Why Are We Here?

There's a letter in the BCCT today posing open and honest questions that deserves a reply.

What's the big deal?

I'm not originally from these parts, so I should start by admitting that I don't understand the big brouhaha over the possibility of “farming out” Morrisville's high school students to other nearby districts.

I voted against the shiny new school because if I could afford those taxes, I sure wouldn't have bought such a tiny house here. At the same time, though, with little ones who will start school in a few years, I was disheartened to read in the Courier Times, too late, that Morrisville High School students perform among the worst in the area.

I suddenly envied anyone who had the right street address to fall into the Pennsbury School District. How many of my neighbors had to pay for parochial school so their kids could succeed? Sadder still, how many couldn't afford it?

Now, to hear there is a chance that my kids could attend a more successful school and that it may also be cost efficient for us as taxpayers — I'm thrilled!

As far as being “outcasts,” I don't see why. Rural kids were bused from 45 minutes away to attend my high school and they fit in just fine.

Pennsbury is a diverse school. What makes our kids so different from folks who live a few streets over?

Part of the difference is the big vs. small. I see parents walk in to the school and the teachers and staff know exactly who they are and who their child is without prompting. While that will happen to an extent in any school system, it is a much tighter and closer bond between the teacher and student here in Morrisville. I went to a regional high school taking one hour bus rides both ways. Reading or doing homework on those buses was nearly impossible between the other kids and road conditions. I explicitly chose Morrisville because it was a small school district. I wasted more time on those buses than I care to remember, and my mother spent even more time than she cared to remember having to drive me when after school activities conflicted with the bus schedule. No weeping, wailing, or gnashing of teeth is being done here. It's just the price you pay for a large district. I chose small.

Please don't envy the Pennsbury district students. Their football teams only have 11 players, basketball has 5, and the baseball team still fields 9. Will they achieve more championships than Morrisville? Undoubtedly yes. They have a larger pool of prospective students to choose from. It also means that only the best play and the rest watch. That's OK too. It's a fact of life, but a larger number of our kids get to play sports and engage in other activities. That rounds them out pretty well and gives them a great advantage on college applications.

You mention the "outcast" issue. At a regional high school like mine, yes, students were bused long distances. We all "belonged" there, so there was no "outcast" issue, right? Well, there's always a place that is on "the other side of the tracks" and those people will always be outcasts. As much as I hate to say it, you are contributing to the Morrisville outcast characterization in your letter. I'm sure you mean well, but have you gone in to any of the schools to see firsthand what happens, or do you rely upon what you read in the BCCT and what some neighbors may say? While we're discussing "outcasts", have you asked why Pennsbury doesn't want us?

Please define success for me. You mention that neighbors are paying for parochial school so that their children will "succeed." Many adults have differing definitions of success. I work with my children and their learning is my responsibility as much as their teacher's responsibility. I know what they are learning, and I supplement their learning with everyday applications of what they are learning so that they can realize that yes, Virginia, algebra is used in the real world and here's where and how you use it. My kids are happy, healthy, and being educated. They have goals, dreams, and visions. My definition of success is fulfilled. And they attend Morrisville schools.

"The shiny new school." Yes, it has been described that way. It certainly is new, especially when compared to the buildings from the 1920s and 1950s that we currently use and that have been discussed here. There is one thing that is not in dispute and that all parties can agree upon: The current schools are not in an acceptable condition. I'll be honest. I don't care if a new school is built or not. What we have though is unacceptable and needs to be fixed. Of the four plans that were researched and provided, a new school was the best option for price and life of effective use. Multiple decades of declining borough tax revenues and indifference by succeeding boards (plural) of education and borough councils (plural again) have led us here. The citizens of Morrisville are paying the price for these decades of neglect and indifference, and I would ask you to question your long time neighbors and ask what they did back in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s to have prevented us from reaching this point.

I am all for well run schools, financed as inexpensively as possible, providing the highest quality of education possible. Don't ever think otherwise. I cringe every month when the escrow check is written and I will give the Emperor his due if starting in July, my taxes go down as significantly as he has promised. I'm not holding my breath though.

What about school performance? An excellent question, and it was addressed by Superintendent Yonson at a recent board meeting. Morrisville has a high density of rental homes and apartments dwellers. Children that come and go are hard to educate for the short time that they are here. Much needs to be undone before the learning can be "done." She read off a list of some fifteen transfer students with their grade level, and their reading level. The top of the class was a high schooler with a low middle school reading level. Remember...these students transferred in at that level. They are not a product of Morrisville schools, but they are now Morrisville's to educate.

I see a great many Morrisville students. I attend student activities, sports, etc. with my children and their friends. Nothing is ever 100 percent, but these students are being educated. Stop by one of the elementary schools and check in with Kate Taylor or Karen Huggins. Ask for Melanie Gehrens at the high school, or Beth Yonson at the superintendents office. See for yourself.

I do welcome you to Morrisville. It's obvious you're a thoughtful and concerned parent. We need many, many more like you.

Anyone else?

Urgent Farm Meeting Notice-CANCELLED

A meeting of the parent advisory board will be held tonight at 6:00 P.M. in the MHS LGI room.

Dr. Beth Yonson and an unknown school board member will be discussing all of the options out on the table. This is an important meeting for the parents of all school age children. Where and how do you want your children to grow?

Late addition: due to the weather, it appears that this meeting has been canceled.

So what's the cost of ignorance?

I have to admit, Mr. Stout has a point in one area. $2 million was spent on feasibility studies and reports and research. That's called "due diligence." The Emperor can do it for $2500 single handedly.

Why does it matter if it happened yesterday, a week, a month, a year, or a decade ago? Did it happen? If it did, Angry Al should be held responsible. If it didn't, the false accusers should be held responsible. End of story. That's a responsible and mature response. Why would you want to hide anything about this issue?

The source of the "allegations" are the sore losers from the last election and political opponents of Angry Al. OK. So? Does that make anything that has been said less truthful?

Again with the false $22,000 per student figure. That is the TOTAL school budget divided by the TOTAL number of students. That is not the total taxpayer cost. Grants and other "free" money not paid for by the taxpayers of Morrisville are part of the budget. This is a classic propaganda move. Repeat the lie until it becomes truth. Be a careful and critical reader, especially when "truth" is presented. This is the first step in combating ignorance.

Another classic propaganda move: see how neatly the two issues (Angry Al and John Jordan, and the sore losers regarding school) are neatly bunched together for comparison? If you are against the "sore losers", you're against Jordan and for Radosti. Nicely done, but they do not equate. They are all separate issues. You can be for or against the school, for or against Angry Al, for or against Jordan, and even for or against anything.

You know what? Every adult that spouts off about the failure rate of the students should be required to have their opinion license revoked until THEY take the same tests. Let's see how they do. I'll take the tests anytime. How about you? While we're at it, let's all take this 8th grade test.

Incidentally, take a look at how Washington works to see how ridiculous some of these assertions are. If you're for the investigation du jour, "the American people demand answers and an investigation is needed." If you're against it, "these baseless allegations should be put aside so that we can get back to the work of the American people." It's all useless hypocritical rhetoric on both sides.

Just let the whole truth be told. What are we afraid of...the truth?



Morrisville cannot afford costly school system

Regarding the Courier Times stories about Morrisville school board member Al Radosti and allegations from NAACP President John Jordan that Radosti used a racial slur, apparently, more than two years ago:

The sources for these stories are the disgruntled losers of the last school board election and the political rivals of Al Radosti.

It was more than two years ago when lame duck school director John Jordan defied the town's majority by voting to build a new $30 million school that most did not want or could not afford.

