Uniformity

Let's not forget that another hot button topic is the use of school uniforms. While defeasement, farming, and other larger more pressing issues have stolen the spotlight, the idea of wearing a school uniform is being discussed.

So, do clothes make the man? Or should you not judge a book by it's cover?

There's an article in the BCCT today that suggests uniforms are a good idea and will raise test scores. However, a quick Google of school uniforms and performance show a different conclusion: I dunno!

Isn't this the same argument that raged over the new school itself? Will a new school raise student performance?

Studies divided on effects of school uniform: But studies have revealed mixed results. And many Bay Area school officials acknowledged in interviews that they have never tried to measure whether the uniforms are working.

Are uniform policies controversial? Sure. So is implementation.

E-mail fires up Florida parents: Parents have complained saying they can’t afford the new clothing..."Everyone can afford Wal-Mart and if they can't they need to think about turning off their cable TV or stop buying alcohol or cigarettes and spend their money on their children." Ouch!

I'm generally for uniforms myself. I'm tired of clothing being a coolness factor in school and the kids who can afford $25 dollar sneakers being judged harshly against the cool kid with the $200 dollar superstar endorsed "performance athletic footwear". Let the kids all go with the same $20 dollar polo and $40 dollar khakis and get back to the real issue: education.

Academic benefits seen with uniforms
Parental support is key to a successful uniform policy, according to officials.
By JOAN HELLYER STAFF WRITER

Melissa Buchanan is glad she goes to a school where all the students wear uniforms.

“It’s really good that people don’t wear inappropriate things. Everyone looks the same,” said Melissa, a fourth-grader at School Lane Charter School in Bensalem.

A mandatory uniform policy went into effect at School Lane in 2007. The kids wear light blue shirts and dark or khaki bottoms.

“It was a good idea to do,” Melissa, 9, said. “It makes me feel good.”

School Lane is one of three local school systems to move toward uniformity in the past year:

The charter school implemented the policy after parents urged its governing board to require uniforms as allowed by Pennsylvania’s public school code, school officials said.

The Bristol school board also made a move to uniforms at the urging of district parents. The board did not implement an official policy but rather a procedure for students at Warren Snyder-John Girotti Elementary School to wear uniforms beginning this academic year.

Parents also were the catalyst in getting Bristol Township to implement a voluntary uniform policy that will begin in September for students in its nine elementary schools, district officials said. The school board’s legal representatives suggested the policy be voluntary, so the district would not face any legal challenges to it.

Kyong Growney, of Curtin & Heefner, LLP in Morrisville, is one of the attorneys who developed Bristol Township’s policy. Growney said she and board solicitor David Truelove encouraged the board to go the voluntary route to avoid potential constitutional challenges involving freedom of religion and freedom of expression.

However, a constitutional law expert at Temple University in Philadelphia, said neither of those constitutional freedoms apply to the uniform issue. Statutory law, not constitutional law, covers the religious aspect of the issue, said Mark Rahdert, a constitutional expert.

SUPREME COURT DECISION

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a decision about 20 years ago, ruled that religious practices that contradict an established law are not federal constitutional issues, he said.

The decision was based on the case of Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith. It involved two members of the Native American Church who were fired from their counselor jobs at a private drug rehabilitation organization after they ingested peyote, a powerful hallucinogen, during religious ceremonies. The former counselors filed suit after being denied unemployment compensation.

The high court’s majority found that an individual’s religious beliefs does not excuse him or her from complying with a law prohibiting conduct the government is entitled to regulate, wrote Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in the majority opinion.

The same standard can be applied to the school uniform issue, Rahdert said.

“As long as the [uniform policy] is neutral with respect to religion and is generally applicable to all students in the school, it is usually upheld,” Rahdert said.

In addition, freedom of expression or speech is not a consideration with the uniform issue, the professor said. Instead, it’s an issue of conduct in the schools.

“In a school setting, students have diminished first amendment rights, partly because they are children and partly because they are in a school setting in which the state must maintain order and provide a conducive learning environment,” Rahdert said.

Growney declined further comment about the Bristol Township policy and the volunteer policy recommendation her firm made to the district.

Rahdert said the voluntary policy is sometimes implemented not just to avoid challenges that will be lost, but because school systems want to avoid the expense and distraction from a challenge.

He said even if a school opts for a mandatory uniform policy, it should provide for exceptions, including religious attire.

“[A district] should base its choice on what’s best for the school environment, and not based on constitutional principles, because I don’t think the constitution dictates one outcome or the other,” Rahdert said.

CHALLENGES RARE

There have been a few instances where the U.S. Supreme Court has heard cases about whether a uniform policy violates equal protection or discriminates against the poor, Rahdert said. However, those challenges are rare, because generally speaking, uniform policies are designed to be affordable, he said.

In recent years, a few other Bucks districts, including Bensalem and Central Bucks, as well as North Penn, and Upper Moreland in Eastern Montgomery County, have tossed around the uniform issue. However, they abandoned the idea, generally speaking, because the initiative did not have enough support from school board members, administrators or parents.

Other local districts also have not experienced a groundswell of support for uniforms, officials said.

For school systems that are considering a uniform policy, the U.S. Department of Education produced a manual to provide guidelines on how to implement such a policy. The first step is to get parents involved from the beginning of the process, according to the manual posted at www.ed.gov.

“Parental support of a uniform policy is critical for success. Indeed, the strongest push for school uniforms in recent years has come from parental groups who want better discipline in their children’s schools,” education officials said in the manual.

Melanie Scott, a School Lane parent, said the charter school’s uniform policy definitely has her backing.

“It’s a great idea,” Scott said. “Now it’s about school and not about who is cool.”

The push for uniforms began in the mid-1990s when the Long Beach, Calif., school system started requiring all elementary and middle school students to wear uniforms. The school board made the move after a statewide voucher initiative failed, according to Carl A. Cohn, who was the Long Beach superintendent during the move to uniforms.

During debate over the initiative, board members had promised residents and particularly parents that they would look for ways to improve the school environment, according to Cohn.

The district already had uniform policies in place on a pilot basis in 11 of its 70 elementary and middle schools, Cohn said. Those schools reported a better climate in terms of learning and safety than others where there was no uniform policy in place.

The district moved ahead with implementing the policy in all of its schools in 1994. Within a year, overall school crime dropped 36 percent, including a decrease of 51 percent in fights and 74 percent in sexual offenses, according to the federal education department.

VOLUNTARY VS. MANDATORY

Since then, school systems throughout the country have followed Long Beach’s lead and implemented their own uniform policies. Some are mandatory. Others are voluntary.

Not all of the policies have remained in effect, usually because parents were not supportive of the effort. For instance, Maymont Elementary School in Richmond, Va., implemented a uniform policy in the mid-1990s. The school reported improved behavior, increased attendance rates and higher student achievement, according to the U.S. education department.

However, the policy was discontinued several years ago, a school spokeswoman said, because parents were no longer in favor of the uniforms.

Other schools across the country report better success. Douglass Elementary School in Memphis, Tenn., is one of them.

Douglass implemented a voluntary uniform policy in the mid-1990s. The maroon or white shirt and khaki bottoms initiative became a mandatory policy about four years ago at the inner city kindergarten through seventh-grade school, said guidance counselor Aron Wyatt.

“[The students] are able to focus more. They are not being teased about their clothes,” Wyatt said. “It keeps you on task a little more.”

He also noted student academic performance has increased over the last few years, due in part to the uniforms.

The only challenge the school has faced because of the uniforms is from parents who said they could not afford the moderately priced clothes, Wyatt said. “We have a clothes closet to help out with that, if they don’t have the resources, so they can send their kids in the proper uniform,” he said.

Wyatt has some advice for schools planning to implement a uniform policy.

“Enforce it. Don’t just start it up and then let the kids come some days in their uniforms and some days [in regular clothes]. If you enforce it, you show them that you are serious about it. The kids will conform and the parents will conform,” the guidance counselor said.

Bristol Township officials said they went with the voluntary policy because they believe enforcement of the practice will not be necessary. Most district families will adhere to it as the district seeks to provide students with a better and safer learning environment, they said.

Defease The Emperor Poll

Thank you to everyone who contributed their vote to defease the Emperor.

The runaway winner was Robin Reithmeyer, formerly of the QSRE and running mate of the Emperor, and now an open dissenter of the Emperor's rule while still sharing the same dais with him. (I've heard of the doctored signs from the 2007 election where Robin's name is crossed off boldly, acknowledging her apostasy and heresy from the one true faith. Has anyone else heard about this or seen one?)

