Big changes could be coming to Bristol, Morrisville schools
Posted: Friday, November 2, 2012 6:00 pm | Updated: 7:33 pm, Fri Nov 2, 2012.
Posted on November 2, 2012 by Gema Duarte
Morrisville and Bristol borough school districts are on the front lines of school consolidations, state Rep. John Galloway said.Officials from the two small districts traveled to Harrisburg recently to meet with state Department of Education heads to discuss their financial survival, according state officials.“Morrisville and Bristol came to Harrisburg to get information and see what their options are,” Galloway, D-140, said Friday. “Gov. (Tom) Corbett is cutting education state funding, he’s not infusing it. He’s about consolidating. Morrisville and Bristol ... know the reality they are standing on, and what they are dealing with.”
Galloway, who is a member of the House Education Committee, sat in the meeting in Harrisburg a few weeks ago, along with state Secretary of Education Ron Tomalis, members of the governor's office, state Senators Tommy Tomlinson, R-6, and Chuck McIlhinney, R-10, and members of the Department of Labor and Industry. Tomlinson sits on the Senate Education Committee.
“The topic of conversation was finance and the potential high school closure if that’s something we had to do in terms of budget,” Bristol’s board president, Ralph DiGuiseppe III, who attended that meeting, told his board members last week. “All I can say is that we are not going to get (additional) money. The message was clear that things are going to get worse. Things aren’t getting any better.”
Bristol’s current operating budget is $21 million, while Morrisville's is $18 million.
DiGuiseppe said Tomalis was “very quick to point out” that at one time 1,500 school districts existed in the state, and now there are 501. Tomalis believes that number could be cut in half, DiGuiseppe said.
Tomlinson said smaller districts across the state don’t have the economies of scale to sustain themselves, so there will be changes in districts throughout Pennsylvania.
The newspaper was unsuccessful in reaching Morrisville officials, as well as McIlhinney for comment Friday.
Across the state, districts are facing financial hardship because of increases in employee health insurance and pension costs, along with other costs that districts have no control over such as special education and charter schools, officials have said.
Tomlinson said another factor is lower enrollment numbers.
The student-to-teacher ratio in Bristol is 16:1 in the elementary level and 12:1 in the high school. In Morrisville, it’s 11:1 in the elementary school and 13:1 in the secondary. In large surrounding districts, those ratios range from 23:1 to 28:1.
Tomlinson said that for Morrisville and Bristol administrations it’s about “sustaining an educational system and thinking outside the box” and “creative thinking to preserve their identity and looking into different options instead of bankrupting the districts.”
Galloway said Morrisville and Bristol “have good administrations that are trying to keep their local identities, provide quality education and not burden taxpayers. They have a big job ahead of them. I can assure you it’s not just about property taxes, it’s also about giving kids in Bristol and Morrisville quality education.”
In Bristol, the owner of the borough's average assessed property of $16,400 will pay about $2,526 in school taxes this school year. In Morrisville, the owner of the borough's average assessed property of $20,820 will pay $3,691 in taxes this school year.
How small are these two districts?
As of Oct. 17, in the two Morrisville school buildings, there were 1,095 students. Starting this school year, K through second-grade students have been taught at Grandview Elementary; and third- through 12th-graders and pre-K classes have been in the high school building.
Bristol has about 1,250 students enrolled this school year and they also are housed in two school buildings -- the elementary/middle school and the high school.
The per-pupil cost in Bristol is $15,221 at the elementary level and $19,458 at the secondary level. And in Morrisville, that’s $10,034 at the elementary level and $18,901 at the high school level.
In the abutting districts of Pennsbury and Bristol Township, the cost per pupil at the high school level is $13,209 and Bristol Township $14,428. In elementary schools, the cost is $10,356 in Pennsbury and $12,097 in Bristol Township.
“We need to really start having discussions on how the district is going to move forward,” DiGuiseppe said at the school board meeting last week. “Nobody here, myself or any of board members, I’m sure will agree, want to make any decision on closing the high school, merging the high school. But we can’t raise taxes. We can’t continue to raise taxes just to keep the district intact. We need to also look at it in an educational standpoint. We can’t jeopardize the education of the students just to say ‘We’re staying open’ when they are already receiving a limited education.”
School director Beverly Breslin-Kalinowski agrees.
“I would think it’s really incumbent upon us as board members to look at our budget early, to look at all of the fiscal areas that we are obligated to (and) to also look at what were are offering all of our students and look at the fiscal resources we have versus what we want to offer our children and see how that meshes because we are really are at bare bones in regards to the educational experience we are giving our children.”
