize the vote had taken place. The board, as is standard practice, combined a large number of motions on the agenda into one vote. Ferry's position was included in the larger list of fall sports coaches up for review, and that measure was combined with a number of other motions listed as "co-curricular."

The omnibus measure passed 9-0, but school board members Becky Gedimin-skas, Jeff Rutkowski and Del Nolfi all stated that they were voting no specifically on the retention of the girls' soccer coaches.

An unknown number of soccer parents had submitted a letter to the board asking them to open the position because of objections to elements of Ferry's coaching.

The parents requested that their names be kept anonymous by the district, a request that the district honored. Some parents had also petitioned against Ferry during his reappointment in early 2007.

At the board's Jan. 14 meeting, former soccer parent Dave Penska acted as a spokesperson for the group. Penska did not attend this week's meeting.

While the lack of public comment this time around made if difficult to judge the opinions of the people in the room, Ferry said he knows 18 people came to the meeting to support him.

"I was very pleased with the number of people who showed up," said Ferry, who added that he looked forward to coaching again next season. "A positive outcome obviously is appreciated."

The girls socceer team finished the fall season with a 12-2 section record, losing both games to Penn-Trafford. The Lady Knights lost in the quarterfinal round of the WPIAL playoffs.