Joe Kemp came in second in this informal poll. Everyone else came in far behind these two.

Robin Reithmeyer: From Queen of the Q to...?? 20 40%
Joe Kemp: A principled no! 11 22%
Other... 6 12%
Ed Frankenfield: You still need a plan! 4 8%
Bill Hellmann: Don't mess with Bill! 3 6%
Brenda Worob: Two for one! You get Steve too! 3 6%
Marlys Mihok: Minutes? They take months! 3 6%
Al Radosti: You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. 0 0%
Bill Farrell: Email? 0 0%
Gloria Heater: Whatever Bill says! 0 0%

I do not agree with everything either of them have done. That doesn't matter. What matters is that each of them take the time to do the due diligence and the homework in the off hours that makes their time on the dais count. The Emperor and the Court of Toadies lack this ability to grow, reconsider, and independently evaluate. They slavishly follow one person, and this one person has a frozen view of reality. Following sheepishly is no way to go through life.

There were also several "other" votes. "Someone with a clue" was one. "A leader with vision and common sense" was another. Former board candidate Jon Perry also received one vote. All three are worthy.

Then there were a series of rather baffling votes pointed at the same two people that really left me rather confused and uneasy. They match a number of comments to postings that I have deleted rather than posting because they really didn't make sense. Yet the persistence of these comments over several months seems to point to some sort of truth. I'm not sure what to make of it all.

Yes, I've been vague and non-specific and I'm beating around the bush. Would the person(s) who have been making these comments please let me in on the secret? You can comment to this post anonymously and just note "do not publish" if you're more comfortable with that.

Schools News Around the Blogosphere

Despite 25 years of reform, US schools still fall short
Christian Science Monitor
New studies echo a key call from landmark 1983 report: boost teacher training and pay.
Chicago - The report that launched an education-reform movement - released 25 years ago Thursday - is causing some reform advocates to issue the same sort of dire warnings today.

Supreme Court of Canada rules random sniffer-dog searches are unlawful
By Conners(Conners)
Clair Catholic District School Board, told The Canadian Press prior to the ruling that allowing sniffer dogs into schools can be an important tool for ensuring student safety. "Parents send their children to school with the underlying ...


Studies: SAT writing portion good predictor of grades
USA Today
The controversial new writing portion of the SAT is actually a better predictor of grades for freshmen college students than the older, more-established, critical reading and mathematics portions, according to preliminary results of two new studies.

No Child Left Behind faces changes
Associated Press
Unable to push education fixes through Congress, the Bush administration is taking its own pen to the No Child Left Behind law. The Education Department plans to make a host of changes to the education law through regulations being unveiled Tuesday, according to administration sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the new rules had not yet been published.

An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds.
Clueless in America
New York Times
By BOB HERBERT
Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it's widespread. That's more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life - and for the country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive every day.

New Report From KIPP Charters
Washington Post
Jay Mathews
Educators argue often whether their work should be judged by test scores. There are thoughtful people on both sides of the debate. We journalists tend to focus on exam results because so many of our readers say that is what they want, and such information is relatively easy to get from regular public schools.
The need for charter schools

Real Life Advice for graduating seniors
Christian Science Monitor

Jack go unda limbo stick

It looks like budget limbo for the Bucks County Technical School. Needing at least four of six participating school districts to approve the 2008-2009 budget, only Bristol, Neshaminy and Pennsbury have approved. Bensalem and Morrisville have postponed action, and Bristol Township flatly rejected it.

The Emperor and company are doing the right thing here. There. I said it. It was hard to type, but it's accurate, despite the absolutely chilling special snarl the Emperor adds to his verbal assaults on special education costs. Memo to the Tech School staff: The Emperor is coming next week.

BTW, kudos to Marlys Mihok for looking into the tax assessment issue in the borough. That's also the right thing to do. No spot assessments, but a fair overview to ensure we're all paying our fair share. Does anyone know what the Steele Report is? She keeps mentioning that.

This is a big district vs. little district issue, and in just the same way the U.S. Constitution was cobbled together as a compromise between the big states (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia) and the little states (Delaware, New Jersey), another compromise will need to be made. If the figure mentioned below is accurate, Bristol Township subsidizes Neshaminy to the tune of a cool half million.

If that's the case, forget walking under the limbo stick. Pick up the stick and smack that funding formula into fairness.

Technical school budget in limbo
Neshaminy could end up paying $500,000 more in annual costs due to special education costs while Bristol Township could save that much.
By JOAN HELLYER STAFF WRITER

Bucks County Technical High School’s proposed 2008-2009 budget is in a holding pattern because the schools boards in two of its sending districts have postponed a vote on the financial plan.

The Bensalem and Morrisville school boards agreed Wednesday night to postpone their respective votes until they receive more information about the comprehensive technical high school’s funding formula.

The postponements leave the BCTHS budget just shy of the votes needed for approval. The school’s bylaws call for four of the six sending districts and at least 28 board members to approve the budget.

The Bristol, Neshaminy and Pennsbury school boards have approved the budget. A total of 26 board members have voted in favor of it, officials said.

The Bensalem and Morrisville postponements come two days after the Bristol Township school board rejected the proposed budget to protest a lack of movement on suggested revisions to the tech school’s funding formula.

Right now, the six sending districts share the costs incurred to educate special education students. But a movement has been under way for several months to pay the special education costs, often higher than mainstream expenses, on an actual usage basis.

The revised formula could save Bristol Township as much as $500,000 per year in expenses, officials said.

Neshaminy, the district that could end up having to pay as much as $500,000 more in annual costs because a large number of its special education students attend BCTHS, has opposed the revised formula.

Board members Frank Koziol, William Spitz and Ritchie Webb again voiced opposition to the revisions Wednesday night before Neshaminy voted unanimously to approve the tech school’s budget.

The tech school budget needs to be approved by June 30, BCTHS Administrative Director Scott Parks said. The Bensalem and Morrisville boards are not scheduled to meet again until May.

Residents ask board to focus on kids

No matter how many times I point out "It's not just Morrisville!", it's still good to see some confirmation.

Now if only the Morrisville residents would ask our school board to focus on the kids...

Residents ask board to focus on kids

By RACHEL CANELLI
Bucks County Courier Times

Some Neshaminy School District residents Wednesday night gave the school board a homework assignment — stop arguing and work together.

After accusations were exchanged by a few members over alleged behind-the-scenes hiring decisions earlier this month, many senior citizens and parents pleaded with the board to focus on children and education.

Some people presented the board with a letter demanding a two-to-five-year strategic plan, including a budget that the community can afford, and for officials to define the roles of the board and superintendent.

They said the board has lost the community's confidence and described members' behavior as embarrassing.

“We have to have harmony on the board,” said Langhorne senior citizen Solis Basen.

Board member William Spitz pointed out that the district approved a six-year strategic plan two years ago, and the board's ethics and conduct policies partially describe the board and superintendent's jobs.

Several residents showed support for board President Richard Eccles, who was recently urged to resign by board members William O'Connor and Spitz.

Those who spoke out in support of Eccles said O'Connor and Spitz should resign.

“Mr. Eccles has always been the voice of the people ... and committed to the people,” said Langhorne resident Howard Lindner.

Other speakers asked administrators to focus on possible school closures, the budget and ongoing negotiations with the Neshaminy Federation of Teachers since their contract expires in June.

Langhorne resident Chris Graham called the board members' finger-pointing a disgrace to the community that has made Neshaminy the laughingstock of the area and distracted officials from focusing on business.

Spitz said the board could improve by following its own ethics and conduct policies.

Insults instead of answers

Kate, Kate, Kate. Why can't you just cooperate? [Ed Note: Read with heavy emphasis on sarcasm.]

Thanks for reading. Thanks also for your follow up. [Ed Note: Read with no sarcasm.]

Nice graphic too...

Insults instead of answers

Lots of angry hot air and ruffled feathers at last night’s Morrisville School Board meeting, and some aimed here at the newspaper and me in particular.

Seems my pointing out that school board member Brenda Worob hosted a gathering of school board members a couple of Sundays ago didn’t sit right with her husband Councilman Stephen Worob and other supporters of the current board majority.

Their track record when it comes to transparent government is iffy, and I remarked I didn’t believe their assurances no school board business was discussed that weekend out of the view of the public. I also questioned why they were demanding personal information about children in need of special education services in the district.

Here’s the column.

Oh, that made some people mad. Most notably Stephen Worob, who regularly uses the cable television camera to rant about his perceived bias of this newspaper. Never mind that he is a frequent contributor to the editorial pages where he’s allowed to say whatever is on his mind. Mostly what’s on his mind,it seems is that the rest of us should put a sock in it while he and his circle run Morrisville. Question him and some others and stand back for the personal attack. (Check out some of the responses under my column.) No answers to the question, just a frontal assault.