So where was Jordan when over $2 million was squandered on architects, bankers and lawyers on the ill fated school plan? Where was his concern when three out of every four graduates of the Morrisville School District failed at math and reading on their state assessment tests and costs soared to over $22,000 per student?

Morrisville is a beautiful and culturally diverse town that's been free of racial tension but we simply cannot afford the current school system. We don't need Jordan and his allegations stirring the pot.

Ronald Stout
Morrisville

February Job Performance Poll

You might have noticed that the February poll was posted a few days ago, but one of our intrepid voters chose an "Other" option that made a lot of sense, so I reset the poll and included a new option to indicate approval of a minority of the board. I think it is quite fair to note that this is not an unanimous board by any means, and I can personally state that I DO have a great deal of confidence in a few members of the board.

Take a test drive and let me know what you think.

Information on DVHS

Many thanks to the emailer who sent this article to me. There are several items in here that really do raise a lot of questions for me, such as the Orwellian "1984" style fingerprinting for checking in each day and how..."For example," Shulick said, "if our school psychologist is coming in, we can get him information in 10 seconds on all the kids who have had an anger incident between Sept. 1 and Oct. 15."

One of the benefits of a small school system is that the teachers, administrators, and even the school psychologist know the students, on sight, by name. They are not abstract quantities such as a student ID number, or a dollar sign.

There is also the focus on the alternative schooling, the focus on the at-risk kids. This is a great goal, especially for the real at-risk and troubled kids, but why do 100% of the Morrisville students need to be "at-risk"?

Philadelphia Business Journal - November 5, 2007
http://philadelphia.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2007/11/05/focus1.html

Friday, November 2, 2007

More with less

School's new system reduces costs 9 percent a year

Philadelphia Business Journal - by David Raths Special to the Business Journal

Monday through Thursday, David Shulick is an attorney with his own Center City practice.

But on Fridays, Shulick spends the day at Delaware Valley High School, a for-profit alternative high school in Philadelphia for at-risk students, where he is president of the board.

"The law practice is quite lucrative," Shulick said, "but the school is my passion. I know where it is going to go. I also like working on educational policy at the state level and watching a vision become a reality."

Part of that vision is to wring inefficiencies from the school so that faculty and staff can devote more attention to helping troubled students.

With the School District of Philadelphia coping with a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall last year and the School Reform Commission recommending that $3 million be cut from Philadelphia's alternative education budget, Delaware Valley High School is one example of a school doing more with less.

Shulick and the school spent several years developing a proprietary software program that Shulick credits with saving the school $133,900 a year on an operating budget of $1.5 million. The electronic student management system, called Ksys, tracks student's academic, behavioral and social progress as well as many other metrics.

According to Shulick, the software drastically eases the paperwork burden on staff members, which allows them to accomplish far more in the same amount of time.

"The better the school is organized, the easier it is to care for kids," he said.

Created as a private school for at-risk students in 1969, Delaware Valley expanded in 1999 when the state legislature passed Act 48, which permits public schools to contract with private alternative education institutions. Operated by Unique Educational Experience Inc., it is now among the city's 18 alternative school arrangements, which take in students who have been expelled from the district for behavioral or academic problems. Standalone alternative schools are typically smaller than district schools and more structured and highly supervised.

Delaware Valley was one of the first approved providers under Act 48. Shulick served on the state Department of Education committee that helped shape the operating guidelines for alternative schools statewide.

The first school district to send kids to Delaware Valley was Bristol Township in 2002. Now the school serves students from 12 school districts, including 125 from the School District of Philadelphia. Located at 13550 Bustleton Ave., Delaware Valley High School has 12 teachers, five administrative staff members and close to 200 total students.

After passage of Act 48, the Department of Education realized it needed a means of monitoring the performance of these private alternative schools, which meant getting data on behavioral issues, attendance and academic performance.

Off-the-shelf software packages didn't capture the types of things school system administrators and state officials were looking for, Shulick said, so Delaware Valley agreed to be a proving ground for the development of a customized software package.

As Shulick began working with Elton, Pa.-based software developer KSys Inc. on the system requirements, he saw an opportunity to go beyond basic reporting and improve communications between staff members.

"There are so many delays between when a behavior happens and the time there's a response," he observed. "Myriad details are lost because there's no easy way to share notations. It's grossly inefficient."

Shulick sought to address those inefficiencies by having the behavioral and social support team at Delaware Valley use Ksys to enter and receive real-time updates on students, which in turn allows them to craft programs more in tune with students' needs.

"For example," Shulick said, "if our school psychologist is coming in, we can get him information in 10 seconds on all the kids who have had an anger incident between Sept. 1 and Oct. 15."

After four years of development and hundreds of thousands of dollars invested, Delaware Valley went live with the software in September 2005. The school retains all rights to the software, Shulick said.

Besides communications and reporting features, the software also is designed to cut down on the administrative workload. Mattie Thompson, the school's operations director, says that before Ksys was installed, it would take her many hours to create a roster of class schedules for all the students. Ksys does it almost instantaneously, she said. The software creates a roster, which she can then peruse and adjust.

"I double-check that the class is the right fit for the student, that they won't be too frustrated by the difficulty level," said Thompson, who calls the software "phenomenal."

Ksys contains a portal through which school district officials can access reports about the students. Each time a student is involved in an incident, the student's record is updated with a coded entry signifying the nature of the disturbance. "The school district can see what we've done to address the issue and the student's needs," Thompson said.

Also, officials can access the reports at their convenience. "Things can be crazy at schools during the day," said Thompson. "They can access it at 8 p.m. if they want to. Also, we send them weekly reports, such as attendance reports, via e-mail."

A spokesman for the School District of Philadelphia's Office of Transition and Alternative Education said officials there are aware of the reporting features but haven't had a chance yet to use them.

Shulick believes Ksys would provide benefits to all types of school systems, but he said that using the software requires changing business and educational practices. "The bureaucratic mentality of traditional public school systems would make this a very hard sell," he said.

The system contains some unique features, such as biometric fingerprinting that is used to cut down on administrative manpower when students are truant. As students arrive each morning they place their fingers on a scanner, which feeds their attendance information into Ksys. The computer system generates automated phone calls to the homes of kids who have not shown up.

Thompson calls the system a tremendous time saver. "Attendance is a major issue for all districts," she said.

Because the biometric system is time-stamped and dated, there is no arguing over the facts, she added. Students may be showing up every day, but if they arrive at 9:30 a.m. instead of 8:30 a.m. as they are supposed to, the system verifies that fact, and relays the information to parents and administrators.

Ksys is built on a Microsoft SQL relational database, said Larry Hershman, president of Advanced Network Services Inc. in Cherry Hill, which handles technology operations for the school.

Shulick came up with certain basic reports that can be run regularly, he said, but Ksys also has the capacity to run ad-hoc reports asking about anything, such as student performance by grade level or by classroom.

"David did a great job of defining functionality," Hershman said, "but one of the best things about the system is it's dynamic. As more educators use it, it is flexible enough to take their input into account."

The software also was created with scalability in mind, he adds, to allow for multiple locations within the environment.

Shulick says Delaware Valley may license the software to other alternative schools to recoup some of its investment. But first he wants to expand. "Our goal first is to replicate ourselves," he said. The growth plan includes a school in Bucks County expected to open in spring 2008, and then three more in Philadelphia and one in Delaware County by 2009.

"Services like this are desperately needed," he said. "We were asked to open one in New Orleans and in Maricopa County in Arizona, but I didn't want to spread ourselves too thin. I want to expand slowly and properly."

We Need Good Information

We sure do. It's good to see that even die-hard supporters of the Emperor see the need for good information. So, Bully-Boy...are you listening? Your supporters want good information. The parents want good information. When is it coming?

