Independent or Consolidated?

From the Inquirer.

Note the Emperor: I'll only talk by email and Reiter's closed so kwitcherbellyachin.

Monica Yant Kinney: How a district's small size can magnify its challenges
By Monica Yant Kinney Posted on Sun, Feb. 15, 2009, Inquirer Columnist

If Gov. Rendell intends to push for statewide school consolidation, he should make Morrisville the first stop on a listening tour. Presuming he can handle the drama.

In the itty-bitty Bucks County community, Rendell would find parents who suspect the school board cares more about dismantling the district than educating children.

Plans for a new school for kindergarten through 12th grade crumbled after one board paid $2.5 million in fees to annul a previous board's $30 million construction bond - all in the name of saving taxpayers money.

Some locals love the walkable community's old-timey intimacy. Others, wary of old-timey facilities, desperately want to merge with a larger district - even though previous pleas were rebuffed by suburban snobbery.

Most everyone in Morrisville agrees they got lucky when the boiler exploded at M.R. Reiter Elementary on a December weekend. No children were killed.

But what to make of last week's asbestos scare, which briefly closed Morrisville Middle/Senior High?

"Parents are in the dark," says Damon Miller, so disgusted he's running for the school board. "Nobody trusts anybody. This town doesn't know what it wants."

Maybe not. But when your child's future is at stake, does Harrisburg know better?

Home, casa
Named after Robert Morris, who financed the American Revolution, Morrisville occupies two square miles hard by the Delaware River across from Trenton.

The 10,000-person borough is 75 percent white, 19 percent African American, 5 percent Latino, and 1 percent Asian. Forty-three percent of all residents rent.

Diversity and transiency define the 831-student school district, which has been known to receive 11 enrollments in a single day.

When Superintendent Elizabeth Yonson arrived four years ago, only 11 percent of 11th graders were proficient in math on state achievement tests. By 2008, the number had jumped to 55 percent.

In 2007, Morrisville third graders topped all test-takers in the county, which still has Yonson beaming.

"You know how wealthy the rest of Bucks County is. My parents can't even afford a quality pre-K."

So she sought grants, and now Morrisville offers preschool. And college-credit courses for teens.

"Last year, one of our grads started Penn State's main campus as a sophomore!" Yonson raves.

All this and more have parents like Ann Perry committed to saving the schools, not scrapping them.

"We don't want to send Emma to private school," Perry says of her first-grade daughter. "Life is not private school."

What now?
Morrisville Mayor Tom Wisnosky can't recall how many consolidation talks have taken place in his lifetime. He just knows they rarely surpass stereotypes of race and class.

"One time, people said that merging with Morrisville would lower their property values," Wisnosky tells me. "That's just one of the lies perpetuated about us."

Since the last letdown in 2004, he and others got behind the idea of building new - only to see that movement halted by a costly changing of the school-board guard.

"So what's the plan?" asks an angry Lisa Castillo as she picks up her daughter from Grandview Elementary, which took in students scattered by the explosion at Reiter. "We don't want our kids educated in trailers for 20 years."

School Board President Bill Hellmann would talk to me only via e-mail. He says that Reiter will remain closed, and that he'd like to renovate the two other schools.

As for Rendell's bold proposal to forcibly squeeze 500 districts across the commonwealth into 100?

Some say the governor is tilting at educational windmills, but Hellmann believes it's the right idea in taxing times.

"Morrisville," he writes, "is really too small to have our own school district."

Contact Monica Yant Kinney at myant@phillynews.com or 215-854-4670. Read her recent work at http://go.philly.com/yantkinney

Vitetta Chooses Grandview

From buckslocalnews.com

Firm concludes Grandview is better than Reiter
By Petra Chesner Schlatter; Posted on Wed, Feb 4, 2009

Vitetta, an architectural and engineering firm, recently concluded a study of M.R. Reiter and Grand-view elementary schools in Morrisville School District.

A recommendation was made at a special public hearing on Jan. 29: if any school is going to be used for an elementary school, Grandview Elementary School is the better choice from a physical standpoint.

Bill Corfield, a regional director of Vitetta, said his firm was directed to conduct a study, comparing M.R. Reiter and Grandview in order to determine which school is in "better condition."

The auditorium at the Morrisville Middle/Senior High School was sparsely filled with parents, mostly who were asking if the Morrisville School Board has any long-range plans about displaced schoolchildren from M.R. Reiter Elementary School. A public hearing was held to give the community a chance to voice their opinions.

