On The Road to Closing

The BCCT addresses the idea of closing today.

District must navigate code for closing

By JO CIAVAGLIA
Bucks County Courier Times

Unless Morrisville School District submits a plan, the state Department of Education can't definitively say if the district can close its only high school and send its students elsewhere.

Pennsylvania school code is so complicated it's impossible to speculate if the district meets state school closure criteria, what would happen to its students or if neighboring district high schools could be forced to accept them, education department spokesman Michael Race said.

Last week it was revealed that some members of the new Morrisville school board majority have contacted local school systems to see if they'd be interested in accepting its high school students on a tuition basis. For years, the 1,000-student district has been plagued with financial and academic problems.

Charles Herring, an attorney for the state education association and Morrisville teachers union, said this week the union would oppose any attempt to tuition out students.

He added that state precedent exists, which he believes prevents a school board from closing a school and furloughing employees covered under existing union contracts.

Before any district can proceed with a school closing, a plan must be submitted and state-required steps followed, including holding a public hearing to discuss the possible closure at least three months before action is taken. It's unclear what additional requirements apply to school closings that would involve educating students out of a district.

In Pennsylvania, over the last 23 years, at least three school districts — Midland and Duquesne outside Pittsburgh and St. Clair Area in Schuylkill County — have closed high schools and transferred students into neighboring district schools. Each district's set of circumstances and tuition arrangements is so unique to that district that none can be used as a comparison with Morrisville, Race said.

“The particulars of any school closure vary, so it's impossible to speculate on the particulars of Morrisville unless or until the district would outline a closure plan,” Race said. “There are so many areas of the code that could affect this it is difficult to get into a what-if situation.”

Parts of the state school code suggest if a district doesn't have a school, its students would attend the nearest and most convenient school district, Race said. The code does not address what would happen if a district has no room in its school or a policy limiting or barring tuition students.

Take the Midland Borough School District, which closed its high school in 1985. Initially it transferred students to a nearby district's high school, but when the district abruptly ended the agreement — and other districts refused to accept the students — Midland was forced to send the students across state lines.

The district is now the only one in Pennsylvania that sends its students to a high school in East Liverpool, Ohio.

Pennsbury School District, which borders Morrisville, has a board policy that narrowly defines which tuition students can attend the district, district CEO Paul Long said. But that policy doesn't address the potential situation in Morrisville.

“If we got to the point of facing that question with Morrisville, it would be aside from that policy,” Long said.

Neither Bristol Township nor Neshaminy, nearby school districts with underused schools, has a written board policy defining tuition students it will accept into the district.

The state school code also dictates a specific process for closing a school, and there is a general criteria that must be met — such as dwindling student population, poor building condition or shrinking tax base — but each school closure has individual circumstances that must be considered, Race said.

St. Clair Area School District closed its high school in 1990 after experiencing teacher contract problems and falling student enrollment, a district official said. The students now attend nearby Pottsville High School, though the closing resulted in years of legal battles with its teachers union.

A state-appointed board decided to close Duquesne City School District's high school in June, seven years after the 775-student district was named to a state list of 12 financially and academically distressed districts.

Specific state legislation was added to the school code to dictate some of the particulars of the Duquesne closure, including giving state Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak the authority to reassign nearly 200 high school students to nearby school districts, over those districts' objections.

Starting this school year, Duquesne high school students attend West Mifflin Area or East Allegheny School Districts. The district continues to educate its K-8 students. West Mifflin Area and East Allegheny have filed a joint lawsuit seeking to overturn Zahorchak's decision.

The state code also doesn't spell out what the per-student tuition rate for sending school districts would be, Race said.

Applying the charter school funding principle, the money follows the student, meaning whatever the sending district receives in state funding is what the charter school receives. But per-student costs vary by district and it's unclear if a sending or accepting district's rate applies — and which district would make up any cost difference.

The school code dictates that terms of “tuition out” students can be determined by the districts, so the cost of reimbursement for the students could be negotiated between the sending and accepting districts, Race said.

Montgomery County's Bryn Athyn School District, the state's lone paper-only district, sends all its public school students to neighboring Lower Moreland School District.

The district operates no public school buildings. Most children attend the Academy of the New Church, a private school operated by the Swedenborgian church, whose world headquarters is Bryn Athyn.

