From the BCCT.
Seniors can and should have a say. It's when the seniors have the complete and final say that there's a problem. The needs of the students and the parents need to be part of the balanced equation.
It's just not as simple as "Don't raise my taxes."
Seniors want say in contract talks
By RACHEL CANELLI
Residents can question their school board representatives.
Lower Southampton hopes to give senior citizens a voice in the ongoing Neshaminy teacher labor contract talks.
The township's Senior Task Force Board is hosting a public meeting in the Lower Southampton Library's community room this afternoon to let residents express concerns and seek answers to their questions from school board representatives Joseph Blasch and Kim Koutsouradis.
The teachers have been working without a contract since June and district administrators are projecting a $14 million deficit and a potential average tax increase of $500.
The gathering, which will also address the contract's effect on property taxes, is open to the public, according to former Neshaminy school board member Sue Barrett.
"We know that the school board's listening, but nobody's negotiating for us," said 68-year-old Cynthia Zengolewicz, chairwoman of the task force board. "We don't really feel that we're being heard as a people."
The goal of the informal session is to create a committee that will recommend solutions to the school board, Zengolewicz said.
The Neshaminy Federation of Teachers recently turned down the school board's proposed 3 percent salary increase, which includes step pay increases for longevity and education, and a requirement that teachers pay 15, 16 and 17 percent for health care premiums over a three-year contract, officials said.
The union countered with an offer seeking a 6 percent annual salary increase, including steps, and a continuation of the current health care package, with teachers not contributing anything to their premiums, administrators said.
Neshaminy, which operates 14 public schools in Middletown, Lower Southampton, Penndel, Langhorne Manor and Hulmeville, is the only district in Bucks County where employees pay nothing toward insurance premiums. Union members do pay $15 for doctor visits and $5 and $20 for generic and brand-name drugs, respectively, through Personal Choice, the district's human resources department reported.
District educator salaries start at an average of $51,976 after experience and education and top out at roughly $95,923. The average Neshaminy teacher's salary is $76,000, administrators said.
The salary and benefits for the district's staff, which includes more than 700 teachers, accounts for more than 80 percent of Neshaminy's budget, officials said.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Public hears options for future of district
From the BCCT.
Public hears options for future of district
The least expensive option could be almost half the cost of the most expensive — $100 million for a single elementary school building.
By MANASEE WAGH
Centennial’s six elementary schools could undergo $92.4 million in renovations in a few years.
Or they all might be closed, sold and replaced by a single, $100 million consolidated K-5 school serving more than 2,600 students in Upper Southampton, Warminster and Ivyland.
These are among 13 options presented to the public at a meeting this week of Centennial’s operations committee. At least 70 residents and teachers listened with concerned looks as a consultant presented the plans.
Each strives to save operational costs in the long run, make optimum use of current classrooms and spaces, and provides similar programs for all kindergarten through fifth-grade students, including full-day kindergarten, said board members.
The board has been considering improving the elementary schools for some time. Currently, the existing six schools underutilize space, according to feasibility studies prepared by the architectural design firm Burt Hill. Architect Michael Preston said Centennial could eliminate as many as 64 classrooms through consolidation.
At about 50 years old, existing elementary schools require renovations to bring them up to modern standards.
At the meeting Tuesday, large posters in the Everett McDonald Elementary School auditorium listed the positive and negative aspects of each plan. Options ranged from simply renovating each of the buildings to selling all of them and constructing a single building to house the district’s 2,633 elementary students. For planning purposes, architects are using a 10 percent higher population of 2,896 and a class size of 23.
Some residents opposed shutting down neighborhood schools. Many were skeptical of some options that would split students into different schools by grade.
“I think the ones where they split the kids is ridiculous,” said Patti McGorrey, the parent of two children at William W.H. Davis Elementary in Southampton. She wondered how to drop her kids off at different schools at the same time.
Operations committee and board member Mark Miller praised the idea of a single new building for about $100 million because it would save the district duplicate operational costs and duplicate facilities such as cafeterias and libraries, he said. The single building solution would cut down on the number of administrators and make it easier to provide the same services to all students.