Reiter was closed in mid-December after a furnace exploded on the weekend. The Morrisville School Board is considering whether to close the school permanently.

As a result, the children who were displaced from M.R. Reiter were sent either to Grandview or the Morrisville Middle/Senior High School.

Vitetta's study was conducted prior to the explosion. At M.R. Reiter, the firm had checked the heating units, boilers, electric, plumbing, exhaust fans and lighting.

According to Vitetta's Corfield, M. R. Reiter does not have handicap accessibility. He noted that Reiter is 2 1/2 stories high and that it is "hard to get around the building." Grandview is one floor.

"When planning an elementary school, it is always advantageous to have it on one floor," Corfield said.

He noted there is a water problem in the multi-purpose room at Reiter. "We have some major concerns about the amount of water and how to stop it," he said, noting the source of the water is unknown. The floor had to be replaced once because of the problem.

Corfield explained, "because of the water entry, the building is settling. Major cracks have been there. They're not getting any better."

"The Grandview School is in better condition," he said. "We did not see cracks or water infiltration in Grand-view."

Reiter sits on about three acres at the corner of Harper and Clymer avenues. The square footage for the entire building is 46,200 and it is zoned CS-1 (Community Service District.)

The current estimated insurance loss due to the furnace explosion is $1.15 million. "It's growing as we speak," said Paul DeAngelo, business manager for the school district.

"They're still in the process of cleaning the building," he said.

Meanwhile, he said after the meeting that the Morrisville School District entered into an appraisal agreement on Dec. 7 with Gleason Real Estate.

The value of the building and the land at Reiter is estimated at $995,000.

DeAngelo gave some history about Reiter, which previously was the site of the Robert Morris High School and was built on the site in 1924.

In 1959, the school was destroyed by fire. Later, it was rebuilt as M.R. Reiter Elementary School.

DeAngelo said the last record about the furnace was recorded in 1959. "They're well over 40 years old. They should have been replaced twice," he said.

The clean-up at Reiter continues. Teachers have received the supplies and materials from their classrooms. The clean-up company is focusing on the content first and the building last.

"What's still there are desks and filing cabinets," DeAngelo said. They are being cleaned and will be taken to the modular classrooms at Grandview Elementary by Feb. 20.

"The clean up is going pretty much as we thought," he said. "It's a slow process because it's the entire building.

The insurance claim is for $1.15 million. DeAngelo said a big chunk is the modular classrooms. Leasing eight modular classrooms with bathrooms will cost $500,000, he noted.

The insurance company sent a forensic engineer. "His recommendation is to replace the boilers," DeAn-gelo explained. "The school district will put it out to bid to determine the costs-we're estimating $300,000 for two boilers."

Other big-ticket items, he said, include the clean up for $93,000. Some computers are being tested, which will cost $134,000.

"We have a whole list of miscellaneous items from staff time, to the windows that got blown out to cleaning and inspection," DeAngelo added.

The cost to renovate and install a new furnace at Reiter would be $4 million. Meanwhile, the cost to renovate Grandview Elementary School is $2.6 million.

The modulars are being installed and will be finished Feb. 20, according to DeAngelo. "The snow and ice put us behind."

He said the immediate priority is getting the modular classrooms installed at Grandview, where some of the Reiter children are going since the blast.

In the summer, the school district could "look at the possibility of bringing the fourth grade to the high school," DeAngelo indicated, stressing that plan could be contingent upon the board's decision whether or not to close M.R. Reiter.

DeAngelo also talked about what could happen if the board ultimately votes to close Reiter. The long-term plan, according to the business manager, could be to create an intermediate high school for fourth-to eighth-grade. That group could be sectioned off from 9th-to 12th-graders. K-3 could be at Grandview.

Parents criticize board in writing

From the BCCT.

Parents criticize board in writing
By MANASEE WAGH

Morrisville residents have written letters to school officials expressing fears for the district’s future.

“I demand to know what is in store for my children’s education and most importantly their proper safety?!” parent Tammi Bresnen wrote.

Five people responded to district solicitor Michael Fitzpatrick’s encouragement for additional written testimony after a Jan. 29 public hearing about the closing of M.R. Reiter Elementary School.

“It’s not a lot, but it’s not bad,” board member John Buckman said of the number of people who wrote.

Bresnen and other residents criticized the board for poor communication with the public.

