“This is ridiculous.”

Here's a background article on Wednesday night's meeting from the BCCT this morning.

Raucous? That's mild understatement. It started in the past with an extremely hostile audience led by those same people who now grace the dais. Soda cans and food packages made their start here too, provided back then by the stop the school side as a disruption for the pro school board members. The change in board majority ensured that the practice would eventually shift over to the other side now.

The food thing is a little over the top from BOTH sides. A quiet drink or small snack might be in order. After all, these are four or five hours marathons, but the practice THEN and the practice NOW of using these snacks as disruptive tools is childish at best.

The identification of the Hellmann-Radosti-Mihok voting axis is accurate but is missing a few members. Brenda Worob and Bill Farrell talk a big game about "independence" and "self-directed thought", but in the end come down on the short-sighted side far more often than a true "independent" would.

Jack Buckman has had an issue with late night meetings through his borough council days, so this is not a new position for him. I would like to know how he had enough information about the budget to be able to cast a vote approving it. Was he aware that he can be held PERSONALLY liable for civil damages as a result of his vote?

Until this school board remembers that they are NOT the local board of taxation, but the SCHOOL board, we're in for more late night meeting follies. The irony is that the Emperor and his accomplices themselves have created the firestorm they find themselves enmeshed in. When they were in the audience, they discarded reasoned discourse and discussion in favor of shouting, screaming, and outright mis-characterization of facts to make their points. Now that they are in charge, the wheel of karma has spun and they are now reaping what they have sowed in terms of audience behavior.

I'd like to say that the anti-board audience is wrong (and in the real world they are!), but it's also the only language these yahoos on the dais understand. Confrontation, maximum disruption, and agitation are their signatures. IRONY ALERT: We've elected a board largely made up of the village idiots to control the schools where we educate our young. And we did it only because we wanted to save a few bucks.

They also never, ever, even to this day, thought about a long term plan and released it to the public. "Stop the school" was all they had. They did it. Now what? I've been asking that question for almost a year now and silence is still the only response. Has it occurred to the Emperor and the board of accomplices that if they dialed back the angry rhetoric a bit and actually opened their mouths to EXPLAIN, that the results would be better?

"Those sitting near the front could hear Yonson say under her breath, 'This is ridiculous.' ” Oh, no, Dr. Yonson. Ridiculous is still a few miles down this pothole riddled highway. We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses...

Raucous atmosphere at school board meeting

By MANASEE WAGH
Bucks County Courier Times

Morrisville meetings are known for their raucous mud-slinging. But Wednesday's meeting was one for the books.

From the shortening of Superintendent Elizabeth Yonson's contract from five to three years to the board president's proposal of across-the-board hiring freezes in the district, diehards on both sides of the issues stuck it out to watch events unfold past midnight.

One spectator started singing “It's the end of the school as we know it,” to the tune of rock band REM's “It's the End of the World as We Know It.”

At least eight people stood at the microphone to protest the board majority's decision to cut Yonson's five-year contract. Some said it was “a slap in the face” and “an insult.”

The routine replacement of aides and teachers who leave the district became fuel for a debate that raged for more than an hour.

Board President William Hellmann got worked up over hiring new staff. To save money, he suggested a hiring freeze, which elicited gaping mouths and stares of disbelief from administrators and boos from audience members.

Yonson explained that the employees are necessary, that they fulfilled vital educational functions, helping to make significant academic gains in the last couple of years.

For example, elementary math performances have risen in the past couple of years. This year's raw unofficial PSSA data shows considerable improvement in 11th-grade scores, from 11 percent proficiency to 55 percent proficiency, said Yonson.

“Do not expect to have the same results if we reduce staff,” she said.

Hellmann's determination to freeze hirings stems from the district's teachers contract, which stipulates a roughly 12:1 student to staff ratio.

Though most general classes are more than 20 students in size, according to Yonson, some kids who need particular help have more aides or teachers.

The bottom line for some board members was the ratio, though.

“It's too much. It's a problem,” was Hellmann's constant refrain about the number of staff needed to teach fewer than 1,000 students and run the district at an annual cost of $19.88 million.

“Our budget's way too high,” he said repeatedly.

Residents who didn't like what Hellmann had to say settled back with containers of goodies, opening them loudly and rumpling them during Hellmann's remarks.

The approximately 75 spectators filling the meeting room in Morrisville's high school during the five-hour meeting seemed as if they were a sporting event.

They booed and cheered repeatedly depending on who was talking.

Some demanded that Hellmann be heard. Others talked over him.

In the end, at least some of the votes did swing toward staff replacements, though Hellmann and board members Marlys Mihok and Alfred Radosti tended to vote against them. Their practice of siding together on just about every vote prompted a resident to demand that the board not “follow the leader.”

Throughout the noisy meeting, Hellmann and opposing board member Robin Reithmeyer drowned each other out, and Hellmann seemed to turn a deaf ear to Yonson's explanations of how the school system works.

Those sitting near the front could hear Yonson say under her breath, “This is ridiculous.”

John Buckman, who replaced the late Edward Frankenfield on the board last week, thought the meeting dragged on too long.

“It was way too long, that's crazy. If I was getting paid and paid by the hour, maybe I wouldn't care,” he said Friday, chuckling. “We've got to find a way to cut the time.”

Buckman, a former school director and borough councilman, said taking so much time is unfair to board members and the public. But he noted asking questions and airing grievances is good. He believes it's valuable to be up-front and communicate.

However, the board and the administration seem to clash frequently.

“In politics, forget it. It's just that way,” said Buckman. “They talk the subject over and over and over. You're not going to get away from it totally.”