Any news from the special board meeting?
The BCCT has a front page above-the-fold story.
Boiler room blast closes school
“It was pretty bad. It blew out the windows,” a school official said.
By DANNY ADLER
M.R. Reiter Elementary students in Morrisville have off today and the school building is closed until at least Jan. 5 after a weekend explosion in the school’s furnace room, according to district officials. Officials hope to have all students back in class at other schools and alternative sites Tuesday.
The late Saturday night explosion, damaging only the furnace room, followed several troublesome days dealing with the faulty furnace. No one was hurt in the blast.
An oil odor first spread through the school Wednesday afternoon. The odor recurred Thursday morning, students were sent home and the school remained closed on Friday. A new pump was installed but the hot-air furnace exploded after 10 p.m. Saturday.
“It was pretty bad. It blew out the windows,” said Tim Lastichen, district facilities director.
Morrisville School District’s administration will work today to finalize plans to put kids in other schools, it was announced at an emergency school board meeting Sunday night.
Morrisville schools Superintendent Elizabeth Yonson said she wants a “smooth transition” in getting the kids back in the classroom.
A tentative plan proposed by Yonson at Sunday’s meeting inside the Morrisville Middle/Senior High School called for pre-kindergarten classes to be held at the Morrisville YMCA. First graders could resume their classes in the Middle/Senior High School’s library and H hall with second graders in the D hall. (First and second graders will not move through the school’s halls between periods, officials said.) M.R. Reiter’s kindergarten classes could go to Grandview Elementary, according to the plan.
Yonson said the administration still has to talk to teachers. Officials hope all the details can be sorted out today. When they are, the alternative school sites will be posted on the district’s Web site, www.mv.org and cable access channel 26. A phone blast will also go out to all families with M.R. Reiter students, officials said.
According to the district’s Web site, “The school will be closed until it has been determined that it is safe for students and staff to return.”
Dozens of parents and residents attended the meeting Sunday night. Some said these problems have existed for years, even decades.
“You have no regard for the safety of our children” Ann Perry told the board.
Monday, December 15, 2008
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11 comments:
thank God nobody was hurt
(12/15/2008 )
now lets raise everyone's taxes and buy a gold plated boiler, it's "for the children." By the way BCCT print the test scores from M.R. Reiter
THE above was Posted on the BCCT site. I am amazed at the ignorance of some people!
The furnace's solenoid was installed in 1979, during the Carter Administration, the year Skylab fell back to earth, and towards the end of the Disco Era. According to Bill Farrell, furnace pressures built up from 200 psi to 300 psi, still a small fraction of the 1800-2000 psi punches registered by Drago in Rocky IV (1985, some 6 years after the solenoid was installed), but enough to blow out some boiler room windows. 1 pound per square inch (psi) = 6.89475729 kilopascals (kPa) in the metric system. The D Hall rooms that the 2nd graders wil be stuffed into are D11, D13, D17, & D19. 11, 13, 17, and 19 are all prime numbers, something I learned about in school. That's about it.
From BCCT on-line. No classes Tuesday.
M.R. Reiter students will not have classes Tuesday, official says
Posted in News on Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 4:08 pm by Courier Times staff writer Danny Adler
A Morrisville school official said Monday that M.R. Reiter school students will not return to classes Tuesday.
Officials have a plan to put the M.R. Reiter students at other district schools and sites as the elementary school’s building is closed until at least Jan. 5.
The school has been closed since Thursday. However, a furnace room explosion Saturday night forced the district to close the school until it’s safe for students and staff.
From Friday's BCCT on-line. I don't recall seeing this on ther blog, so sorry if it's here somewhere and this is a duplicate.
Air quality to be inspected at Reiter Elementary
Posted in News on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 11:36 am by Courier Times reporter Manasee Wagh
An air quality inspection will look for any harmful air particles before allowing students to reenter M.R. Reiter Elementary School on Monday morning.The school was closed for a day and a half after a faulty fuel pump in an old boiler caused oily fumes throughout the building.
While there was no danger to students or staff, the odor was very unpleasant, said Superintendent Elizabeth Yonson. She ordered the school to be evacuated on Wednesday afternoon when the odor first started. Despite a temporary fix, school was closed early Thursday when the odor reappeared.
It remained closed on Friday while a new fuel pump was installed and the building was aired out, said Tim Lastichen, the district’s director of facilities.
“The inspection is an extra precaution to let the teachers and parents know we’re doing all we can,” he said.
School board members are waiting for engineering and architectural firm Vitetta to deliver a detailed engineering report about needed renovations in the district’s two elementary schools.
I'm confused... Rocky was in Skylab when it fell on Reiter's boiler?
It was the 70s. Strange days indeed.
The worst part about it was that Rocky didn't have a Black Seal Boiler license, which is a New Jersey, not Pennsylvania, license pertaining to boilers (combustion devices that produce steam or hot water), and not furnaces (devices that produce hot air like Ron Stout).
