Field hockey Klausner picked to lead Morrisville program

Posted: Wednesday, June 29, 2011 12:00 am | Updated: 7:55 am, Wed Jun 29, 2011.

Klausner picked to lead Morrisville program
By KAREN SANGILLO
STAFF WRITER Calkins Media, Inc. | 0 comments

The Morrisville field hockey team has a new skipper.
Katherine Klausner will guide the program this season.

It is the first varsity head coaching position for Klausner, who is a 2003 graduate of Cherry Hill East, where she played defense for the field hockey team and was the goaltender for the lacrosse team.

She went on to Drexel, where she played goalie on the lacrosse team. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education in 2008.
“I’m very excited to be taking over the program,” said Klausner, who is back at Drexel earning a certificate in special education.
“I’ve already met with some of the girls and they seem enthusiastic. They can’t wait to get started and neither can I.”
Klausner is taking a back-to-basics approach.
“Our big focus is on learning the game and learning the positions,” she said. “I think with that will come learning to love the game and really enjoying playing.
“I want them to feel confident when they step onto the field.”
She takes over for Michelle Riley, who left after five years because she could no longer devote enough time to the program.
Morrisville athletic director John Hubiak is pleased with the hire.
“We are glad to have Katherine on board,” he said. “She will bring knowledge and excitement to our team and we’re looking forward to the season.
The Bulldogs were 0-13 in the Bicentennial Athletic League last season, 3-17 overall.
“We’d like to win more games of course,” Klausner said. “But I also want the girls to make friends and have fun.”

 

High School Baseball Vaccaro resigns at Morrisville

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Posted: Thursday, June 30, 2011 12:00 am

Vaccaro resigns at Morrisville
By Todd Thorpe
Staff writer Calkins Media, Inc. | 0 comments

For 13 years, Dave Vaccaro has coached baseball at Morrisville High School, where he also is a health and physical education teacher.
He also manages Yardley Post 317’s American Legion squad in the summer and is an instructor at Big Leagues Academy in Newtown.
So, he wears a lot of hats when it comes to baseball.
Vaccaro has decided to give up one of those hats, as he recently resigned as coach at Morrisville.
“It’s been playing on my mind maybe since the beginning of the season,” he said Wednesday night. “As the season went on, I tried to put it on the shelf and focus on the season that we were having, which was a good one.
“Then, I took a couple of weeks after it was over to make sure I was making the right choice.”
One of the issues he faced was the overlapping of the high school and Legion seasons.
“It was difficult,” Vaccaro said. “All these years, you’d have one month coinciding the end of the season and the beginning of the Legion season. That’s tough.
“When I made this decision and to hang on with the Legion season, it would be easier, because I teach and have my summers free.”
Vaccaro’s teams have had their share of success at Morrisville, as the Bullodgs were over .500 in eight of his 13 seasons, including three district championship games and the District One Class A title in 2002.
Coaching at smaller school has been rewarding as well.
“It forced me to really teach the game,” Vaccaro said. “Year after year, the numbers were small, which is a good situation for the kids, because they weren’t scratching and clawing to compete for a position, but I had to become a better coach. I had to teach the game and evaluate myself.
“We had the same nine or 10 or 11 guys on the field every day. I had to ask, ‘Are they getting better?’ You have to constantly readjust the way you coach the game.”
In the end, Vaccaro’s run at Morrisville was one he looks back on fondly.
“Baseball has been a huge part of my life these last 14, 15 years,” he said. “Over the course of the last few years, I’ve been telling msyelf it’s time to back off some of the things in my life. It seemed like the right time.
“I’ve had some highs and lows (at Morrisville). We’ve had good seasons and not so good seasons. And we’ve had not so good seasons on paper where we’ve built teams and come back a year or two later and had really good seasons.
“I’ve become a better person and a better coach in my 13 years at Morrisville.”

School Voucher Bill in PA Falls Flat - At Least For Now

Finger pointing, frustration between Republicans as school voucher bill in Pa. falls flat

By Mikhail Zinshteyn | 06.29.11 | 7:19 pm

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Finger pointing and agitation is quick on the heels of disappointment following a collapse in negotiations between Pennsylvania House and Senate leaders over a school voucher bill despite Republicans controlling both chambers and the governor’s office.