We need good information

I attended the Morrisville school board meeting on Jan.23. I'll admit it was an emotional meeting. Board President Bill Hellmann had every right to invoke the 45-minute public comment session. If my memory serves me correctly, it was the past school board that voted for this rule.

Fifteen people spoke, 12 of whom basically said the same thing: “Do not do away with the school.” One person, Diane Hughes, was the only person who gave vital information to the board and audience, whom I presume was not listening.

She suggested that we should contact our state representatives to have a bill passed to eliminate the property tax and replace it with a larger sales tax. This could eliminate our financial problem and busing the students would be a thing of the past

What we need is true, basic information, not hearsay or rumors, so we can make a good decision.

Bill Minder

Morrisville

Update on Local Comment

Sorry about this, but I read the BCCT online and sometimes do not get to all of the items. Eventually, the BCCT will no longer have these items available, so I like to keep a copy available for future use.

Here are two letters to the editor that were recently published. Kevin Leather from January 29, and William S. Umek from February 3.

Whatever the source, farm-out option is a bad idea

The discussion surrounding the ill-conceived scheme to farm out Morrisville High School students to other districts is simply a product of what school board member Gloria Heater described to me as “brainstorming.”

I was willing to allow for that when she asked why the renovated high school needed air conditioning, expecting that only the administrators needed it, and not the students. I also found the remark she made about selling M.R. Reiter, Grandview, and the A Field to have been rather confusing.

Now I see ... if there are no high school students, why do we need the A field?

She was fond of saying that the school was built for 2,000 students and we're not using it fully, which explains why all of the Stop the School candidates avoided this specific question during the campaign. Over the summer, school board member Marlys Mihok sent me a series of e-mails where she completely denied this farm-out-the-kids scheme. She assured us that board member Bill Farrell, who was apparently the original source of the discussion, was misquoted. But when directly asked to report if it was true, she remained silent.

I did not buy a home in Morrisville only to see my children bused ridiculous distances to a school where they will be outcasts.

I admit that removing high school students from the mix is certainly a novel way to raise the test scores in 11th grade.

Brainstorming is a wonderful tool. It exposes bad ideas rather quickly

I did not vote for any of the Stop the School candidates. However, this is my school board whether I like it or not, and I do not like this.

Kevin Leather
Morrisville

Closing school will set town on irreversible decline

So, the Morrisville school board decides not to build a new high school that would 1) attract home buyers who would invest in the community, and, 2) be an incentive for current residents, who have pride in their community and would support a new facility, from moving to a more desirable community.

The Morrisville school board instead plans to shutter its existing high school and scatter its children around the county, thereby continuing the downward spiral of what is but will no longer be a nice place to live and raise a family.

Who moves to a town where they outsource their kids to be educated?

If it costs $10,000 per child to send them to another school and my current taxes are $4,000 per year, where does the other $6,000 come from? My guess would be taxes. So, couldn't we build a new school and just pay the taxes for it instead of paying the same if not more taxes to ship our kids out?
Click Here!

The majority of Morrisville residents voted for a school board whose only solution to the existing schools issues is to close it. Was this group hired to close the very business they are running? People are typically hired to help businesses prosper, not close!

What kind of leaders are these?

Once the high school is closed it will NEVER re-open and Morrisville will be on a decline from which it will not recover. Closing the school is not the right choice and I am sure it was not what the community wanted when they voted this new school board in.

William S. Umek
Morrisville

Legal Notices

Ah...the section of the newspaper between the obituaries and the comics that almost everyone skips over. Yet some of the best information is available here. Notice how the defeasement amount changed from $24 million on Jan 26 to $22 million on Feb 6? And has anyone examined Appendix A or B yet? And how about the line "The Resolution provides for an effective date of the Resolution and further repeals, rescinds and annuls all inconsistent resolutions of the School District.". Is this standard wording, or is it "Hellmann-proofing" the resolution to cover the Emperor's butt?

Clips below courtesy of mypublicnotices.com

NOTICE FOR SPECIAL SCHOOL BOARD MEETING
NOTICE, it is hereby given that the Morrisville Borough School District Board of School Directors shall hold a special meeting on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the LG1 Room at the School District's Middle/Senior High School, 550 West Palmer Street, Morrisville, Pennsylvania. The purpose of the special meeting is to adopt resolutions and take such other actions as may be necessary to defease a portion of the General Obligation Bonds, Capital Project Series 2006 and to amend the scope of the authorized project related thereto.
Marlys Mihok, Secretary

Appeared in: Bucks County Courier Times on Saturday, 01/26/2008



THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF THE BOROUGH OF MORRISVILLE
Bucks County, Pennsylvania
NOTICE
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Board of School Directors (the "Board") of The School District of the Borough of Morrisville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania (the "School District"), at a special public meeting to be held at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, January 30, 2008, in the LGI Room at the School District's Middle/Senior High School, located at 550 West Palmer Street, Morrisville, Pennsylvania, 19067 will consider the adoption of a resolution (the "Resolution"), which would amend the resolution adopted on November 16, 2005 (the "Bond Resolution"), pursuant to which the School District issued its General Obligation Bonds, Capital Project Series, in the original aggregate principal amount of $28,500,000, and which are currently outstanding in the amount of $28,485,000 (the "Bonds"). The contents of the Resolution to be considered are summarized as follows:
The Resolution states that the School District authorizes the defeasance (the "Defeasance Program") of a portion of the outstanding Bonds in an amount of up to $24,000,000 (the "Defeased Bonds") and authorizes the utilization of Bonds proceeds for the Defeasance Program. The Resolution amends the definition of Capital Project as set forth in the Bond Resolution and authorizes the School District to undertake a project or projects involving the planning, designing, acquiring, constructing and furnishing of renovations and improvements to existing School District buildings (the "Revised Capital Project") and authorizes the expenditure of the remaining proceeds of the Bonds on the Revised Capital Project. The Resolution determines an estimated useful life of the Revised Capital Project. The Resolution appoints a bond counsel, financial advisor, verification agent and escrow agent for the Defeasance Program, and authorizes the preparation of such documents, agreements, and certificates and all actions necessary to proceed with the Defeasance Program. The Resolution authorizes and directs the redemption of the Defeased Bonds. The Resolution authorizes the appropriate officers of the School District to execute and deliver all agreements, certificates and documents and to take all necessary and appropriate actions to carry out the Resolution. The Resolution states the authority for enactment of the Resolution and declares same to be necessary for the public purposes of the School District. The Resolution sets forth a severability clause which states that the invalidity, illegality or unenforceability of any one provision in the Resolution shall not affect the validity, legality or enforceability of the remaining provisions. The Resolution provides for an effective date of the Resolution and further repeals, rescinds and annuls all inconsistent resolutions of the School District.
The full text of such proposed Resolution may be examined or inspected by any citizen in the office of the Secretary of the Board of School Directors of the School District, at the School District Offices, located at 550 West Palmer Street, Morrisville, Pennsylvania, on regular business days between the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Amendments may be made with respect to the Resolution prior to or during its final passage. Advertisement related to the final passage of the Resolution, in final form, including amendments, will be made in accordance with requirements of the Local Government Unit Debt Act, 53 Pa.C.S. Chs. 80-82 (the "Act").
This notice is given in accordance with requirements of and in compliance with the Act.
SCHOOL DISTRICT OF
THE BOROUGH
OF MORRISVILLE,
Bucks County,
Pennsylvania
By: Marlys Mihok,
Secretary of the Board of School Directors