“This board has shown time and time again that it does not act with a publicly discussed, debated, and enacted long-term strategic plan in place. It acts in fits and starts without an overarching goal,” wrote parent Kevin Leather.

The board plans to refurbish Grandview, the district’s other elementary school, and it’s investigating putting grades kindergarten through eight in the high school building. Leather called those two initiatives “opposing avenues of action.”

Resident Carol J. Bargery proposed renovating Reiter and selling Grandview. Morrisville could send grades kindergarten through eight to the high school and grades nine through 12 to Reiter, she wrote. The district should hold a public referendum before closing Reiter or any other building, she suggested.

About 250 students attend Morrisville Middle/Senior High School in grades nine through 12. Until a December furnace explosion, Reiter housed more than 250 students.

They are sharing space currently with other students in various district buildings for at least the rest of the school year. The explosion is not the sole rationale for closing the school. Board members had planned to close at least one elementary school in the district and use the money from its sale to renovate the district’s two other school buildings. The Reiter incident and an earlier evaluation of the building provided the board justification to pick Reiter for closing.

About 20 people expressed their opinions verbally at the public hearing. Then residents had until 3 p.m. on Feb. 2 to submit written opinions as part of the public hearing record.

Representatives from Vitetta, the engineering and architectural firm hired to evaluate the district schools, said at the public hearing that Reiter was in worse shape than Grandview Elementary. It has serious cracking in the walls and water seepage indoors.

“To fix that building doesn’t seem too probable at this point. Whatever the testimony’s saying, we have to look at the problems,” said Buckman. He said he sympathized with parents who expressed frustration with Reiter’s issues.

Morrisville is installing eight modular units on Grandview’s property this month to give some of the displaced students their own space. Bad weather has delayed the units’ installation, Superintendent Elizabeth Yonson said last week.

The district has reserved $7.4 million for renovations to the high school and one elementary school.

Vitetta is about to start the design phase of window and boiler renovations for the high school. The work shouldn’t cost more than $4.8 million, said district business administrator Paul DeAngelo.

Since Reiter may be closed, Grandview is next on the list to be renovated. Vitetta’s current estimate for fixing the smaller Grandview is $2.6 million. Resolving Reiter’s problems would cost about $4 million, according to the company.

The board can only make a decision about closing a school building 90 days after the public hearing, according to school code.

“Our board will come to a well thought out decision about what is best for our educational program, the children and the taxpayers and hopefully satisfy most of the community,” board President William Hellmann wrote in an e-mail exchange Tuesday.

Bargery hopes the board will be more candid about its thinking.

“Maybe if you would be more open and forthright with the community the community would reach out, and when Americans work together there is nothing we can’t do,” she wrote.

Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde

Does anyone remember M*A*S*H? Not the Donald Sutherland/Elliot Gould movie version, but the ubiquitous Alan Alda television version.

In the second season episode “Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde”, Hawkeye sends President Truman a rather terse telegram. (For our younger readers, a telegram is sort of like a 1880s version of an email.)

Anyway, the entire text of Hawkeye's telegram is “Who’s responsible?”

That question has been posed rather frequently here, but thanks to an emailer, here's the answer in writing. Let's set the wayback machine to April 2007, just days before the primary that paved the way forward to the Stop the School control of the Morrisville school board. Location: The Bucks County Courier Times legal notices.

So when those board members try and point the finger of shame about "inherited problems" or "you stopped the cursory March safety inspection", all they can point to is their own reflection in the mirror. These five people knew the schools were crumbling, yet chose to stop the only solution in play, and then didn't have a solution of their own as a replacement.

Who's responsible? There's five names there. Book 'em, Danno.

Morrisville parents want long-term plan

From the BCCT.

What a shock. We want a plan. That's the first time I've heard about that request...NOT!

One of our own borough councilmen lost total control at a school board meeting once shouting "Shame! Shame!" at the late Ed Frankenfield. Mr. Frankenfield's crime? Demanding a plan from the Emperor. (Side note to all who have heard about the Emperor's removal of public speakers from the January 28 meeting because they were disruptive. Not only did he not stop Mr. Worob, he applauded Mr. Worob's comments when they were concluded.)

Do you get it now, your Lord Highness? Where is the plan?

Be sure to send your written comments on the closure plan by Monday at 3:00 P.M. The Emperor and Solicitor Fitzpatrick promised answers to the questions posed.

Morrisville parents want long-term plan
Residents are encouraged to submit written opinions about the proposed closing of M.R. Reiter Elementary by Monday.
By MANASEE WAGH

Whether or not their district is one school short, residents would like to see a long-term plan for Morrisville’s children.

