Friday, April 5, 2013

Why Districts Should Merge

Why districts should merge

Posted: Friday, April 5, 2013 6:00 am
I am a current Morrisville homeowner who spent the first half of my education in Morrisville, and the second half in Pennsbury. After experiencing both educational institutions firsthand, I am writing this letter as a plea to both districts to move forward with a merger.I enjoyed a great education at M.R. Reiter Elementary School, with some terrific teachers. However, when I entered Morrisville High School in sixth grade an entirely different world was opened to me, one where 17-year-olds lurked the same hallways that I did, with much more world knowledge than I needed to be informed about at such a young age. My parents watched as an outgoing, happy child turned into a sad, introverted pre-teen. They did what they knew was best for me, and moved out of Morrisville once my mother's efforts to encourage the community to ask for a merger with Pennsbury failed.
As a Pennsbury student I excelled, and I have no regrets about the move my parents made for me, only that I had wished we could have kept our Morrisville home in the small town neighborhood that I grew to love, while still enabling me to attend Pennsbury schools.
Morrisville has always been a great place for young couples to buy a starter home at a reasonable price; however, today those couples are selling their homes every five-10 years because they are unhappy with the situation at Morrisville High School. It has subsequently turned the town into an aging one, with an uncertain future as many of the older generation who believed so strongly in the small-town education are dying and leaving homes that their children must sell cheaply due to the district's undesirable reputation.
If the two school districts merged, suddenly real estate in Morrisville would be ideal, and young couples would flock to town to own one of the many historic, beautiful homes that would now be in the same school district as Yardley but with a much cheaper price tag. We need to stop making Morrisville a revolving door for young couples, and turn it back into a town where families are able to begin, grow and continue on to see their children and grandchildren also grow up.
For Morrisville, this merger is everything this town needs to become what it once was. To Pennsbury, I ask you to help your lifelong neighbor, and think of how the two towns as a united front can only benefit the property values of all homes in the 19067 zip code.
Candace (Braun) Zafirellis
Morrisville

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now 3rd Grades get to hang out with the 18 year olds at the school. We have been told that never happens, If you believe that I have the Brooklyn Bridge for Sale.

Anonymous said...

Always lurking. Always fearful. Gun up. Barracade up. Bunker up. Know who thrives in this wallow of feces? The dumbest, meanest, most evil, most opportunistic political shysters in the communities aside from the psychotic predators and criminals themselves.

Anonymous said...

I can't say she made the sale for me if I'm living in Pennsbury. Call me nutty, but what's in it for me and Morrisville with a few disses of Morrisville schools thrown in for good measure isn't a winning formula.

Anonymous said...

Didn't sale it to me sounds like bull sheep to me

Anonymous said...

That entire letter sounded like a reason for Pennsbury to not want to merge. I did not attend school at either district, but just riding the bus to school where I went with 1st-6th graders was an education. If parents don't want young and old kids to mix then stop sending your high schooler to pick up your elementary students. From what I hear the kids cross paths when the elementary kids are dismissed.

Anonymous said...

Come on let's get married, it'll be good for me.

Anonymous said...

2 comments:

pajmf1 posted at 11:57 am on Fri, Apr 5, 2013.

Posts: 422




I am not necessarily opposed to a full merger, but I wonder how much impact it will make on Pennsbury's bottom line. Millage for Morrisville schools is 177.3 while Pennsbury's millage is 150.3. As far as I know, millage must be uniform for an entire district, meaning that a typical homeowner in Morrisville would see their school taxes decrease by almost $500 (assuming an assessment of $18,000). If I am calculating correctly, the total hit to tax revenue would be in the neighborhood of nearly $1,700,000. If Pennsbury had to retain all of the teachers in Morrisville School District, there would more than likely be an additional hit as I assume that they would be brought up to Pennsbury's pay scale. Again, I am not necessarily opposed to the merger (actually, I think it is the best thing as do my parents who have said so for many years), but I would hope that there would be some state assistance to ease the tax burden initially.
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Falls Taxpayer posted at 11:16 pm on Sat, Apr 6, 2013.

Posts: 255




I think a merger would help prevent Morrisville from turning into a complete slum and thus increase the value of pennsbury when a merger is inevitably forced by the state.

That and close the 2 free bridges. Then a large portion of the gang scum would not enter from trenton..

Anonymous said...

I firmly believe in Republican Core Principles of extremely limited government.

Except when I don't.

deb said...

I take great offense to your calling my town a slum and making references to gangs, you better pay attention, gangs are more prevalent in Bensalem, bristol, etc, ask the police depts. I would like you to point out an area in town that's slum! Your comment is despicable.

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure Pennsbury would not need all the Morrisville teachers if we merged.

Anonymous said...

Wake up the merger is not going to happen, Morrisville should make itself better as a school District. You need strong leadership to do that, we are 1/2 way there with the new School Board, now its time to clean house, we need administrators that care about Morrisville or this vicious cycle will continue on for generations. Ferrara and DeAngelo must go.

Anonymous said...

@deb: the amount of slum, gang, or drug use in town wasn't the poster's point. its here weather you like it or not. hang out at the 7-11 and check out the action. watch the stockham building crumble.

Anonymous said...

I thought the same thing.
pajmf1 is Bill Farrell's son, right?
Riddle me this. What did Bill Farrell do when he was on the school board to bring about the merger he and his wife apparently talked about for years?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, that's Farrell's son. He used to be all free market. Now he's a hypocrit looking for a state funded merger bailout.

Anonymous said...

The free market decided he wasn't worthy of employment at this time.

Anonymous said...

Did Jane Burger tell him to mind his own business because he doesn't live in Morrisville anymore???

deb said...

@deb: the amount of slum, gang, or drug use in town wasn't the poster's point. its here weather you like it or not. hang out at the 7-11 and check out the action. watch the stockham building crumble.

Deb says "whether" you like it or not is correct, it is everywhere was my point so do not just make it look like Morrisville is the haven for all bad and I hardly think that the stockham building which has some loose bricks/etc at the top from an aging building could be called a slum.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4De1ZuuCjE

Anonymous said...

Really? You're discussing "degrees" of slumminess, drug use, or gangs in Morrisville and think it's acceptable because other places have it too? What happened to zero tolerance?

Anonymous said...

F,I.D.O. Forget It, Drive On. It's a distraction and solves nothing.

Anonymous said...

Ever notice the police blotter? Tell me if you see any geographic patterns of where crime is being reported.