Appeared in: Bucks County Courier Times on Saturday, 01/26/2008


THE SCHOOL DISTRICT
OF THE BOROUGH OF MORRISVILLE
Bucks County, Pennsylvania
NOTICE
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Board of School Directors (the "Board") of The School District of the Borough of Morrisville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania (the "School District"), at a special public meeting held at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, January 30, 2008, in the LGI Room at the School District's Middle/Senior High School, located at 550 West Palmer Street, Morrisville, Pennsylvania, 19067 adopted a resolution (the "Resolution"), which amended the resolution adopted on November 16, 2005 (the "Bond Resolution"), pursuant to which the School District issued its General Obligation Bonds, Capital Project Series, in the original aggregate principal amount of $28,500,000, and which are currently outstanding in the amount of $28,485,000 (the "Bonds"). The contents of the Resolution as adopted are summarized as follows:
The Resolution states that the School District authorizes the defeasance (the "Defeasance Program") of a portion of the outstanding Bonds in an amount of $22,000,000 (the "Defeased Bonds") and authorizes the utilization of Bonds proceeds for the Defeasance Program. The Resolution amends the definition of Capital Project as set forth in the Bond Resolution and authorizes the School District to undertake a project or projects involving the planning, designing, acquiring, constructing and furnishing of renovations and improvements to existing School District buildings (the "Revised Capital Project") and authorizes the expenditure of the remaining proceeds of the Bonds on the Revised Capital Project. The Resolution determines an estimated useful life of the Revised Capital Project. The Resolution appoints a bond counsel, financial advisor, verification agent and escrow agent for the Defeasance Program, and authorizes the preparation of such documents, agreements, and certificates and all actions necessary to proceed with the Defeasance Program. The Resolution authorizes and directs the redemption of the Defeased Bonds. The Resolution authorizes the appropriate officers of the School District to execute and deliver all agreements, certificates and documents and to take all necessary and appropriate actions to carry out the Resolution. The Resolution states the authority for enactment of the Resolution and declares same to be necessary for the public purposes of the School District. The Resolution sets forth a severability clause which states that the invalidity, illegality or unenforceability of any one provision in the Resolution shall not affect the validity, legality or enforceability of the remaining provisions. The Resolution provides for an effective date of the Resolution and further repeals, rescinds and annuls all inconsistent resolutions of the School District.
The full text of the Resolution as adopted may be examined or inspected by any citizen in the office of the Secretary of the Board of School Directors of the School District, at the School District Offices, located at 550 West Palmer Street, Morrisville, Pennsylvania, on regular business days between the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
A summary of the Resolution was advertised on January 26, 2008 and the proposed text has been available in the office of the undersigned. During final adoption of the Resolution, the proposed Resolution previously available was amended and completed as follows: 1) The aggregate principal amount of Bonds to be defeased was determined to be $22,000,000; 2) The schedule of Bonds to be defeased was attached as Exhibit A to the Resolution and the schedule of remaining Bonds was attached as Exhibit B to the Resolution.
This notice is given in accordance with requirements of and in compliance with the Local Government Unit Debt Act, 53 Pa.C.S. Chs. 80-82 (the "Act").
SCHOOL DISTRICT
OF THE BOROUGH OF MORRISVILLE,
Bucks County,
Pennsylvania
By: Marlys Mihok,
Secretary of the Board of School Directors

Appeared in: Bucks County Courier Times on Wednesday, 02/06/2008

Comic Relief

More everyday question avoidance tactics.

Coronation Day

The Emperor was formally crowned by the BCCT today in an editorial.

Morrisville's monarchy

William Hellman was elected school board president in Morrisville, not king. We mention this because of Hellman's penchant for one-man rule.

For example, at last week's school board meeting Hellman asked the board to approve and pay for an engineering study of Morrisville High School. Not that board members had much choice. The study was completed — at Hellman's direction and without board input, meaning without board approval.

All that was left for the board to consider was the bill.

Now, $2,500 isn't a big deal, not for school boards that routinely deal in millions of dollars. The big deal is a freelancing school board president who doesn't seem to understand his role or the law — and doesn't seem to care.

Said Hellman when asked why he didn't include the board in the engineering study decision: “That's minor. I'm not going to comment on that.”

That's arrogant and unacceptable.

Making decisions behind the board's and public's back isn't minor. It's major.

It's a violation of the public trust, probably school board policy and possibly the law. And citizens shouldn't stand for it.

We'd like to think that the school board won't stand for it either, but most members are in Hellman's corner on the big issue facing the board — undoing the $30 million plan to build a new K-12 school.

With the undoing largely done, the board now has to figure out what it will cost to renovate the high school or if the district even plans to retain a high school. As these issues move forward, we implore board members to work openly — and together.

MHS Under New Management?

This may come as a shock to the administration, faculty, and staff, but it looks like the farm program may be taking a left turn into privatization.

According to Kate Fratti this morning, DVHS Head Honcho David Shulick will be pitching the idea of a "privatized" MHS to the board sometime in the next month.

Having been in the private sector all my life and witnessing such outsourcing of jobs to contractors in the past, I'm cautiously waiting to hear the plan before I say anything. Busing the kids outside of the district is a non-starter with me, and there's still the issue of the condition of the buildings too.

Fratti quite properly notes the current contracts with the teachers and staff would be a more than minor problem (but I know the Emperor handles minor issues well) and then comes the question of why "only" the high school and not the "district."

Just a note: The Emperor was unavailable for comment...AGAIN!

A 'privately managed' plan?

David Shulick, a Center City lawyer and president of the board of the for-profit Delaware Valley High School on Philly's Bustleton Avenue, says Morrisville school board representatives will meet with him in the next 30 days so he can pitch the idea of a “privately managed” Morrisville high school.

He'll propose keeping the school in or near the borough, and said he'd be open to using an existing school building if it's offered.

Shulick declined to name which school board members he's spoken with. Sources inside the district said a follow-up e-mail from Shulick to board members and administrators indicates he had a cell phone conversation with school board President Bill Hellmann. Efforts to reach Hellmann were unsuccessful.

School board leaders have explored the possibility of dissolving the high school program and sending kids to neighboring districts on a tuition basis. The goal is cost-cutting. Part of the challenge for the district is that all three of its school buildings are aging and in need of renovations.

Lots of public school systems use tax dollars to pay private firms to manage part of the works — busing and food service come to mind. Could Morrisville hire a private company to manage teaching and learning, too — and save piles of money doing it?

Shulick proposes charging just $6,000 a student, $7,000 for kids with special needs. Today, Morrisville spends closer to $20,000 per student, and tens of thousands more for those bused to life-skills programs in other districts. (That's $12,000 in local tax dollars and the rest in grants and subsidies.)

Shulick says he can do more for less because he uses a private business model based on merit and accountability. He also points to a student-management software program now used at Delaware Valley High to improve efficiency — fewer staff hours needed to develop rosters or track student attendance and performance.

Morrisville already contracts to send up to five students to the Bustleton site. Delaware Valley High serves kids who can't cope in a regular school setting because of behavioral problems.

Shulick estimates 100 Bucks kids attend Delaware Valley High, a licensed and accredited secondary school. They're referred by their school districts or enrolled by their parents.

This month, he also expects to announce a Bucks branch for the alternative school. He declined to name the location.

Shulick stressed he is suggesting something entirely separate from the alternative school for Morrisville.

Incorporated in 1980, Unique Educational Experiences owns Delaware Valley High School. It's a privately held company, and Shulick declined to disclose the principal partners, saying the information wasn't relevant.

Morrisville taxpayers might feel differently, but Shulick said they should be most concerned with whether Morrisville kids can be educated well for a reasonable price. He believes they can.

Parents are likely to have the most pressing questions. Can the company accommodate students with autism, mental retardation and speech and language disabilities with teachers who meet state standards?

What's the quality of the regular education Shulick proposes, and would a privately managed Morrisville High offer sports and other extra-curricular programs?

