MORRISVILLE SCHOOLSMorrisville open for half-day kindergarten, and pre-K moving to high school
Posted: Thursday, July 19, 2012 5:20 pm | Updated: 10:31 pm, Thu Jul 19, 2012.
Posted on July 19, 2012
Enrollment in full-day kindergarten is closed in the Morrisville School District, but half-day spots are open. And pre-kindergarten is moving to the high school building.
To attend kindergarten, children have to be 5 years old before Sept. 1.
The school district has budgeted for four kindergarten teachers for the 2012-13 school year; three will be assigned to full-day classes.
The fourth teacher’s assignment will depend on the number of students who sign up for kindergarten. If enough students register, that teacher will teach two half-day kindergarten classes. If not, the teacher might teach one half-day kindergarten class and be given another assignment in the district.
The deadline to enroll children for full-day kindergarten was July 16 and 64 students had been signed up. Since then, three children have enrolled and the district administration expects more will matriculate before the school year begins in September. The three will be placed in a half-day class.
The administration is being careful about the kindergarten enrollment because last year, 91 students signed up, costing the district between $50,000 and $70,000 more than what was budgeted for the program.
The administration and board are working on ways to avoid capping the number because they strongly believe in the importance of kindergarten education, but at the same time they said they need to be mindful of the cost.
Ideally, the administration would like 22 students in each class -- in both full day and half day.
For registration, parents or guardians need to provide the child's birth certificate, Social Security card and immunization records. They'll also need to show an identification card with their picture, in addition to four proofs of residency, one of which must be a current lease with the child's name included or a deed or mortgage statement.
Registration takes place from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at the high school or by appointment. For more information, call 215-736-5937.
The school board agreed earlier this year to remove four modular classrooms that had been set up at Grandview Elementary to house M.R. Reiter Elementary students after a 2008 furnace explosion left their school unusable. Each modular unit held two classrooms. Now, the administration has to reconfigure classrooms. One way was to put the pre-K program in the high school.
Another reason officials gave for moving the pre-K program was to avoid disrupting the special education class at Grandview.
The pre-kindergartners will join the third-graders, who also are moving into the high school building next year.
Superintendent Bill Ferrara said they will be separated from the older children. A couple of school board members had reservations about the move, but said they feel more comfortable after reviewing the administration’s plan.
Parents will get to see the floor plan when the necessary building adjustments have been made to keep the older and younger students separated.
Also this coming year, intermediate school students -- also housed at the high school -- will get a new playground. It won’t be elaborate, but as funding permits, the district will add to it, Ferrara said. To help with the playground cost, high school technology teacher Kevin Jones donated $1,000.
For the coming school year, kindergarten through second grade students will be housed in Grandview; third- through 12th-graders, and the pre-K classes will be in the high school building.
2 comments:
"Also this coming year, intermediate school students -- also housed at the high school -- will get a new playground. It won’t be elaborate, but as funding permits, the district will add to it, Ferrara said. To help with the playground cost, high school technology teacher Kevin Jones donated $1,000."
Kudos on moving ahead with the playground work. Double kudos to the amazing, dedicated, and generous Mr. Kevin Jones!
bristol schools
Full-day kindergarten out for Bristol
Posted: Wednesday, July 25, 2012 10:13 am | Updated: 8:35 pm, Wed Jul 25, 2012.
Diane Davies-Dixon Correspondent | 0 comments
Full-day kindergarten is ending in Bristol Borough School District.
According to school board President Ralph DiGuiseppe III, the total state subsidy received for the district is not enough to sustain the program.
During the Tuesday night school board meeting, DiGuiseppe said the cost to have full-day kindergarten would be an additional $130,000 to $140,000 on top of the $21 million budgeted for the 2012-13 school year. A half-day program will be offered instead.
The board as a whole felt it was not financially possible to bring back the program at this time.
Each year the district has faced an almost $1 million deficit. That's due to pension increases and state funding not keeping up with expenditures, especially for small districts such as Bristol, DiGuiseppe said.
The one and only parent at the Tuesday meeting expressed concern the district would soon go after the arts program, something that interests his child. He said he'd rather see sports on the chopping block.
“We’re going to go through the same thing next year,” said borough resident Jim Kirk. ”Put sports out there.”
The sports program will cost the district $250,000 next year, officials have said.
Kirk said government funding for the district is a concern. Gov. Corbett’s funding levels leave the district with no choice but to make decisions that will leave some parents and children unhappy, officials said.
“We pay a lot of taxes for a small town,” said Kirk. “I want to know where we are going to come up with the money.”
The owner of the borough's average assessed property of $16,400 will pay about $2,526 in school taxes next year.
Each year the district faces the same issues and needs to come up with a long-term plan to solve its recurring deficit, Kirk added.
“I think it will be difficult to keep the high school open,” he said.
At a May meeting, DiGuiseppe said that school officials face the hard task of formulating a long-term plan for the financially struggling district. That plan could include major changes such as consolidating the district with another one, or getting rid of the high school, DiGuiseppe said back then.
Kirk also told the board that if the district starts to use school vouchers as proposed by state Gov. Tom Corbett, people will leave to go to private, charter or parochial schools, making it more difficult to keep district schools open.
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