From the BCCT. Anyone else have news from the meeting?
Downsizing the district in 3...2...
Grades 4-12 will be in same building
The restructuring decision is a safeguard against the possibility of Reiter being closed or being too damaged to open for the fall semester, said acting interim Superintendent William Ferrara.
By MANASEE WAGH
Morrisville students in grades four and up will share a building starting next year. The school board voted 6-2 to reconfigure the district Wednesday evening, with members Joseph Kemp and Gloria Heater opposed. Students in grades four to eight would attend an “intermediate school” in the Morrisville Middle/Senior High School, set apart from grades nine to 12, which would continue their schooling in the same building. Grades four to six would be separate from grades seven and eight.
Grandview Elementary would house grades pre-K to three.
Up to $7 million will be invested in renovating the two buildings.
The plan doesn’t call for new construction, but will partly rearrange the use of current spaces, said acting interim Superintendent William Ferrara.
Plans are still preliminary, but he said the administration discussed separating different grade levels in the high school by putting doors in between building sections.
Board member Kemp thought the vote was too premature because neither he nor the public had seen specific and detailed plans for how the facilities would be restructured. He wanted to table the vote and hold it until a later time, but his suggestion was defeated. Board President William Hellmann said he’s pleased with the plan. Community members expressed concern regarding the restructuring before the board has voted on whether or not to close its third school, M.R. Reiter Elementary. Parent John Perry called it “putting the cart before the horse.” About a month ago, the district held a public forum to discuss the possibility of closing Reiter, which was temporarily closed in December after a furnace explosion. The building was damaged badly enough that its students had to be relocated to other district buildings, where they remain. Some will move to modular units on the property of Grandview Elementary this year.
By law, the board has to wait 90 days after the public hearing to vote on closing Reiter.
However, the restructuring proposal is distinct from Reiter, said district solicitor Michael Fitzpatrick.
“The issue came up under the initiative of the superintendent. It’s a separate issue from Reiter,” he said.
If the district ends up keeping Reiter and it is repaired, students may be moved back there at some point, board members said.
For now, the administration is simply being proactive by planning to move all the students into Grandview and the high school building this fall, Ferrara said.
“If Reiter is not ready, we won’t be scrambling around,” he said. If the board decides to close it permanently, then the restructuring plan gives the district a place to put the 250 Reiter students, he said.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
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9 comments:
There's always way too much material, but here are a few quick items, hopefully more to come if I'm motivated:
W. Ferrara - thanked a whole host of people during MRReiter furnace explosion/musical classrooms/modular shuffle period. Claimed something like "never once were the kids not given a quality education" during this time. Said he wanted modulars sooner but dropped the ball on communications and he shoulders the responsibility for the delay, and Bob Seward saved the day in keeping the modulars relatively on-schedule.
T. Gesualdi - the recent Special Ed. audit only found "only a few minor procedural flaws with documents". He's proud to be here.
Kindergarten registration will be 9-11 am and 1-2:30 pm on Mar. 4-6 in the LGI.
M. Coasullo sort of barged onto the agenda before public comment began (which apparently, unlike other public speaking infractions, is OK, because he's a Hellmann Board supporter) to say that the 501(c)(3) now has 4 officers: he's Acting Chair, Jane Burger's Acting Co-Chair, and Gayle Haug (I forget her title) and Darletta Berry-Johnson (Communications...) are the others.
They (all present but Joe Kemp and Gloria Heater) voted for the restructuring "idea" - the use of the word "plan" is misleading - I don't think it's even written down on a cocktail napkin. W. Ferrara gave a short confusing non-enlightening talk about the "Brown and White areas of the floor" (if you know what this means, please tell me), moving science rooms, H-16 and back, F-Hall, crash doors for Grades 4-6. No discussion of Grandview at all, no pictures, slides, nothing written, quite lame. No description or explanation of space utilization/configurations, how educational programs won't be affected.
Joe Kemp's wise motion to table this vote until he and the board could actually see some actual information on the "idea" was naturally soundly defeated.
The recent "asbestos incident" was just great, everyone did everything perfectly, drilling tiny tiny holes into the ceiling was just a mistake, it couldn't possbily have been preventable, there's asbestos in car brakepads, it's everywhere, no big deal, according to Sharon Hughes.
