A decision on whether to eliminate ninth grade at Bucks County Technical High School in Bristol Township after the upcoming school year should come fairly soon.
That’s according to Harry Kramer, a joint school board member from Bensalem. He said a decision would likely come in September or October so that eighth-graders know whether to apply for entrance to the school in 2012-13.
“I have a feeling it will be handled very quickly once this coming school year gets into full swing,” said Kramer. “I don’t think it will languish.”
The technical school is committed to having ninth grade for 2011-12, and Kramer said he believes it will continue beyond that.
Bucks County Technical High School is a full-time comprehensive school offering both academic and vocational instruction for grades 9-12. It draws students from the Bensalem, Bristol, Bristol Township, Morrisville, Neshaminy and Pennsbury school districts.
Ninth-graders take academic courses and also take part in an exploratory program that entails sampling the vocational fields offered at BCTHS so they can decide which one to enroll in when they enter 10th grade.
“I don’t think eliminating the ninth grade will fly at any point in the forseeable future,” said Kramer. “I don’t think it has much support on the joint committee or on most of the school boards that send students to the technical school. I’m 100 percent against it. The people I speak to want a ninth grade there and feel the exploratory program is very valuable.”
The idea of eliminating ninth grade came from joint school board member John Doyle of Bristol. He feels it would save money and ease some of the financial burden on the sending districts, especially the two smallest ones, Bristol and Morrisville.
For 2011-12, Bristol is scheduled to pay $1,177,329 to send 60 students to BCTHS while Morrisville’s scheduled payment is $930,293 for 51 students.
Other scheduled contributions for 2011-12 are $5,929,172 for Bristol Township (516 students), $3,917,355 for Neshaminy (269 students), $3,415,301 for Bensalem (259 students) and $2,889,507 for Pennsbury (251 students).
The latest figures show total enrollment at BCTHS for 2011-12 is 1,406, a 3.7 percent increase from the 1,324 students who attended in 2010-11.
Financial contributions from each sending district do not correspond exactly to the number of students they are sending in a particular year, but are calculated under a complicated formula that equals out over a number of years, BCTHS officials have said.
Whatever the formula, representatives from Bristol and Morrisville have said it’s meant an undue burden on their districts. Morrisville withheld most of its 2010-11 payment of $767,000 until recently. The district still owes $94,861.47, and the matter will be decided by the state Department of Education, said BCTHS Administrative Director Leon Poeske.
The newspaper was unsuccessful in attempts to reach Morrisville officials for comment.
Bristol’s Doyle graduated from the technical school in 1991 when it was still a part-time school that didn’t offer academic instruction. It become a full-time comprehensive school 10 years later.
“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,” said Doyle. “I think the tech school could help kids decide what vocation to choose by pamphlets and videos and other marketing and you don’t necessarily need this exploratory program in ninth grade.”
He continued: “I have nothing against the tech school. I’m a graduate and think it’s a great opportunity for kids. We don’t want to keep our kids from going there. We just want to delay it a year.”
But eliminating the ninth grade at BCTHS would take a majority of the sending districts to agree, and Neshaminy school board President Ritchie Webb doesn’t see that happening.
“When we built the comprehensive school, it was a grade 9-12 school,” he said. “Ninth grade is where everything starts, and I think it’s important we keep the ninth grade there. I haven’t seen any financial data to prove eliminating it would save our district money. It might save money at the tech school, but would it save our district money overall? By bringing ninth-graders back here, would it require us to hire more teachers? Would it cause overcrowding?”
Webb said he’d like to see a detailed study done on the effects of eliminating the ninth grade at BCTHS.
“I certainly wouldn’t vote to do it right now,” he said. “To change my mind, I’d have to see a lot of proof that eliminating the ninth grade there would have a lot of educational and financial benefits.”
Poeske said students and parents at BCTHS are being surveyed on whether to eliminate the ninth grade. He said he expects the results back by mid-August and they will be used by the BCTHS joint board and the sending districts’ school boards to make a decision.
The next BCTHS joint school board meeting is at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 22 at the school, 610 Wistar Road in Bristol Township.
Poeske said he and other officials at BCTHS have been working hard to cut costs. The 2011-12 budget of $20,956,531 is 2.7 percent, or $580,956, less than 2010-11 budget, he said.
One of the cost-cutting measures was the elimination through either retirements or layoffs of 20 positions, said Poeske. Total staff at the school is down more than 9 percent from 2010-11, he added.
Teachers at BCTHS are still working under a contract that expired on June 30, 2010, so their salaries have remained frozen since that date. Administrative salaries were also frozen by the joint committee for 2011-12.
Poeske, who works under a separate agreement from the other administrators, said he voluntarily took a pay freeze for 2011-12, so his annual salary will remain at $138,500.