People scattered across the auditorium at the Morrisville Middle/Senior High School listened as about 20 residents, most of them parents, give testimony during a public hearing Thursday evening to close M.R. Reiter Elementary School.

Parents expressed frustration with a December furnace explosion that has required the roughly 250 Reiter students to attend class in various district locations, including the high school. Starting next month, modular units will be installed on Grandview Elementary’s property for grades one and two.

“What are you going to do next? How do we address the children’s safety, especially if we put kindergarten kids with high school kids?” said resident Kevin Waters.

Various parents said they laud the administration’s efforts to continue their children’s education during the emergency, but denounce the board’s lack of full disclosure about a long-term plan if Reiter is permanently closed.

“I’d like to see what they promised during the campaign, that they were going to work on education and safety,” said Susan Hough, the parent of a child at Reiter.

Ed Bailey, the father of a child in the district, said he’d like to see a referendum to decide whether or not Reiter should be closed.

“I don’t want see-sawing. We should come up with a reasonable compromise that most voters will support. There’s been a lot of anger, and I’d like to see us come together,” he said.

The two boilers in the aging building are about 50 years old and should have been replaced twice during their lifetime, said Paul DeAngelo, the district’s business administrator, at the hearing.

Reiter is in poor shape, with cracking that allows water to seep into the building and some features that date back to the 1920s, said Bill Corfield, a representative from Vitetta, an architectural and engineering firm that performed an assessment of the district’s two elementary schools, Reiter and the smaller Grandview.

If the Reiter building and property are sold, the remaining two schools could use the money for renovation, board President William Hellmann has said. Vitetta is starting the design phase for renovating the high school soon and the board has directed the firm to look at fixing problems in Grandview as well.

Renovating Reiter’s structural issues and physical systems, including windows, boilers, electrical, plumbing and lighting, would cost about $4 million. Renovating Grandview would cost about $2.6 million.

“Grandview is not large enough for the children we have. I haven’t seen a long-term plan to place students,” said Johanny Manning, a former school board member who has a child in Reiter. She said the cur rent situation crams elementary students into makeshift classrooms, and doesn’t allow for proper instruction in either core subjects or extras, like music or art.

After the hearing, the board cannot make any decisions about closing Reiter for at least 90 days, according to the school code. District solicitor Michael Fitzpatrick encouraged residents to submit written opinions about the proposed closing by Monday, Feb. 2 at 3 p.m. to contribute to the public hearing record. The opinions can be given to the administrative offices at 550 West Palmer St.

Financial problems have plagued the district for years, with previous boards trying different options to provide a quality education in better buildings. The current board is looking into possibly housing preK though grade eight in the high school building, a plan that requires sending grades nine through 12 to other districts on a paid tuition basis.

Fitzpatrick said at the Wednesday board meeting that he has not gotten “entirely positive” responses from neighboring districts about this proposition.

About 855 students currently attend school in Morrisville’s three buildings.

Though parent Elvin Velez did not give testimony at the hearing, he said he’d like to see a consolidated school done properly.

“As a taxpayer, it could be cumbersome, but that’s the nature of the beast,” he said. “We could pull through this as a community to find solutions.”

IMPORTANT Reiter Closure Meeting Info

I received this important information about the special meeting Thursday evening to close M. R. Reiter. DO NOT ALLOW THIS MODIFICATION OF THE CONDITIONS YOU ARE USED TO STOP YOU FROM SPEAKING. Be prepared. Be ready.

Pennsylvania code is not well posted online. Here is an entry from the Pennsylvania Newspapers Association as a guide to
Closing a School (24 P.S. § 7-780)

In the event of a permanent closing of a public school, a public hearing must be held at least three (3) months before the decision of the board relating to the school closing. Notice of the hearing must be given in a newspaper of general circulation in the school district at least 15 days prior to the hearing date.

The board has fulfilled this provision, but like everything else in this district, we find out about the details with almost no time to prepare. Does anyone have a copy of the statute that can be posted so that we, the people, (where have I heard that phrase before?), know the law? Maybe the school board or the solicitor would have it posted on the district website along with all the presentations and testimony taken at the meeting.


The hearing scheduled for this Thursday evening is a hearing under Section 780 of the Public School Code. It is different than a typical school board public meeting in that the Administration would give a presentation, followed possibly by contracted professionals to provide their opinion. Members of the public who determine to participate in the hearing can also comment upon the permanent closing of M.R. Reiter Elementary School.