The state will likely have to wait until after lawmakers return from their two-month summer recess following a last-minute failure to cobble together legislation both chambers could agree. Sen. Jeffrey E. Piccola (R), chairman of the Senate Education Committee and co-sponsor of the controversial proposed voucher legislation SB1 accused the House of being “unable or unwilling to engage in any meaningful discussions to finalize” a compromise.

That remark did not sit well with Republican Rep. Curt Schroder, who authored two bill proposals that would establish a school voucher program in the state. “All I know is that for six months [the Senate] was telling us they would send a school choice bill and they didn’t do that,” said Schroder in an interview with TAI. “Failure to do that can’t be pinned on the House. So it is beyond me as to why they’d be using that reasoning or excuse to hide behind in this instance.”

A spokesperson for House Majority Floor Leader Mike Turzai repeatedly told The American Independent the representative would consider any bill from the Senate, but as TAI has written before, the upper chamber never put a school voucher bill to a floor vote.

Brendan Steinhauser, director of state and federal campaigns for FreedomWorks, a group that at times used blunt tactics and organizing efforts to compel Republican legislators to support SB1, told TAI in an email:

I think the entire General Assembly and the Governor can share the blame for botching this. I’m especially curious to know how much PSEA money it took for Mike Turzai to find a way to kill this effort. I guess we will know soon enough, but I suspect tens of thousands. The Republican Party in Pennsylvania really missed an opportunity here, and the teachers unions are grateful for that.

For Schroder, however, the conservative group did more harm than good. “Instead of trying to shove one bill or concept down everyone’s throat they need to back off and let others of good will try to come together to form a consensus,” he said. “FreedomWorks is spewing their venom and poisoning the well.”

The representative’s criticism is consistent with the frustration Turzai’s office expressed in a previous interview with TAI, in which the spokesperson accused FreedomWorks of harassment and bullying. And both offices agree out-of-state groups like FreedomWorks need to reconsider their game plan.

Schroder puts the blame on timing as well, explaining budget negotiations for the 2011-2012 fiscal year, due June 30, pushed aside necessary dialogue between the two chambers over what a school voucher bill should look like.

“Part of the problem now is people who support school choice have not been able to agree on parameter,” he said. “We should use the summer as an opportunity and work out the differences between the chambers and versions of the bill.”

Supporters of school vouchers, which would use public funds to pay for a child’s private school tuition, were hopeful the Senate would tack on voucher language to HB1330, a proposed expansion of the state’s popular tax credit to donors subsidizing private school costs for students.

A total of five school choice bills including SB1 were on the table in the Legislature, with four attempting to create an expansive voucher program that would use public tax dollars to fund child education at a private school.

The three voucher bills in the House vary in their proximity to the terms in SB 1. One would place no income eligibility or geographic restrictions on who could qualify for the tuition vouchers, set at $5,000. Another proposed law, written by Republican Rep. Jim Christiana, is more restrictive than the Senate version, capping the income eligibility to 250 percent of the federal poverty line versus the upper chamber’s 350 percent. A third bill would grant $5,000 to students enrolled in a persistently struggling public school. TAI has written extensively on what each bill entails and their associated costs.

SCHOOL BOARD MONTHLY BUSINESS MEETING - TONIGHT

Will the budget pass?  The deadline is tomorrow (June 30).  I'm going to take a guess and say yes.  


February Business meeting?  Don't ask.


District Event
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
SCHOOL BOARD MONTHLY BUSINESS MEETING
The February Business meeting of the Board of School Directors will be held at 7:30 pm in the LGI Room on Wednesday, June 29, 2011.
Time: 7:30 pm

PA State Budget Update

From today's Phila. Inquirer.

Schools, city lose in budget

Deal between Corbett and the legislature has no new taxes, but steep cuts in spending for education, welfare.

