MORRISVILLE SCHOOLSMorrisville administration looking into options for restructuring classrooms
Posted: Tuesday, April 10, 2012 10:16 pm | Updated: 10:55 pm, Tue Apr 10, 2012.
Morrisville School District parents will continue to wait for details regarding the possible restructuring of grades at Grandview Elementary School.
The district is researching cost benefit analysis on some options, Superintendent Bill Ferrara said at Tuesday's superintendent advisory meeting.
Ferrara said one option the administration is looking into is the possibility of moving third-graders into the Morrisville High School building next year since the school board voted in March not to renew the modular classrooms contract.
He gave about 30 parents in attendance a tour of the high school building and explained the proposed separation layout of the third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders from the older students.
Ferrara stressed that it's not a done deal that such a move will happen. And other options are being looked into, such as reopening the Manor Park School building on Penn Avenue, which is the former Head Start building.
Whatever decision is made, he said, it will be temporary. But it's unknown how long temporary means.
The four modular classrooms initially were placed at Grandview Elementary to house M.R. Reiter Elementary students after a 2008 furnace explosion left their school unusable. Each modular unit holds two classrooms for a total of eight classrooms. With the modular classrooms gone next year, the administration is left with reconfiguring classrooms.
Parents Edward and Amy Rinkevich were against the third-graders moving into the high school even after they took the tour and Ferrara detailed where separation partitions would be built to keep the young students separated from their older counterparts.
Their first-grade child wouldn't be affected until two years from now, they said, but they wanted to be prepared. And if the move does happen, their child will not be attending school in Morrisville.
Ferrara will provide another tour for parents at 7:15 p.m. April 18.
31 comments:
Bizarre comment from Jimmy Bradley on this BCCT article. What could possibly make a Morrisville Matters supporter happy about the possibility of losing several hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer money in a lawsuit brought on by School Board actions prior to Morrisville Matters time on the Board?
1 comment:
Jimmy Bradley posted at 4:24 am on Wed, Apr 11, 2012.
Posts: 468
Isn't Manor Park the subject of a lawsuit with Headstart of Bucks County?
This is going to cost so much money that I hope the Morrisville Matters suporters are happy.
He's trying to make the lawsuit MM's fault.
He's 100% wrong.
This is 100% courtesy of Hellmann-Mihok-Radosti-Ruthrauff-Worob-Stout etc etc Stay on Coarse.
Who's this Jimmy Bradley guy? Never heard of him.
MV Watcher replies to Jimmy Bradley. Will Jimmy respond? Stay tuned. Hold onto your seats. This is exciting action!
MV Watcher posted at 12:03 pm on
Wed, Apr 11, 2012.
Posts: 22
Hey, hey Jimbo. Get your facts right. Its the unanimous Stay on Coarse 9-0 school board and solicitor congressman Fitzpatrick who terminated the Head Start lease that is threatening to cost Morrisville taxpayers more and more money. Morrisville Matters is cleaning up the mess left behind by the previous board. In the 90s they locked out the MESPA union and cost Morrisville taxpayers millions. Lets hope its not more millions this time.
In Fitzpatrick's defense, he had stopped showing up at Morrisville School Board meetings many months before the Board terminated Head Start's Manor park lease. He started going to Lower Southampton Supervisors meetings as their Solicitor instead. Lower South's meetings tended to be on the same dates and times as Morrisville School Board's.
Thomas Profy IV from the same law firm as Fitzpatrick (Begley, Carlin, Mandio) took Fitzpatrick's place as the Morrisville Board Solicitor.
However, over 1 year prior to the termination of Head Start's lease, shortly after MR Reiter Elementary's furnace blew up, Fitzpatrick did incorrectly opine that the lease couldn't be terminated.
That was a helluva defense, huh?
Off-topic: did Ruthrauff ever find her escaped cow??? I'm serious!
"Off-topic: did Ruthrauff ever find her escaped cow??? I'm serious!"
This is the seriously low-hanging fruit, so I'll just leave the sarcastic responses flowing through my twisted brain to your imagination.
I see to recall other SB members mentioning the tenant-friendly lease some previous board had given to the head start program and how this had tied the district's hands. This was likely in response to Eileen Driesback's constant harangues at SB meetings before she moved on up to the dais herself. Somehow once she got a seat on the board, she stopped going on and on about this. I guess even she realized the futility of the situation. It tells you something about the combined cranial capacity of the SOT-SOC board that they created such a mess.
You're right!! For years Dreisback was a broken record for about opening up the Manor Park School, Manor Park School, Manor Park School.She was even on the Board for a while and was all Manor Park School, Manor Park School, Manor Park School.The last couple of years, nothing about the Manor Park School, Manor Park School, Manor Park School. Whatever. Whatever. Whatever.
Tenant friendly lease? Perhaps, but how does it compare to the current scenario of an empty non-versatile building producing zero rental income and costing taxpayers money again for upkeep?
SOT-SOC, did that mean you had to expose residents and taxpayers to a lawsuit by allowing HeadStart to invoke some of its tenant-friendly provisions?
I've a copy of the lease. Its 17 pages. What Headstart's suing over is on p 13. I'm not an E.S.Q., however methinks Headstart's got a good case. At the very least for $141,580 (the 40% of the rent they've paid since '99) in the recent BCCT article.