This year there are eight Bryn Athyn students attending Lower Moreland schools, Lower Moreland business manager Mark McGuinn said.

Bryn Athyn pays the state-certified Lower Moreland tuition rate of $9,297 for elementary students and $10,833 for secondary students. There is a separate hourly rate for services for special education students, he added.

Lower Moreland also has a board policy specifying the only tuition students it accepts are from Bryn Athyn.

Did you know...

As of the 2006-07 school year, Pennsylvania had 65 school districts with 1,000 or fewer students.

Of the 501 school districts in the state, 39 percent have fewer than 3,000 students.

Staff writers Rachel Canelli and Joan Hellyer contributed to this story.
Jo Ciavaglia can be reached at 215 949-4181 or jciavaglia@phillyBurbs.com.

A Bridge to a New School Redux

Do you remember the collapse of the bridge in Minnesota? I blogged about it way back on August 3, and it directly addressed the issues of age, lack of adequate maintenance, and lack of follow-up.

Apparently, the final reports are being assembled and written. A "design flaw" is the apparent conclusion of the report.

The official, who was briefed by the National Transportation Safety Board, said that investigators found a design flaw in the bridge's gusset plates, which are the steel plates that tie steel beams together.

Meanwhile, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters is expected to issue an advisory later Tuesday urging states to check the gusset plates when modifications are made to a bridge -- such as changes to the weight of the bridge or adding a guardrail, said a federal official with knowledge of the plans.

Currently, such calculations are done for the entire bridge, but not down to the gusset plates, the official said. [Ed Note: What is waiting inside the Six Million Dollar Shell? This board's need for speed is a recipe for further disaster.]

Last August, Peters advised states to consider the additional stress placed on bridges during construction projects. An 18-person crew was working on the bridge when it collapsed.

Nearly three months later, Peters told a gathering in Washington of a "working theory" of a poorly designed gusset plate and a heavy load of construction materials.

The bridge was deemed "structurally deficient" by the federal government as far back as 1990.

Do you see any other parallels here?

Comic Relief

I found these two Dilbert cartoons recently talking about budgeting and design in the real world that seemed to refer back to budgeting and the radical shifts being made from the world of the possible into the Twilight Zone of Unreality that has become a hallmark of the new Morrisville School Board.

Then...Santa Claus made an unannounced late visit. I thank the gifted graphic artist who provided us with the seal of approval for Morrisville's school budgets!




I'll have to add "Leadership by Words" to my business lexicon along with "developing synergies" and "involuntarily downsized." Oops, sorry to all the high school teachers, I should have never said that.



And once we apply this regal seal, ask the question...are we REALLY bringing out the best, or preparing for bringing out the dead?

Note: In the office pool, I have the 4-6PM slot today for a witty commentary from jon. While I do appreciate everyone's comments, jons are pretty much along my same style of humor and I look forward to them!

NEWS TIP: Students to NJ?

I have some information from an very credible source which is not yet confirmed. The general sense is:

[Hold on to your hat. I just got a call from a headmaster of a private Catholic academy in New Jersey who wants his school to be part of the mix when it comes time to "farm out."]

Can anyone second this information?

Telephone Numbers

I was going through some old documentation here and I was struck by a telephone number. You know, something like 867-5309 or Pennsylvania 65000.

I was looking through an old Stop the School brochure and I noticed the telephone number 215-295-2900 listed as a place where the Stop the School people would tirelessly answer the phone and get you a voter registration form. I even blogged this back a month ago and never did this search. So I Googled the number. Imagine what I found.



Did the Historic Morrisville Society make an illegal campaign contribution to the Stop the School candidates by providing this service?

The Children Are Playing With The Poll Again

I'm watching you do it right now. 8:10 AM Sunday morning.

1:30 PM Sunday afternoon
I reposted the poll, so if you already voted, please vote again. I actually like the idea that a ballot box stuffer thinks that over voting will make me sit here and cry and pack up my blog and go home. Well, OK, I am already home, but my self-esteem just doubled because I'm so important to you that you need to consume your day with reloading your browser and reclicking on the mouse.

I bet I can keep this up longer than you can!

