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Thursday, March 27, 2008

March Business Meeting News

Any updates from last night's meeting?
Posted by Save The School at 5:53 AM

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

The only comment I have is this....It would seem that Mr. Worab used up all his energy to yell "SHAME ON YOU" several times, because not so long after he was fast asleep in his chair in the back of the room. Way to motivate!

Did anyone else, Notice, the mis-use, of commas, in the, statement, from Bill?

March 27, 2008 at 8:05 AM
Anonymous said...

There was so much yelling and going on last night from the board members and audience that one of the board members was taken away in an ambulance. What's going on here? The people in charge are more like the children they supervise.

March 27, 2008 at 9:47 AM
Anonymous said...

I'll recap a few things, as neutrally as possible.

First, not related to the business done, is that board member and prince-among-men Ed Frankenfield was having trouble breathing and our safety officer Dave May gently forced him out of the meeting and called for an ambulance. I went out into the hall while Ed was there and, while he was sucking wind and looking very grey, he was responsive and not complaining of any other kind of discomfort. I don't know anything more, but I'm going to put in a call soon. Wishing him the best, of course.

Businesswise, the insulting, vitriolic (so much for neutrality) motion to have Morrisville's own law firm of Curtin Heefer look into Dr. Yonson's employment contract passed. The logic behind spending up to $3,000 (I think, it was tagged on during the motion) is that a lame duck board negotiated that 5 year contract to tie the hands of this board. But is it beyond the realm of possibility that a board that had 3 years' experience with its superintendent wanted to be the one that worked out her second contract? Is it impossible that a 5 year contract is the norm for superintendents throughout bucks County? (It is not impossible, it is the norm.) And didn't Dr. Yonson initally request a 5 year contract, but the board that hired her was skittish after the previous superintendent, so it only went for three years. Was the negotiation held early, since the 3 year contract isn't up until this June? Early, yes, back in October, but not outside of normal practice for such a negotiation as pointed out by Robin Reithmeyer, who took the trouble to research it. And finally, would one be said to be mentally deficient if one believed that the board was very happy with Dr. Yonson's work, bringing nothing but educational success to the district for three years, and that that board wanted to keep her for another five? There, I just laid out the defense for Dr. Yonson's lawyer if the new board should decide to attempt to break her new contract.

I'll be shorter now. Also approved 6-2 was to go out to bid to fix the immediate concerns outlined in Wick Fisher White's incomplete engineering report on the high school and defeated 5-3 was a motion to accept the proposal from EI Associates to prepare an actual feasibility study on all three schools for only $6500. We'll try again next meeting.

Finally, of note is the announcement of the board's intention to put together a committee of stakeholders to discuss ideas to deal with the facilities issues in the district. The board members selected by Pres. Hellmann, cpa are Kemp, Mihock, Worob and Frankenfield. Citizens interested in serving on that committee should contract the board (schoolboard@mv.org) and the district. Some bigwigs will be selected and regular folk will have their names thrown in a hat (that's how these things usually work anyway).

Oh, and Mr. Hellmann delivered his explanation of the defeasement costs and lots of people blamed the old board for the $2.4 million spent on giving that money back. I was shame-on-you'd a couple times, but Ed put it best when he said we didn't waste the town's money, we made an investment in the future. Now that future remains unknown.

March 27, 2008 at 10:13 AM
Morris said...

Mr. Worob seemed pretty pleased with himself after his "Shame on you" tirade and getting Mr. Frankenfield all worked up to point of where he had to leave that Mr. Worob could rest so comfortably in the back of the room. I noticed he slept best when his wife was speaking.

I hope Mr. Frankenfield is doing well and please have someone post any news regarding his condition. He is in our thoughts.

Mr. Hellmann continued riding his high horse by stating he heard that Mr. Kemp and Mr. Frankenfield were planning on running for the board again and said basically with a very nasty sneer, "You won't get re-elected!"

I hope someone will keep track of the dollar amounts spent on the "Emergency Issues" the board voted to approve to seek bids on. Let's see how accurate Wick Fisher and White is in their estimates - especially on the items they didn't even fully investigate. At least have the intelliegence to cover their behind by stating they didn't look at everything they needed to give an accurate estimate.

