Parents in Susquehanna Township School District feel hopeful

(Susquehanna Township) -- The Susquehanna Township School District has dealt with controversy for some time now.

But with a change at the top coming, parents are sounding hopeful.

With the school district's board acting to accept Susan Kegerise's resignation this week, parents say they see things moving forward.

When the decision was announced, a cheer went up at the meeting Monday.

Brian Long has two kids in the district: one in middle school, and one in high school.

"It's gonna take some time. It's gonna take some time to dig out. There is certainly a long standing tradition of quality education here and the people that live here are not going to give that up," says Long.

He says he thinks more parents have gotten involved because of the issues, and that's brought more transparency to the school board.

"We have frank discussions about it. Like many parents, we've thought about moving out of the district," he says. "(Monday) shows us that something positive is happening, they're listening to us, and hopefully, we'll just keep going in a positive direction."

From a former assistant principal accused of sexual relations with a student to the most recent $6 million federal lawsuit filed by its now former superintendent, little of the stories out of the district have been positive in the past few months.

The district still has to do battle in court over the lawsuit however, and is increasing its legal fees budget for fiscal year 2014-2015 from $60,000 to $100,000 to meet the cost. The district spent nearly $200,000 in fiscal year 2013-2014 on legal fees.