Best defense is a good offense, I suppose. Shoot the messenger to block the next inconvenient message.

A couple of months ago, Worob remarks in school board minutes that the local press is “clueless when it comes to investigative reporting.” I think that was wishful thinking. It’d be better for current leaders if we didn’t investigate.

Oddly, Worob supporters, didn’t criticize me for a lack of investigation this time, but for “digging up dirt.” Thing is, no digging’s been necessary. This current school board majority is so dismissive of state law and the rules of common decency, and the intelligence of its constituents that its missteps and misstatements are glaring. They don’t bother to cover their tracks very well.

Here’s hoping again for an end to the vitriol and ego, and a move toward common sense and compromise. Regular residents will have to lead the charge. Their leaders are out to lunch.

Posted by Kate Fratti at 2:17 pm |

Poutpourri for $1000, Alex

Wow. It's nice to be back online. It just goes to show you that virus and trojan applications are not 100% effective 100% of the time. I got a nasty trojan that wreaked the proverbial havoc with my hard drive. While my current puter was down, I was working on an old machine that was state of the art in the early 90s, which is to say, prehistoric. Dialing into AOL via modem for the first time in years was another piece of nostalgia that I did not miss in the least.

I'm working with a new hard drive that has 3x the capacity of my old drive, and since I had actually backed up this farking thing in March, I only lost a little bit of data.

My PSA for the day: If you play online, make sure you play safely. Always use a backup.

I have missed a lot. There was a borough council meeting where Gateway again was a topic of conversation but gained no forward momentum; we had another school board business meeting and ambulance crews were not involved (unless, shhhhh...it was a secret ambulance crew); budget work sessions are coming up; and there's a new solicitor coming to town.

There's a lot of feedback as a result of the mention from Kate Fratti, and maybe we can discuss that as well. Are we the "sour grapes brigade", or are we well and truly pointing out the Emperor sans culottes?

Morrisville: We can do better than this. You need to get up from the front of the TV and get involved. Become educated on the issues and show up at the borough council and school board meetings. Speak your mind, and keep them accountable. Those people up on the dais? Keep in mind they work for you, not the other way around.

I also understand that I've been branded a traitor and a coward by a member of the borough council. Should I be offended or grateful? I'm not sure.

I'll pick up the ball again and be posting more as I sort through items. Please let me know if there are any topics you want discussed as well.

Thank you everyone for your emails of concern and interest. It was really great to see all those emails piled up.

Thank you for the flames as well. The emails delighting in my silence and potential demise were greatly exaggerated and premature. They're also one heck of an incentive.

Update of Stockham Interests Burlesque

The BCCT covers the proposed burlesque club in the Stockham building with a bit more detail. Obviously, if you want more details, you'll have to come out to the zoning board meeting on May 5 at 7:30 P.M.

I'm a big fan of Gateway and would be very happy to see the Stockham building put to good use, but the second floor burlesque club is the deal breaker. We can do better.

Developer planning ‘burlesque’ lounge
A zoning hearing is scheduled for May 5 at borough hall.
By DANNY ADLER STAFF WRITER

This may not be the revitalization that Morrisville was hoping for. A “burlesque-style adult entertainment” lounge is being proposed for the second floor of a four-story masonry building on the southeast corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Bridge Street.

The proposal also calls for a firstfloor restaurant and bakery, as well as a fitness center on the third and fourth floors of the Stockham building at 10 S. Pennsylvania Ave.

Stockham Interests LLC of Robbinsville, N.J., is scheduled to go before Morrisville’s zoning hearing board next month for a variance because the Stockham building is not zoned for adult entertainment, borough Manager George Mount said. The group also needs to go before the board for sign regulations.

A zoning hearing is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. May 5 at borough hall, 35 Union St., and is open to the public.

The roughly 18,800-square-foot Stockham building, which used to be the home of the Record Collector music store, is roughly 65 percent vacant, according to a petition filed with the zoning office by Stockham Interests.

The “upscale restaurant” on the first floor and the adult entertainment lounge initially would not have liquor licenses and would be bring your own bottle, or BYOB, the petition said.

While many in town have said they want to see something done with the building, the proposal plan failed earlier this year to get endorsements from the Morrisville Economic Development Corporation, an autonomous corporation whose members are appointed by the borough council, according to Councilman George Bolos. Bolos is also a member of the economic development corporation.

In paperwork filed at borough hall, Stockham Interests says the proposal would contribute to the community by rehabilitating a municipal parking lot adjacent to the building.

Schools News Around the Blogosphere

Pride in public schools fuels positive involvement
Boston Globe
According to her job description, West Roxbury's Kathleen Colby is the YMCA's liaison to the classrooms of this city, charged with assuring parents that Boston public schools offer "good and valid options" for their children.

Many Mass. graduates unprepared in college
Boston Globe
Thousands of Massachusetts public high school graduates arrive at college unprepared for even the most basic math and English classes, forcing them to take remedial courses that discourage many from staying in school, according to a statewide study released yesterday.

At a McLean Elementary School, Tag Is Banned
Washington Post
In a letter to parents, principal calls activity a game "of intense aggression," touching off debate among those who call ban an example of overzealous rules and others who say caution is best.

Math report recommends teachers focus on basic skills
Salt Lake Tribune
Al Hartmann/The Salt Lake Tribune
In a small room deep within the Salt Palace Convention Center, about 70 teachers from across the nation spent Friday morning learning how to better teach fractions.

Fla. Schools Fear Gains May Vanish
The Ledger
With budget cuts upcoming, educators are afraid national ranking may drop. TALLAHASSEE | Just as Florida's public school system - long ranked among the worst in the nation - has begun to show marked improvement, a series of state budget cuts threatens to derail that progress, particularly for students and schools already struggling to keep pace. The lack of an income tax meant less money for schools. And the large retired population seemed uncommitted to funding schools.

Students deficient at being proficient
San Diego Union-Trubune
Cal State schools are a long way from their goal of seeing 90 percent of entering freshmen ready for college-level work. Instead, 37 percent of freshmen entered a California State University campus last fall needing remedial math, while 46 percent were unprepared for college-level English, according to new data.

Special-ed costs taxing town budgets
Boston Globe
Special-education costs are due to rise by $1 million or more in some local school districts next year, further straining budgets at a time when many face a gloomy financial outlook.

No Reform Left Behind
Washington Post
The Education Department lets states try more flexible ways to meet 'No Child' requirements. FEDERAL education officials are holding out a promise of flexibility to states that have chafed under the "one size fits all" aspects of the No Child Left Behind law. There's no question that individual schools need different strategies. States should be encouraged to innovate.

Props to Kate Fratti!

I'd like to welcome our first time visitors courtesy of this mention in the BCCT from Kate Fratti.

Thanks for the mention, Kate. Some days this blog can appear very critical and sarcastic. It's difficult not to be considering how things are going in this little town and some of the material I have to work with. But just like your own column and blog, sometimes there are good days, and sometimes there are bad. It's not easy writing every day. I do appreciate the commenters and contributors here immensely. Their participation keeps me grounded. Most of them are not supporters of the current board, but some are. There's quite a number of emails that I receive, and not all of them get posted. There's a growing number of people who are disgusted with the old board, and equally disgusted with the new board (yes, even people who voted for them!) who want a change for the better.

You bring up a good point about how the rhetoric can cause defensive reactions. This is pretty much the way the American political system works. Two polarizing minorities stir things up and it's up to the undecided central majority to make their decisions. When that silent majority finally does stand up, I would be pleased to lay down my digital quill pen. And in the meantime, if my modest attempt at blogging gets these people out of their living rooms and out to a school board or borough council meeting, then I'm a success.

4.18.2008
Funny but not helpful

Ok, the keepers of a blog called Save the Morrisville School are pretty funny some days. That is if bitter sarcasm is your thing. This week they doctored an aerial view of the home of school board member Brenda Worob with the words “Secret meeting” and arrows pointing to the house.

savethemorrisvilleschool.blogspot.com

This after the Worobs hosted a gathering of school board members — never more than four at a time to avoid a quorum — and insisted no school business was addressed. Hard to believe, says the Save the Morrisville School bloggers. I’m with them on this one.

Still, they are the bunch that got their arses handed to them last election after pressing forward with school plans despite public outcry. We’re witnessing the backlash.