Most peculiar, mama
From today's Phila. Inquirer:
School boards wary of state health insurance
By Martha Raffaele
Associated Press
HARRISBURG - The spiraling cost of health care is a constant lament of Pennsylvania school boards whenever they draw up their annual budgets.
Their consternation, however, wasn't enough to overcome their skepticism during the 2007-08 legislative session about a proposal that Gov. Rendell said could reduce those expenses - and rein in property-tax increases.
With great fanfare, Rendell in September 2007 advocated legislation to create a special benefits board to look into establishing a statewide health-insurance plan for all of the state's school districts. A handful of other states have adopted similar approaches.
A bill was introduced in the House, but it stalled in committee and died when the General Assembly's session concluded last month.
A statewide plan would help control school employee health-benefit costs by spreading the risk more widely, managing benefits better, and lowering school administrative costs, Rendell said. In a trade-off, employee unions would give up the right to bargain for better health-insurance benefits during contract negotiations.
Rendell has said school districts spend about $1.5 billion annually on medical and prescription-drug insurance, or $1 out of every $6 in school property taxes collected. A 2004 legislative study said school districts could save up to $585 million a year, and more in later years, under a statewide insurance plan.
Many districts now buy individual group policies, while some districts have formed regional insurance-buying consortiums and others buy separate policies for professional and service employees.
House Democrats, who control the flow of legislation in that chamber, didn't advance the measure because of resistance from their home school districts, said Bob Caton, a caucus spokesman.
"Members heard from their districts that they were already participating in a regional group insurance program and were afraid their costs would increase and benefits lessen," Caton said.
Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo called that argument a "stalling tactic."
"From a business perspective, the opposite makes far more sense: If we aggregate our purchasing power, we can buy more for less money," he said. "The truth is that we won't know for sure until we get the data, and that's why the bill makes it possible to determine whether it's feasible to run a statewide system and - if it is - launch it."
Although Rendell has said the state would pay up to half of the year-to-year increase in health-insurance premiums, the bill imposes certain limits, said Jay Himes, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials.
"When you look at the details, the state's share is capped," Himes said. "So, if in a year there gets to be extraordinary rate increases, then school districts are left holding the financial bag."
The Pennsylvania School Boards Association saw problems with the benefits board's composition, lobbyist Tim Allwein said.
The House bill initially called for a 12-member board, drawing four members each from unionized school employees and school boards; the other members would have been the budget secretary, education secretary, secretary of administration, and insurance commissioner.
But later versions of the bill expanded the board's membership to 20 and gave school employees 10 seats; the other half would have gone to school board members, state officials and lawmakers.
"If you essentially have a plan where you've got employees calling the shots regarding their benefits, you're not going to get a plan that saves the most money," Allwein said.
The Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, supported the legislation. Association president James Testerman said his group did not push for expanding union membership on the board.
Testerman also disputed PSBA's contention that the union would hold sway over the board. Testerman noted that the state also has a role as a school employer, and the board would include legislative members.
Additionally, any decision to implement either a statewide plan or an alternative plan to reduce health-care costs would require at least 15 votes under the bill.
"Even if all of labor sticks together, they still need to go and find five other votes," Testerman said.
Ardo said the administration expects to renew its push in the upcoming legislative session that begins in January.
Ultimately, the community has failed the schools.
The people have spoken!
Everyone (even Ron S) has now acknowledged that this has been an ongoing problem for many years. Engineers have for years stated that the systems have far exceeded their useful lives.
Even after the events of the weekend, the current board majority, I believe, has no interest in properly renovating.
The people have spoken!
Alas, Morrisville, I do not hold this Board responsible for this weekend's explosion. It was bound to happen given the years of neglect (even with reasonable upkeep by the maintenance staff). It would have happened no matter who was sitting on the dais last night. I do, however, fault the board majority for not having a real plan after a full year on that dais.
The people have spoken!
I do fault the board majority for their self-righteous repugnance for answering our questions.
We're trying!
I'm not sure why you people don't think we have a plan!
The people have spoken!
The people have spoken!
The only saving grace to all this is that it happened on a Saturday night and that no one was hurt.
These buildings have failed us because we the community have failed them.
So, Mr. Hellmann, if the plan is to shutter Reiter (AND Grandview?), now's your opportunity. But expect lots of questions about how the high school can support elementary kids in its current condition (it can't) and how you plan to renovate to support the combined grades and ensure their safety. You wanted to be in charge. Now you're accountable.
The people have spoken!
The people have spoken!
The people have spoken!
The people have spoken!
THESE BUILDINGS HAVE FAILED US BECAUSE WE THE COMMUNITY HAVE FAILED THEM.
Strange days have found us
Strange days have tracked us down
Theyre going to destroy
Our casual joys
We shall go on playing
Or find a new town
Yeah!
Strange eyes fill strange rooms
Voices will signal their tired end
The hostess is grinning
Her guests sleep from sinning
Hear me talk of sin
And you know this is it
Yeah!
Strange days have found us
And through their strange hours
We linger alone
Bodies confused
Memories misused
As we run from the day
To a strange night of stone
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