Monday, December 16, 2013

Pa. State Police Issue Report on School Safety

Pa. State Police issue report on school safety

Posted: Monday, December 16, 2013 10:05 am

Associated Press |

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Drawing on security evaluations of more than 300 schools since 2004, Pennsylvania State Police have released a report aimed at helping public and private schools boost security.The report, available on the state police website, sounded a note of caution about the schools' vulnerability to attack.

"Many schools are vulnerable to violent intruders entering the building with a weapon and causing harm to the occupants. A secondary threat to the school is the introduction of a portable explosive device into the building to cause mass casualties," the report said.
The report recommended that schools maintain a security force, install closed-circuit TVs, upgrade locks, hold regular drills and take other safety measures aimed at reducing the threat. It also provided guidance for lockdown and evacuation procedures.
"There may never be perfection, as no security measure is perfect; however, risks can be significantly reduced," the report said.
The report said the presence of security forces varies widely across the state and depends on factors like cost and public perception.
"An unarmed security officer is less effective in dealing with a more serious security incident, such as a violent intruder," it noted.
Donald Smith, emergency planning and response coordinator for the nonprofit Center for Safe Schools in Camp Hill, said most schools are already following some of the recommendations. He said the number of security staff in schools has increased "exponentially" since last year's Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre and more are looking into using armed personnel.
The state Legislature passed a quadrupled $8.5 million school safety bill in response to the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., while in northeastern Pennsylvania, many schools have beefed up security over the past year, according to the Pocono Record.
At Delaware Valley School District, for example, Superintendent John Bell said officials made $500,000 in security improvements in response to Newtown.
"It totally changed our whole perspective on school security," he said.
The state police report used FBI statistics to show that 17 percent of the 154 active shooter incidents in the United States from 2002 to 2012 took place at schools.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on the recommendations in Monday editions.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Morrisville Residents May Face Tax Increase in 2014

Morrisville residents may face tax increase in 2014

Posted: Thursday, December 12, 2013 3:12 pm

By GEMA MARIA DUARTE

Staff writer,

Morrisville residents may have to set aside additional money to cover their borough taxes in 2014.The council is proposing an increase of 3.63 mills, or $72.60, to help balance the $5.9 million budget. This year, Morrisville is running with a slightly lower budget of $5.6 million.

If the preliminary budget passes on Monday, the owners of an average home assessed at $20,000 will pay $891.20 to the borough.
Next year’s budget includes about 10 full-time and four part-time police officers, and a police chief, which the borough needs to hire.
Borough Manager Tom Bates provided the council with three budgets, each with different options for the police department. His plans are the result of requests from residents that more cops be put on the streets.
The first option would have kept four full-time officers who would have been promoted to corporal and thus become supervisors. Then, the rest of the force would have been filled with about 12 part-time officers. This option included a police chief and would have put one full-timer and two part-timers per shift on the streets.
This option also would have cut benefits such as longevity and holiday pay, health care, saving more than $500,000, Bates said, adding it would have balanced the budget but reduced the police budget to about $1.3 million.
The second option was similar to this year’s budget that includes 10 full-timers and a chief totaling $1.8 million. This option puts two full-time officers on patrol.
The third proposal was to have three full-timers on patrol around the clock and would raise taxes by 18 mills, or $360, putting the police budget at about $2.3 million.

State Panel: Change Special Education Funding Formula

State panel: Change special education funding formula

Posted: Wednesday, December 11, 2013 7:09 pm | Updated: 1:20 am, Thu Dec 12, 2013.

By Steve Esack of The Morning Call,

HARRISBURG — It’s been six years since the state Legislature gave school districts more money to cover special education costs.The state’s special education funding to 500 school districts has been capped at about $1 billion since 2008-09, while the number of special education students has risen about 3 percent to 268,466 — one in every seven public students in the state.

“It doesn’t take a mathematician to prove that’s really a loss,” East Penn School District Superintendent Thomas Seidenberger said.