The new board majority not only blocked construction, but looks like it’s making moves to do away with the school system entirely. Again, with a deaf ear to the community who didn’t want a new school, but also didn’t want the 116 year old system to fail on its watch.

So far, efforts to farm students out to other districts has failed. Not only because no other district is interested, but because a teachers contract protects against lay-offs and furloughs for five years.

Some days it appears to me the new board leaders have agreed to just kill the system slowly. No big moves, just constant chipping away at budgets, morale, reputation.

Stealth meetings, secret hirings, requests for personal information about kids that’s going to get them sued. All in the name of cost cutting.

Regular folks seem to have given up. Those still playing the insider baseball — the Save the Schools organizers — keep up a steady string of insults, fun making and delighting in the “gotchas!”

The rhetoric doesn’t leave any room for compromise, just backs everyone into defense mode.

Nothing will change in Morrisville until that does, or until the majority of Morrisville residents stand up and demand, “Enough, already!”

So far, that majority remains silent.

Secret Meeting Agenda Revealed

Well, we finally have the first fruits of the Secret Meeting at the Worob's house, courtesy of the BCCT. I could not resist shouting at the monitor as I read this essay. My thoughts appear in italics. Anyone else want to rant at Steve?

People of Morrisville: Glad you’re finally paying attention
By STEPHEN WOROB

I’m glad that so many Morrisville residents now want to express their views about the future of our school district. My question though is where you have been! [As much as I hate to say it, I agree with Steve here. Where have you been? You elected a slate of angry small minded people to run the education system and we're now reaping the benefits.]

Now marks the tenth anniversary of the malicious dismantling of our once-decent school district. [What happened ten years ago? Who dismantled it and why? This is an accusation without substance to back it up.] For years, self servers [Glass House Alert: Be careful on your use of words.] have plagued this district with mismanagement, greed and corruption. Where have you people been? Like it or not, the Morrisville school district has become a big cow that is getting milked to death. [My tin foil hat is firmly on my head. Tell me more. And let me know where the line for milk starts.]

Since 1998, over $7 million has been appropriated toward physical improvements to our aging school buildings. This money was wasted; [You are alleging that seven million dollars has been wasted. What does "wasted" mean? And weren't you a part of that as a board member and officer?] now we have boilers that are said to be so bad that they may explode. [That's because they're 40 years old. Did you as a school board member ever appropriate money to replace the boilers?] Where have you people been?

Not even soaring taxes and horrible test scores could get most of you off your bottoms to demand changes, [true] but you tout the high paid administrators who continually pat themselves on the back for sub-mediocrity. Hence, self promoting [Glass House Alert 2] /substance-less things like domestic and international awards still attract your attention. [Since you brought the subject of attention up, your academic skills aren't well displayed here either. You're making accusations all around the place and not offering a shred of evidence. If you have something that is actionable, take it to the appropriate authorities. Otherwise, you're grandstanding just to hear the sound of your own voice. I know several Morrisville teachers who would grade these unsupported statements rather harshly. I know of one judge who did already.]

Now, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, 76 percent of our recently graduated students failed math and reading on their state assessment tests (worst in the county). [True. Sadly true. Why though? Test scores are dropping all over the country. What is your plan to fix it? Today, you are representing a group who has refused time after time to reveal a plan. SHAME ON YOU!! You personally harangued a sick man in public, shouting repeatedly at him, to the point of him being taken to the hospital and yet you sit there smugly, hurling accusation after accusation WITHOUT A PLAN OF YOUR OWN! That's called attention whoring and only adds to the problem. It fixes nothing but your pathetic need for attention.] If costs over the next 13 years could somehow stay the same and nothing else changes, each kindergartner entering this district will cost taxpayers more than a quarter of a million dollars and 76 percent of them will fail at math and reading. [That's a tortured twist to logic. I agree that throwing money at a problem does not solve it, and Morrisville is paying an extremely large amount to educate its students. We've talked about the math of per student costs. Diving the budget by the number of students yields a high number. Once you subtract the "free" money, the grants and gifts, the real per student cost is much lower. Ask your CPA buddy to explain it. Then, you use the worst score available to make your point. You learned that from the Emperor who keeps screaming that the interest rates are dropping and the old board was wrong in not defeasing earlier because the rates were dropping. What if the rates had actually risen? The argument fails. Same if this year's 11th graders do better in their test scores. Your logic fails.] Despite such dismal results, our prior lame duck school board locked the superintendent and teachers into lucrative long-term contracts. [That's a great use of code words. "Lucrative" in this context connotes luxury or overpayment and "lame-duck" reminding us that term expiring members actually did something. If you think Dr. Yonson or the teachers are overpaid, that's fine as far as your personal opinion, but the salaries are quite within the norm for Bucks County, the state of Pennsylvania, and the East Coast. Secondly, if you're so concerned about lame ducks sitting around while their term is expiring, put your money where your mouth is. On the morning after Election Day when your successor has been elected, I expect your resignation from Borough Council effective immediately. Otherwise, you're just attention whoring again.]

Where have you people been?

When it comes to education, if you expect that our state representatives who are in bed with entities such as the teachers unions and the superintendent’s association, are going to initiate needed changes, you better think again. [While this may be accurate, what does little Morrisville have to do with this? This needs to be attacked on the state level, and no amount of pain or anguish that you inflict upon the children of Morrisville will change this. The Emperor and his Court of Toadies regularly repeat this mealy mouthed drivel. You need to make changes to this at the state level. Stop posturing uselessly in board and council meetings, and use your elected office to make the changes needed.]

In a recent Courier Times article about outsourcing our high school students, teachers would not comment for concerns of crossing the state teachers union [Well, DUH! If there was a teacher who honestly supported a plan to do away with their own job, either they are an uncommon altruist, or silly enough that I would not want them to be teaching my children anyway. If your fight is with the state teachers union, Morrisville, again, is not the place to be holding this fight. Stop posturing uselessly on the local level and use your elected office at the state level where the fight belongs.] but parents and students rightfully expressed their concerns. Drastic changes can be upsetting but when this board of directors tells you that a major restructuring is necessary, you better believe them. [Ah. Believe. As in the statement "I trust the board to do what is right?" I believe this board to be bereft of common sense and ethically challenged. If they told me today was Saturday, I would want independent confirmation.]

At $22,000 per student and dismal test scores in the high school, this district would have gone bankrupt long ago in the real world. [Yes. Absolutely. There's a reason why the education system does not function in a 100% business style model, along with hospitals, and even government itself. They provides services that are of an incalculable future value at a large present cost and a zero immediate financial return. Can schools, hospitals, or governments function as complete profit making institutions? Of course, but what would be the resulting services?] With public education spiraling out of control, our careless lawmakers (whom are in the business of getting reelected) [Does anyone else see the irony of a career elected official spouting about being in the business of being re-elected?] don’t address the root of the problem but rather promote tax shifts and schemes that just pump more money on top of a failing institution. [Talk to the state and federal officials who put this into place. But we would be remiss if we did not take advantage of every break the state and federal governments offered, wouldn't we?]

Who of sound mind really believes that Act 1 legislation to cap and control runaway school spending is worth the paper it was written on? With its 10 exceptions that protect a bloated incumbent bureaucracy, Act 1 law is nothing more than pathetic smoke and mirror legislation. [Your fight is not in Morrisville. Shut up here, and go and fix it. In Harrisburg.]

Now in Morrisville we have a new and somewhat [somewhat?] novice school board that recognizes that status quo is unacceptable and drastic changes are necessary. Let the changes begin here in Morrisville. First we must stop taxing people out of their homes. [I'll agree with this, but who repealed the natural processes of inflation and declining purchasing power? Read Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Read about the inflations that beset the dying British Empire. Read about the "Great Depression." It was rather a big news item a few decades ago. But that's only a partial piece of the puzzle. Did these same people financially plan for their futures? I'm not immune to financial disasters and neither is anyone else by the simple virtue of being a homeowner.] Does anyone really believe that test scores will improve if we go from $22,000 per student to $30,000? I don’t think so. The more we feed the monster, the bigger it will get. [This is just ridiculous. Who is advocating raising the money we taxpayers send to the district?]

My point is not to say I told you so but rather we must all work together just to survive. And perhaps, if we all stick together,[I think you meant to say, "Just Cooperate!"] maybe we’ll gain the attention of our (don’t rock the boat) lawmakers.

Stephen Worob, Morrisville, is a former school board member and a current councilman in Morrisville.

Strip Mall Sunday, Thursday Edition

It looks like the zoning board hearing for the Stockham Building Strip Club has been rescheduled. Let's keep May 5 open on the calendar.

Morrisville revitalization?