Search for Upper Perk Superintendent is Completed
Written by Kaitlyn Croll, Correspondent
2012-02-16
Dr. Elizabeth Hammond Yonson approved by Board
After a six month, intensive search the Upper Perkiomen School Board officially approved the hiring of Dr. Elizabeth Hammond Yonson as the Superintendent of the District in a roll call vote held last Thursday evening. The vote passed eight to one with Robert Pepe dissenting.
Dr. Hammond Yonson has been appointed Superintendent of the School for a five year term, commencing February 27, 2012 and terminating February 26, 2017. She will be in charge of the administration of the school district under the direction of Board, receiving an annual base salary of $170,000. Each subsequent year a percentage increase is allotted to the Superintendent (based on the initial salary) under the condition that Yonson is not rated unsatisfactory by the Board’s yearly evaluations.
“I’ve known Dr. Yonson for 12 years. She is a very kind and warm person; a people person. Someone very strong on the educational side and someone I know will do very well here. I know the faculty. Those that had a chance to meet her were very impressed [with Yonson]. I have enjoyed my time with her thus far and look forward to the next couple of weeks,” said retiring superintendent Dr. Timothy Kirby.
Yonson will continue to work alongside the current Superintendent until his departure in order to glean as much as possible about the inner workings of the district. She will be introduced to the remaining faculty members on Feb. 17.
Previously the Superintendent of Morrisville School District, Assistant Superintendent of Bangor Area School District, Principal and Assistant Director of an Intermediate Unit, an adjunct college professor, and a teacher from grades six to twelve, Yonson has a distinguished resume and has worked her way up the education ladder and into administrative positions.
“We feel that [Yonson] has the necessary skill’ set, the background, and character to take over as our next superintendent,” stated board president Harry Quinque. “I think I speak for the majority of the board by saying we are excited to start working with her.”
Corbett blames school boards for tax increases
Story
Posted: Wednesday, April 11, 2012 12:05 pm
Associated Press | 5 comments
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Gov. Tom Corbett says Pennsylvanians upset over rising school taxes should demand explanations from their local school boards.
Speaking on a radio talk show Wednesday, Corbett said state funding for public schools is at record levels when the cost of teacher pensions is included. He told listeners on Philadelphia's Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that those pension costs will rise from $1.6 billion to over $4 billion in the next four years.
The Democratic minority in the state House of Representatives say it's misleading to count the pension contribution since it is not related to students' education.
The current state budget slashed spending for public education by hundreds of million of dollars. Corbett proposes tens of millions in additional cuts for the budget that starts July 1.
"Tenant friendly lease? Perhaps, but how does it compare to the current scenario of an empty non-versatile building producing zero rental income and costing taxpayers money again for upkeep?"
Nice strawman you got there.
How is it a strawman?
The strawman is that's it's a tenant friendly lease.
The premise is backed by nothing. Prove that another tenant was willing to pay more money and/oraccept worse terms and maybe you have something. Otherwise, it's hot air.
For a true "strawman", you have to know what the position is of the opposing point of view.
Who the hell has ever explained the SOT-SOC board/district's position on terminating the lease?
Mihok's lying or delusions about vans moving things into Manor Park wasn't enough for you, eh?
You're so demanding.
I wonder how many more skeletons will emerge from the reign of idiocy perpetrated by the Hellman board. And as usual, the citizens of the ville will be left to pay for their folly. I suppose we get what we deserve, we voted them in, some of them for a second chance to screw the pooch.
BTW, Strawman:A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.
Discuss......
Oh, and by we, I meant the collective group that is the citizens of Morrisville. I didn't vote for them, and I'm sure plenty of the folks on here will claim the same. It doesn't matter.
How do these people show their faces in public? Have they no shame?
You'll have to ask them. I'm too ashamed of them to ask them myself, and too skeptical of their answers to believe them.
We wanted to keep the building. It's ours now. It's pretty useless. It's empty. By booting out Headstart we now have to pay for its upkeep. We gave up around $200K in additional rental income from HS over the next 6 to 7 yrs. We're in a lawsuit to pay HS back $142K in prior rent and maybe $166K more for prior improvements HS allegedly made. Not to mention legal fees.
Methinks someone didn't think their plan all the way through.
And as usual, look who's left to pay for this.
I agree, have these people no shame? They've already proven they have no foresight.
With the current political and economic environment, I don't see things improving much any time soon for the Morrisville schools. But hey, for a few years there were no tax increases. Keep beating that drum, but we know we'll be paying for this for years to come.
Shift the blame as usual, SOT-SOC. Who's fault is it? The lawyers you hired or the administrators you hired?
The common denominator to the screw ups? YOU!!!
You can't spend your whole life worrying about our mistakes. You f****d up, you trusted us.
No, we didn't trust you, and you f****d up anyway.
It finally caught up to you at election time. However, the damage is done and it's little consolation that you've crawled back into your holes.
Long enough to regoup anyway.
A majority of the current board is doing a much better job thinking and being civil and deliberative. Let's not go back to the old way of thinking. Which was most weren't thinking.
A very thin majority if there is one.
it's time to start thinking about getting the rest of the SOT/SOC board members, out of there. Four seats are up in 2013, it's not to soon to think about it.
The time is coming soon to finish what we started in November
MORRISVILLE MATTERS 2013
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