Then there is the not-so-little matter of Morrisville's teacher contract and a clause stipulating there can be no staff furloughs or reductions in student-teacher ratios until the contract ends in 2012. How would that figure into Shulick's plan?

There are lots of questions. Here's hoping they'll eventually be asked and answered in public.

Kate Fratti's column appears on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Comic Relief

Courtesy of today's Non Sequitur


I'm still looking.

Pasture Update: DVHS to Present Plan to Board

It appears that Delaware Valley High School has gotten the official "Come on down!" to join the Emperor and Hellman's Heroes on "The Price Is Right: Morrisville Edition"

Joe Kemp has left a new comment on your post "Kate Fratti Nails It!":

UPDATE: The only reason Mr. Hellmann had not previously expressed interest in using DVHS for our high school students was because they got his email address wrong and he hadn't known about it until recently. We will most likely be bringing David Shulick in to speak to the community regarding his proposal.

Please check the comments section of the "Kate Fratti Nails It!" post. There is a lot of good information there regarding DVHS, including the link to the PA Dept of Education website where DVHS is listed as an alternative school for disruptive youth, boasting "WE OFFER SCHOOL DISTRICTS the ability to seamlessly refer “at-risk” youth in need of behavioral, emotional, academic and/or special education services to our highly effective programs at a cost that is far LESS than what districts spend INTERNALLY."

Guest Blogger

This is a comment that I received that deserves to have its own posting.

Thank you George. Morrisville ain't perfect, we all know that. But here's the kind of vision we need to see the future.

Hi,

I have thought long and hard about weighing into this blog discussion and have until this point remained a passive, yet interested observer. I told Cathy last week that I was not going to write on it and that I wanted to see what was going to happen during the course of these months with the newly elected school board members. I changed my mind. I predicted the outcome of the election but I wanted it to run is course and give it a chance. For the record, if anyone is interested, I voted for a mix of mostly incumbents and one new candidate even though I didn't agree or completely support the new school idea as presented,; especially the K-12 aspect in one central location. I felt the older kids needed a unique and separate High School experience to include a facility void of the younger children. Honestly, I am still somewhat warm to the idea of the Pennsbury merger even though I can appreciate some of the parents concerns about their children being lost or possibly shunned. Their concerns are heart-felt and honest which is sometime that has been missing in this entire process as of late. I would not support a system of farming out our children. I did see a lot of merit in the new school plan and still see a need for change, especially at our elementary school facilities. Initially, I didn't like or trust the process of the old school board, although I think they had the best interest of the community and the kids at heart. Believe it or not especially Sandy Gibson, even though I feel she was not the right person to present these new ideas and was at times very callus and heavy handed with the community. Looking back, we all were somewhat to blame for the fiasco we as communities have created. I felt the old board put the cart before the horse for the new school idea by not allowing the time to get our local finances in order. If they had been a little more patient, worked with the community leaders and been more willing to seek alternatives to the plan they put into place, I think we could have come up with a compromise to the existing plan. In retrospect, at the rate in which our borough has moved it could be another thirty years before we do anything to fix it so I can understand and appreciate their skepticism of our ability to lead as well. As a side note, I am of the opinion that what we need is to reduce the amount of local school systems statewide and go to a more centralized county system and a redistribution county wide of the tax base, but that is for another discussion.

In listening to all sides, especially Peter as well as some of the administrators, I have learned a great deal more about how our responsibility of education in our community is supposed to work and some of the reasons we are struggling. Looking and listening to all of the new elected school board candidates, I am not shocked to where we as community have come, but what surprised me was that it took a much shorter time than I ever imagined for them to become unglued. Some people within our community have questioned me recently as to where I stand on this and other matters. I was asked to be clear so, as always, I will be as honest as I can with my statements. All that I ask is that you please be patient with my response for it is very, very long and personal. I hope you will take it for what it is as a look into one person's viewpoint and remember that it is my opinion only.

Please remember this was our past experience I was asked to share with you:

In 1994, my wife and I with our then two toddlers were transferred from Long Island to the Philadelphia area and had to find a home/move within 60 days. The market then was similar to todays in that it was a buyer's market with lots of homes to choose from. We took a compass (geometry and algebra at work) and began to make several circles around the Phila./NY area map until we settled on this small town near I-95, Route 1 and the turnpikes. I was traveling a great deal then so transportation access was very important. We made three separate trips within a week to the Yardley/Morrisville area looking at approximately 30 houses. Ken, our realtor was confused as we were as to exactly what we were looking for in a house and community. On the morning of the third day and about the seventh house we looked at that morning, he decided to stop in at an open-house on Palmer Ave for some free food. The house was small, but it had a lot of charm, was within walking distance to the schools and the neighborhood had a certain feel to it that we really liked. It felt right. As my wife and I sat out on the screen porch eating our snack we both quietly asked one another what we thought about the house. In five minutes we concluded that we wanted to make an offer. It took our realtor a few seconds to comprehend the fact that we actually found a house/neighborhood we liked. The homeowner accepted our offer and we were all very excited(especially the Realtors).

The next week we came back to Morrisville on our way down from LI to visit our families in the DC area and were greeted by several people walking a picket-line outside of the High School. We walked over and asked a neighbor what was up with these people striking. We found out that they were the maintenance, janitorial and secretarial staff. They were being outplaced by private contractors, a new catch term most of us sooner or later may have learned. We became worried when another neighbor on the street that day told us about all of the problems within the school system and how it may not be a good idea to move here. We immediately made an appointment with the Superintendent of Schools to discuss this issue. We were young and didn't really consider the schools being an issue because we both grew up in Northern Virginia and attended one of the best public school systems in the country, so to us good education was simply a given. The superintendent told us that the school system was in transition and that it did have some problems, but that he felt optimistic that they were being addressed. We asked if he had a child of school age if he would put them in the school system. He gave us an honest but unsettling answer and it was NO! As you can imagine we had a very long, tense trip home. Our parents advised us that this home we were purchasing may not be the right move and we should rent for another year or two. We felt the time was right and we wanted to finally own something of our own (well, in 30 years). We figured that we could always sell and move to a bigger home in a few years. By the time the kids were ready for school we could address the issue.

In the next several years, we really fell in love with our community. You could see more and more young professionals moving into the area and the face of the neighborhood changing for the better in that everyone was fixing/expanding on their homes. We had multiple borough projects going on including the 1995 Imagination Island. The most impressive part of this project, other than everyone working well for a common cause, was that the children were asked to draw and design the new playground. It was exciting to see what they came up with and, in retrospect, we adults should have taken their cue on how to work together. These and other positive signs in the borough were exciting and optimistic.

This does not mean everything was great, for from time to time, we saw large cracks in both our school system and our borough council. We would also read and hear about our problems from friends living outside of the borough. The way they perceived Morrisville wasn't very flattering. They would always ask if we liked living here and my answer was always an emphatic YES! So much so, I made a conscious decision that I had heard enough about the bad image of the community and that too many of the old Morrisville guard represented the interests of "old-timers" as my neighbor calls them. I felt we needed some balance and I wanted to get involved. Too often we read and witnessed the politics as usual both from the borough side and school board side with yelling, screaming, and intimidation, along with grandstanding from many civic leaders. We did see what we viewed as signs of corruption and abuse of power with self-serving interests of both the council/administration on all sides of the coin. We asked ourselves, "Where was the balance in government and what did this discourse provide our neighborhood in terms of solving some of our issues and projecting a more positive image?" Not much! As someone from a different time and place, I felt that we were sitting on a gold mine living along the river and our proximity to the transportation hubs to/from NY and Phila. which was the same thing that attracted our family to Morrisville to being with? I thought at that time that, as a community, our problem wasn't that we were afraid to think, we just didn't think big. As the years have gone by I realized that we are simply shortsighted and afraid to work for anything new that was truly going to help us. It was easier to blame our surroundings and not stop, look in the mirror and finally take a look at ourselves.