The Stockham building in downtown Morrisville

This may not be the revitalization that Morrisville was hoping for.

A “burlesque style adult entertainment” lounge above a first-floor restaurant is being proposed for the four-story masonry Stockham building on the southeast corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Bridge Street. The proposal also calls for opening a fitness center on the third and fourth floors of the building, at 10 S. Pennsylvania Ave.

A zoning hearing is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. May 5 at borough hall, 35 Union St., and is open to the public.

More info coming soon in the Courier Times.

BCCT and Emperor Spar. Part II

As a follow up to the entry BCCT and Emperor Spar, I noticed something right away. When you look at the editoral, you see a fair number of comments. When you look at the Emperor's rebuttal, there are no comments.

Would anyone like to visit the Emperor's manifesto and leave him a little lovin'? Anyone? Someone? Bueller?

21st Century Grant Renewal

Good news for Morrisville schools. The 21st Century Grant was renewed for three years.


The Morrisville School District was recently awarded three more years of funding from the 21st Century Grant. It will receive $373,000 a year to continue community learning cetners at Grandview and M. R. Reiter Elementary Schools, Morrisville Middle and High Schools and the Ivins House.
Grant money will help contribute to homework support, remedial assistance, and enrichment.

The learning centers help kids with college preparation and cultural arts activities. They also offer a range of clubs and activities, including mentoring and tutoring, academic help, community service opportunities and more.

Confidential Information

This satellite photograph was just received from a confidential informant.

Do not share it with anyone.

Gateway Meeting Update

Was anyone at the borough meeting last night? How was the Gateway presentation?

The Phoenix Rising? Gateway Presentation TONIGHT

Here's a chance to do some good for the entire borough. Come on out TONIGHT! and support the Gateway project. The DRJTBA will sell the needed land to the Morrisville EDC, so Dan Jones can make his long awaited official presentation.

Please come on out and support Dan Jones; Penn Jersey Realty; the Gateway Center; and/or Morrisville. All of them are deserving of your support.

Hi Everyone,

Many of you may be aware that Dan has been working very hard for the last 2 years to get past lots of Morrisville red tape so that he and his partners can build an office building (The Gateway Center) at the foot of the Trenton Makes Bridge. Dan really believes in this project and knows that a structure of this sort in Morrisville would bring good tax relief to the residents and much needed customers to the businesses of Morrisville. This Tuesday evening at 7:30 in the Morrisville Borough Hall Dan will make yet another presentation to the Council. He would LOVE to be able to show community support for this project. So, if any of you who have an interest in the future of Morrisville could attend this meeting Tuesday night it would put a big smile on Dan's face and make a difficult job much easier. The presentation should begin right at 7:30 and take about an hour.

Thanks so much!
Jennifer Jones

Here Today...

Thanks to the contributor who alerted me to the postings for the district solicitor's job.

I see no mention of caving under pressure to the whims of the Emperor. Or is that covered under "other duties as assigned?"

SOLICITOR Morrisville School: MORRISVILLE SCHOOL DIST
Job ID 0005507046-01
Company Name MORRISVILLE SCHOOL DIST
Job Category Legal
Location Morrisville, PA
Position Type Full-Time, Employee
Experience 0-1 Years Experience
Desired Education Level Other
Date Posted April 2, 2008

MORRISVILLE SCHOOL DIST

SOLICITOR

Morrisville School District, Bucks County, PA, is seeking a firm to perform solicitor duties for the Borough of Morrisville School District. School experience required. Please submit resume including hourly fees to Dr. Elizabeth Yonson, Superintendent, School District Borough of Morrisville, 550 West Palmer St., Morrisville, PA 19067. FAX 215-736-2413. Deadline for submission April 11, 2008.

BCCT and Emperor Spar

Today's BCCT carries a double shot of goodness today. First is the editorial that blasts the Stop the School "open and transparent" board members for their lack of openess and transparency.

The second is a guest opinion printing the statement that the Emperor read at a recent meeting.

We report, you decide.

Secret society: Unschooled board
Morrisville school board members are pursuing unpublicized agendas at private locations with little regard for the public’s right to know.

Officially, Bill Hellmann and the new majority on the Morrisville school board were given power by the people who voted them into office. Unfortunately, the people have been kept in the dark as the board routinely conducts business not only behind closed doors — but behind private closed doors.

As Courier Times columnist Kate Fratti reported, school board members are beating the state Sunshine Law’s quorum stipulation by meeting tag-team style at private locations. Sunday, it was at board member Brenda Worub’s home. Four of nine board members acknowledged being present at one time. A fifth attended earlier, but left before others arrived.

Questioned about the propriety of the secret meeting, Hellmann dismissed it as an issue: “I’m not sure there is anything to comment on. This is a gathering of friends, some of whom … happen to be on the school board. … We will continue to meet with each other, mindful of the law, whenever we wish.”

We’re not sure what Hellmann means by “mindful of the law,’’ but the tag-team meetings suggest a focus on the letter of the law rather than its spirit. In the process, the requirement that elected officials keep the public informed seems to have been forgotten, if not ignored.

Dedicated to undoing plans to build a new $30 million K-12 school, Hellmann and his supporters on the board have routinely worked behind the scenes since his anti-new school majority took over in January. But beyond stopping construction, the board apparently wants to scrap its high school program altogether — without any public input.

In her Monday column, Fratti reminded us of a string of backroom decisions, beginning with the board secretly contacting other districts about taking Morrisville High School kids on a tuition basis. Also secretly, engineers were asked to review conditions at all three borough schools. Now, the school district solicitor attorney who protested the secret hiring is expected to be replaced at the next board meeting. Hellmann originally directed that resumes for a new attorney be sent to his private office rather than the school district.

Bill Hellmann is a smart man. There’s no doubt about that. He’s a certified public accountant and in the Guest Opinion below, Hellmann confronts some of the criticism he’s faced. But there are matters he doesn’t address, including his recent demand — so far unfulfilled — that administrators reveal the names and addresses of special education students. Hellmann recently has preached the need to control the costs of special education.

The cost of special education is a common complaint among school officials. But Hellmann’s demand for the identities of students and their addresses is, well, frightening.

In our view, this unschooled board needs to learn some respect for the public’s right to know. Meanwhile, we encourage citizens — the parents of students, in particular — to stand up for their rights.


Cost of dissolving school bond debt pales next to savings

Regarding the recent Courier Times editorial, “Costly lessons,” as it pertains to the Morrisville School District. The article stated that the K-12 building project should have gone to a referendum. I agree with this statement and spoke several times at public meetings, imploring the prior board majority to do just that. They ignored me and many other people on this issue.

There was overwhelming opposition to this project and bond issue and it was emphatically proved at the polls in May 2007 and again in November 2007. I strongly disagree that our school buildings, at least the high school, are in awful condition. The high school needs some renovation and upgrades only. The school district is in the process of doing an evaluation of the school buildings.

I do not believe that we can build a quality K-12 school for $30 million. The Philadelphia Archdiocese plans to build two new high schools in our area, at a size not much larger than our planned school building but at a cost of $65 million each. I believe I was elected, in part, to help the school district provide a quality education for our children at a cost the community can afford.

The following is an explanation of dissolving the debt and how much was saved:

That the school district had to put up more than $24.4 million to dissolve $22 million proves how expensive the original bond issue was. But we also received an extra $1.67 million in bond premium with the original issue. There is no free lunch; this had to be paid back. This present board did not issue this expensive debt. The prior board majority issued this expensive debt. This bond issue has a 10-year call, which means we have to pay interest to the bondholders for 10 years whether we like it or not.

This is a long time and expensive. The prior majority board was told many times by this town not to issue this expensive debt. In fact, there was a citizen lawsuit to try to stop this expensive debt issue. We have no control over current interest rates. I, for one, am not going to play the interest rate game with public funds. If this was my money, maybe I would gamble, but not with public funds. We have to cut our losses and move forward.

Since the new school is not going to be built, IRS regulations require this debt to be dissolved within a certain time period — I believe three years from date of issue. We have to give it back. I believe this community elected the new board members to help the school district bring back fiscal and operational order. Eighty-five percent of the bond proceeds need to be spent within three years of issuance.

This partial dissolution freed up approximately $1.2 million in the current budget of the general fund. These funds can be used for more upgrades, a possible tax reduction for the ’08-’09 budget year or other items the board decides upon. We also plugged a probable $400,000 budget hole in the ’08-’09 budget. We also reduced the millage for the ’08-’09 budget year by approximately 7 mills. We also saved future tax millage by partially defeating this debt. We also probably saved (depending on current interest rates) approximately $460,000 (the difference between what we have to pay bondholders vs. what we would earn ($1.3 million vs. $855,000).