By Angela Couloumbis, Dan Hardy, and Amy Worden

Inquirer Staff Writers

HARRISBURG - Public schools and public welfare will top the list of losers in the budget deal negotiated between the Corbett administration and the Republican-controlled legislature.
And the city of Philadelphia, more so than its suburban neighbors, will feel the pain of the financial whack.
Detailed spreadsheets released by the legislature late Monday reveal steep cuts to state aid for public education and programs for the poor, including food pantries, job training, and drug and alcohol programs.
Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware) called it "the best budget that we can come up with, given the constraints we are working with. . . . It's certainly an improvement over the governor's original proposal, which had even more dramatic negative impacts."
Critics begged to differ. "It's stunningly terrible," said Carey Morgan, who heads the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger. "I don't think our legislators have their priorities in order. . . . This budget ignores real people."
Overall, the $27.15 billion budget deal is about 3 percent less than the current year's budget. It lets Gov. Corbett stick to his campaign pledge not to raise taxes - including no new levy on extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale - and sharply rein in spending.
But it comes at a cost.
Although the negotiated budget deal restores some money to public schools and state-supported universities, they are still taking hefty financial hits.
The four state-related universities - Temple, Lincoln, Pennsylvania State, and Pittsburgh - faced more than a 50 percent cut in aid under Corbett's original proposal. GOP negotiators put back millions of dollars, and those schools are now looking at a 19 percent cut - although that, too, was in jeopardy Monday night after some of the relevant bills failed to muster enough votes in either the House or Senate.
Those bills, which would allow state money to flow to the universities, needed to be approved by a two-thirds vote. But many Democrats, who are in the minority in both chambers, said they could not vote for such steep cuts.
Rep. Bill Adolph Jr. (R., Delaware) said Monday night that the funding bills for the universities would likely get pushed to the fall.

Public Schools

In K-to-12 public education, the negotiated budget would restore about $269 million, or almost a quarter, of the $1.1 billion in cuts that Corbett had proposed.
The deal puts $100 million back into the popular Accountability Block Grant program, widely used to expand or maintain all-day kindergarten and to fund other early education programs; and $130 million back for basic education aid, the state's main subsidy to school districts.
There is also $39 million more for the little-known practice in which the state helps school districts pay their share of Social Security taxes for their employees.
But there were few cheers from school officials as they pored over the numbers and saw that the lion's share of funds legislators had restored went to wealthier districts.
Philadelphia got back only $22 million of $292 million in cuts Corbett had proposed.
"The governor and the Republican majority dropped the ball on Philadelphia schools," said Sen. Vincent Hughes (D., Phila.), the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.
Philadelphia schools spokeswoman Shana Kemp said it was not yet clear how the added money would be spent in a district facing gargantuan budget troubles of its own. With a gap that once loomed as large as $629 million, the district has laid off more than 3,400 employees. It plans cuts in programs and classroom services this fall.
By contrast, Chester County's well-off Tredyffrin/Easttown School District got more than 83 percent of the funding that Corbett had proposed to cut handed back by the budget deal.
"This is not a good day for the poorer school districts in public education," said Joe Otto, business manager of Delaware County's William Penn School District, which had about 17 percent of the Corbett cuts restored.
Otto said his district would likely have to lay off 45 staff, including 29 teachers, as a result. "I'm almost speechless as to the impact, especially about the richest districts getting more," he said. "It borders on immoral."
The cuts affect districts in different ways, in part because of funding formulas. Poorer districts, for instance, have more students going to charter schools. So they would be hard-hit by the budget writers' decision to stick with Corbett's plan to stop reimbursing districts for charter-school payments. Districts must pay for the education of their students in charters.
Some districts - notably Chester Upland - did get some basic aid restored in the budget deal.
But even the wealthiest districts were not celebrating.
"Are we happy to get the money? Of course we are," said Tredyffrin/Easttown board president Karen Cruickshank. But "every bit of state funding that they cut hurts."

Welfare Programs

Advocates for the poor said the budget delivers multiple blows to the most vulnerable.
They point to a nearly 50 percent cut to job training and to programs that help families pay for day care so they can work. "These cuts will make it even more difficult for Pennsylvania families to move from welfare to work just as the economic recovery appears to be stalling," said Michael Froehlich, a Community Legal Services lawyer.
The deal appears to restore some funding for burn, trauma, and academic medical centers that Corbett had proposed to eliminate.
For his part, Corbett has been tight-lipped about the deal. He has said he wants an on-time budget, but made it clear he would readily go past Thursday's deadline if the legislature sent him a document containing provisions he could not support.
One such provision would impose a local impact fee on natural gas drillers. The governor says he wants to see his Marcellus Shale task force's study, due in July, before any decisions on the matter.
Still, there are rumblings in the House that there could be an effort to tack a drilling fee - popular with a majority of Pennsylvanians in every recent poll - onto the budget.
The Senate is to start voting on the budget bill Tuesday. Then it goes to the House.