Bristol offers one AP course, and Morrisville doesn’t provide any.
In contrast, Pennsbury offers 19 AP courses, Neshaminy 13, Bristol Township 10 and Bensalem 14. In Lower Bucks, Council Rock offers the most with 21, and Centennial with 17.
Bristol didn’t meet federal Adequate Yearly Progress minimum standards last year, but Morrisville did.
At Bristol's recent school board meeting, school directors wanted to know if school consolidation came up at the Harrisburg meeting.
Greg Wright told them that Tomalis was “very cordial, very professional, very supportive, but also very realistic. I don’t think they are very interested in any kind of forced merger. They talked about the details of what’s involved in that kind of thing. I don’t think they say that as the primary method of solving some of the problems, but it was on their list. It’s available to them, but it’s their least favorite method to solve some of these problems.”
Speaking of Tomalis, DiGuiseppe said, “He said he would support us, help us, in that decision (to close the high school) if that’s something the board decided in the future. The state senators and state representatives that were there, they are fighting for us. They are fighting for us, but that doesn’t mean they are going to win. As a district, we need to find a way to survive.”
Galloway, who is a member of the House Education Committee, sat in the meeting in Harrisburg a few weeks ago, along with state Secretary of Education Ron Tomalis, members of the governor's office, state Senators Tommy Tomlinson, R-6, and Chuck McIlhinney, R-10, and members of the Department of Labor and Industry. Tomlinson sits on the Senate Education Committee.
“The topic of conversation was finance and the potential high school closure if that’s something we had to do in terms of budget,” Bristol’s board president, Ralph DiGuiseppe III, who attended that meeting, told his board members last week. “All I can say is that we are not going to get (additional) money. The message was clear that things are going to get worse. Things aren’t getting any better.”
Bristol’s current operating budget is $21 million, while Morrisville's is $18 million.
DiGuiseppe said Tomalis was “very quick to point out” that at one time 1,500 school districts existed in the state, and now there are 501. Tomalis believes that number could be cut in half, DiGuiseppe said.
Tomlinson said smaller districts across the state don’t have the economies of scale to sustain themselves, so there will be changes in districts throughout Pennsylvania.
The newspaper was unsuccessful in reaching Morrisville officials, as well as McIlhinney for comment Friday.
Across the state, districts are facing financial hardship because of increases in employee health insurance and pension costs, along with other costs that districts have no control over such as special education and charter schools, officials have said.
Tomlinson said another factor is lower enrollment numbers.
The student-to-teacher ratio in Bristol is 16:1 in the elementary level and 12:1 in the high school. In Morrisville, it’s 11:1 in the elementary school and 13:1 in the secondary. In large surrounding districts, those ratios range from 23:1 to 28:1.
Tomlinson said that for Morrisville and Bristol administrations it’s about “sustaining an educational system and thinking outside the box” and “creative thinking to preserve their identity and looking into different options instead of bankrupting the districts.”
Galloway said Morrisville and Bristol “have good administrations that are trying to keep their local identities, provide quality education and not burden taxpayers. They have a big job ahead of them. I can assure you it’s not just about property taxes, it’s also about giving kids in Bristol and Morrisville quality education.”
In Bristol, the owner of the borough's average assessed property of $16,400 will pay about $2,526 in school taxes this school year. In Morrisville, the owner of the borough's average assessed property of $20,820 will pay $3,691 in taxes this school year.
How small are these two districts?
As of Oct. 17, in the two Morrisville school buildings, there were 1,095 students. Starting this school year, K through second-grade students have been taught at Grandview Elementary; and third- through 12th-graders and pre-K classes have been in the high school building.
Bristol has about 1,250 students enrolled this school year and they also are housed in two school buildings -- the elementary/middle school and the high school.
The per-pupil cost in Bristol is $15,221 at the elementary level and $19,458 at the secondary level. And in Morrisville, that’s $10,034 at the elementary level and $18,901 at the high school level.
In the abutting districts of Pennsbury and Bristol Township, the cost per pupil at the high school level is $13,209 and Bristol Township $14,428. In elementary schools, the cost is $10,356 in Pennsbury and $12,097 in Bristol Township.
“We need to really start having discussions on how the district is going to move forward,” DiGuiseppe said at the school board meeting last week. “Nobody here, myself or any of board members, I’m sure will agree, want to make any decision on closing the high school, merging the high school. But we can’t raise taxes. We can’t continue to raise taxes just to keep the district intact. We need to also look at it in an educational standpoint. We can’t jeopardize the education of the students just to say ‘We’re staying open’ when they are already receiving a limited education.”