In summary, we saved $12.6 million in future interest costs by dissolving this $22 million in bonded debt. The bond premium money mentioned above in the amount of nearly $1.7 million, plus the nearly $1.2 million sitting in the general fond equals almost $2.9 million. This is more than the $2.4 million that was put up as extra money to dissolve the $22 million bond.

Disclosure of the bond dissolution was first made at a committee meeting back around Dec. 17. Another analysis was included in the board packet in January before the Jan. 30 vote. I am only one board member. We have nine members all together. If there were any questions on the dissolution, I would hope any board members would have asked our financial advisor or our bond attorney prior to or at the Jan. 30 public meeting.

Bill Hellmann
is president of the Morrisville school board and is a certified public accountant.

Keeping the public at bay in Morrisville

Kate Fratti has a column in the BCCT today looking at the SHHHHHH...*secret meeting* from last Sunday.

So here's another documented time when these yokels refuse to follow standard public meeting procedure and hide away from the public here in Morrisville.

They hid the Hellmann Report (although the Emperor did that more on his own, his accomplices backed him up. Accomplices are held equally accountable in the eyes of the law.); they hid the farming scheme; they hid any discussions or contacts with Delaware Valley High School. Now they're hiding their opposition to the special education kids. Maybe they want to farm them out too? Who knows? The Emperor never wants to tell us what silly stuff he's thinking about.

Our rights to free and open deliberations by our governmental representatives are being violated. Speak up and tell them you will not allow this to continue! *THEM* means all of this immoral majority. Despite the obvious imperial performance by William Hellmann, CPA, he cannot do this without accomplices: "Angry" Al Radosti, Marlys "Minutes take Months" Mihok, Brenda "Two for One" Worob, Bill "Honest Talker" Farrell, and Gloria "Do What Bill Says" Heater.

Look below and see about the emails going to Hellmann's private email address. This is another example of this board's skirting of laws and not leaving a public record. In the U.S. government, the checks and balances are there, and a House of Representatives Government Oversight committee is functioning. In this situation, YOU, the public, is the oversight.

If you don't speak up now, don't complain when they ignore you too.

Keeping the public at bay in Morrisville

I was muttering about open meeting laws again last week after getting off the phone with a caller who alleged Morrisville’s majority school board members were set to meet secretly on a recent Sunday.

He gave me the time, the address, and a tip about the agenda — a sexual harassment complaint by one worker against another.

Just what this little district needs: more controversy.

The board majority elected to block high school construction appears to want to do away with the high school program entirely. Without public deliberation, the majority contacted other schools about taking Morrisville kids on a tuition basis. Next, a Philadelphia outfit offered to privatize the high school. No public discussion about that either, so there’s no way to know where the offer stands.

Also without public debate, the board contracted with engineers for a cursory review of conditions in all three district schools. This, instead of the more thorough review and renovation action plan the board unanimously voted on in December.

We learn this month that the solicitor who protested the secret hiring and insisted on a public vote after the fact to “clean this up,” is expected to be replaced as early as the next school board meeting. Originally, school board President Bill Hellmann asked that all resumes for the job be sent to his private certified public accounting office instead of the school administration building.

And recently, the American Civil Liberties Union expressed interest in Morrisville schools. Why?

Here’s a clue.

Saying special ed costs must be controlled, Hellmann acknowledged he asked for the names and addresses of all special educations students, along with the services they receive and the individual cost for each child. Hellman said he’d settle for knowing whether each child lives in a house or an apartment if he can’t have names and addresses.

That kind of stuff will perk up the ACLU’s ears.

A week ago Sunday, I drove by the address my caller gave me — the home of school board member Brenda Worob and husband Stephen, a borough councilman.

The house was gaily decorated with patriotic buntings. An American flag was flapping at the front door. Surely the caller was mistaken.

But, I’ll be darned. I wrote down the makes of several cars to match them with board members later.

But I needn’t have been so Brenda Starr.

Hellmann conceded to Sunday’s gathering as soon as I asked him about it. No sleuthing needed.

“I’m not sure what there is to comment on,” he said, since there was never a quorum Sunday.

“This was a gathering of friends, some of whom — never more than four school board members — happen to be on the school board. … We will continue to meet with each other, mindful of the law, whenever we wish.”

Although five school board members were at the Worob home Sunday afternoon — Worob, Hellmann, Marlys Mihok, Bill Farrell and Al Radosti (who left before some others arrived) — we are asked to believe no specific school business was discussed.

That harassment complaint? There was one. It was brought to the full board’s attention at a legal executive session after the agenda meeting.

“The way I see it, we have to do just three things,” Hellmann told me after that executive session. “We have to provide students with an education, to do it in a way that is affordable, and to follow the law.”

Patriotic buntings aside, I think he refers to the letter of the law, not necessarily the spirit.

Kate Fratti, whose column appears on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, suspects that once this board concedes to deliberate all matters in public, they’ll do it in pig Latin.
Editor: Carl LaVO, 215-949-4227 clavo@phillyBurbs.com

Inquirer Education Scorecard 2008

Today, the Philadelphia Inquirer published the regional report card for the schools. Take a look and let us know what parts of the report made you sit up and take notice.

Bond...James Bond

When I read this, all I could think about was the craven small minded people from Morrisville who have nothing better to do than to sit like latter day trolls at the foot of the Delaware bridges and watch license plates, waiting, watching, hoping, to find an *GASP* outsider being schooled inside the Morrisville School District.

Don't get me wrong. Following up on reports of non-district students attending here, especially when we're in the financial straits we are, is reasonable and required. I'm looking at the wannabe Mrs. Kravitz who devotes time to a rather fruitless pursuit where the return on the time invested is minimal to zero. The time would be better spent volunteering INSIDE a classroom, where the return is timeless and priceless. What a great MasterCard commercial this could make.

The story is from the UK, but could have been headlined from just about any US city.

Poole council spies on family over school claim

A council has used powers intended for anti-terrorism surveillance to spy on a family who were wrongly accused of lying on a school application form.

For two weeks the middle-class family was followed by council officials who wanted to establish whether they had given a false address within the catchment area of an oversubscribed school to secure a place for their three-year-old.

Notes on the movements of the mother and her three children
The council logged the family's actions in detail- click to enlarge

The "spies" made copious notes on the movements of the mother and her three children, who they referred to as "targets" as they were trailed on school runs. The snoopers even watched the family home at night to establish where they were sleeping.

In fact, the 39-year-old mother - who described the snooping as "a grotesque invasion of privacy" - had held lengthy discussions with the council, which assured her that her school application was totally in order.

Poole borough council disclosed that it had legitimately used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to spy on the family.

This has led to fears that parents all over the country could be monitored by councils cracking down on those who bend the rules to get their children into a good school.

The Act was pushed through by the Government in 2000 to allow police and other security agencies to carry out surveillance on serious organised crime and terrorists. It has since been taken up by councils to catch those carrying out any "criminal activity".

The mother, who wishes to remain anonymous, said: "I'm incensed that legislation designed to combat terrorism can be turned on a three-year-old. It was very creepy when we found out that people had been watching us and making notes.
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"Councils should be protecting children, not spying on them."

The surveillance began when the mother, who runs an online toy business, and her 36-year-old partner, a computer programmer, applied for their youngest child to go to Lilliput First School, where their two elder children, aged six and 10, were educated.

The primary school, near the millionaire suburb of Sandbanks, Dorset, is heavily oversubscribed.

At the time they were in the middle of moving house but, after consulting the school, they held off selling because that may have meant moving just outside its catchment area.

When the deadline passed for them to get into the school, which the girl joins in September, they moved a mile down the road and put the house back on the market. Then the council began its investigation. "We have lived in the house for 10 years, our eldest went to the school and our middle child is still at the school and so it seemed only right to send our youngest, especially as all her friends were going there," said the mother.

"We checked with the school and everything was above board and then we were called in and told we had been under surveillance. I could not believe my ears. Not only is it an invasion of our privacy but what a waste of money, especially as we had done nothing wrong."

Yesterday the council defended using the powers, claiming that lying on a school application amounted to fraud. It said it had used the law on two other occasions during the past year and on both had proved that parents had lied about where they lived.

However, James Welch, of the human rights pressure group Liberty, said: "It's one thing for anti-terror police to use covert surveillance, but it has come to a pretty pass when it becomes the tool of the school catchment area police. This is a disproportionate and unnecessarily intrusive use of RIPA."

