You Never Know What Google Can Find

A brief history of the Morrisville School District, by a guest blogger. I think it's so wonderful that a public servant like the comptroller of Morrisville worked so diligently with the QRSE people to ensure a brighter future for all. Does anyone know who this angel of compassionate mercy is?

I also never knew that our high school, built in 1957, actually met the code requirements of the 1960s. Big, big bravos to our time traveling architects and engineers. (Just for fun, does anyone know which public buildings were our official "Duck and Cover, Kiss Your Butt Goodbye" Cuban Missile Crisis shelters?) Ditto about the evil BCCT who never sees things the same way as these enlightened individuals.

I like the comparison to caring about the senior's medications but not caring about the kids. The technical term for this is "cognitive dissonance." Really. It is.

We also need to have a lesson in the use of apostrophe's when it's a plural and when it's a possessive. I can hear teachers across the commonwealth crying out in pain as they read this amateurish writing.

I feel like something is missing through. More than just the period at the end of the last sentence, or even a completion to the thought. But, sadly, that's where this heartfelt missive ends. Just as we're getting to the good

Taxpayer Successes in Pennsylvania School Districts

This letter is from Sharon Hughes, President of Morrisville Citizens for Quality, Responsible and Safe Education, Inc.
Tonight , Tuesday, 12/4/07, in Morrisville six candidates were sworn in as school board directors who represent the people of this community.It may take a moment to explain.
The state of Pa. recommended that Morrisville consolidate our three schools because we only have 900 students in our entire system and they would all fit in our existing high school with some modifications. But, our school board announced on September 28, 2005, that they wanted to tear down all three of our schools and build a new K-12 School at a cost of $28 Million dollars. (We believe that the actual cost would have been at least one-third higher had the numbers been honest. This belief is based on what the costs are to build schools in other districts in Lower Bucks County.) Our buildings were sound, but our systems, (electric, plumbing, etc.) were shot. Our high school was built to such high specifications in the 1960s that it was our towns designated bomb shelter. Bink Architects were hired on what I consider a very amateurish Feasibility Study that bears no resemblance to the school that was finally settled on.
Morrisville pays the highest taxes in Bucks County already, and this new school would put many of our citizens into tax sales.
Six weeks later on November 16, 2005, the board voted to float a $30 Million bond for the new K-12 School. At this point our group, Morrisville Citizens was born. We were turned down by every law firm in town to represent us. We then hired a law firm from Philadelphia, Robert Sugarman and Associates, to represent Morrisville Citizens. Bob Sugarman's first sentence after we explained the precarious tax situation that this bond put Morrisville's people into was, "That means that seniors will not be able to afford their medicine." Bob is a Godsend to Morrisville, and one very excellent lawyer.
Hiring a lawyer was not inexpensive. We still need to fundraise to pay our bill. But, in the first year of holding off the bond we saved the people of Morrisville about one million dollars because the interest rates for municipal bonds went down in that year.
He fought for us for two solid years and never once wavered in his dedication to our cause although there is really no way to stop a school board. He tried every legal way he could, even taking our case to the Supreme Court of the state of Pennsylvania only to be told they would not look at the case.
Two school board members who voted for the new school were lame ducks and left in Nov. 2005. Three more school board members resigned in the two months after the vote to build. The first to leave was the school board treasurer. I think they all knew about the reality or unreality of the numbers and got out before things got too hot. The three new hand picked board members voted pro school all the way.
Morrisville Citizens for Quality, Safe, Responsible Education met every Sunday night for over a year, and every other Sunday night for the next year. We were blessed early on when the comptroller for Morrisville looked at the numbers and realized what this new tax burden would do to our town and he worked with our lawyer for the entire two years at no charge looking at the financial problems with the plan. We found a member who printed tens of thousands of flyers for us for free. We found dedicated people who took over 3,000 flyers out every time we needed to communicate with the town. This was our only voice as the local newspaper was exclusively the voice for the school board. We brought facts and figures to the school board at every meeting only to be met by condescending attitudes and downright rude responses about us not caring about the children's education. The school board president told us that "schools do educate children", therefore a new school would educate our students better.
We wrote to and spoke with to the governor's office, local state representatives and senators, with PDE reps, the auditor general, Carle Dixon and numerous others who all said the same thing, "School Board's can pretty much do what they want to do !" "You elected them."
Our school board tried to sell two of our existing schools to a developer although they were still being used. The district would have rented back the schools until the new school was built. This was to force the hand of the new school board so they would have to build the new school.
We plowed on and held out until we were able to have our slate of six candidates take all six spots in both the democratic and the republican spaces in the May Primaries.
But the school board wasn't through. They established a new state political party.,"The community Party" in order to get onto the ballot in November. The school board president accused one of the new school board members of threatening her children