Would the previous board have been able to do this?? I don't think Sharon Hughes and her architect and engineering friends would have. Why isn't she questioning this board? Don't answer, it's a rhetorical question.

March 27, 2008 at 1:06 PM
Anonymous said...

Imagine the headline in the Bucks County Courier Times tomorrow:

COUNCILMAN HELPS SEND SCHOOL DIRECTOR AWAY IN AMBULANCE

Naps Innocently As Ambulance Leaves and Wife Talks Incessantly

March 27, 2008 at 1:32 PM
Save The School said...

So it was apparently a very dull meeting.

Does anyone have a copy of the Emperor's message to his subjects or any other documents of interest from last night? I also heard that the proposed budget is out.

March 27, 2008 at 1:45 PM
Anonymous said...

Any bets on who is the board member that "has someone" for the Facilites Director position that they are trying to push thru?

March 27, 2008 at 4:53 PM
Jon said...

From today's Courier Times, more terrifying reasons not to build a new school - the builder may start building with the brick/trim color scheme backwards! For those that are only capable of repeating the same tired old discredited misinformation, at least Morrisville's new school was purposely designed by the architects to collapse into rubble right at the 20-year mark, so a mistake like that would have only lasted for exactly 20-years.




Board to decide on school's color scheme

By JOAN HELLYER
Bucks County Courier Times

The Bristol school board has to decide if it wants the district's new school to be gray brick with red brick trim or red brick with gray brick trim, officials said.

The original plans for the $33 million pre-K through eighth-grade school off Buckley Street called for red brick with gray brick trim, district officials said. However, designs produced by VITETTA, a Philadelphia-based architectural firm in charge of the project, specified for the building to be gray brick with red trim, officials said.

The building contractor ordered the bricks according to the design specifications and crews began to install the bricks in the back of the school before the mistake was caught, officials said.

VITETTA representatives acknowledged the mistake to board members during a closed-door executive session earlier this month, district officials said.

The Courier Times was unsuccessful in reaching VITETTA Executive Vice President Michael Minton, who is in charge of the project's design, for comment Wednesday.

During the closed-door session, Minton asked board members to take a look at the bricks that already have been installed at the back of the school near the Grundy Towers senior citizens facility, the officials said.

He asked them to decide if they want to continue with the gray brick with red brick trim scheme, or if they want to use the original color scheme.

The construction project, including the issue with the bricks, is expected to come up again tonight during an executive session prior to the board's regular meeting, Superintendent Broadus Davis said Wednesday.


The brick issue is not listed as an item on the board's public meeting agenda, but any board member can make a motion regarding the concern during the meeting, Davis said.

Vice President John D'Angelo said he has had a look at the bricks and didn't think they looked too bad. He said he plans to suggest they put up the red brick with gray brick trim on the rest of the building before it's decided whether to tear down the already installed bricks.

The bricks that are already up “will delineate the boiler and maintenance area of the building. It will look like we did it on purpose,” D'Angelo said.

The brick situation is not expected to delay the building's construction, which is expected to be completed during the 2008-09 school year, officials said.

The building will replace the adjacent Warren Snyder-John Girotti Elementary and provide more learning space for district high school students when the seventh- and eighth-graders move out of the high school and into the new school, they said.

IF YOU GO

The Bristol school board is expected during its 7:30 p.m. meeting tonight to consider what to do about the brick color scheme of the new pre-K to eighth-grade school under construction off Buckley Street. The board meeting will be held at the administration building off Farragut Avenue. Call 215-781-1000 for more information.

Joan Hellyer can be reached at 215-949-4048 or jhellyer@phillyBurbs.com.


March 27, 2008 5:02 AM

March 27, 2008 at 4:55 PM
Jon said...

Philanthropy There, Misanthropy Here......from yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer.



Trade school gets $45 million donation
By Jane M. Von Bergen and Mari Schaefer

Inquirer Staff Writers

In jubilation yesterday, they celebrated with glasses of sparkling cider at the Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades.
No wonder. Its president had just announced that the tiny private trade school outside Media - enrollment 250 - would receive a whopping $45 million donation from two of the region's most generous philanthropic couples.

Sparkling cider? Williamson has a strict no-drinking policy, enforced with random Breathalyzer tests - part of a policy to build character while building skills in carpentry, power-plant operation, turf maintenance, and machining.