Agenda Meeting Wrapup

Any comments?

Secret Meetings?

I got an email from a reader suggesting that the current school board has been holding secret meetings on topics unknown. Does anyone have information they want to share?

Reminder: Agenda Meeting Tonight

Make sure to check in and see what new tricks the board has up their collective sleeves. In the MHS LGI room at 7:30 P.M. Don't forget the committee meetings either.

Now It's Time For YOUR Three Minutes

Last evening, I received this as a comment to the Morrisville Schizophrenia entry from February 20. I posted it there, but thought it was worthy of a posting of its own.

Do you agree or disagree with the writer?

Posted by over40yrsinmville to Save The Morrisville School at April 7, 2008 8:00 PM
over40yrsinmville has left a new comment on your post "Morrisville Schizophrenia":

I have lived in this town for 46 yrs so far. I was born and raised here. Though I didn't attend MHS, all my good friends were from MHS. I went to Egan by my choice, not because I thought MHS wasn't a fine school. I went through Holy Trinity and thought I would finnish at Egan. I married a MHS Grad. We have three wonderful Boys. All of who Graduated from MHS. One is still working his way through college. One graduated Cum Laude from a very fine Private College. This fine college presented him with a VERY generous Financial package, (almost tuition free), He did this because of his hard work in MHS and the help of the best teachers at MHS. My last boy is a freshman at another fine private college. Again all because of hard work and the great teachers of MHS. All three boys finnished in the top of their respective class at MHS. I used to think very highly of this town and was proud to call this town my home. Unfortunately, I can't say that now. I'm so amazed at the disinterest our elected officials have in this community. They claim that is not true. I don't see any proof of their work in beautifying this town. We have become the laughing stock of communities. Our schoolboard doesn't care of the future of this town either. The only thing in their eyes are dollar signs. Well people, you have to spend money in order to make money. No person in their right mind would want to move into this town, as it stands right now, and I don't blame them. I only wish the "residents" who have only been here a few years would wake up and see the light, just maybe we could move ahead. Until then, I'm so afraid to imagine how much worse this town might become.

Media Alert/Sneaker Drive on Channel 10

I got a late tip that the sneaker drive is being profiled on WCAU Channel 10 at 6:15 P.M. tonight.

UPDATE: 7:30 P.M. Great story! See the Morrisville High School National Honor Society in action. Congratulations to advisor Elizabeth Glaum-Lathbury, junior Michael Leather, 8th grader Keivanna Lacey, junior Nichole Kamann, and the rest of the middle and senior high honor society members for a job well done.

Maybe you can bring a pair of sneakers to the board agenda meeting to prove to the naysayers on the board that people out there still care about the great job Morrisville kids are doing inside and outside of the classroom? The next agenda meeting is Wednesday April 9 at 7:30 P.M. and the next business meeting is April 23.

Video and Still Pictures or if you want to help

Students Step Up, Send Sneakers To Africa

POSTED: 5:57 pm EDT April 7, 2008
UPDATED: 6:55 pm EDT April 7, 2008

MORRISVILLE, Pa. -- Bucks County is a long way from Africa. But some students there with big hearts are taking a big step to bridge the borders with, of all things, old sneakers.

In Morrisville Middle/Senior High School classroom, you might not be able to tell what lesson the students are learning from a bunch of old sneakers, but the lesson is one of compassion.

"All my friends know me for having a lot of shoes," Michael Leather, an 11th-grader, said. "I always like to have great shoes."

Leather is learning that not everyone can afford great shoes, clothes or even food. He is one of several students gathering old sneakers to help people living in African villages.

Keivanna Lacey, an eighth-grader, said she knows about poverty in Africa firsthand. She visited Chad with her family three years ago during the sweltering summer.

"We have air conditioning and everything, and people there were just fanning themselves," Lacey said.

French teacher Elizabeth Glaum-Lathbury read about the program called the Perpetual Prosperity Pumps Foundation in a magazine.

"Lot of the kids come back from Christmas, and they have a new cell phone, and they have a lot of gadgets," Glaum-Lathbury said. "I think it's important for them to understand that not everyone has everything."

The donated shoes are refurbished and sent to Ghana. That's where they're sold, and the money from the sales helps families in Africa.

The school's goal is to collect 600 sneakers by the end of the school year.

That will give a family intensive training and resources in organic farming for a year to help sustain them for decades.

"I think it's a rewarding experience because we're able to collect shoes and give hope to other people in different countries," Nichole Kamann, an 11th-grader, said.

Kamann said she hopes someday she can see her footprint on the world.

"I really want to go over there and see what kind of a difference we can make," she said.

In that sense, the school lesson is really a life lesson.

For information on how you can donate, click here.

“We do pretty well for a small school.”

As a followup to the MHS Students Working in Community post on March 24, the BCCT has an update. I love the last line though. For all you anti-Morrisville school people, read and be ashamed and ask yourself: What did YOU do to help other than to come out to a board meeting and trample on the work of these students and their teachers?

Sneakers make tracks to Africa

By MANASEE WAGH
Bucks County Courier Times

Do you have any sneakers hanging around unused at home?

Don't throw them away.

Drop them off at Morrisville Middle/Senior High School, where students are trying to collect at least 600 pairs to help families in African villages.

So far, National Honor Society adviser Elizabeth Glaum-Lathbury and her middle school counterpart, Patti Ebert, who represents the school's 21st Century Service Learning Club, have collected about 70 pairs for the project.

The money made from refurbishing and selling the sneakers could kick-start a new family farm or provide clean drinking water.

“We get to help other kids who aren't as fortunate. It's something we can do to help kids on another continent,” said Kyle Burger, a sophomore and one of the 25 members of the honor society.

Glaum-Lathbury saw the idea in a National Honor Society Leadership magazine, in which she read about Perpetual Prosperity Pumps Foundation. It's a nonprofit organization trying to collect sneakers across the nation.

While the foundation wants only sneakers in adult sizes seven and larger, Glaum-Lathbury and Ebert welcome people to clean their closets of any size.

“I'll give the smaller sizes to other organizations, like the Red Cross or the Salvation Army,” said Glaum-Lathbury, who has gathered 25 to 30 small pairs so far.

Her classroom has a round bin about 4 feet high that's filling up with athletic footwear. The side of the bin is printed with a vertical ruler displaying what the old footwear could buy. For instance, 50 sneakers can purchase a bicycle. Three hundred is good for a colonized bee hive, which could serve as a starter hive for a honey farmer. Five hundred sneakers are enough for a quarter acre of a vegetable farm, while 600 sneakers buy more than a year of training in intensive organic farming.

Irrigation systems, malaria medication and micro-finance training are just a few of the other possible long-term benefits.

Glaum-Lathbury handed out fliers about the program to students from sixth to 12th grade, and Ebert and another teacher distributed fliers to community groups. Students passed along the message to donate sneakers among friends and family.

Kyle said he would like to do more service projects that touch international communities.

Right now, the students are involved in other, locally oriented service projects.

Both middle school and high school students will walk up to 8 miles in Newtown's Tyler State Park to raise money for multiple sclerosis on May 4.

The students try to do 10 service projects a year, including a monthly food drive with a specific theme, like juice, baby food and cereal.

A future idea to raise donations is to charge both a bit of cash and a donated item like a sneaker or a can of food to get into a school dance, said Ebert.

“Next year we'll try to team up and get someone from Philabundance [hunger relief organization] to talk about what's needed in area communities,” said Glaum-Lathbury. “It would give students a true picture of what's needed.”

Then the students can pick better themes for food collection next year, she said.

“We do pretty well for a small school.”

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

For more information about the nonprofit Perpetual Prosperity Pumps Foundation and a comprehensive list of sneaker collection sites, go to http://www.pppafrica.org/. You can drop off your old sneakers and soccer cleats at the Morrisville Middle/Senior High School's front office, at 550 West Palmer St. in Morrisville.

Manasee Wagh can be reached at 215-949-4206 or mwagh@phillyBurbs.com.

April 7, 2008 5:07 AM

It STILL Ain't Just Us!

The results are in and it seems that students nationally are failing to be proficient. I'm not sure that my math skills are good enough to count up all of the children being left behind.

Let's be sure to note that all our students nationally should be doing better, but it's pretty clear that Dr. Yonson and her cabinet are doing the job here in Morrisville.

U.S. Students Achieve Mixed Results on Writing Test
New York Times
By SAM DILLON

About a third of the nation's eighth-grade students, and roughly a quarter of its high school seniors, are proficient writers, according to nationwide test results.

That proportion of students demonstrating writing proficiency is about the same as in 2002, when a similar exam was last given.