The Sunday Funny Papers

Here it is, Sunday morning and the kids have the funny pages open from the Sunday paper. Oddly enough, the parents have the funny pages open too, but while the kids are looking at the comics, the parents are anxiously reading about our little town's Farm Control Board, looking for the new scheduling of the cattle runs to Bristol and Pennsbury, and maybe even a few to Conwell Egan.

Were you able to contact your board members? Several of you did and were kind enough to include me on the letters, and I thank you for that. Most of you asked that your letters not be reprinted here and I am honoring that request. However, I thought that I was hot under the collar. Perhaps we should talk to George Mount about adding blood pressure medication directly to the town water supply to save time.

According to the BCCT this morning, closing a school is a slow process, and it takes at least three months.

All this board wants is fast, fast, relief. WARNING: Everything is moving fast. Defease the debt FAST! Cut the budget FAST! I know some people so we can fix the school FAST! These are the same people who wanted s...l...o...w... action from the past board, aren't they? Then what is the "other reason" for going fast? This new board has two years at least to complete the job. Who else benefits from fast action?

They also attacked the past president for her "connections" with contractors. Who is questioning the connections that William Hellmann CPA has with the professional defeasement artist who also said come back and see me when you need more money. Other members are using connections to bring their friends directly into the process because they can "work with these people", not like the others before them who were greedy and only wanted a new school. "Work with you", huh? Sounds like a classic sweetheart pay-for-play or inexpensive-work-now-for-guaranteed-work-later type of scam is being run. Even the door locks at Grandview had to be fixed by a William Hellmann CPA crony ("Did you call the guy I told you to call?" was his message to the business administrator).

What's the school board equivalent of a special prosecutor?

And are we following the Sandy Gibson Rule? Substitute Sandy as the protagonist and then read how it sounds. For example, in the above paragraph...Who is questioning the connections that [Sandy Gibson] has with the professional defeasement artist who also said come back and see me when you need more money. [Sandy Gibson is] using connections to bring [her] friends directly into the process because they can "work with these people", not like the others before them who were greedy and only wanted a new school. "Work with you", huh? Sounds like a classic sweetheart pay-for-play or inexpensive-work-now-for-guaranteed-work-later type of scam is being run. Even the door locks at Grandview had to be fixed by a [Sandy Gibson] crony ("Did you call the guy I told you to call?" was [her] message to the business administrator).

See how easy that was? If you were incensed by reading that last paragraph and went outside to stoke the vat of boiling tar to corner Sandy, why aren't you doing it to William Hellmann CPA? Because you're a hypocrite, that's why.

One item to close with:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead, US anthropologist (1901 - 1978)

Call For Action NOW!

Yes, it's a Friday night and it's Miller Time! After a long work week, it's time to kick back and relax. But not so fast. We need a few moments of your time.

Today's BCCT front page article by Kate Fratti has set her phone to ringing off of her desk. Curiously enough, the calls are from "residents", not "parents". Yes, the same right-wing no-tax wackos who hijacked the last election are at it again, telling the BCCT that they want to send the kids away to contract high school.

If you have kids in grades K-8, is this what you want for their high school yearbook?
If you don't have kids in Morrisville schools, is this what you want for your neighbor's children?
Would you want your children/grandchildren in other communities to be trucked like cattle to another school?

If you can answer "Yes" to the above questions, you can stop reading.

If you answered "No", then let's talk.

You're already sitting at your computer. Open up your email to compose a new email. Copy the next line into the To: section. This is the email list of the school board members and BCCT reporters Kate Fratti and Manasee Wagh

bhellmann@mv.org, aradosti@mv.org, mmihok@mv.org, gheater@mv.org, efrankenfield@mv.org, jkemp@mv.org, rreithmeyer@mv.org, bworob@mv.org, kfratti@phillyburbs.com, mwagh@phillyburbs.com

If you wanted to copy savethemorrisvilleschool@yahoo.com, I would love to see the emails. I've received several already. Thank you for sending them.

For the Subject, pick something like "Don't Farm out the Kids!"

Then go ahead and tell them not to farm out the kids. Our kids are the future of the community, not an inanimate commodity to be traded and bartered.