Different grade levels in the building could be kept in separate wings, with common resources in the middle, Preston said.
At $55.6 million, the least expensive choice the board is considering is renovating four elementary schools. No new construction would be needed, and the remaining two schools would be closed and sold. Depending on which schools are closed, the cost to renovate the rest could raise the currently projected cost, architects said.
A sale could generate millions of dollars, though architects didn’t include that revenue in their cost projections. Former school properties could be turned into taxable residential sites, which would produce more income for the district, Preston said.
Each of the options is eligible for a state reimbursement of up to $9 million.
After Burt Hill’s presentation, the operations committee, administration officials and architects addressed dozens of community questions on a range of topics.
Some wondered how bus transportation would change, whether Centennial talked to other districts with similar elementary school designs, and how much money would be saved in the budget after the changes.
Board members said they will look for answers to many of the questions raised as they look more deeply into the options. The operations committee will continue discussions at its next public meeting at 6:30 p.m. on March 18.
Once the full board decides on a single plan, the design and construction process would take two to three years, said Preston.
Details of the 13 options in the Burt Hill study are posted on the district Web site, at www.centennialsd.org.
Public hears options for future of district
The least expensive option could be almost half the cost of the most expensive — $100 million for a single elementary school building.
By MANASEE WAGH
Centennial’s six elementary schools could undergo $92.4 million in renovations in a few years.
Or they all might be closed, sold and replaced by a single, $100 million consolidated K-5 school serving more than 2,600 students in Upper Southampton, Warminster and Ivyland.
These are among 13 options presented to the public at a meeting this week of Centennial’s operations committee. At least 70 residents and teachers listened with concerned looks as a consultant presented the plans.
Each strives to save operational costs in the long run, make optimum use of current classrooms and spaces, and provides similar programs for all kindergarten through fifth-grade students, including full-day kindergarten, said board members.
The board has been considering improving the elementary schools for some time. Currently, the existing six schools underutilize space, according to feasibility studies prepared by the architectural design firm Burt Hill. Architect Michael Preston said Centennial could eliminate as many as 64 classrooms through consolidation.
At about 50 years old, existing elementary schools require renovations to bring them up to modern standards.
At the meeting Tuesday, large posters in the Everett McDonald Elementary School auditorium listed the positive and negative aspects of each plan. Options ranged from simply renovating each of the buildings to selling all of them and constructing a single building to house the district’s 2,633 elementary students. For planning purposes, architects are using a 10 percent higher population of 2,896 and a class size of 23.
Some residents opposed shutting down neighborhood schools. Many were skeptical of some options that would split students into different schools by grade.
“I think the ones where they split the kids is ridiculous,” said Patti McGorrey, the parent of two children at William W.H. Davis Elementary in Southampton. She wondered how to drop her kids off at different schools at the same time.
Operations committee and board member Mark Miller praised the idea of a single new building for about $100 million because it would save the district duplicate operational costs and duplicate facilities such as cafeterias and libraries, he said. The single building solution would cut down on the number of administrators and make it easier to provide the same services to all students.
Different grade levels in the building could be kept in separate wings, with common resources in the middle, Preston said.
At $55.6 million, the least expensive choice the board is considering is renovating four elementary schools. No new construction would be needed, and the remaining two schools would be closed and sold. Depending on which schools are closed, the cost to renovate the rest could raise the currently projected cost, architects said.
A sale could generate millions of dollars, though architects didn’t include that revenue in their cost projections. Former school properties could be turned into taxable residential sites, which would produce more income for the district, Preston said.
Each of the options is eligible for a state reimbursement of up to $9 million.
After Burt Hill’s presentation, the operations committee, administration officials and architects addressed dozens of community questions on a range of topics.
Some wondered how bus transportation would change, whether Centennial talked to other districts with similar elementary school designs, and how much money would be saved in the budget after the changes.
Board members said they will look for answers to many of the questions raised as they look more deeply into the options. The operations committee will continue discussions at its next public meeting at 6:30 p.m. on March 18.
