bucks county technical high schoolMost BCTHS students favor keeping ninth grade
Posted: Thursday, August 25, 2011 5:00 am | Updated: 6:56 am, Thu Aug 25, 2011.
Students at Bucks County Technical High School in Bristol Township have weighed in on the issue of whether to eliminate ninth grade at the school, and their message is loud and clear:
Don’t do it.
Of the 1,089 students at BCTHS who responded to a survey in June, 91 percent agreed or strongly agreed that the school should remain a grade 9-12 institution. Only 21 percent said they would have applied to attend the school if it didn’t include a ninth grade.
The results of an online survey of 126 BCTHS parents are even stronger in favor of keeping ninth grade. That survey showed 93 percent of the parents saying that BCTHS should remain a grade 9-12 school.
About 1,350 students attended the school in 2010-11, so a vast majority responded to the survey. Results of both the student and parent surveys were discussed at Monday night’s joint school board committee meeting, and member Harry Kramer of Bensalem said they only strengthened his opinion that the ninth grade should be kept.
The board had already committed to keeping ninth grade for the 2011-12 school year, which starts next week, but Kramer said the board should send a message at its Sept. 26 meeting that the long-term future of the school will include a ninth grade.
“I think we at least have to make a decision for the 2012-2013 school year because it’s not fair to parents and children in our six sending districts who are interested in our school,” said Kramer. “We need to let them know so the kids who are interested can go ahead and apply to enter the school in 2012-2013. Personally, I favor keeping the ninth grade on a permanent basis.”
Bucks County Technical High School is a full-time comprehensive institution that offers both academic and vocational instruction. It draws students from the Bensalem, Bristol, Bristol Township, Morrisville, Neshaminy and Pennsbury school districts.
Ninth-graders normally spend part of their time on academic subjects and part in an exploratory program that lets them sample different vocations to help them decide which to concentrate on starting in 10th grade.
The issue of possibly eliminating ninth grade came up because paying for students to attend BCTHS has become increasingly more difficult for the two smallest districts that send students there, Bristol and Morrisville.
“It’s my position and the position of our entire board here in Bristol Borough that we could educate our students for less money by keeping them here for the ninth grade,” BCTHS joint school board member John Doyle has said.
But that’s probably not true for the larger districts of Bensalem, Bristol Township, Neshaminy and Pennsbury, said Kramer.
“Eliminating the ninth grade would definitely save money just at the tech school,” he said. “But the downside is that most of the sending districts would have to hire more teachers, buy more supplies and incur a lot more expense within the home district because of the ninth-graders staying there.”
Eliminating ninth grade at BCTHS would also force most students to attend high school for only one year in their home districts and then have to adjust to a different school again in 10th grade, Kramer pointed out.
“They would be coming out of junior high or middle school, attending one year of high school in their home districts and then heading to the technical school,” he said. “They would be in three different schools in three years.”
That’s a big negative, agreed joint school board committee member Gary Sanderson of Pennsbury.
“At Pennsbury, we have trouble meeting our assigned quota of seats at the tech school anyway,” he said. “If you were to keep ninth-graders in the home districts, I think a lot of Pennsbury students who otherwise might be interested in BCTHS just wouldn’t bother at that point. We’d have a lot less students going there.”
Sanderson said BCTHS business administrator Sharon Rendeiro is putting together information on how much eliminating ninth grade would save at the school.
“I’d be interested in seeing that, but I don’t think it would affect my opinion that from an overall educational standpoint, it’s best to keep the technical school a grade 9-12 institution,” Sanderson said.
Leon Poeske, administrative director at BCTHS, said it’s likely the joint school board committee would make a decision at the Sept. 26 meeting on whether there will be a ninth grade for the 2012-13 school year.
It wouldn’t be possible for just one or two of the sending districts to send students to BCTHS starting in 10th grade, Poeske added.
“If the school remains grades 9-12, it would be grades 9-12 for all districts,” he said.
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