It is a hearing. Everyone who participates will be sworn. They will be giving their names to a Court Reporter (stenographer) so that a full and complete record will be available. The solicitor would start by stating the purpose of the hearing and admitting into evidence affidavits of posting and advertisement. The official testimony will follow.

In terms of the procedure for the hearing (length of testimony, number of witnesses, etc.) the presiding officer (President of the Board) will determine. We should have all those interested in providing testimony sign a card with name and address. Based upon the number of witnesses, the presiding officer can increase the normal (board policy) time allotment to 4 or 5 minutes and also announce that anyone can provide written testimony up to three days following the hearing and that the record will be supplemented with the written testimony. That way everyone can be assured of participation in the hearing.

"Make the time for your kid. Get out there!"

From the BCCT.

"Make the time for your kid. Get out there and find out what's going on," I've been asking that for a very long time. These yahoos with their back room deals wouldn't be able to remain if more parents came out to see who is running the education of their children.

"During the summer, the administration will spend some time to determine a longer-range plan..." This is a long haul, folks. We have been waiting over a year now for the stop the school people to tell us what's next. When we fold this little emergency into the mix, not only is it the Emperor's Christmas present (antiChrist-mas present perhaps?), but the temporary work around solutions become more and more the daily reality: One K-12 school.

Did you ever notice that EVERYTHING the stop the school people campaigned against is exactly what they have done? Yet there's so sense of embarrassment from any one of them.

Modular classrooms should be ready next month
By: MANASEE WAGH

A public hearing will take place Jan. 29 to discuss closing M.R. Reiter Elementary School permanently.

Displaced Morrisville students should be attending school in modular classrooms and other district locations by Feb. 2. A school furnace explosion forced them out of their classrooms.

Since Dec. 17, the M.R. Reiter Elementary School emergency compelled the district to place more than 250 students in the middle/high school, the Morrisville YMCA and Grandview Elementary School. They have been there since Dec. 17, but those locations were meant for very short-term use.

Nobody was hurt in the late night explosion.

Paul d'Angelo, the district's business administrator, said the eight modular classrooms should be in place outside Grandview Elementary School by Jan. 23. Part of the delay between getting the classrooms and using them is due to two teacher in-service days at the end of this month, he said.

As of Feb. 2, the district plans to place the first and second grades in the modular classrooms. Kindergarten, third and fourth grades will attend classes in Grandview. Pre-K students are still in the nearby YMCA and may remain there, said d'Angelo. Fifth-grade students will go to the high school. Young children in the high school are kept separate from the older kids, Superintendent Elizabeth Yonson said when Reiter students initially were placed at the high school.

Insurance on Reiter is paying for the $433,472 cost to deliver, rent and operate the classrooms. Each will include its own restroom and be surrounded by a fence for added safety, Yonson said at a Monday meeting to approve them.

"It's a plan for the rest of the school year," d'Angelo said. "During the summer, the administration will spend some time to determine a longer-range plan. We're not looking for the kids to be in the modulars long-term."

But Greta O'Keefe, the parent of a Reiter second-grader, believes the students may be stuck with their temporary placements much longer. "I see it as them leaving this as a permanent situation. I don't see this board majority as fixing anything," she said.

O'Keefe said that her son's education has been stripped down to math worksheets and spelling. Other parents also said their children's regular lessons have been suffering since their displacement.

The problem is that teachers aren't allowed to enter Reiter to retrieve lesson materials while the school is being cleaned of carbon dust left behind by the explosion.

Tim Lastichen, director of facilities, said the district started getting teaching materials to Reiter instructors Wednesday. The pre-K teachers should get their materials today, he said.

Once a thorough cleaning is done, the school will undergo tests to detect toxic substances, Lastichen said. Reiter's insurance company is paying for the cleaning and tests.

Insurance will also cover an engineer's evaluation of the heating system. Until then, the district won't know if the system is salvageable, Lastichen said.

Both O'Keefe and board member Joseph Kemp would like to see the board plan renovations of the high school so it can house all grades.

That plan would have to start with a public referendum and would likely involve substantial renovations to keep elementary, middle and high school students separate, said Kemp, the parent of a Reiter second-grader.

"What I hope for in at least the next couple of years is that the board will decide to keep Grandview open, and we can update some systems there," he said. "I could certainly live with modulars there for a couple years. If it's feasible and we do move everyone into the high school, we'll have time to do it right."