After you press the send button, relax. You registered your disgust with this cheap ploy, and you dont have to be back at work until Monday. But there's always the board meeting on Wednesday, January 23 at 7:30 PM. Feel free to come out for any of the meetings.

URGENT: Farming From Morrisville

So now the other shoe has finally dropped. They ARE sending our kids away. Here come the poor little contract kids from Morrisville. Here's the link.

While cooler heads should prevail while I'm having my morning fit of apoplexy, open question to Tom Kelly, Esq.: How do you recall or impeach a school board member?

Kate Fratti Fallout

According to two items from Kate Fratti's BCCT blog, former Morrisville school board member, and current Bucks County NAACP president Jon Jordan will address the Morrisville School Board at its regular meeting on Jan. 23. Meeting begins at 7:30.

Oh, and before I forget, she mentioned something about last night's meeting. Thanks, Kate...your integrity's welcome in Morrisville, and it's much larger than the combined integrity of the two members you mentioned. I don't think you experienced a "pencil malfunction", but the inevitable result that comes from crossing over into this side of the Twilight Zone.

A mea culpa

It’s not easy to stand up for yourself, and especially not when you have to do it before a roomful of people, but that’s what Beth Yonson, superintendent of Morrisville schools did last week.

Said she had no choice holding up a copy of my column in which I’d opined that she wasn’t playing fair with school board members. I based that on board members’ public allegations that her administration never notified them of an important budget deadline.

“It wasn’t advantageous,” Marilys Mihok said, and Gloria Heater agreed, for the administration to let elected officials know they had until just Jan. 3, to cap any budget increase to just 4.4 percent. It is why a special meeting had to be called quickly for Jan. 2, and with very short notice to members. No administrators or even the solicitor attended.

The cap, which the board eventually did approve at the special meeting, means the board has closed the door on asking for any special exceptions even in the event of financial emergency.

Thing is, whether or not Yonson liked the idea of the cap — she doesn’t because she believes the board could hold an increase to 4.4 or below without a legal resolution that could hamstring it — she not only notified them of the resolution deadline but publicly discussed it at length.

Last week, she used her superintendent’s report to replay a meeting tape showing that. She said she didn’t mean to embarrass anyone, just to defend her reputation.
“My integrity is important to me,” she said.

Mine, too. And so I apologize to Dr. Yonson for not checking the physical record before taking board members at their word even at a public meeting.
For their part, members Mihok and Heater accused this columnist of fabricating any statement about being hoodwinked by administrators. Heater said I must have misunderstood. Mihok advised the superintendent to grow a “thicker skin.”

Me, too, I guess.

Integrity is not important to everyone.

The NEXT Ten Words

For fans of "The West Wing", Josiah Bartlet accidentally buzzed on medications is still a better president than most of his 42 real life brethren. We can talk later on about comparisons between Josiah Bartlet and William Hellmann CPA.

Here's President Bartlet about to wipe the proverbial floor with his opponent, Florida Governor Robert Ritchie (played by Mr Barbra Streisand himself, James Brolin) in the final presidential debate.

Video or Script

MODERATOR
Governor Ritchie, many economists have stated that the tax cut, which is centerpiece of your economic agenda, could actually harm the economy. Is now really the time to cut taxes?

RITCHIE
You bet it is. We need to cut taxes for one reason-- the American people know how to spend their money better than the federal government does. [Ed Note: Didn't some president of the Morrisville Board of Education say pretty much the same thing?]

MODERATOR
Mr. President, your rebuttal.

BARTLET
There it is. That's the ten-word answer my staff's been looking for for two weeks. There it is. Ten-word answers can kill you in political campaigns. They're the tip of the sword. Here's my question: What are the next ten words of your answer? Your taxes are too high? So are mine. Give me the next ten words. How are we going to do it? Give me ten after that, I'll drop out of the race right now. Every once in a while... every once in a while, there's a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren't very many un-nuanced moments in leading a country that's way too big for ten words. I'm the President of the United States, not the President of the people who agree with me.

So school board Stop the Schoolers: Give us the next ten words that come after these items and tell us how we're going to do it:

Stop the School [and then...? how?]
Lower the taxes [and then...? how?]
Refurbish a fifty year old building [and then...? how?]
Cut all the sports [and then...? how?]
Sell Grandview, Reiter, and the A-Field [and then...? how?]
Send the high school students to another district [and then...? how?]