Once the full board decides on a single plan, the design and construction process would take two to three years, said Preston.
Details of the 13 options in the Burt Hill study are posted on the district Web site, at www.centennialsd.org.
Stalemate broken on school tests
From the Inquirer.
Stalemate broken on school tests
By Dan Hardy
Inquirer Staff Writer
A Pennsylvania stalemate over adopting mandatory high school tests as a graduation requirement was broken yesterday when state education officials backed down and agreed to voluntary tests.
To graduate under current regulations, students must pass the PSSAs or, if they fail, they must pass an assessment given by their local districts. Those include standardized local tests, passing core courses, or showing proficiency from an examination of students' course work.
Last year, state education officials proposed a set of mandatory state subject tests that students who failed the PSSAs could take and had proposed limiting the use of local assessments to standardized tests. School boards and teachers' unions blocked that plan; yesterday's proposal was an effort to break the logjam.
Under the new plan, a third option would be added: a battery of new state tests to be developed in various subject areas, including English, math, sciences, and social studies. Passing those tests would show that a student had met the standards in that area. Good scores on Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate tests would also meet the graduation requirement.
The plan is to be formally proposed by the state Board of Education this summer. If it goes through the regulatory process intact, it will apply to seniors graduating in June 2015.
Students who failed the state tests, which would be called "Keystone Exams," would get remedial help and retake them; the state is developing a model curriculum and diagnostic tools to help teachers find out what material students don't understand.
Also, the proposal said that school district assessments must be examined by an independent organization to confirm that they meet state academic standards. The state and local districts would share the cost of making sure the local assessments meet state benchmarks. Special education students can graduate if they meet the requirements of their individualized education plans.
A study released last week said that only a handful of Pennsylvania's school districts could show that their local reading and math assessments met state standards and were being used in a way that ensured that all high school graduates had mastered all required material. In 2007, about 56,000 11th-grade students who had failed at least one PSSA test the year before graduated after passing passed a local assessment.
At a news conference, the new plan was announced yesterday by Thomas Gentzel, the executive director of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association; Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak and Board of Education Chairman Joseph Torsella. The association had opposed mandatory testing. Gentzel said he supports the the new plan because the state tests are voluntary and the local assessments can still be used.
"We believe this new language recognizes the need to ensure that all students in the commonwealth graduate from high school with essential skills, yet balances that with the need to provide local school boards with significant and meaningful flexibility in achieving that goal," he said in a statement.
Zahorchak said the proposal would ensure that for students taking a course "across the hall or across the state," the subject matter would be equally rigorous.
Eventually, the state would like to see the Keystone Exams replace the 11th-grade PSSA - the state's No Child Left Behind Accountability tests, Zahorchak said.
In January 2008, the state Board of Education proposed that all districts must use state subject tests. That plan was met with a storm of opposition from the school boards association, teachers' unions and education-reform groups. In July, the state legislature placed a one-year hold on the proposal.
This year, Sen. Jane Orie (R, Allegheny) introduced a bill that would block the Board of Education from imposing any new state graduation requirement without legislative approval. In a statement yesterday, Orie said the new proposal did not change her mind. "The truth is, we already know what schools are struggling and what students are failing," she said.
State Sen. Andrew E. Dinniman (D., Chester), was even more emphatic in his opposition. The 10 new proposed state tests and the process of making sure local tests meet state standards would cost "tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars," he said, adding, "We have struggling taxpayers, not just struggling students - how would he [Zahorchak] pay those bills?"
Education Department spokesman Michael Race said that the tests would cost about $30 million to develop and that the state is asking for $9.8 million to develop them this year. No cost estimate of the expense for validating the local tests has been arrived at.
State Rep. James R. Roebuck Jr. (D., Phila.), the chairman of the House Education Committee, was more positive. "I think this is a substantial step forward - this begins to move them into the necessary dialogue that will ultimately resolve much of the opposition," he said.