In the meantime, the district may sell Reiter.

It's in worse shape than the district's other elementary school and its middle/senior high school. The board has scheduled a public hearing on Jan. 29 for community input about possibly closing Reiter permanently.

"I hope they shut Reiter down," said O'Keefe. "I think it's a piece of crap. They should be renovating the high school."

A former school board member, O'Keefe said she is shocked at how few parents attend school board meetings.

"Make the time for your kid. Get out there and find out what's going on," she advised.

The board has to wait 90 days after the hearing before it can make a decision about closing down the school, according to school code.

Kemp hopes the Reiter property in the residential district of Grandview Avenue near Palmer Street is sold to a housing developer.

Penn-Jersey Real Properties, a local real estate developer, approached the district about building 20 town homes on the Reiter property after the previous board decided to build a brand new school housing all grades, said Kemp. The new board majority canceled that plan to stop rising taxes.

Kemp thinks the board should approach the developer again and entertain "any and all" offers.

"That would help not only the district but the town," he said. "We just don't have enough taxpayers."

District scrambles to house students

From the BCCT

District scrambles to house students
MANASEE WAGH

Tonight the Morrisville School Board will discuss where to place some of its elementary school students.

The district quickly needs to figure out where to hold classes this semester for the more then 250 children of M.R. Reiter Elementary School. A mid-December furnace explosion in the Reiter boiler room shut down the school, forcing the administration to scramble to find temporary instructional spaces.

The students attended classes until the winter break in Morrisville Middle/Senior High School, the Morrisville YMCA and Grandview Elementary School.

Nobody was hurt in the late-night blast that blew out a window. A fault in the fuel valve operation probably triggered it, according to Tim Lastichen, the district's director of facilities.

Schools reopen today, but the district is busy starting repairs and cleanup at Reiter. The board is considering housing students in modular units at Grandview several blocks away, at least until it figures out how to deal with Reiter, said board member Robin Reithmeyer Friday.

"We will get options on Monday, like where can the kids go and how much will it cost," she said. She doesn't yet know what other alternatives will be brought up at the meeting, but thinks the modular units at Grandview may be the best available way for the students to resume instruction.

The meeting will take place at 7 p.m. in the high school, at 550 West Palmer St.

On Jan. 14, the school board will hold a public hearing as the first step toward permanently closing Reiter. Both elementary schools have been experiencing systems problems for years. The Reiter explosion is the latest major symptom of breakdowns in the aging structures. Out of all three ailing district school buildings, the 1920s-era Reiter is in the worst shape.

Selling an elementary school building would generate money for renovating the district's other schools, board President William Hellmann said last month.

The explosion precipitated the school board's efforts to shut down a school.

School code mandates that the board cannot make any decision to close a building for at least 90 days after a public hearing to discuss community concerns.

Morrisville school district at-a-glance

* District educates about 1,000 students in 2 elementary schools and one high school serving grades 6-12. District employs about 140 people.

* Average teacher salary is about $70,000, according to the state Department of Education. Teacher contracts count for half of district's $19.8 million budget.

* District's cost per student is $13,023 for elementary and $14,215 for secondary.

* Median income in the district is $53,316.

* District finding it difficult to gather enough income tax funds, in part due to Morrisville's large transitory population. The current dip in the housing market is added strain likely to show up in next year's budget.

* The borough's schools are old and have been having problems with multiple systems for years, including electrical and heating units.

* The former school board took out a $30 million loan to construct a consolidated school housing every grade. Many residents disapproved of tax increases tied to the project for the next several years. The board spent about $2 million of the original $30 million bond for architectural and engineering fees related to the proposed building.

* In December 2008, several new school board members entered office on the promise of not raising taxes. It canceled the new school venture and returned most of the bond money, keeping about $7 million to renovate the high school. Returning the bond money cost about $2.4 million.

* Taxes are expected to drop $321 this year. The average homeowner would pay $3,371 for an average assessed property of $18,000. However, school administrators say educational programs may suffer because of pared-down budget.

* Pennsbury School District, which surrounds the much smaller district of Morrisville, has historically refused to absorb Morrisville schools. Less than a month ago Pennsbury school officials said its facilities are already at capacity and that the district cannot take on the added complication and cost of supporting 1,000 more students and additional staff.

* In 2008, some community members started putting together an education foundation to partner with businesses and private individuals for funding educational projects. The foundation recently received its nonprofit status and is on its way to generating funds from interested donors.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like M.R. Reiter?