School director Beverly Breslin-Kalinowski agrees.
“I would think it’s really incumbent upon us as board members to look at our budget early, to look at all of the fiscal areas that we are obligated to (and) to also look at what were are offering all of our students and look at the fiscal resources we have versus what we want to offer our children and see how that meshes because we are really are at bare bones in regards to the educational experience we are giving our children.”
Bristol offers one AP course, and Morrisville doesn’t provide any.
In contrast, Pennsbury offers 19 AP courses, Neshaminy 13, Bristol Township 10 and Bensalem 14. In Lower Bucks, Council Rock offers the most with 21, and Centennial with 17.
Bristol didn’t meet federal Adequate Yearly Progress minimum standards last year, but Morrisville did.
At Bristol's recent school board meeting, school directors wanted to know if school consolidation came up at the Harrisburg meeting.
Greg Wright told them that Tomalis was “very cordial, very professional, very supportive, but also very realistic. I don’t think they are very interested in any kind of forced merger. They talked about the details of what’s involved in that kind of thing. I don’t think they say that as the primary method of solving some of the problems, but it was on their list. It’s available to them, but it’s their least favorite method to solve some of these problems.”
Speaking of Tomalis, DiGuiseppe said, “He said he would support us, help us, in that decision (to close the high school) if that’s something the board decided in the future. The state senators and state representatives that were there, they are fighting for us. They are fighting for us, but that doesn’t mean they are going to win. As a district, we need to find a way to survive.”
32 comments:
Merger. Good luck with that.
Financially it makes sense. Programmatically it makes sense. Class size, maybe not, though I find it hard to believe that the 11:1 and 13:1 ratios are still accurate. My kids' class sizes have been growing steadily each year for the last 5, it seems.
I was thinking the same thing about the ratios. I don't think there's consistency in how districts calculate them. I have a spreadsheet I made from a May 2010 BCCT article on this topic, and it shows the ratios from all Bucks County districts ranged from 12.73 to 16.93 for 2008-09. These seemed to be on a more consistent calculation basis. The lower ratios generally were at the smaller districts, which makes sense to me.
I was also wondering when this Harrisburg meeting took place, and who from Morrisville attended.
latecomer posted at 7:41 am on Sat, Nov 3, 2012.
Posts: 363
This issue has been kicked around for DECADES. THe only way these consolidations will happen is if our state government forces it. Pennsbury has fought consolidation with M'ville numerous times over the years whenver it's brought up. That said, the community best make their voices heard on this one if you want to save your locally controlled schools!
"Why do I believe reorganization (of the Morrisville Schools) is necessary? One must go back to 1956 when a survey was conducted by the Pennsylvania Economy league to determine whether a jointure should be approved with the Pennsbury Schools. Recommendations at that time indicated that the advantages would outweigh the disadvantages."?
Dr. Paul Phillips
Superintendent
Morrisville School District
November 29, 1971
This is likely what the Ferrara Dewilde secrecy wing was trying to suppress and which has led to Farm-Out rumblings.
Anti transparency typically doesn't work out too well for those who practice it.
School board non sheeple bring this up and get it out there.
This article is a big bag of vague nothing.
Combine 2 struggling districts 10 miles apart to make a 2200 student struggling district.
Sounds like a plan!
Trick or Treat? I'd say that's a Trick.
Get rid of Ferrara for breach of contract, he has done nothing to promote eduction and thats what a Superintendant should be about. Morrisville reps could not be reached because they were on the Council Rock South sidelines coaching football. Probaly as bad as they do there jobs here there team LOST again. way to go Billy and Donny. Pauly D was running the refreshmant stand at the ROCK, to get pointers on how to run a School District without making cuts.
Only 3 of the 4 M'ville Admins (75%) were at Council Rock? Why couldn't Tony G make it? Sheesh this is getting ridiculous if it isn't already!!!
If Mr Dupel starts hangin with them we're in real trouble
Only the evil hang out with each other because the Good can see through the FAKE front they like to portray. They have no allies except the evil. Just look at who thier friends are.
They have each other.
They'll always have Paris.
They deserve each other
It's called the Wal-Mart plan: Make countywide districts immediately with a county superintendent and staff picked from the districts. Over the next ten years, prune away all the Bristols and Morrisvilles so that all we're left with are the big faceless schools with faceless teachers teaching bland homogenized content. Money saved, end of story.
Ferrara, Harm and Deangelo can be greeters?
It's called poor financial planning by the very people that want to now shut the school down to save their own jobs in which they keep giving themselves raises.