Williamson's discipline and education, in fact, are what attracted the donors to the school, where tuition and room and board are free for the college-age students. They generally graduate after three years with an associate's degree.

The donations come from metals entrepreneur Henry Rowan and his wife, Lee, of Langhorne, Bucks County, and former cable television magnate H. FitzGerald "Gerry" Lenfest and his wife, Marguerite, of Philadelphia.

"I think they are educating a unique group of people in a unique way," Henry Rowan said in an interview. "They take kids from limited finances and teach them a trade. They run a very highly disciplined environment, and they turn out some great people."

Here's what Rowan means by discipline:

Lights out at 10:30 p.m.

Daily morning chapel at 7:30 a.m.

Suit, tie and shined shoes to class; school work uniform for shop classes. Random drug testing. Dorm rooms inspection-ready at all times. Students clean dorm bathrooms, bus the dining room, sweep the porches and maintain the grounds - not for pay, but because it is the Williamson way.

If they are four minutes late for class, they have to work four extra hours over the weekend. Half an hour late? Eight hours of work are required.

"There's nothing better than that kind of discipline," Rowan said. "I think education is the most important endeavor in the world."

The Lenfests were unavailable for comment.

"This is the greatest thing that would have happened," said Wayne C. Watson, chairman of the board. "This will give us a chance to grow and live for the future."

School president Paul Reid described the gift as "transformational."

Reid said investment income from the school's endowment, which will reach $100 million at the end of the fund-raising campaign, will pay for two-thirds of the $6.5 million annual operating costs of the school.

The rest of the money is raised annually from donors.

The donation comes at an important time in the labor market. As baby boomers retire, there is an increasing shortage of skilled technical workers like those whom Williamson produces.

"The lack of skills is very severe in the U.S.A.," Rowan said. "You can't hire top-skilled individuals in machining and welding and in any of the trades. There's a terrible shortage of skilled people."

The size of the gift compared with the enrollment in the school stunned experts in philanthropy.

"Wow, that's really significant," said Rae Goldsmith, vice president for communications at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, a Washington-based group for educational fund-raisers.

"A gift that size to a trade school is going to be very rare," she said. "I just haven't heard of it before."

In fiscal 2007, while the stock market and economy were still strong, colleges and universities raised a record $29.8 billion, according to the Council for Aid to Education, which conducts an annual survey of educational giving. Giving at two-year colleges also rose to $250 million, up from $197 million the prior year.

The biggest recent educational donation in the region, announced in September, went to the George School, a private Quaker day and boarding school in Newtown, Bucks County, for grades six through 12. Barbara Dodd Anderson, a 1950 graduate, pledged $128 million.

The Williamson School, which boasts a significant collection of buildings designed by renowned architect Frank Furness, was founded in 1888 by Isaiah Vansant Williamson, a prominent Philadelphia merchant and philanthropist.

He believed, as Rowan does, that teaching a combination of skills and character creates excellent employers, employees, fathers, spouses and citizens.

"When I heard [about the gift], chills went up and down my spine," said Kevin Hatch, 21, who will graduate in May from the school's power-plant-technology program and will start immediately at a job paying him $75,000 a year plus full tuition reimbursement.

"I'm so happy for the school because of the future that it'll be able to have. More kids like myself will be able to benefit," said Hatch, whose father died when he was a teenager.

In December, Rowan had set up a $5 million challenge grant. Williamson approached the Lenfests, who had been previous donors, to help match Rowan's donation.

Instead, Gerry Lenfest issued a challenge to Rowan through Reid: Lenfest would put up $20 million if Rowan would match it.

The school already had a $50 million endowment. The $40 million from the couples, plus Rowan's initial $5 million grant, puts the school close to its goal of doubling its endowment.

Russell Harvey, Class of 1951 and faculty member, was overcome with emotion when he was asked to lead the school in the singing of the school's alma mater.

Harvey said the Class of 1951 had only 25 students. Times were tight, and the board had considered not having a class that year, but one benefactor was able to give enough money, at the time, for 25 students.

"I won't be here in 40 years," said Harvey, 77. "But this will be here."

March 27, 2008 at 5:14 PM

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