More money could flow to districts via a new special education funding formula unveiled by a bipartisan group of lawmakers Wednesday if the Legislature does decide to lift the cap in the 2014-15 budget. The 15-member panel, called the Special Education Funding Commission, was chaired by Leigh County Sen. Pat Browne and Bucks County Rep. Bernie O’Neill.
“It is my sincere belief as member and a co-chair of this commission that adoption of these recommendations by the General Assembly will greatly improve the accuracy, transparency and effectiveness of Pennsylvania’s funding for special education programming for the benefit of all our special education students and the commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a whole in the future,” Browne said at a hearing in which the commission presented its 75-page funding report.
The proposed formula would distribute new money based on the severity of a student’s disability, as opposed to the existing formula that dispenses money under the assumption that 16 percent of all students in all districts have at least one of a dozen legally recognized disabilities.
“We’re no longer going to pay for special education based on an archaic formula that every school district has the same number, or percentage, of special education students in their district,” said O’Neill, R-29, who has been working toward developing a new special education funding formula for eight years. “Moving forward, every school district is going to be required to count and provide to the Department of Education the number of special education students they have total, and how they’re broken down into the three categories.”
But Seidenberger said the commission’s report does not go far enough. All the report will do is reshuffle money, creating winners and losers among districts, he said. It does not address the fundamental problem of stagnant special education funds coming from Harrisburg, he said.
“Level funding, especially in the case of special education funding, doesn’t work,” Seidenberger said.
The commission was precluded by law from developing a new funding formula for existing money or recommending more funding, Browne said. But that does not mean the commission’s work was for naught. Over time, he said, the new funding formula would work to more fairly distribute funds based on real special education costs.
“It’s going to be based on true cost and true number of students,” O’Neill said.
The General Assembly could add more money to special education in the coming fiscal year, Browne said. It could also decide to use the commission’s recommended funding formula to alter the existing funding formula as part of future budgets, he said.
The average cost to provide extra learning or physical support to special education students in Pennsylvania is $13,028. But costs can easily exceed $25,000 per child depending on the severity of need, as happened at East Penn this year when an unexpected influx of 15 disabled students, including several autistic children, increased its special education costs by more than $840,000.
Under the commission’s plan, special education money increases would be based on a three-tiered formula tied to individual students’ needs in each district and publicly funded charter schools. The state would differentiate special education services among least intensive to most intensive at costs ranging from $25,000 or less, $35,000 to $50,000, to $50,000 or more.
The report does not recommend which disabilities fall into each cost category.
But in theory, districts and publicly funded charter schools and cyber charter schools would get less money to provide students with a relatively cheap service such as speech therapy. They would get more for an expensive service such as autism education as opposed to districts’ and charter schools’ getting the same amounts for each category.
The formula also would be weighted to take into account a local district’s poverty level and property tax base to ensure districts can cover the costs of providing services to all special education. A special weighted protection would be given to small rural districts.
“Ultimately this formula, or the proposal for this formula that’s recommended in this report, I think does more for special-needs students than has been done in the last 23 years,” Lancaster County Rep. Mike Sturla said at the hearing.
The state’s overall special education budget includes a small contingency fund to help districts defray a portion of their costs of special education costs for individual students whose needs exceed $75,000. The commission recommended separating the “extraordinary cost fund” from the overall superficial education budget to increase transparency.
But shuffling the money will not help school districts if lawmakers are not willing to cover the full cost of care, Seidenberger said.
“We got about $150,000 in the contingency and we qualified for $900,000 (this year),” he said. “You can ask any school in (the Lehigh Valley), what did we send the state and what did we get, it’s going to be a low percentage.”
No special education funding formula will be perfect, acting Secretary of Education Carolyn Dumaresq said. But the commission’s recommended formula comes close to achieving fairness to all parties and Gov. Tom Corbett endorses it, she said.
The new formula would only go into effect if the Legislature and Corbett adopt the formula into law and direct extra money into special education in 2014-15 or future years.
The commission will hold another public hearing in 2014 to present its report to the House and Senate.
The full report can be found on Browne’s website: www.senatorbrowne.com/.
Calkins Media staff writer Natasha Lindstrom contributed to this report.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Price Tag of Keystone Exams Debated at House Hearing

Price tag of Keystone Exams debated at House hearing

Posted: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 9:00 pm | Updated: 1:30 pm, Wed Dec 11, 2013.

By Natasha Lindstrom

Staff Writer,

HARRISBURG — As Pennsylvania forges ahead with its first high school exit exams, House lawmakers squabbled Tuesday over the price tag to develop and score the new standardized assessments.A House Education Committee hearing focused on concerns over the Keystone Exams, a set of subject tests that students will have to pass to graduate starting with the Class of 2017, or this year’s ninth-graders. Last year was the first year the state administered Keystone Exams in three subjects: Algebra I, literature and biology.

