Editorial from the BCCT this morning. They make the rhetorical statement, "Board should have sought an authoritative opinion before writing a check."
The Emperor can spend as he pleases and the opinions are as authoritative as he deems at the time. He used a contractor-admitted cursory building review to authorize building repair work that wasn't even completely necessary.
Then there's the line, "Answering questions in a public forum tends to have a purifying effect." It does, and it works in both directions. The BOARD needs to respond to the same questions and have the same accountability to the public.
Burning tax money?
Board should have sought an authoritative opinion before writing a check.
Since when does the Bristol Township school board have money to burn?
Board members voted this week to spend $90,000 for a union contractor to paint various parts of three schools — and have it done before classes begin in September. The about face decision followed last month’s vote against outsourcing the painting work after a representative for the district’s in-house maintenance workers told select board members that the guys on the payroll could get the job done.
What happened?
Apparently, board members opposed to paying a contractor were convinced that the inhouse crew of 21 covering 13 schools couldn’t get the job done before September. That maintenance workers were unable to complete last year’s summer projects list offers some reason to question the behind-the scenes assurance and, perhaps, evidence that the board made the right decision. Still, a spokesman for the maintenance workers said the in-house crew could handle it.
In the interest of accuracy and full disclosure, the board should have required the maintenance boss to sit before the full board at a regular meeting attended by citizens and say definitively if the in-house workers could get the job done or not. Answering questions in a public forum tends to have a purifying effect.
That’s the least the board should have done before voting to spend 90 grand on work the district might have been able to do at no additional cost to taxpayers.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Centennial Rebukes Their President/Emperor Trainee
Sheep on the Centennial board? Perhaps not. "...board members expressed concern that Monaghan made the directive without the issue first being considered by the full board. 'He has no authority to do that. He should know that just because you are president doesn’t mean you can do things unilaterally. You have no more power than other board members,' Vice President Cynthia Mueller said."
On our board, those same complaints go unheeded and unchecked. The Emperor continues his autocratic rule out of his personal accounting offices, inviting only a few sheepish cronies to share information at his pleasure and whim.
Added signs questioned
The full board never discussed including 30 advertising signs in its zoning board application for a scoreboard at Claude Lodge Field, officials said.
By JOAN HELLYER
Centennial school board members want to know why their board president allegedly directed a district employee to make an addition to a zoning board application without their knowledge.
The application is for the new Coca-Cola scoreboard at Claude Lodge Field behind William Tennent High School in Warminster.
Without the other school directors’ knowledge, board President Michael Monaghan allegedly told Centennial Director of Facilities Vic Lasher to add 30 signs for Tennent’s baseball field to the application.
Some board members said they learned of the addition during a recent Rotary meeting, when Monaghan discussed the advertising signs. They brought it up during the board’s operations committee meeting Tuesday night.
“It’s embarrassing that we did not know about the signs,” board member Jane Schrader Lynch said.
Monaghan didn’t attend the committee meeting because he was representing the district at the Bucks County Schools Intermediate Unit #22 meeting in Doylestown.
The Courier Times was unsuccessful this week in its attempts to reach Monaghan for comment despite calls made to his Warminster home and messages sent to his district e-mail address.
Board members said their first concern is that the addition to the application might jeopardize approval of the 36-foot-by-24-foot Coca-Cola scoreboard. It’s scheduled to be installed in the newly renovated sports facility Aug. 15.
In addition, board members expressed concern that Monaghan made the directive without the issue first being considered by the full board.
“He has no authority to do that. He should know that just because you are president doesn’t mean you can do things unilaterally. You have no more power than other board members,” Vice President Cynthia Mueller said.
Board members Joseph Simpson and Thomas Reinboth said they didn’t want to discuss the issue any further until they had a chance to hear from Monaghan.