But James Testerman the president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, while saying that the union had not made a final decision about the new proposal, said: "On the surface, it looks like they are still trying to put in place a series of high-stakes exit exams for high school, and we're opposed to that."
Stalemate broken on school tests
By Dan Hardy
Inquirer Staff Writer
A Pennsylvania stalemate over adopting mandatory high school tests as a graduation requirement was broken yesterday when state education officials backed down and agreed to voluntary tests.
To graduate under current regulations, students must pass the PSSAs or, if they fail, they must pass an assessment given by their local districts. Those include standardized local tests, passing core courses, or showing proficiency from an examination of students' course work.
Last year, state education officials proposed a set of mandatory state subject tests that students who failed the PSSAs could take and had proposed limiting the use of local assessments to standardized tests. School boards and teachers' unions blocked that plan; yesterday's proposal was an effort to break the logjam.
Under the new plan, a third option would be added: a battery of new state tests to be developed in various subject areas, including English, math, sciences, and social studies. Passing those tests would show that a student had met the standards in that area. Good scores on Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate tests would also meet the graduation requirement.
The plan is to be formally proposed by the state Board of Education this summer. If it goes through the regulatory process intact, it will apply to seniors graduating in June 2015.
Students who failed the state tests, which would be called "Keystone Exams," would get remedial help and retake them; the state is developing a model curriculum and diagnostic tools to help teachers find out what material students don't understand.
Also, the proposal said that school district assessments must be examined by an independent organization to confirm that they meet state academic standards. The state and local districts would share the cost of making sure the local assessments meet state benchmarks. Special education students can graduate if they meet the requirements of their individualized education plans.
A study released last week said that only a handful of Pennsylvania's school districts could show that their local reading and math assessments met state standards and were being used in a way that ensured that all high school graduates had mastered all required material. In 2007, about 56,000 11th-grade students who had failed at least one PSSA test the year before graduated after passing passed a local assessment.
At a news conference, the new plan was announced yesterday by Thomas Gentzel, the executive director of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association; Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak and Board of Education Chairman Joseph Torsella. The association had opposed mandatory testing. Gentzel said he supports the the new plan because the state tests are voluntary and the local assessments can still be used.
"We believe this new language recognizes the need to ensure that all students in the commonwealth graduate from high school with essential skills, yet balances that with the need to provide local school boards with significant and meaningful flexibility in achieving that goal," he said in a statement.
Zahorchak said the proposal would ensure that for students taking a course "across the hall or across the state," the subject matter would be equally rigorous.
Eventually, the state would like to see the Keystone Exams replace the 11th-grade PSSA - the state's No Child Left Behind Accountability tests, Zahorchak said.
In January 2008, the state Board of Education proposed that all districts must use state subject tests. That plan was met with a storm of opposition from the school boards association, teachers' unions and education-reform groups. In July, the state legislature placed a one-year hold on the proposal.
This year, Sen. Jane Orie (R, Allegheny) introduced a bill that would block the Board of Education from imposing any new state graduation requirement without legislative approval. In a statement yesterday, Orie said the new proposal did not change her mind. "The truth is, we already know what schools are struggling and what students are failing," she said.
State Sen. Andrew E. Dinniman (D., Chester), was even more emphatic in his opposition. The 10 new proposed state tests and the process of making sure local tests meet state standards would cost "tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars," he said, adding, "We have struggling taxpayers, not just struggling students - how would he [Zahorchak] pay those bills?"
Education Department spokesman Michael Race said that the tests would cost about $30 million to develop and that the state is asking for $9.8 million to develop them this year. No cost estimate of the expense for validating the local tests has been arrived at.
State Rep. James R. Roebuck Jr. (D., Phila.), the chairman of the House Education Committee, was more positive. "I think this is a substantial step forward - this begins to move them into the necessary dialogue that will ultimately resolve much of the opposition," he said.
But James Testerman the president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, while saying that the union had not made a final decision about the new proposal, said: "On the surface, it looks like they are still trying to put in place a series of high-stakes exit exams for high school, and we're opposed to that."
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