DVHS opens Bucks Campus

From the BCCT.

New school for at-risk students opens

The Delaware Valley High School, a private alternative school for at-risk students celebrated its grand opening with a reception and open house Monday.

The school, which will educate approximately 250 students this year, is a branch of a campus that has operated in the Bustleton section of Philadelphia for almost 40 years.

DVHS contracts with school districts to educate students and takes referrals from families. The new campus includes a 25,000-square-foot facility on 4 acres off Jacksonville Road. It will serve students in Bucks and Montgomery counties. The Bustleton location will provide services to Philadelphia students exclusively.

The high school educates each student for $8,750 per year and boasts a teacher-student ratio of 17-to-1. It works with a technical institute, psychological center and service organization to steer students toward a vocational school or college education.

“We're going to facilitate that the moment they arrive,” said Davie Shulick, DVHS president. “What we're trying to teach these kids is how important education is and how important civic responsibility is.”

Shulick said the DVHS student-management services software was designed by school administrators to track every student's emotional and behavioral issues and automate a report that is forwarded to parents and school districts.

DVHS has a 93 percent graduation rate, a figure that includes 24 William Tennent High School students referred by the school district in the last three years.

As Promised, Monday's Followup

Here's the column that Kate Fratti promised last week from her recent discussions with the Emperor and Angry Al.

Roadblock to drastic changes

Continuing their investigation into ways to reduce costs in Morrisville School District, Bill Hellmann and Al Radosti met with a Delaware Valley High School representative Tuesday afternoon.

She arrived at Hellmann’s West Bridge Street office just as a reporter and I were leaving it. We’d spent 90 minutes with Hellmann, Radosti and board member Bill Farrell, who agreed to share their rationale for proposing drastic changes to the financially strapped school system.

How drastic? They seem to have given up hope of any merger with neighboring Pennsbury. So, by September 2009, some board members hope to have closed at least one grade school, maybe two, and consolidated all grades in the middle/senior high school building. That is unless, by then they’ve been able to tuition highschoolers out at substantial reductions in cost per student. In that case, the current high school building would hold just K-8.

DVH is best known for educating at-risk kids, but President Dave Shulick has said it is accredited and experienced in regular education. Although Shulick has expressed interest in privatizing Morrisville High, Hellmann maintains he met with DVH this time to learn more about how alternative schools work. I have trouble buying that, but he’s insistent.

As for changes, Hellmann acknowledges the high school would need renovations to accommodate new grades, but that’s the least of obstacles.

The roadblock to consolidation and severe cost-cutting is a 5-year teacher contract that prevents furloughs or any substantial change to the student-staff ratio until 2012. Morrisville’s student-staff ratio stands at12.3 to 1, which doesn’t always give a true picture of class size, but does dictate the number of professionals who must stay on the rolls. There are 71 teachers, 1 psychologist, 3 guidance counselors and a nurse and two gifted/instructional support aides for fewer than 1,000 kids.

Hellmann said savings realized by farming out high-schoolers could be used to reduce teaching ranks. “Maybe retirement incentives,” Hellmann said.

He conceded Morrisville, under the direction of Superintendent Beth Yonson, is successfully educating children in its elementary schools, but says the high school has become a last resort for kids failed by the Trenton school system across the river. They move into Morrisville at very low reading and math levels. “We can’t be the special education center for Bucks and Mercer counties,” he laments.

Radosti, whose gruff way of expressing his unfiltered thoughts about kids today, changes in society and Morrisville’s proximity to the Trenton school system has won few friends among more liberalminded residents, says he’s weary of being accused of being racist and anti-education just because he wants to cut costs so people his age can keep their homes. He raises his voice two decibels to explain to me just how weary.

A Morrisville grad and a retired police officer, he worked two and three jobs to send a son to Notre Dame High School and a daughter to Grey Nun Academy. In each case, because he feared Morrisville classrooms were too disruptive. Nothing like the school system he enjoyed years before them. Don’t tell him he doesn’t value education.

Hellmann sent all but one of his kids to Conwell-Egan Catholic. He has approached CEC about a tuition program for Morrisville.

Neither man pretends to have any warm and fuzzy emotional ties to a school system they say is a drain on its townspeople. It’s a problem, Hellmann says.

It looks like he’s working to be rid of it — and soon.

Student Farming Plan Back on the Agenda

It looks like last night's Morrisville High School class of 2008 is shaping up to be the next to last MHS class.

What is it with these two and what do they have against the Morrisville school system? Here's two bitter and angry men out for destruction. Remember the January board meeting where the Emperor even conceded that "he got it" and the community did not want the high school students tuitioned out?

Private Morrisville High?
Posted in News on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 3:57 pm by Columnist Kate Fratti

Continuing their investigation into privatizing Morrisville High School, school board directors Bill Hellmann and Al Radosti met with a Delaware Valley High School representative Tuesday afternoon.They seem to have given up hope of any merger with neighboring Pennsbury. So, by September 2009, some board members hope to have closed at least one grade school, maybe two, and consolidated all grades in the middle/senior high school building. That is unless, by then they’ve been able to tuition high-schoolers out to another district or to Delaware Valley High School at substantial reductions in cost per student. In that case, the current high school building would hold just K-8.

DVH is best known for educating at-risk kids, but President Dave Shulick has said it is accredited and experienced in regular education that could be provided in or near Morrisville.

Keeping the public at bay in Morrisville

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keeping the public at bay in Morrisville

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

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

Just what this little district needs: more controversy.

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

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

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

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

Here’s a clue.

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

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

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

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

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

But I needn’t have been so Brenda Starr.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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."

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.

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."

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.