Stop being the school board members that represent the people who agree with you. Become the school board members for Morrisville.

Dear William Hellmann CPA, Angry Al, Ducky, Captain Algebra, and the rest of the No-Sports League: This is a breaking newsbrief to get through your heads. You...ALL of you...work for me. You work for the QRSE people too. You work for the kindergarteners, the high school seniors, AND the senior citizens. You are public servants, and have donned the mantle of a servant of the people, not the imperial purple.

So far I am not impressed. Yes, you will defease the 30 million dollar bond issue; yes, you might even bring the budget down (although there were a lot of weasel words from William Hellmann CPA about the actual millage decrease, citing teacher pension contributions, and debt service); yes, you might even bully Beth Yonson and Reba Dunford out of office (after last night if either of them ever trust any one of you NSNs again, it would be foolish!) and arrange for less-talented sycophants to take their positions (but hardly replace them!): you will also probably succeed in re-engineering the Six Million Dollar Marshmallow Stuffed High School Shell, but once the dust settles, WHAT'S NEXT??

All of the NSNs have all consistently ducked this part of the question. So, my fellow Morrisvillians, I ask you now...step up to the microphone during the public sessions, ask your hard questions, and then before you walk away, make sure to say, "What are the next ten words of your answer? Give me the next ten words. Tell us how you are going to do it." Prediction: Silence or weasel words will prevail, because revealing the plan isn't their style.

Anybody at the 1/9 meeting?

joeyouknow said...

Ooh. Anybody at the 1/9 meeting?
Kate Fratti was!
I will expand upon this tasty little tidbit tomorrow.

January 9, 2008 10:29 PM

Joe! Expansion, please! If you send me something in a comment or email, I will gladly post it as an article.

Please keep in mind the Alice Roosevelt Longworth posting challenge as well.

ADDED Jan 10, 12 noon. Many thanks to joeyouknow

The first new board agenda meeting was held last night, 1/9/08. The board went through the proposed agenda from the administration. There was discussion (+ confusion). One highlight was when Reba Dunford, Business Manager went through the budget cuts that Mr. Hellmann asked her to make. She explained (once again) that there is not fat in the budget and pointed out the necessity of each item to the educational and business needs of the district. Finally, she said that instead of cutting necessary programs, the administration decided to liquidate the contingency fund ($120,000) which hasn't been used the past couple of years and can be covered, in case of emergency by the Capital Projects fund, which still has $3 million in it.

Later, Dr. Yonson showed a piece of the tape from the December business meeting. The purpose of showing that tape was twofold: 1) to make her case to the board that the board was advised properly about the budget process (the complaint that led to the Jan. 2 special meeting) and 2) to clear her good name (ref. Kate Fratti's column reprinted on this site). Dr. Yonson was very upset, to say the least, about the comments that she and the administration did not advise the board that going on with the preliminary budget process precluded the need for the referendum. And that this was stated numerous times at a public meeting that she was unable to attend, and that it was told to Kate Fratti of the Courier Times. Friends and colleagues from out of the district were calling her to lend their support, which is how she found out about the debacle.

So it was duly shown that the board was advised, both by document (in November) and live and in person. Discussions about the issue took place between the people who never heard about the process and the people who were explaining the process right up there on the big screen. Three board members did speak up at the January meeting saying that they remembered said conversation. Five did not. Majority rules. As does reality! Sorta.

After Dr. Yonson's proof was presented (and this is the good part), Marlys Mihock told her she'd got to have a thick skin in this job and you can't trust everything you read in the paper. Why, who knows who said what and if it was even recorded properly...

At which point...

The stranger in the brown shirt with the notebook...

Speaks up....

And says.... (I'll quote for dramatic purposes, but it's just my recollection)

"But Marlys, you told me..."
Flipping through notebook, reading...
"Not one of the administrators told us that told you that there was a deadline to cap the budget!"

I could not stifle the laugh.

Yep.

PWNED! (see Wikipedia, old people) [ed: link added]

Kate Fratti was there. She apologized for not double checking her facts. She spoke up, out of turn, inappropriately at a school board meeting, because she, like Dr. Yonson, had her own good name to defend.