Schuylkill County Rep. Mike Tobash, who is pushing a bill to prohibit the Department of Education from developing additional Keystone subject tests for another 10 years, blasted the assessments as a financial burden that cost some $200 million and have the potential to rack up “hundreds of millions more.”
Joan Benso, president of Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, who supports the Keystone Exams as a way to better prepare students for jobs and higher education, told committee members she didn’t know the exact dollar figures, but that she thought the exams cost closer to just $3 million each.
So how much do the new high school exit exams really cost?
The state spent about $5 million per exam to develop the first three Keystone subject tests, and has budgeted an estimated $4 million to $5 million annually per exam to administer and score the tests, Department of Education spokesman Tim Eller said.
The administration of the Keystone Exams cost a total of $19.5 million last school year and $12.5 million this school year, Eller said. Looking ahead, the department anticipates the cost will be $14 million to $15 million annually to administer the three exams.
The $200 million figure floating around likely stems from the state’s entire five-year purchase order with Data Recognition Corporation for testing at all grade levels — not just the Keystone Exams, Eller said. That amount includes the Pennsylvania System of School Assessments administered to third- through eighth-graders.
The department is set to go out to bid for a new testing provider contract in early spring, and could choose to go with another company, Eller said. The Keystone Exams are aligned with Pennsylvania’s slightly tweaked version of the national Common Core State Standards, a framework developed by the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers adopted by 45 states.
The state Legislature has not yet appropriated funding to roll out additional subject exams, with original plans calling for up to 10 tests. The next two Keystone Exams slated for development cover composition and civics and government.
The development and implementation costs don’t include the added financial burden some schools say they’ll be facing to remediate students who don’t pass the exam on the first try. Students may take the tests an unlimited number of times, and local school officials can grant students exemptions in extenuating circumstances.
The state Independent Regulatory Review Commission gave final approval to the implementation of the Keystone Exams as a graduation requirement on Nov. 21. The exit exam rules are included in the comprehensive set of education regulations known as Chapter 4.
The state Attorney General’s office still has to sign off for the Chapter 4 regulations to get adopted officially, a procedural approval that’s expected to happen in coming weeks.
House Education Committee Chairman Paul Clymer, R-145, said that while the Keystone Exam requirement is moving forward, he wants the education community to know that lawmakers will continue to address concerns raised by educators. Among some issues brought up Tuesday: whether a focus on testing leads to narrower curriculum and strapped staff resources, the need to value vocational and technical education and the extra burden placed on high-poverty school districts to remediate students.
“The teachers and administrators know that there’s an open door there, that we are listening and their concerns and frustrations are being heard,” said Clymer. “We can continue to move the dialogue and the conversation around the table, and we can work out solutions.”

Updated Pa. School Report Cards to be Unveiled Today

Updated Pa. school report cards to be unveiled today

Posted: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 6:35 pm | Updated: 10:47 am, Wed Dec 11, 2013.

By Natasha Lindstrom

Staff Writer,

HARRISBURG -- After fixing data reporting errors, the state Department of Education is set to release Wednesday the statewide results of Pennsylvania's new school report card system.The state has developed a formula-based method of grading schools that replaces the former No Child Left Behind system and assigns schools a rating on a 100-point scale.

In October, the state launched a website, paschoolperformance.org, to showcase the new scores -- but school reporting problems caused officials to withhold results for 626 schools, or about one-fifth of Pennsylvania's 3,000 public schools.
The partial results made it difficult to make any statewide findings about how schools were measuring up. The department also limited temporarily several of the website's functions, including a tool to compare up to four schools side by side and downloadable files to access complete data sets.
Acting Secretary of Education Carolyn Dumaresq said in October that she considered a 70-point score to be "the mark of moving toward success," and that a majority of the schools that had submitted accurate data initially had reached that benchmark.
"The secretary has full confidence in the system itself, has confidence in the way that it was set up and how it flags the scores and what the scores represent," state Department of Education spokesman Tim Eller said Tuesday.
The new website features a variety of school-level data in one place online for the first time, from standardized test scores and Advanced Placement exam offerings to student demographics and attendance rates. The School Performance Profiles include all types of public schools, including charter schools, cyber charter schools and career and technical centers.
The profiles take into account scores from the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests administered to students in third through eighth grades and results of the Keystone Exams, which students must pass to graduate high school starting with the Class of 2017.
Starting in 2013-14, the building-level performance scores will account for 15 percent of principal and teacher evaluations.
Some local school officials and union representatives have expressed concerns that the public will place too much emphasis on performance scores that are still heavily weighted on standardized tests.
"Obviously you're not going to make everybody happy," Eller said. "There's going to be concerns on scores for some schools and districts overall, but the Secretary is confident and looks forward to this moving forward in the out-years toward making continuous improvements in student achievement."
Most of the reporting errors stemmed from students not filling in a test identifier bubble on the new Keystone Exams, though some schools said other data was inaccurate, such as the number of Advanced Placement courses their schools offered. The department gave schools until December to make corrections. The department anticipates avoiding most of those errors next year.
"We won't have these issues where the Keystone Exams weren't bubbled correctly -- that was a one-time issue for this year," Eller said.
The website is set to be updated with the full results mid- to late afternoon Wednesday, Eller said.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Morrisville’s Winterfest Brings out the Crowds

