From the BCCT.
Council reviews drainage project
By: JAMES MCGINNIS
Bucks County Courier Times
Township officials say the Eddington section needs a drainage basin because its storm system is old. A Democratic activist blamed area flooding on overdevelopment.
At Monday night's Bensalem Council meeting, engineers outlined an early stage plan for a soccer-field-sized drainage basin that could reduce flooding in the Eddington section.
Carroll Engineering representative Thomas Crawley said a 10-foot deep basin located on school property behind Cornwells Elementary School could reduce the flood risk for as many as 850 homes. The basin would be located closest to Cornwells Avenue and Hulmeville Road.
Crawley said it was too early to estimate the cost of the project.
Bensalem would need to first secure the land from the school district. The council took no immediate action Monday night.
Mayor Joseph DiGirolamo said the school board was currently reviewing the plan. DiGirolamo, who ordered the engineering work, said the Eddington basin "is a major project for a major problem."
Carroll Engineering attributed the flooding in the Eddington section to the age of the neighborhood.
Democratic activist Joe Kraher also said part of the problem can be tied to overdevelopment.
Members of council rejected that argument.
Councilman Joseph Szafran and Kraher got into a heated debate over the politics of flooding and development in Bensalem. The argument ended as Council President Ed Kisselback hollered, "Stop! Stop! Stop right now!"
Councilman Bryan Allen, the lone Democrat on the township council, questioned why plans for the Eddington basin were available on the Web site of the Bensalem Republican Executive Committee but not on the township's Web site.
The plans are public information and were offered to the public during a recent school board meeting, Kisselback said. Township officials said they would try to put the plans on the government Web site soon.
April 14, 2009 02:00 AM
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
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From today's BCCT. I think he may have walked 12 miles to school, uphill, both ways .....
Look back to go forward: How to cut school expenses
By: LESLIE R. HADLEY
Bucks County Courier Times
A recent article about the Pennsbury School District noted that nearly 26 percent of taxpayers have children in the school system and they don't want services cut. Put another way, 75 percent of us DO NOT have children in the system and would love to have costs maintained or, at least, not increased.
One idea stated was to cut down on bus costs. For example, why is there a stream of buses running between the two high schools? The buses are largely empty; most of the kids walk.
There seems to be two solutions to this situation. One obvious thing is to reallocate room resources; let the subjects be taught in the building where the students are. The other, and I can hear the groans, let the teachers go to the kids. It would be much cheaper to move a few teachers than entire classrooms of students. When I was in school, the music teacher and the art teacher went to the various schools; no one thought it to be an imposition.
Of course, the time frame and location of my schooling was far different than today. Money was not abundant and parents would not tolerate their children criticizing the teacher. The teachers were respected and also were glad to have the job.
If anyone even thought of a teachers union or a strike, they would have been laughed out of town. Teachers in grades one through six (kindergartens were not paid for by taxpayers) taught multiple grades. Grades one and two were in one room, three and four in another and grades five and six in a third room. The teacher of the latter room was also the school principal and disciplinarian. There were no aides, and, at recess, the students arranged their own games.
The PTA bought balls and jump ropes and marbles, and we took care of the games ourselves. The end of recess was signaled by the clanging of a bell. Having two classes in a room afforded kids the opportunity to listen to the class ahead and learn, and so "double promotions" were not unheard of.
Nowadays, salaries constitute a large share of the school budget. I have always thought that the teachers pay should be based on the average income of the taxpayers of a school district. The argument is that the good teachers would not like that. I say that a good teacher would demand and get pay commensurate with his or her ability to teach and would go to a district that could pay for his talents. Such a system, if statewide, would shortly provide for the teachers to be of equal quality in all districts.
I am not a teacher, but not ignorant of their problems. My sister taught in private schools and in public schools as a music supervisor. My wife was an instructional aide working with special education students. One daughter teaches fourth grade. And a granddaughter, following in her grandmother's footsteps, also teaches special education. The two are teaching in different districts and it is amazing the variance in pay and benefits.
I am not anti-teacher - far from it. I admire the work they do trying to help youngsters. I am not a fan of some of the administrators, with their pie-in-the-sky attitude, and some of the school board members who apparently are afraid of the teachers union. Board members do not get paid, so they have nothing to lose. Afraid some of the teachers might quit? Not on your life. With tenure assuring them of their jobs, they are not about to leave, unless offered a nice increase in pay someplace else.
April 14, 2009 02:00 AM
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Rebecca , 04-14-09, 4:01 am | Rate: 0 | Report
http://www.timeforchangepennsbury.blo...
Why did the board spend $22,000 this past fall of taxpayer money to fund a study of only 501 residents out of a population of 73,000 with flawed parameters?
Half (52.8% vs 47.2%) of those suveyed had children under 18 so it was not even representative of the population of taxpayers of 25% as mentioned this editorial and many times in this newspaper. Wouldn't they want the survey sample to be representative of the population?
The district has adopted many fads in the past few years that are not working. It is time to look at what is working and what is not and get back to basics that work. Here are a few that are prime candidates to be revisited or just outright eliminated: Block scheduling, 30 minute block “recess before lunch” instead of traditional staggered recess before lunch
high school "unification" that causes the busing of students between classes as mentioned by this writer, new math & expensive unproven curriculums like spelling without repetition or correction or practice or phonics, de-valuing of homework.
yb, 04-14-09, 9:16 am | Rate: 0 | Report
We will remove wasteful spending from the $180 million budget. Homeowners, especially seniors, cannot afford 5%-10% annual tax hikes. As the people paying the bill, you deserve representation on the school board that sets 80% of your property taxes.
http://www.betterpennsbury.com
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