Why I became involved:

In 1999, I applied for and was selected for an opening on the Morrisville EDC which I had a great interest of joining. I had previous experience in college working for the Virginia Center for Innovative Technology (VCIT) through my university, JMU. This was a cutting edge, outside-of the-box state-supported think tank that in the late 1980's attracted BILLIONS in new technological businesses generation to the entire region.

Over the course of the next few years with my tenure on the EDC, I saw that our community government was stagnant. The futility of our EDC members for fifteen years in trying to attract new businesses, along with the suppressive control of many on Borough Council dictating terms and conditions on the business sector was disheartening. These are some of the same people who were yelling the loudest about their twenty years of frustration over the lack of progress. All of us were now as frustrated as the business sector had become with the entire process. We had business people, some who had been raised in the community, disheartened about what the downtown had become a ghost town. These people especially remember what it was once like as a hub to the community in years past. Whatever air that was generated in our community balloon during the 1995 Imagination Island project was quickly being deflated.

Finally, something was beginning to happen:

In 2004 we had on the table a commitment from two cousins who grew-up in the borough, Chris and Ed Cacase. They had worked on many projects throughout the country but had decided to set up an office in our downtown area. With the direction of the Bucks County Redevelopment Corporation, Morrisville Borough, the Morrisville Authority and finally the Morrisville School District we were able to make our first significant land development deal in the downtown area in over 65 years. Surprisingly, it only took Cacase Builders 5 months to go from design/permit stage to ground breaking and another 9 months of construction to its completion. Amazing! I have been around construction for many years in one capacity or another, so I know when something is constructed well, and this was one of the best scheduled and constructed buildings I had been associated with. They did not scrimp on materials and they used both union and non-union labor to build it. It was designed/built to last and everyone prospered from it. Best of all, I felt they involved all of council and at times bent over backwards to make sure that we weighed into the design process, something they did not have to do. One of the valuable experiences they did learn because they were somewhat naive on certain aspects of the process was that little nuances such as having a groundbreaking ceremony or a formal dedication of the building, although seemingly trivial, helped grease the wheels for more larger, more beneficial future construction to ensure continued growth.

Economically, the good news was yes, we did have a great new building in the downtown area but the bad news was that we now needed a second, larger building in the same geographical area. In the grand scheme of things, 19K sq. feet of new retail space alone is not going to invite the interest of what we really need and that is a large host business that can and will employee a lot of local residents who, in turn, will support all of the businesses in our downtown area. We needed to build up our economic center and create a new micro-economy. In my opinion this is the silver bullet that will save our town.

Over the course of the next three years, the Cacase building saw several new, entrepreneurial companies such as Atomica and Edible Arrangements provide diversified services to this downtown project. To date, the center is near capacity with all space occupied and soon to be opened. I was encouraged when they formed a development company Penn-Jersey Realty Corporation to further develop projects. I bet many of you are unaware of this because you have never stopped in to patronize some of these new shops. Why not? Quite simply, even though we have had significant progress in the landscape of our downtown area it is not what we think of when we do our shopping or as a place to visit as a destination spot in the borough. Now, imagine a new bakery or coffee shop downtown. How about a new Hallmark store or a really funky retro clothes shop for the kids/younger adults? How about a flower shop or some specialty shop? What about a town center with a fountain, flowers or tree plantings? On the borough side, what about a service that simply washes the streets once a week to help keep the area cleans and inviting. The 2007 University of Pennsylvania Graduate students design study talked about all of these ideas and more. These were ambitious, lofty conceptual ideas that should be considered as creative alternatives to our current downtown area.

Last year, the business owners filled out an extensive survey asking some of these same questions. What we found was that they wanted many of these things as well, but the single most requested item they felt that would change their economic fortunes and assist them in making a go of it was a new, large anchor building with needed additional parking. They want people who are affluent, with good paying jobs and liquidity to move into newly formed office space near their services to save their investments and livelihood. Remember, they are the ones assuming the risk of their investment and we must help them in every way possible to succeed. In exchange, their endeavors must provide us with everyday services that we require. Ideally, we need diversified businesses, not additional cigarette shops or nail salons (not that these businesses don't fill an economic niche because if they didn't, they would not be in business). With diversified businesses and services will come advancements in the amount of liquidity that is brought to the Borough and money that is spent on these services.

Bottom line to this economic Manifesto:

We must support these developers as the EDC has tried to do and pave the way for a fair and equitable way to get a land development deal done as soon as possible. If we fail to do so, our community government and school system will eventually perish! The option to "keep things as they've always been" is no longer viable. The world around us is competitive and progressing. Morrisville cannot survive if we won't change with it. We need leaders who understand this simple, basic premise, not pessimism or doom and gloom from the same tired people who supposedly represent our wishes and ideas. Quit bitching and do something about it!

Try this - Stop, close your eyes and imagine for just a moment that you are sitting at an outdoors cafe in the springtime eating lunch and watching people in professional clothes or uniforms walking in our downtown area. They are state workers buying our goods and services from our businesses, dining at restaurants like Concerto Fusion, Ben's Deli, Anthony IV or some other restaurant not yet opened then stopping to shop at the SPRINT Store or stopping in to make an inquiry with one of our realtors about an investment opportunity opportunity. How about the businesses on the other side of our business district like Cafe Antonio, Garden Farm Market, Giant Foods, Sam's Shoes or Casino Tony Goes? When both residents AND outside consumers become accustomed to patronizing our entire business community and have a positive experience to tell others, they will come, shop and invest. Suddenly, we have manufactured our micro-economy. Does this sound too optimistic and far-fetched? I see it all over small communities all around the country everyday where, ten years ago, there was no sign of economic development or life in their area. It doesn't just happen. It happens to people who are not afraid of planned, steady progress and government working with the private sector to make it count.

Imagine expanding our business community to include South Delmorr Avenue along the river to the south end of town and linking it with a newly formed train station located at the old fire station next to the Amtrak rail line. After all, the borough already owns the required land for parking adjacent to the building and getting rid of this financial burden for the Morrisville Volunteer Fire Department would allow them to invest and upgrade their other station on Pennsylvania Avenue as they have been struggling to do for years. Remember, it takes a very special person to run into a burning building that everyone else is try to run out of. This type of investment would be a huge support for them and would benefit the entire community. Help support them and the concept of a transportation hub in the borough! We would need to get our local representatives in Senate and Congress working for us to help make these things happen.

It's the economy stupid-

The question has always been, "Why aren't these things already happening?" Why do we passively wait when we have a local developer with a proven track record in the borough that has the financing in place to do something about it? The simple answer is, "Because we are too busy, too consumed with killing ourselves, that's why!!" I sit at our council and school board meetings listening month after month to a minority of people who come to the mic and feed us doom, gloom and fear from both sides with whining, crying and animosity and offer little or no constructive suggestions to help fix things. Quite honestly, I am at a loss for why someone would challenge the choice about losing a small area of our park, a former borough dump area that we haven't used in years versus the opportunity to gain in added tax revenue and growth of our business community that could help support our schools and keep Morrisville alive. Ask yourself, at the end of the day what would rather hug, your happy, well-educated child or a few less trees? Everyone wants better schools and borough services while others would only support a new office building as long as it is in an industrial area outside of our designated downtown area. They don't get it!! The notion that people are going to invest in an area that can't support these businesses is wrong. Simply stated, no one is going to invest in Morrisville because we are bullied, embarrassed and afraid of ourselves with no clear vision or leadership committed to driving future economic progress in our borough. As a result, I see our community chasing away a strong Superintendent and her administrators. Both sides of the debate must stop beating the crap out of one another for it is affecting both our children and our community-at-large. Neither one can take it anymore.