Potluck #12

Angry Yet?

This website (see link below) is all the "rage" around here lately.  It mentions a bunch of changes (some might call them "cuts") rumored to be in store for Morrisville School District this coming year.  Aides, music, sports, library,  etc.  Rumors have a pretty good track record of coming true around here (the loss of about 10 aides is more than a rumor, it's fact).

I can "vouch" for the fact that it's tough to get information, let alone accurate information, out of the School Board and Administration.  I don't know who's running this angryyet.net website, but I encourage the sentiment of more concerned citizens, particularly parents, becoming "activists" and asking the tough questions and demanding accountability from the elected School Board members and the Administration members they hired.

I also encourage people to vote for School Board candidates who value everyones' input and operate in a more transparent manner.  That means I don't support "Stay on Course".

http://www.angryyet.net/

Posted on Fri, Jun. 24, 2011

Pennsylvania budget deal reached

By Angela Couloumbis and John Manganaro

Inquirer Harrisburg Bureau

HARRISBURG - The Corbett administration and legislative leaders have struck a tentative deal on a $27.15 billion budget that restores some of the state's dwindling aid to public schools and state-related universities.
"We have, certainly, an agreement in principle," Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware) said late Thursday afternoon.
Pileggi said there were still unresolved issues, but he declined to elaborate. "We are working through them," he said.
Details - the kind many school districts, universities, hospitals and other agencies want to see - were scant Thursday.
It appeared that the sides agreed on a spending plan that does not raise or impose new taxes. It will not, for instance, include a levy on the extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale, which had been pushed by a number of lawmakers as a way to add much-needed dollars to the state's coffers. This year, Pennsylvania is facing a projected $4 billion deficit.
That, in turn, could allow Corbett to say he kept his campaign pledge not to raise a single tax - although an influential, Washington-based antitax group is poised to challenge that assessment should the final budget include a provision to increase a fee paid by hospitals related to Medicaid subsidies.
The budget deal calls for using about half of the $550 million in higher-than-anticipated revenues the state gathered in April and May. Democrats had pushed for using all of it to offset steep cuts to public schools and higher education that Corbett had proposed in his budget blueprint this year.
Corbett had advocated squirreling it away or using it to pay down the state's debt.
In an interview late Thursday, Pileggi said some additional state funding would be steered to public schools, but not as much as he had hoped.
In his proposed budget, Corbett planned to wipe out more than $1 billion in basic education funding. That included zeroing out grants to districts for prekindergarten, full-day kindergarten, and class-size reduction in kindergarten through third grade.
The House GOP, in a budget counterproposal last month, had tried to restore some of that funding. The Republicans' plan would have increased by about $210 million state funding for kindergarten-through-12th-grade education.
The tentative deal struck Thursday pads that $210 million with additional dollars, Pileggi said, "but not as much as what I would have liked to see." He would not give details.
The budget deal also would increase funding for higher education, which Corbett would have dramatically cut.
The governor had proposed eliminating $625 million, or 52 percent, of state aid for the 18 state-supported colleges. In the budget compromise, those schools would end up taking about a 19 percent cut, legislative officials said.
The budget deal, as expected, cuts some funds to the Department of Public Welfare, but not as much as some legislators had wanted.
Still, an unexpected wrinkle Thursday came in the form of a letter from Grover Norquist, who heads the Washington-based group Americans for Tax Reform. Corbett signed the group's antitax pledge while running for governor. All together, 13 governors and 1,252 legislators across the country have signed the pledge, according to the group.
In the letter, Norquist writes that raising the hospital fee amounts to a new tax on medical care in Pennsylvania.
Hospitals began paying the assessment last year to help the state access additional federal funds - funds that, in turn, are used to boost hospitals' public subsidies for caring for the poor or uninsured.
With the state short on money, though, the administration is looking to increase the assessment.
Corbett on Thursday declined to comment specifically on Norquist's letter, but said that he views the hospital assessment as a fee, not a tax.
But it could give the more than 30 lawmakers in Pennsylvania who have also signed the pledge pause before casting a "yes" vote.
The Senate is expected to return Sunday to start the process of approving the budget and other related bills.
The House would vote on it after that.
The goal is to have a budget signed by Thursday's deadline.

Vouchers Bill SB1 Moving Today?