It's not quite as catchy as the original, but you get the point.

Tonight. In the high school auditorium, 7:00 P.M. What do we do about Reiter?

Here's my Nostradamus impression: Reiter will never re-open. Grandview will become a K-3 or 4 building. The high school will be a grades 3-4 to 12 building. And once those high school students are farmed out, everyone will be in the K-8 former high school.

When the safety and stability of a school building has been ignored by your own orders, and you're the one who is holding onto the pieces of what's left, it's hard to quietly sweep the problem under the rug.

So tonight, the Emperor and his board of chosen accomplices will have to splutter and hem and haw and somehow explain why they did what they did and how they're going to mop up this monstrous lake of spilt milk.

Come on out and watch the performance. Comments from the public will likely be limited to about the first fifteen people, so first come, first served.

Some of the expected highlights:

* Watch the Emperor explain about not wanting to repair Reiter when he knew it was "a rat trap". The safety of our kids was never a concern. Only the money. That's all it was ever about. Show me the money!
* Listen as the "no K-12 school on my watch" stop the school board majority, who really did stop the new school, explains how a K-12 building in the old school is a good thing. Flip-flopping isn't a sport limited to Washington DC anymore.
* Watch the action as the board explains where all of the $7 million dollars earmarked for renovations has gone. And it ain't enough to do the job. That's OK...it was never enough in the first place. It was all about cutting taxes.
* Oh...while we're talking about those lower taxes, ask about the new budget and how big the increase is going to be this July.

Hellmann'$ Chri$tmas Pre$ent

From the BCCT.

Doe$ $crooge ever receive the the me$$age from the three gho$t$? Or were the dream$ $imply returned to $ender, addre$$ unknown?

The children of Morri$ville are only dollar $ign$ to the Emperor Pre$ident. They are $imply another commodity to be traded, bought, and $old.

The Emperor'$ opening $tatement recounting all the $aving$ he ha$ $upplied $howed much more that dollar$ and cent$ It $howed u$ an empty void. How $ad.

Voter$: We got what we paid for. Enjoy the $aving$.

Board plans hearing to close Reiter
Angry parents packed the meeting room to oppose the move. “Our community’s children are not numbers,” said one.
By MANASEE WAGH

After a 25-minute-late start and much heated finger-pointing, the Morrisville School Board voted Wednesday night to advertise for a public hearing to close M.R. Reiter Elementary School.

The hearing would be set for Wednesday, Jan. 14. Board members Robin Reithmeyer, Gloria Heater and Joseph Kemp voted against the advertisement. Board member Al Radosti was absent.

At least 150 residents packed the meeting room, many of them parents of elementary schoolchildren.

Prior to the vote, the board heard public comment from nearly 20 different borough residents, the majority of whom were angry and emotional about the move toward closing the school without determining where to place its more than 250 students safely.

“If these were your children, would you even consider this option?” elementary PTO President Robin Tohm asked the board.

She broke down in tears as she thanked the district staff and administrators for smoothly transitioning Reiter students to alternative locations temporarily after a late night explosion in Reiter’s furnace room blew out windows in the building on Dec. 13.

From Dec. 17 until at least Jan. 5, Reiter students are to attend class at alternative district locations, including the Morrisville YMCA, the Middle/Senior High School and Grandview Elementary School.

Parents expressed anger over board President William Hellmann’s statement at the start of the meeting outlining how much the current board is saving the borough in tax money through canceling last year’s planned construction of a new, $30 million consolidated school for all grades.

They were also upset about Hellmann’s recent e-mail exchanges with other board members in which he called the deteriorating Reiter a “rat trap” that is consuming borough funds for continued maintenance. Hellmann’s e-mail suggested putting all 400-plus elementary school students from Reiter and Grandview into the middle/senior high school.

“Our community’s children are not numbers,” said parent Damon Miller. “You can’t just shuffle them around.”

Putting all grades into the high school would be extremely difficult, since that building caters to older students’ needs, the administration has said.

In case students cannot return to Reiter during the rest of this school year because of safety concerns, they would be set up in modular units at Grandview, said Elizabeth Yonson, district superintendent. The estimated cost of those units could be $108,000, said administrators.

For an hour before the vote to hold a public hearing, board members argued loudly among themselves about what they did or did not do toward fixing the districts’ three schools this past year. Shouts and comments against the board majority and applause for those who spoke against the board president punctuated their arguments.