The school directors expect to discuss the signs again during an Aug. 11 finance committee meeting, Mueller said. At that time, they’ll decide whether to direct Lasher to remove the signs from the application before district officials seek the Warminster zoning board’s approval for the scoreboard on Aug. 13, she said.
On our board, those same complaints go unheeded and unchecked. The Emperor continues his autocratic rule out of his personal accounting offices, inviting only a few sheepish cronies to share information at his pleasure and whim.
Added signs questioned
The full board never discussed including 30 advertising signs in its zoning board application for a scoreboard at Claude Lodge Field, officials said.
By JOAN HELLYER
Centennial school board members want to know why their board president allegedly directed a district employee to make an addition to a zoning board application without their knowledge.
The application is for the new Coca-Cola scoreboard at Claude Lodge Field behind William Tennent High School in Warminster.
Without the other school directors’ knowledge, board President Michael Monaghan allegedly told Centennial Director of Facilities Vic Lasher to add 30 signs for Tennent’s baseball field to the application.
Some board members said they learned of the addition during a recent Rotary meeting, when Monaghan discussed the advertising signs. They brought it up during the board’s operations committee meeting Tuesday night.
“It’s embarrassing that we did not know about the signs,” board member Jane Schrader Lynch said.
Monaghan didn’t attend the committee meeting because he was representing the district at the Bucks County Schools Intermediate Unit #22 meeting in Doylestown.
The Courier Times was unsuccessful this week in its attempts to reach Monaghan for comment despite calls made to his Warminster home and messages sent to his district e-mail address.
Board members said their first concern is that the addition to the application might jeopardize approval of the 36-foot-by-24-foot Coca-Cola scoreboard. It’s scheduled to be installed in the newly renovated sports facility Aug. 15.
In addition, board members expressed concern that Monaghan made the directive without the issue first being considered by the full board.
“He has no authority to do that. He should know that just because you are president doesn’t mean you can do things unilaterally. You have no more power than other board members,” Vice President Cynthia Mueller said.
Board members Joseph Simpson and Thomas Reinboth said they didn’t want to discuss the issue any further until they had a chance to hear from Monaghan.
The school directors expect to discuss the signs again during an Aug. 11 finance committee meeting, Mueller said. At that time, they’ll decide whether to direct Lasher to remove the signs from the application before district officials seek the Warminster zoning board’s approval for the scoreboard on Aug. 13, she said.
School districts aren’t cutting summer programs
From the BCCT today.
School districts aren’t cutting summer programs
Across the country school districts are cutting them to save money, but not in Bucks.
FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
From coast to coast, tough financial conditions are forcing school districts and nonprofit groups to cut back on summer programs that are widely viewed as invaluable to both struggling and superior students.
But in Bucks, many district administrators on Wednesday said their summer programs and camps are running as scheduled with stable enrollment figures.
The casualties elsewhere include enrichment programs offering Mandarin and dance — as well as remedial programs in basic subjects designed to help children from low-income and disadvantaged homes avoid the so-called “summer slide” that often undermines their academic progress.
“Summer is a time when affluent kids advance and low-income kids suffer huge setbacks,” said Ron Fairchild, executive director of Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Summer Learning. “If kids aren’t engaged in ongoing learning activities, they lose ground academically.”
Fairchild also noted that summer programs are a source of free or low-cost meals for many disadvantaged children — meaning that cutbacks can have consequences for nutrition as well as learning.
Across the country, thousands of students are affected by cutbacks, ranging from Bethel, Conn., which axed its kindergarten summer program, to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, which is dropping summer school for elementary and middle school students.
Schools in Bucks County, though, reported that they’re hosting their usual number of summer courses and camps. In fact, Bensalem added a middle school level summer program to its agenda, officials said.
Bristol Township, Centennial, Council Rock, Morrisville, Neshaminy and Pennsbury school district officials also said they haven’t canceled any classes due to budget constraints. And although enrollment has slightly decreased in some schools, including in Bensalem and Neshaminy, other programs in those districts have attracted stable registration numbers, administrators said.