It appears that the school vouchers bill (PA Senate Bill SB1), may be coming up for a vote today in the PA Senate.  I think it's a flawed and unfair bill that has a good chance of leaving even more children behind.  The excerpt below that I found on-line from a Cedar Grove Christian Academy's 6/17/11 newsletter illustrates a fundamental problem I have with the bill.  It uses public tax dollars to benefit parents who choose to send their children to private religious institutions.  Oh, and these private institutions, religious or otherwise, can use whatever enrollment criteria they want to pick and choose which students they'll accept.


SCHOOL VOUCHER BILL: The PA Senate Education Committee has given Senate Bill 1 (SB 1) to the full PA Senate to vote on.  This bill is about school vouchers and will benefit many families who want to enroll and/or keep their children in Christian schools in Pa.

1. Please contact your legislators and show your support for Senate Bill 1 (SB1). You can do this very easily at
http://www.reachaheadpa.org/ or http://www.acsipa.org/ where letters are already prepared for you.
2. Visit your senator’s and representative’s local office and just tell him/her that you want to encourage them to support and vote for SB1.
3. Use an open prayer line to pray for the passage of this bill. Call in to pray or listen to the prayers of others.

The line is available each weeknight from 9 pm to 10 pm. 605-475-4825 (access code 103251#).
Please make these contacts as soon as possible for the passage of this very-worthwhile bill. Remember, this would provide a way for many Christian families to enroll and/or keep their children in a Christian school.

Board Agenda Meeting - Wed., June 22, 7:30 pm, LGI

Be there AND be square (in a good, education-oriented way).   

District EventWednesday, June 22, 2011
Monthly Agenda Meeting
The Monthly Agenda Meeting of the Board of School Directors will be held at 7:30 pm in the LGI Room.
Time: 7:30 pm

Potluck #11

School's out for the summer... Congratulations and Best Wishes to the Class of 2011!

What's on your minds?

Class of 2011 feels like family

MORRISVILLEClass of 2011 feels like family

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David Garrett

Morrisville High School commencement ceremonies were held at the gym Friday night

Morrisville Class of 2011

Valedictorian: Jia Zhang

Salutatorian: Catherine Leather

Number of graduates: 58

Amount of scholarships: $218,750

Posted: Friday, June 17, 2011 5:36 pm

By GEMA MARIA DUARTE Staff writer | 0 comments

Morrisville High School might be small, but it has a lot of heart.

Whether students were new from China, like valedictorian Jia Zhang, or lifelong Morrisville residents, such as Catherine Leather, the small graduating class felt like family.

" ‘To thine own self be true' is a quote by William Shakespeare that was taught to me in my freshman year," Catherine said during her salutation speech at Friday's graduation of 58.

"This quote in particular caught my attention because I believe that it exemplifies Morrisville. This school is unique and always remains true to itself...We are less of a class and more of a family in the bonds that we share. We've grown with each other, but now it's time to let go and we are each taking our separate paths.

"So wherever those paths may lead us, I hope that we remember where we came from and all the great people that helped to get us here," she said.

Bill Ferrara, the district's acting superintendent, recognized the graduates' achievement, but didn't forget those who helped make it happen — the parents.

He asked the graduates' parents to stand to have their hard work praised with applause by him and the audience.

Then, his words focused on the dozens of students, of which 85 percent are heading towards higher education.

Ferrara encouraged the graduating class to cherish the memories made at Morrisville High School, "but please don't let them be the highlight of your life," he said.

He advised them to turn their dreams into reality and have a "winning philosophy."

"Believe in yourself," he said. "That you have what it takes to be successful."

For many of the grads, Friday's 113th commencement ceremony was as much about their family as it was them.

"We have been practicing for this day our whole lives. Our lives and schooling have been filled with people who were there to guide us and to help us make the right decisions," Catherine said.

She acknowledged that the graduates are scared of "entering the real world where deadlines truly are deadlines and we have stricter rules than no flip flops."

But she's optimistic of the class' success in the future.

"This class of graduates is filled with immense ambitions and dreams that I have no doubt every one of us can accomplish because we are all determined and hardworking people," she said.

Her sentiments were echoed by Jia, who referred to her classmates as "future doctors, lawyers accountants, Noble-prize winners, teachers, artists, members of the 20 Million Dollar Club, nurses, athletes, rappers and most importantly, free-minded individuals," she said during her speech.