Board member Gloria Heater accused Hellmann of trying to get some board members to come to a vote about the future of the schools behind other board members’ backs.

At that, some residents yelled at Hellmann, “Resign now!”

A representative from Vitetta, the engineering and architectural firm the school board hired to analyze district schools, also spoke at the meeting to say that his firm had released its report today about the state of the two elementary schools’ boilers, electrical systems, windows and ventilators. The report includes estimations for renovation costs.

It will be posted on the district Web site at www.mv.org.

The board has to hold a public hearing at least 90 days before making any decision to close a school, according to school code.

Fratti: One school down. Two to go.

Kate Fratti in the BCCT.

Come see the Emperor and the Board of Chosen Accomplices in concert TONIGHT, 7:30 P.M. in the LGI.

Please make them move the meeting to the auditorium. Bring a friend. Bring a neighbor. Bring your kids. Show the kids what democracy is all about and show the board members that the students of Morrisville are worth fighting for.

Morrisville going down?

If you think Morrisville school board members are wringing their hands after learning the borough will block the reopening of M.R. Reiter Elementary School until engineers deem it “safe,” you’ve been had.

While grade-schoolers are displaced, staff is scrambling, the maintenance guy is explaining and parents are up in arms, the mood of the board leadership following the boiler room explosion at Reiter is celebratory. Dollar signs everywhere. The explosion was a Christmas gift.

In an e-mail written to the rest of the board fewer than 24 hours after the boiler blew, board President Bill Hellmann indicated a shuttered M.R. Reiter is just what he’d hoped for. The emphasis is all his.

“If we close both elementary schools and put everybody in the high school, we will save a FORTUNE in operating costs. EVERY YEAR. The pro new-schoolers wanted a K-12 school. Well here it is. The other people who might not want a K-12 are a minority and when they see their reduced tax bill on July 1 of each year, they just may change their minds in these new tough economic times. We will save ANOTHER fortune by not repairing either of those two buildings. We will solve the M.R. Reiter problem. CLOSE THIS RAT TRAP NOW.”

Hellmann’s e-mail makes it clear why in June he eliminated Reiter from a list of buildings to be examined by engineers in preparation for eventual renovations that might have prevented the explosion. And, it’s clear, now, why the board’s been dragging its feet on fixes to Grandview Elementary School, too.

Rat traps.

Hellmann, Brenda Worob, Marlys Mihok, Al Radosti, Bill Farrell and Gloria Heater were voted into office by an electorate that desperately wanted to stop construction of a new K-12 building it could not afford. The winning slate promised voters they’d renovate existing buildings instead.

They lied. Some of them have said privately they’d like to rid the borough of the entire school system.

One school down. Two to go.

So what until then?

It’s rumored school board directors have spoken with council members about using county open space preservation funds to purchase the Reiter property and that county Commissioner Jim Cawley has offered to assist them with such a plan.

Cawley insists he has not had any such conversation with anyone from Morrisville — though the county’s always willing to help when it can, he added.

Which, I suppose, suggests the open space suggestion isn’t so farfetched. How else to unload rat trap real estate? Morrisville will need to spend its open space allotment or lose it, and what other open space is there?

The stumbling block to eliminating the whole district immediately? A teachers contract that blocks lay-offs and furloughs for the next few years. The Reiter boiler explosion blew open a path to save at least some “FORTUNE” now by eliminating operating costs.

It will mean cramming gradeschoolers into space at the high school and eventually reconfiguring high school classrooms to create a grade-school wing.

Learning in the midst of all that commotion? You never hear this board use the word. It’s not their concern.

They came into power with an agenda to be rid of schools entirely. They should have said so up front. They might very well have been elected, anyway.

Either way, stating their intention was the honorable thing to do. This sneaky approach is disruptive, chaotic and bad for the borough’s reputation as a place to live and work. It could have been dangerous.

“If this school district does not wake up, this town is going down,” Hellmann e-mailed the rest of the board as he urged consensus.

His critics argue the descent already has begun. The cart’s being driven by sneaks and bean counters.

UPDATE December 18, from the BCCT.

CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS
Morrisville School Board member Brenda Worob was voted into office in 2005. Her term expires in 2009. Incorrect information appeared in Kate Fratti’s column Wednesday.
The Courier Times strives for accuracy. However, when we do make errors, we want to correct them as soon as possible in this space. To help us, please call 215-949-4161 (days) or 215-949-4211 (nights).