Jon pointed it out previously as to what not raising taxes for 6 years can do to a district. Not raising taxes willy nilly each year is one thing, not accounting for cost of living increases is irresponsible. And ultimately ruins people's property values.
Good day Fitzpatrick, Ferarra, DeAngelo, DeWilde, Harm, Stoudt, Worob, Buckman.
I still think consolidation makes sense, both from an educational and financial perspective. As noted in the article: "Bristol offers one AP course, and Morrisville doesn’t provide any.
In contrast, Pennsbury offers 19 AP courses, Neshaminy 13, Bristol Township 10 and Bensalem 14. In Lower Bucks, Council Rock offers the most with 21, and Centennial with 17." How many other opportunities do the Morrisville students miss because of the district's inability to have comprehensive educational and vocational offerings? The same tires arguments against consolidation don;t stand up to scrutiny.
"We'll lose local control" This is the biggest joke of all of them. Look how well local control has served us over the past 40 years. If this is the best Morrisville can do, then perhaps drawing from a wider pool osf possibilities is just the solution we need.
"My kids will have to compete with so many others for the same opportunities they get now in a smaller district" This one always kills me. Let's coddle our children so they are ill-prepared for a world in which their ability to compete dictates their ability to succeed.
Learning how to strive for what you really want, how hard work can get you the success you desire and how sometimes even with the hard work and effort, you don't get what you want, are all important life lessons. Why don't some people want the children to learn these things?
This one is also a favorite:"If you want to be in a bigger district, move." I say, No, I like where I live. I like my community, and I would like for it to be the best it can be. What is wrong with that?
I do hope regional districts are mandated, and that the leadership of these organizations is drawn from the best and brightest. I look forward to a time when all children, regardless of their socio-economic background, or which side of the tracks they're from, get the same opportunities.
I think it is inevitable, so instead of fighting, maybe people could work to find ways to make it the best it can be.
The devil's in the details, but I'm not against it.
I didn't trust our recent "local control" (Hellmann, Mihok, Radosti, and the vast majority of their SOC brethren) and their "plan" to tuition out Morrisville High School students to somebody, anybody who was willing to make a deal, like, say, Delaware Valley High School, or an Episcopal Academy in NJ, or Conwell-Egan, or wherever the hell else they had in mind.
56+ years and counting, so I'm not counting on it either. There are some political constituencies much bigger than Morrisville who will continue to fight this tooth and nail.
'There are some political constituencies much bigger than Morrisville who will continue to fight this tooth and nail.'
You mean, like, Council ROCK?
Anywhere with higher socio economic demographics who thinks their school districts are fine just they way they are thank you very much.
"I do hope regional districts are mandated, and that the leadership of these organizations is drawn from the best and brightest."
It will never happen. Political jobs are filled by political hacks. Like school board solicitor. The jobs are filled by the best connected.
........Like Public Relations Director????
Great Point. This administration lives in a Glass House.
Yeah, I remember the last effort at merging with Pennsbury, and their Board VP, Linda something responding with, "We don't think it's a good demographic." Apparently they believe they already have enough brown and poor people.
This is the attitude that needs to be changed by mandate from above.
If all men are created equal, a central tenet of the founding of this country, then every person should have an equal opportunity to succeed or fail or their own merits, and not just because they were born on the right side of the tracks.
Amen. Have we progressed beyond Little Rock, Ark. 1957, or the Boston busing riots of the 70's, or is it just more coded?
Coded? Until last November, we had a School Board member who served for the last 8 yrs dropping N-bombs. You don't need a decoder ring to figure that out.
http://savethemorrisvilleschool.blogspot.com/2009/03/caution-school-merging-ahead.html
Pa. machine switched vote from Obama to Romney
Posted: Tuesday, November 6, 2012 2:53 pm | Updated: 5:22 pm, Tue Nov 6, 2012.
Associated Press | 3 comments
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A state official says a central Pennsylvania voting machine has been recalibrated and is back into service after it switched a person's vote from President Barack Obama to Mitt Romney.
Department of State spokesman Ron Ruman says the Perry County voter notified elections officials of the problem after trying to cash his ballot Tuesday. Video of what Ruman called a "momentary glitch" was posted on YouTube.
Ruman says the machine was taken out of service, recalibrated and is now working fine.
In other issues, state GOP Chairman Rob Gleason says 75 Republican election workers were prohibited from accessing polling places in heavily Democratic Philadelphia, prompting a court order. A mural of Obama at another Philadelphia polling location was also ordered covered up.
The Democratic Party did not immediately comment.
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