Truly, Marlys has her own definition of the truth. And it seems her memory's for crap, too. So except for putting the defeasement (giving back at a cost) of the construction bond on this month's agenda, it was a better than usual meeting.

Thanks joeyouknow! Did Marlys at least have the good grace to somewhat apologize, or was it brushed off as just another outrageous thing she said, and she didn't care that she was caught?

It sounds like Dr Yonson and the award winning Mrs Dunford may be in for a bit of a rough ride from the new and improved school board. But a double helping of kudos for them both, and Kate Fratti as well.

Humor Break: Comedy or Tragedy?

Today's Non Sequitur

Renovation in Neshaminy

Here's an article from the BCCT today on the renovation of the Middletown High School.

You know, when they talk about $77 million to fund the project and updated desks and flat screen televisions, I cannot help but think about how small and petty the NSNs look in renovating a fifty year old school at a cheap cut rate cost. There's nothing wrong with frugality or responsible conservative spending, but all we're going to do is bring out the can of spackle and patch, poke, and prod our way to another second rate showing. For God's sake, they spent $77 million on only THIRTY FOUR classrooms. We're going to take a building shell from the 1950s, hollow it out, and put in a marshmallow center filled with goodies acquired on the second hand market. (This is not a shot at the work the current maintenance staff is doing and the quality of work later workers may do. We're going to continue using second hand equipment because that's all we can afford. We had a chance to step up and blew it.)

This isn't a question of the money differences between the Neshaminy and Morrisville school districts. It's the difference in the progressive and negative thinking modes of the two communities. Unfortunately, we think second rate sometimes, and our new board members want to perpetuate this thinking. Look at the pride that the Neshaminy community has. Remember what Eleanor Roosevelt said? "No one can make you inferior without your consent." Would someone please take away the inferiority permission slips from the school board and let's start to have some sort of real community pride?

Stop the School people....Look and be ashamed. Once again the Academy Award for Most Pointless Enduring Mediocrity goes to...Morrisville.

School offers peek at new classrooms

Today, Neshaminy High School students will be returning from their winter break to some brand new classrooms.

But many teens and their families got a sneak peek of the two-story, 34-classroom wing during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday night.

The event marked the completion of the first phase of the $82 million Middletown high school renovation and construction project. The district borrowed $77 million to fund the project, officials said.

All of the updated classrooms include new desks and flat-screen televisions. Teachers also have planning centers for each subject's department, said administrators.

“It's so spacious,” said 16-year-old Lauren Holliday referring to the new building's wide hallways. “We can actually breathe. Before it was so crammed when classes let out.”

A second two-story, 34-classroom wing should be done by the summer. Both facilities feed into the main corridor called “Main Street,” which links the new main entrance, auxiliary gym and auditorium, said business administrator Joseph Paradise.

A section of classrooms will be torn down to make room for a road leading to that entrance, he said.

“There's a synergy for the first time connecting the entire high school,” said Paradise.

Although there were many people who wanted the district to build a whole new school, the school board settled on 60 percent new space and the rest renovated, administrators said.

The school's current main offices will be also be demolished and rebuilt by the summer. At that time, 16 modular classrooms will be disassembled, officials said.

“It's beautiful and very bright,” said Middletown resident Debbie Hazelett.

But while the project is 78 weeks in, there's still 90 more to go. It's expected to be finished in September 2009, administrators said.

“This is a place of learning where tens of thousands will walk through the halls to prepare themselves to change the future...” said Superintendent Paul Kadri.

Kate Fratti's Column in the BCCT

Many, many thanks to the email tip about this column in today's BCCT. As you could see from my avalanche of weekend postings, that there is not a lot of time during the week to post and read.

I'm not blind to the fact that there is a lot of ill will on both sides of this issue that needs to be overcome.

Morrisville needs to change fast

Not everyone uses a new year to turn over a new leaf, and that seems especially true in the Morrisville School District, which is really too bad.

If there's any place where a lot of very decent people could drastically improve a situation just by improving their behavior, this is the place.

But as of last week, all sides remain guilty of constant, brutal sniping and undermining in this little school system where voters have reversed plans for a new high school, saying they just can't afford one.