Funny (strange, not ha ha), that all kinds of horrible outcomes were predicted by opponents of the new K-12 campus, including, but not limited to:
1. West Nile Virus outbreaks from standing water in detention basin;
2. Kidney injuries from handlebar collisions;
3. Flooding that would stagger Noah;
4. Carcinogenic radon gas seeping from the ground into formerly pink and healthy lungs.
Also according to Sharon Hughes, school board members aren't rude when they appear to be distracted, not listening, or possibly even sleeping when people, usually parents, are commenting during public session. Some people just listen better when their eyes are closed/rolling into the back of their heads, fiddling with briefcase latches, carrying on conversations with other board members, staring off into deep space, etc.
To some people, "hypocrisy" has no meaning, but "apologist" sure does.
The board voted to modify Mr. Gesualdi's employment contract to pay more of his health care costs. Hellmann tried to rush the vote without discussion or public comment. Public comment was allowed, but of course it made no difference.
Sounds like it'll cost about $340/month, a little over $4,000/yr. I have nothing against Mr. Gesualdi, maybe he's doing a great job, maybe not, I don't know. I certainly don't trust this board's opinion on this. Their opinion is probably based almost exclusively on whether he's knocking Special Ed. costs down more than his predecessor.
But it doesn't seem fair or right to me do this in these tough economic times, and after recently stiffing Dr. Yonson on her contract. Plus, didn't his employment contract just start in like July 2008, like 7 months ago? With his experience, shouldn't he have negotiated the best deal he could up-front, just a short 7 mos. ago? And, as usual, the Board didn't explain anything about it, just rush rush rush, vote vote vote.
Marlys Mihok read a prepared statement in response to my comments at the 1/5/09 Special Board meeting in which I referred to her mentioning at the 12/11/08 joint Boro Council-School Board meeting that she has been taking pictures of students for several years (3 I think she said, but she's been watching them for 15).
She alleged that I deliberately twisted her pure and virtuous motives for taking the pictures (the better to present to the "Public Safety Officer" to identify the student offenders who walk in the middle of the streets - all in the name of the safety and well-being of the children). That, and the audience's "ooooo'ing" in response to my remarks caused her to feel positively branded as a pedophile. She alleged that I have hit an all time low, even for me, a disgruntled school board election loser, and any candidates who run for school board who aren't Grade A Prime Mihok Choice are puppets of me, or something like that.
I could say a lot more, but the main things I learned from her statement were:
1. She actually is capable of responding to public comments, when she wants to, which is not very often;
2. Like the Board meeting minutes she was responsible for producing as Board Secretary (until the Board hired someone at taxpayer expense to relieve her), her response was considerably late.
"If the district ends up keeping Reiter and it is repaired, students may be moved back there at some point, board members said."
R.I.P. M.R.R.
Also, the Board voted to hire Vitetta for $165,000 for "infrastructure upgrades" at Grandview (GV).
The various Vitetta letters associated with this vote are quite confusing, and seem to indicate that there has been a lot of float in the scope and cost estimates, and hence in Vittetta's fees, which are usually based on a % of the total project cost.
Even Vitetta's 2/18/09 letter says "because the scope of these projects has been so 'liquid' it was very hard to nail down just how much work Vitetta would be required to perform...". Gee, I wonder why......?
They obviously settled at $165,000 in Vitetta fees, which is described in Vitetta's 2/18/09 letter as 8% of the total GV project cost.
When I do the math, $165,000 is 8% of $2,062,500. However, previous GV cost estimates always seemed to be $2.6 million (Vitetta's 2/18/09 letter mentions $2.5 million, but that's the 1st time I've seen that figure).
What's my point?
Well, I wonder what items (i.e. repairs, upgrades, renovations, whatever you want to call them) were dropped from the GV scope of work to reduce the project cost by $500,000-600,000??? Anything important? Asbestos abatement/removal perhaps?
What's my other point?
Was any of this mentioned or discussed before the board voted to forge ahead?
NO.
I barely recall any discussion at all before the vote. Was there any?
This is my main problem with this Board majority - they don't think things through, they don't ask good questions, they don't answer questions, they don't do anything resembling due diligence, and they don't care that they don't. I guess that's really more than one problem.
Nice use of algebra, Jon.
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