Several schools in Bucks County made cuts elsewhere in their budgets to save such programs. For example, officials closed Neshaminy Middle School to save money.
Other states, such as Florida and California, are making widespread cuts as a result of severe state budget woes.
In the city of Santa Rosa, Calif., about 1,580 high school students took summer school classes last year, but fewer than 300 will do so this year, according to Arlen Agapinan, the school district’s director of curriculum for secondary schools.
Trying to slash more than $2 million from its budget, the district is giving priority this summer to students needing help passing the high school exit exam and to seniors needing five or fewer credits to earn a diploma. That means no enrichment courses in subjects like Mandarin or creative writing — and none of the accelerated classes, which in the past had enabled good students to enhance their transcripts.
“We want to help everybody, but we’re handcuffed by the budget,” Agapinan said.
In Florida’s Bevard County, home to the Kennedy Space Center, the school district cut all of its free summer enrichment programs, which last year served some 1,700 students and included a popular course in criminal investigations. A few fee-based programs remain, but otherwise the summer session is focused almost entirely on remedial work for students who fared poorly on the state’s Comprehensive Assessment Test.
School districts aren’t cutting summer programs
Across the country school districts are cutting them to save money, but not in Bucks.
FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
From coast to coast, tough financial conditions are forcing school districts and nonprofit groups to cut back on summer programs that are widely viewed as invaluable to both struggling and superior students.
But in Bucks, many district administrators on Wednesday said their summer programs and camps are running as scheduled with stable enrollment figures.
The casualties elsewhere include enrichment programs offering Mandarin and dance — as well as remedial programs in basic subjects designed to help children from low-income and disadvantaged homes avoid the so-called “summer slide” that often undermines their academic progress.
“Summer is a time when affluent kids advance and low-income kids suffer huge setbacks,” said Ron Fairchild, executive director of Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Summer Learning. “If kids aren’t engaged in ongoing learning activities, they lose ground academically.”
Fairchild also noted that summer programs are a source of free or low-cost meals for many disadvantaged children — meaning that cutbacks can have consequences for nutrition as well as learning.
Across the country, thousands of students are affected by cutbacks, ranging from Bethel, Conn., which axed its kindergarten summer program, to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, which is dropping summer school for elementary and middle school students.
Schools in Bucks County, though, reported that they’re hosting their usual number of summer courses and camps. In fact, Bensalem added a middle school level summer program to its agenda, officials said.
Bristol Township, Centennial, Council Rock, Morrisville, Neshaminy and Pennsbury school district officials also said they haven’t canceled any classes due to budget constraints. And although enrollment has slightly decreased in some schools, including in Bensalem and Neshaminy, other programs in those districts have attracted stable registration numbers, administrators said.
Several schools in Bucks County made cuts elsewhere in their budgets to save such programs. For example, officials closed Neshaminy Middle School to save money.
Other states, such as Florida and California, are making widespread cuts as a result of severe state budget woes.
In the city of Santa Rosa, Calif., about 1,580 high school students took summer school classes last year, but fewer than 300 will do so this year, according to Arlen Agapinan, the school district’s director of curriculum for secondary schools.
Trying to slash more than $2 million from its budget, the district is giving priority this summer to students needing help passing the high school exit exam and to seniors needing five or fewer credits to earn a diploma. That means no enrichment courses in subjects like Mandarin or creative writing — and none of the accelerated classes, which in the past had enabled good students to enhance their transcripts.
“We want to help everybody, but we’re handcuffed by the budget,” Agapinan said.
In Florida’s Bevard County, home to the Kennedy Space Center, the school district cut all of its free summer enrichment programs, which last year served some 1,700 students and included a popular course in criminal investigations. A few fee-based programs remain, but otherwise the summer session is focused almost entirely on remedial work for students who fared poorly on the state’s Comprehensive Assessment Test.
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