A new dollar-driven majority, emboldened by the voter mandate, has been beating its chest like a bully for a year. And those who'd so hoped for a new school and the borough rejuvenation they believed it would foster, have been noisily licking their wounds as even deeper cutbacks are threatened.

One ousted school board member cried at a meeting Jan. 2, where proposed cuts were outlined.

“They just don't care about our kids,” she sniffled.

After the meeting, a current board member said she believes administrators “retaliated” against the community by padding the preliminary budget for 2008. The board needs to show the professionals who's boss, she said.

Lots of drama and still very little productive talk about teaching kids well at a reasonable cost. Agreeing on what's reasonable will be the challenge.

The stated purpose of the Jan. 2 special meeting was to vote on a resolution to cap the next budget increase at 4.4 percent to “send a message.” It means there would be no special exceptions allowed above that cap even if the money is needed.

The minority view was that budget rigidity could put the district in a bad place in the event of an emergency the district couldn't pay for.

“You'll bankrupt the schools,” accused one naysayer. “I'd rather bankrupt the schools than the town,” answered a defender of the plan.

It's that kind of inflammatory back-and-forth that keeps the district stuck in second gear.

Here's the bottom line: This community didn't support construction of a new school, but that doesn't means it supports gutting the whole system. New-school proponents need to move past their disappointment and decide how best to support and improve the existing schools. That won't get done by castigating the opposition or weeping.

The majority, drunk with power, should stop “sending messages” and take practical steps to ensure kids have updated, safe, properly staffed buildings stocked with the necessary school supplies and equipment.

Administrators can foster cooperation by playing fair. Not one mentioned to the board last month that there was a deadline for a resolution to cap the budget. That necessitated the hastily called special meeting, where board members indicated they felt hoodwinked.

School board President Bill Hellman, an accountant who led the call for the cap, told me while he thinks the superintendent and business and operations manager “seem like very nice people,” their business acumen “worries” him.

Others worry that while Hellman may be very good with a dollar, he isn't trained to run viable schools. He and the rest of the board have to count on staff for that.

That's going to require mutual respect and trust.

Times have surely changed, but there'd be no danger of bankrupting the schools or the town if decent people would only bury the hatchets —it will take a mass grave — so that calmer, cooler, more professional, good-natured heads and hearts can prevail. It's possible.

Kate Fratti, whose column appears on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, wonders if enough leaves can be turned quickly enough to make a difference fast.

Interesting Document

I wonder what the payback to the unions might be for these endorsements on Election Day 2007. Did anyone else see this? And why would Marlys Mihok and William Hellmann CPA be unworthy of this honor, but Bill Farrell, Robin Reithmeyer, Al Radosti, Gloria Heater, Nancy Sherlock, Kathryn Panzitta, and David Rivella would be?

I'm not against unions. I come from a long, long line of union members in my family. I just want to know if stopping the school and seeking to award reconstruction and renovation work locally are at all connected or not, either then, now, or in the future.

You Never Know What Google Can Find

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

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

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

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

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

Taxpayer Successes in Pennsylvania School Districts

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

High School Students and Cold Classrooms

I really like this...I received an email from a student at the high school telling me that one of the teachers in the A Hall at the high school had to move their class to another room both on Thursday and Friday because there was insufficient heat available in the room. This is not confirmed by a second source, so I will not reveal any more details. If anyone wants to tell more about this, or any other items, savethemorrisvilleschool@yahoo.com is open 24/7.

I'm very pleased that there's high schoolers reading this blog out there. You are the new voters. Get involved now. The teachers, staff, and the students know the real everyday condition of the schools. Politically, if they want to keep their jobs, the teachers and staff really do need to keep quiet. More than one whistleblower has paid the price. Responsible criticism and accurate reporting of issues by students is still allowed.

We parents may have to pay the taxes and make them run, but it is your school too.

BCCT Thumbs Up for the NSNs

This seems to go back to my previous post: Beware of pretended neutrality where none exists. Feel free to comment as you wish...

Bucks County Courier Times Thumbs up

* To the Morrisville school board for sticking to its campaign promise of fiscal responsibility.