Build our economy and it will in turn build our schools and help pay for our needed borough services. As parents, we must work with our school teachers and administrators to help to better educate our kids. Read to them at an early age and encourage them to strive to do their best. Go over their homework with them and if they tell you they don't have any, find out why not. Teachers, use your allotted time in the classroom to teach not help with homework assignments. I know you are frustrated because many of the kids will not complete the assignments if you don't take the time in class to tutor them. This is the parent's; job (not the Grandparents). As parents, you must learn to schedule time to help their children at home. Don't leave it up or assume the teachers will take care of it; they should be using the entire block time to teach new concepts, not tutoring homework in class. Turn your T.V. off and become an involved parent. If your child is failing offer them help, don't ignore them. If you don't know enough to help them, look for outside resources to assist you. Kids, let's face it. You need to push harder academically. We cannot help you if you don't accept the need to respond to these challenges to the best of your abilities. Remember, whether you realize it or not you are competing in a world market and you must prepare for the pressures you will face in this open market and we must do everything we can as a community to prepare you for this challenge.

Finally, as leaders, listen to our community for it is awake and speaking, yet we are deaf to its voices. Anything short of this will be our downfall to our future. Borough Council and the Morrisville School Board members must take a calculated chance and embrace the ideas of investors; these entrepreneurs; these visionaries; these people of risk. Negotiate with them in good faith working together to help fix our problems for after all, we need each other. Developers, better learn how government works and quit trying to blame them for all of your problems in this process. The reason they are at times skeptical is because communities have in the past been burned by less that scrupulous builders and we are sometimes weary of the process. Quit pitting the school system and the borough system against one another in order to get a land development deal done. Some of the mistrust came from the attempted premature land acquisition deal for the elementary schools. As elected community leaders we have taken an oath to insure that government protect the rights and interest of its constituents and the community-at-large. We too often forget that government should also be about helping people to help themselves, not inhabiting their livelihood and our economic futures. They must protect the rights of its taxpayers and perform these services within the eyes of the law.

I know that annual double-digit school and borough tax increases are not what we want nor deserve! We are seeing them because we have waited too long to develop our local economy and address the problems we are now facing. Let's all work together to fix them before they fix us!

Again, sorry for this long blog, I guess I had a lot to say!

God Bless,

-George

More BCCT Coverage of Hellmann Report

Sorry everyone, but I slept in this morning. Believe it or not, the kids AND spouse AND all the pets remained asleep in their beds, with nary a vision of sugarplums dancing in our heads. Thanks to jon for the heads up.

Manasee Wagh was at the Wednesday Night Follies and files her report.

Asked why he kept everyone in the dark, the Emperor is quoted as saying “That's minor. I'm not going to comment on that.”

MINOR?? I'm going to look up some of the similar statements that President Nixon said in the summer of 1972 when that minor third rate burglary was discovered. Remember, Nixon didn't lose his office because of Watergate (the burglary), but Watergate (the coverup.) Stop the coverup, all nine, excuse me, eight, of you. Thanks to Joe Kemp for his vote on this matter: A PRINCIPLED NO.

The supreme arrogance of this autocrat amazes me.

Even the Wick Fisher White people are abandoning Hellmann: There are a lot of variables involved in renovation, and without doing further study it's not really practical to provide a figure for total expenses, said an engineer from Wick Fisher White. He did not want to be named. LOL!! I wouldn't either.

I'll copy the text of the article below. But before I do, I mentioned yesterday how in Kate Fratti's column, the Emperor's toadies were dismissing his minor laspe as nothing more than a mistake made by a good man overwhelmed with the nuances of government work. I noted in response that he was the elected Morrisville Borough Controller, and surely he had gained some government experience in that position. I found the League of Womens Voters Guide to the 2007 election online, and the SELF PROVIDED entry for the Emperor is:

"practicing CPA who has provided accounting and consulting to many Pennsylvania Municipal Governments for the past 29 years. I also bring business skills and business savvy."

I'll admit that school administration is different from municipal administration. Having said that, after 30 years in the government arena, he know that rules exist, and they need to be followed. That's what the professionals (Yonson and Dunford) are there for.

Business savvy? I'm thinking like, maybe, NOT!

BTW, does anyone want to change the graphics here into "Stop the Secrecy"?

Board OKs engineering study after being kept in the dark
By MANASEE WAGH
Bucks County Courier Times

In a surprise move at this week's meeting of the Morrisville school board, President William Hellmann asked the board to approve and pay for a recent engineering evaluation on the middle/high school.

Hellmann had hired the firm independently and without approval by the board.

Prior to its vote to return most of a $30 million bond that would have paid for a new K-12 school, board members approved the firm's evaluation report. The report included recommendations for building improvements and a breakdown of how much those improvements would cost. Part of the vote included paying the firm's $2,500 fee.

About 50 residents were at Wednesday's meeting, and roughly 12 spoke during the public comment session. Several implored the board to hold off on returning any bond money until a thorough analysis of Morrisville's three schools is made and an estimate on how much fixing problems would cost.

The main concern was that repairs would be too expensive not to borrow more money.

Another loan would likely raise taxes, according to administrators.

“Hold off and table this issue, until we have a more long-term plan and know how much money we have,” resident and former board member Peter Eisengrein told the board. “If you have a plan and numbers, please share them.”

Several board members disapproved of being kept in the dark about the engineering study until it was done, as well as the sudden need to pay $2,500. However, after much discussion, all but Joseph Kemp finally voted to accept the report and absorb the fee.

Asked why he didn't include the board in the hiring of the firm, Hellmann said Thursday, “That's minor. I'm not going to comment on that.”

The original $30 million loan would have funded a new school building for the district's 1,000-plus students. According to members of the previous board, a new school would have been a cheaper alternative in the long run to renovating the middle/high school and two elementary schools.

Reba Dunford, the district's business administrator, urged the board to keep the remaining $28.5 million of the bond until renovation costs are determined. The previous board used about $1.5 million of the $30 million bond for engineer and architect fees related to the proposed new school.

Dunford presented an example of a detailed Pennsbury School District high school renovation plan. The building is similar in size to Morrisville's middle/high school.

The cost estimate for Pennsbury was about $20.5 million in 2005. Because of rising costs, fixing such a building would now be more expensive, Dunford said.

Some members of the community congratulated Hellmann on pushing the annulment of $22 million of the bond.

The previous board squandered a portion of the original $30 million bond, said Morrisville resident Stephen Worob, a borough council member, referring to the fees paid out. The proposed new school would have created a tax increase of more than $646 annually, Dunford said last May.

Now that there is not going to be a new school, an evaluation was needed to define future renovation work and authorize related expenditures, said Ernest R. Closser III, the attorney hired by Hellmann as bond counsel. The engineering firm's walk-through provided the preliminary analysis and projected expenses related to renovations, he added.

“You can't pursue projects without preliminary cost estimates, according to the state debt act,” Closser said.

District solicitor Thomas Kelly pointed out that hiring a firm means spending public money. The proper course of action would have been for the board to present bids for firms publicly, and only then vote on a firm, he said.

Hellmann independently invited Philadelphia-based Wick Fisher White Engineers to evaluate the “major infrastructure components of the existing high school,” according to the firm's report. The evaluation was distributed to board members on the day of the meeting Wednesday.

On Jan. 17, engineers looked at the boilers, plumbing, electrical systems and windows to determine if they should be repaired or left as is, according to the report.

The report also noted that observations were limited to portions of the building that were viewed during a walk-through. No further investigation, such as performing calculations to verify the capacity of existing equipment, was done.