But the results of the latest test, administered last year, also found modest increases in the skills of lower-performing students. Nearly 9 students in 10 can now demonstrate at least a basic achievement in writing, defined as partial mastery of the skills needed for proficient work.

As in the past, girls outperformed boys by far, most decisively at the eighth-grade level, where 41 percent of them achieved proficiency, compared with 20 percent of boys. The racial achievement gap narrowed slightly, with black and Hispanic students’ writing improving a bit more than did whites’.

The results for eighth graders, though not for seniors, were broken down by states, the top performers of which were New Jersey, where 56 percent of students scored at or above proficiency levels, and Connecticut, where the number was 53 percent. Nineteen states ranked above New York, where it was 31 percent.

That a third of the nation’s eighth graders can write with proficiency may not sound like much, but it is the best performance by eighth-grade students in any subject tested in the national assessment in the last three years. Only 17 percent of eighth graders were proficient on the 2006 history exam, for example.

Though some experts questioned whether the writing test, which requires students to compose only brief essays in a short time, was an accurate measure of their ability, officials of the government’s testing program said they were encouraged by the results.

“I am happy to report, paraphrasing Mark Twain, that the death of writing has been greatly exaggerated,” said Amanda P. Avallone, an eighth-grade English teacher who is vice chairwoman of the board that oversees the testing program, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as “the nation’s report card.”

The results were released at the Library of Congress in Washington. The host, James H. Billington, the librarian of Congress, drew laughs when he expressed concern about “the slow destruction of the basic unit of human thought — the sentence,” as young Americans do most of their writing in disjointed prose composed in Internet chat rooms or in cellphone text messages.

“The sentence is the biggest casualty,” Mr. Billington said. “To what extent is students’ writing getting clearer?”

Ms. Avallone sought to allay his concern.

“I know that the sentence has not been put to rest as a unit of communication,” she said.

Ms. Avallone also said the difference in scores between girls and boys might result in part from lower literacy expectations for boys in the public schools.

“These days I seldom if ever hear the message that math and science do not matter for girls,” she said, “yet I do still encounter the myth that many boys won’t really need to write very much or very well once they leave school.”

The national writing test was given to 140,000 eighth graders and 28,000 12th graders selected to form a representative sample of all students nationwide in the two grades. Each student wrote two 25-minute essays intended to measure skills at writing to inform, persuade and tell stories.

Thirty-three percent of eighth graders scored at or above the proficiency level, which the test designers defined as competency in carrying out challenging academic tasks. Eighty-eight percent scored at or above the basic level, up from 85 percent in 2002.

“These results pleased and encouraged me,” said Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, which represents the nation’s 60 largest urban districts. “A lot of cities have introduced explicit writing programs. You go into urban schools and you see hallways lined with samples of student writing. Writing programs have gotten better.”

If Mr. Casserly was encouraged, some others were not, particularly in light of other indicators of Americans’ writing prowess. A survey of 120 corporations conducted by the College Board in 2003, for instance, concluded that a third of employees in the nation’s blue-chip companies, including many recent college graduates, wrote poorly.

“American students’ writing skills are deteriorating,” said Will Fitzhugh, founder of The Concord Review, a journal that features history research papers written by high school students.

Mr. Fitzhugh expressed skepticism that the national assessment accurately measured students’ overall writing skills, because, he said, it tested only their ability to write brief essays jotted out in half an hour.

“The only way to assess the kind of writing that students will have to do in college,” he said, “is to have them write a term paper, and then have somebody sit down and grade it. And nobody wants to do that, because it’s too costly.”

Strip Mall Sunday

I received some interesting news this morning while sitting in church. It was announced from the pulpit that at long last, it seems like there could be a tenant in the former Pryor's Pharmacy/The Record Collector storefront at the intersection of Pennsylvania and Bridge under the watchful gaze of Robert Morris himself.

The only problem is that it seems that the proposed tenant is apparently a less than G-Rated adult facility. The exact nature of the business that would be going in there was not disclosed. What was disclosed was that the zoning board would be entertaining a variance request at their meeting tomorrow, Monday evening, at 7:30 P.M.

If there is anyone who has more specific or better information, would you please share it with all of us?

We can argue about a great number of things, but I really do not think any of the respectable citizens here in the borough would want an adult oriented facility right at our main intersection. Please, show up for the meeting Monday evening, or call the borough directly at 215-295-8181 to register your opposition.

Gateway Land Sale Update

Nice to see that Morrisville can appear in the local Trenton newspapers once in a while. Here's a story on the first step of the Gateway project land sale.

Land sale to create office park
To be built on former site of bar
Sunday, April 06, 2008
BY CURT YESKE
Special to the Times

MORRISVILLE, Pa. -- The former site of a nuisance bar on East Bridge Street between North Delmorr and Central avenues will be developed into an office project as a result of an agreement between the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission and borough officials.

The land was acquired more than 10 years ago prior to the renovation of the Lower Trenton Morrisville Free Bridge (the "Trenton Makes" bridge) and was considered excess land by the current members of the interstate agency who said the sale will help the Morrisville Economic Development Corp.'s effort at revitalization.

The commission agreed to sell the property -- which no longer has a bar on it -- for its appraised value of $100,000. Morrisville officials have said they in turn plan to sell the property to a private developer who plans to build an office park with a publicly accessible recreational trail.

In published reports, developer Penn Jersey Real Properties estimated the project would create 400 to 600 jobs and involve a 55,000-square-foot building.

"This property transaction will provide economic, recreational and aesthetic dividends for Morrisville," said Frank G. McCartney, the commission's executive director. "The borough has always been an important partner with the commission, and we are happy to be able to support its revitalization efforts."

"With this sale we are one step closer to bringing in new taxes and hundreds of new jobs into the borough," said Morrisville Councilman George Bolos, chairman of the development corporation. "We appreciate the commission's willingness to recognize the importance of this project in the future of the borough."

RFPs Are Meant to be Ignored

So here we go again, spending "emergency" repair money cluelessly. tossing it after issues without an overall plan. The Emperor's snarling "But what if there's a fire" comments have spurred immediate action on advertising for a RFP. Contrast that, of course, to the RFP that was commissioned in December. Emperor Billy-Boy meant to read it and approve it for publication quickly, but well, it wasn't a priority, so it got ignored.

But, BY GOD! What if there's a fire! responses mean the RFP gets done pretty quickly.



NOTICE TO BIDDERS
The Board of School Directors are requesting bids for the individual items listed below. Specifications may be obtained from the Business Office, School District of Borough of Morrisville, 550 West Palmer St., Morrisville, PA 19067 (215-736-5933). The individual items and bid opening times are as follows: Electrical Repair Work
8:30 a.m. April 21, 2008
Fire Alarm/
Fire Suppression Repairs
9:30 a.m. April 21, 2008
Plumbing Code Repairs
10:30 a.m. April 21, 2008
Sealed Bids must be received before the above listed deadlines at which time they will be opened publicly in Conference Room F-10 of the Mid/Sr. High School. The owner reserves the right to waive any information and to accept or reject any/all bids in its best interest.
Marlys Mihok
Secretary

Appeared in: Bucks County Courier Times on Friday, 04/04/2008

It's a dance that everyone gets to participate in, but I ask why anyone would really bid on these jobs? Yes, I know, it's like the lottery (you cant win it unless you're in it) but why would I, as a somewhat respected and competent craftsman, bid on something with these yokels? The board freely and cluelessly meanders through the process, ignoring those who have actually done the hard work of planning a construction project AND shepherding it through the PlanCon process. Here they reject reality and replace it with their own rather unusual reality. Paging Adam Savage: The Emperor is calling.

But therein lies the answer: They will have many, many bids. Because as anyone knows, when a client has money to throw away and can afford to do the same job two or three times, it's always better to be there to be awarded the same work repeatedly. Without an overarching plan here to control spending, that is exactly what will happen.

Make sure you take note of the disjointed thinking patterns. The Emperor is aghast at the costs for special education students and wants to nickel and dime those costs. But when it comes to supporting the construction industry, it's belly up to the bar time!

Progress on Gateway?

4.3.2008
Bridge commission sells land to Morrisville EDC

The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission has reached an agreement to sell about an acre of land to Morrisville’s economic development corporation, the commission announced Thursday afternoon. The move could make way for a new office complex in the borough that has residents split.

The commission will sell the property on East Bridge Street at North Delmorr and Central avenues to the EDC for $100,000. The EDC is then expected to sell the property to Morrisville-based developer Penn Jersey Real Properties looking to build the Morrisville Gateway Center.