The board passed a resolution this week to keep the district's real estate tax increase at the state-mandated inflation rate of 4.4 percent. While Act I mandates that school districts can't raise taxes above a state-set inflation index without a voter referendum, there are exceptions for which districts can apply so they can raise taxes above the inflation index without a referendum. By passing this resolution, the board essentially has stated that it won't seek any of those exceptions.

Fantastic! We have frankly gotten used to candidates making campaign promises — lowering taxes chief among them — only to see them forgotten once they get into office. Not the 2008 Morrisville school board, apparently. And though at least one board member has stated that pledging to keep to the 4.4 percent at this early stage of the budget proceedings could be irresponsible, we would rather think of it as a show of determination to keep their word to the voters of Morrisville.

Ten Things a Political Junkie Hates About Politics

I found this interesting article, and while it is meant to address politics at a national level, once you have read it through once, try reading it again but this time substituting Morrisville and our elected representatives (borough council and/or school board as you wish) to take a fresh look at the insincere performances they tend to give us, and the free pass we give them to do it.

Yes, I do know that the primary system being broken section is almost completely inapplicable to us here in the former future capital of the United States. But changing it to "Nine Things a Political Junkie Hates About Politics" didn't feel right. Every top ten list should at least strive to have more than nine entries. (I is usin' algebra to thinks that through!)

Here we have William Hellmann CPA, the Bucks County Courier Times, the Stop the School people and their semi-coherent myrmidons, "bringing home the bacon" to local contractors, stop the school and save the children, symbolic votes on unnecessary budget limits, stopping the school because of missing a few hours on a 100-year flood water percolation program (as if no one else in the borough would have water in their yards in a 100-year flood!), and other forms of preposterous public posturing that make up our little local political kabuki theater of the absurd to use as real-life examples and to think about what that actually says about us, the voter, about the people we choose to represent us. No matter what side of our school issues you stand on, if you can read this and not feel a bit ashamed, then you need to re-read it until you do.

This is not the full article, but snips from it...

1: Fear Of Offending Anyone: Because politicians are always thinking about the next election instead of actually serving the people who put them into office, they're terrified of actually doing anything that might offend someone.

2: Politics Not Stopping At The Water's Edge: There's nothing wrong with disagreeing with your political opponent's foreign policy, but there is a problem when you put your petty political concerns ahead of the good of the country. Love of country should come before petty political concerns and that has ceased to be the case for too many people in D.C.

3: The Lying And Inauthenticity: Campaigns in the United States have become exercises in trying to be "everything to everybody."...when even people who support a particular candidate admit that they're backing a shameless liar, it's clear that integrity in politics has slid way too far down the hillside.

4: Crazed Hyperbole: It's not surprising that people have unkind things to say about their political opponents, but when it gets as over-the-top as it has been during the Bush and Clinton presidencies, it is not healthy for the country.

5: Fake Objectivity From The Media: That's what drives people so crazy about the mainstream media: it's that they're every bit as biased as the people in talk radio and the blogosphere, but they try to pretend that they're not.

6: Mainstreaming Conspiracy Theories: Off-the-wall crazy has become just another form of political expression.

7: The Perpetual Campaign: Over and over again, important legislation is ignored so that symbolic votes on hot issues like the war can be held even though everyone knows that they're meaningless. Instead of working on key issues like, let's say border security or Social Security reform, Congress looks for bills to attach earmarks to because that's how they believe you get elected, by bringing federal tax dollars back to their district to be used on comically useless Bridges to Nowhere, Liberace Museums, and buildings named after the Congressman who acquired the pork to fund them.

8: Short-Term Thinking: Where's the long term thinking? Where are the people working to build a country that will be better for our children than it is for us? Where is the concern for the long-term health of the country? It's like watching two groups of kids using every dime of their allowance to buy candy without spending a moment thinking of what they'll do for money until their parents pay them again in a month.

9: Lack Of Bipartisanship: There's a difference between a boxing match when the opponents shake hands after it's all over and a no-holds-barred street fight featuring knives and broken bottles... it would be nice if the politicians in D.C. were willing to actually try to work together for the good of the country on occasion instead of only cooperating when they want to throw our money away on more pork or help out a lobbyist who has been spreading around a lot of campaign cash.

10: The Primary System Is Broken: The idea that each party's nominee for the presidency should in large part be decided by whoever spends the most money and time camped out in two tiny states is nuts.