Engineers recommended 10 immediate actions be taken, such as installing automatic fire suppression systems in kitchen exhaust hoods for about $15,000 per system. Ten other actions were recommended to be taken in the next three to five years. The report further described additional observations and recommendations.

Total repair cost is not listed in the report.

There are a lot of variables involved in renovation, and without doing further study it's not really practical to provide a figure for total expenses, said an engineer from Wick Fisher White. He did not want to be named.

Copies of the full report are available in the business administrator's office and on the district Web site, at www.mv.org. It's called “Existing Systems Report by Wick, Fisher and White.”

Superintendent Elizabeth Yonson said the district has heard no talk yet about a feasibility study for the two elementary schools. Both need renovations.

“We're very confused by that ourselves and there's a lot of work to be done on that as well,” she said. “The facilities committee really needs to address this issue.”

Kate Fratti Nails It!

Kate Fratti talks about Wednesday evening's school board meeting in her column today. She also had a late blog entry last night on Superintendent Yonson and Business Administrator Dunford, two outstanding women who have been harried, harassed, bullied, and excluded by "The People's Board". She also mentions Delaware Valley High School in Philly, a possible pasture for the farmed MHS students. Check out the Google map! Four locations nearby to serve you! Only a short bus ride down Route 1/Roosevelt Boulevard in rush hour traffic.

Kate: Thank you! For way too long, too many small minded hypocritical people have been at work in much of Morrisville, and it's nice to see the rock lifted off of some of them to see exactly how they work.

The "People's Board" is nothing of the kind. The people are left out in secrecy and back room deals for board member buddies, cronies, and contacts.

It may not be Tom Cruise who is the school board's "Top Gun", but Emperor William "Maverick" Hellmann CPA is. He loves rules...sit down, shut up...but when the rules apply to him? "Rules? We don't need no stinkin' rules!" I wonder if he says that to the IRS when one of his clients is audited?

You all know that if the board had voted to table the $2500 payment, then defeasement would have failed, right? That's why the Emperor was emphatic in his continued less than sotto-voce "NO" as the tabling question continued to be called. Without a payment, there was no report. Without a report, there was no defeasement.

Have you read the Hellmann Report? It tells us NOTHING that we did not already know. The "inspection" was also a sham. It was not an "inspection" (think white-gloved Marine master sergeant) but a "tour" (think a stroll through the park). The list of what they didn't do is impressive.



I would hope that even some of the Q are embarrassed by the Emperor's activities to date.

Kate Fratti also makes one more mention in her column. It's about halfway through where the Hellmann supporters say he's a decent man so immersed in the business world that he doesn't understand democratic government. Let me get this straight...Hellmann, who was the elected Morrisville borough controller, doesn't understand government? Maybe someone should be independently auditing the books on Union Street as well as on Palmer Avenue.

The State of the Union Address...

...if delivered by Emperor William Hellmann CPA to the subjects of Morrisville. Or maybe it's investment advice for his clients. He thinks Morrisville is a great place to invest in...NOT!

Guest Blogger

I received the following letter this morning and was given permission to post it, but without attribution. It's a rather detailed letter and what I was able to check out does come back as accurate, so let's take a look and see what you think.

The actual motion that they read last night when voting on the defeasement of the bond stated that they have a professional estimate and a clear understanding of what needs to be done with the facilities and that they are therefore making an informed decision in how much money they are defeasing. The law won't allow them to defease blindly (which is what they are doing). This language was actually in their motion. Voting yes was, in my opinion, fraudulent. This has not been done, and the administrators are even saying so (see yesterday's paper).

Paragraph 3 of their motion tonight read:

“the school district has received realistic cost estimates from qualified engineers, architects or other persons qualified by experience as to the amounts necessary to satisfy the costs to be incurred with respect to the revised capital project, the total estimated cost of which is in excess of the amount of the remaining proceeds of the bonds”

As anyone with a brain can see, they have not done this. There is not even a 'revised project' to speak of. They have no idea what they are doing. They are still 'exploring all options'. Without question, since they went ahead defeased the bonds last night we can proceed with the following:

I have a copy of the school code. Below is section 318. It applies if a board member refuses or neglects to perform any duty imposed upon it by the provisions of this act relating to school districts (the act being the PA School Code).
"Any 10 resident taxpayers in the district may present a petition in writing, verified by oath or affirmation of at least 3 such resident taxpayers, to the court of common pleas of the county in which such district, setting forth the facts of such refusal or neglect of duty on the part of such school directors.............(too much to type).......the court shall have the power to remove the board, or such of its number as in its opinion is proper, and appoint for the unexpired terms other qualified persons in their stead."

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

Their actions last night, in my opinion, constitute gross malfeasance of duty. We have documentation out the kazoo of the facility problems (I know of a previous Board member who has kept EVERYTHING documenting our facilities problems), with engineers and architects that would gladly testify to such in court. They have no idea how many schools they will have to maintain/renovate and they have a limited idea as to what one option may cost. They won't tell us what that option is, in fact, their president did this without Board approval, another action that can and should be challenged in court. Their administration has already told them they are being irresponsible. There is also something called gross malfeasance of duty for which a Board member can actually be sued personally as well, so if it costs the district money to borrow the additional money they will certainly be needed, it may only have to come from the people who voted yes last night, not the entire town.

There are many other Acts that Board members are required to comply with, such as 22 Pa Code (link is below), which indicates items such as :
(10) Professional educators shall exert reasonable effort to protect the student from conditions which interfere with learning or are harmful to the student’s health and safety.
More importantly, there are requirements in the school code for Boards to fully inform the public of their proposed facility plans before moving forward with any financial steps in regards to them. They absolutely have NOT done this. Some Board members don't even know what their 'tentative' plans are at this point, and the public has in no way had the oportunity to speak their opinions about it. This Board doesn't stand a chance in court, which is probably why the solicitor was sweating bullets and stammering for words in regards to their actions.

In regards Board members obligations to provide good facilities, please read the below school code information (I.e. they are bound to comply with this by law).
§7-701. Duty to provide; conditions.

The board of school directors of each district shall provide the necessary grounds and suitable school buildings to accommodate all the children between the ages of six and twenty-one years, in said district, who attend school. Such buildings shall be constructed, furnished, equipped, and maintained in a proper manner as herein provided. Suitable provisions shall be made for the heating (including the purchase of fuel), ventilating, adequate lighting, and sanitary conditions thereof, and for a safe supply of water, so that every pupil in any such building may have proper and healthful accommodations.

I can't find the complete school code on-line, but this site

http://members.aol.com/StatutesP5/24A.html

Has much of it if you wish to browse. I'm sure previous Board members may have copies available to those who wish to see it, also you can go to the school district and see it there as well.

Additionally, I would like to ask any parent who has a child in our district, whose child is harmed in any way as a result of our poor district facilities, or has contracted an illness that they believe is a result of our facilities to come forward. There is substantial documentation in regards to the poor conditions of our facilities (has anyone tried to breath in MR Reiter lately), that parents have many courses of action that they can take against this Board (both professionally as Board members and personally) who is blatantly ignoring the welfare of their children. Again, previous Board members have documentation to help any such parents with their various courses of action to protect their children.

Farming Poll and Defeasement Poll

The results of the farming poll are not a surprise. I really think that option is dead unless there's a serious space problem.




No surprises here for the defeasement poll. Time will tell though. I'm not against defeasement, just the rushed and hurried unprofessionalism of this defeasement.

Open Mike Night at the Defeasement

According to peter's comments, the bond is defeased by a vote of 6-3. Please let us all in on what happened tonight.

Also, a look into how Emperor William Hellmann CPA and financial planner works with Reba Dunford.



ADDED: The BCCT had a short to-the-point factual article on the meeting.

ADDED: The Hellmann Report is now available at the MSD website