Morrisville’s Winterfest brings out the crowds

By Elizabeth Fisher Correspondent

Just minutes after the annual Winterfest Parade in Morrisville on Saturday, hundreds of families streamed into Morrisville High School for the town's annual Winterfest, Morrisville’s kickoff to the Christmas season.In the wake of the fire engines, the antique cars, school and civic groups, and, finally, Santa and Mrs. Claus, local groups shared their holiday spirit by opening their doors and providing family oriented activities.

At the high school, 11-year-old Andrea Rodriguez sat at one of several long activity tables that lined a back hallway to help little ones fill plastic bags with food for Rudolph-the-Red Nosed Reindeer and company, dry oatmeal and colored jimmies resting in a little bed of sparkling confetti.

“There, you have food for the reindeer,” Andrea said as she poured the “snack” from a jar into a plastic bag and handed it to 4-year-old Zoey Marcakis.
“I’m a service volunteer and I love doing this,” said Andrea, as her little visitor ran off to the next activity table to color.
Isabella Medina, Little Miss Winterfest, still wore her tiara as she, too, helped pack food for Santa’s reindeer. Isabella shared the spotlight during festivities with Mr. Winterfest, D.J. Drobnich; Junior Miss Winterfest Emily Eisengrein; and Jessica Worrell, Miss Winterfest.
The high school was the setting for a series of holiday-related events, including the Morrisville School District Chorus, the Acting Natural Chorus, a presentation by the Morrisville Color Guard, and the Morrisville School District 21st Community Learning Center.
One of the younger performers was David Huston, 6, who sang with the Snowflake Club. Earlier in the day, David watched the parade with his mother, Stephanie, and father, Steve, and siblings Emily, 4, and Michael, 5 months.
“This is the first time we’ve been able to come out to the Winterfest because I always had a baby at home,” said Stephanie Huston. “We’ll be going to the high school to watch David sing.”
Some spectators kept their celebrations short. Kelly Strout and her children, Bobby, 4, and Brynn, 2, stood on a chilly corner on Hillcrest Avenue waiting for Strout’s brother, Morrisville Fire Chief Matt Weidenhaefer, to drive by.
“We come out for my son. He just really likes the fire trucks,” Kelly Strout said.
Other activities included a gingerbread house contest, sponsored by the First Baptist Church, which also held a live Nativity scene.
Winterfest also included festivities at Historical Summerseat in Morrisville, refreshments at borough hall, and the annual Christmas tree lighting.

Public-School Advocates Fear Pending Revision of Pa. Charter Rules

In today's Phila. Inquirer.

Public-school advocates fear pending revision of Pa. charter rules

Kathy Boccella, Inquirer Staff Writer

Last updated: Sunday, December 8, 2013, 2:01 AM
Posted: Saturday, December 7, 2013, 8:21 PM

Its sponsors say it is an urgently needed and long-overdue package of reforms for a burgeoning system, but critics contend that Pennsylvania's hotly debated charter-school bill would speed the decline of some conventional public schools.
The legislature is expected to act soon - perhaps in the next few weeks - on Senate Bill 1085, which would embody the first major changes since the once-experimental schools began expanding rapidly across Pennsylvania in the late 1990s.
This year, the Philadelphia School District alone will pay $708 million to charter schools.
One element of the proposal is a cut in the taxpayer funding formula for the state's 15 cyber charters - online schools that have been plagued by scandal and low academic achievement.

But a growing band of public-education advocates is rallying against the bill. While supporting cuts for cyber schools, the opponents say other parts of the bill would speed an already rapid exodus of students from public schools to charters.
That, in turn, would worsen the funding crisis in struggling districts such as Philadelphia and Chester Upland.
Critics, including the Pennsylvania School Boards Association and the Education Law Center in Philadelphia, say they are particularly worried about a provision in the bill that would allow Pennsylvania's colleges and universities to open charter schools without approval from local school boards - even though the districts would have to partially fund the schools.
"It will destroy the local taxpayer voice into whether or not there should be charter schools in their district," said Joan Duvall-Flynn, who chairs the education committee for the Pennsylvania NAACP. "It's taxation without representation."
The bill, sponsored by State Sen. Lloyd Smucker (R., Lancaster), won preliminary approval from the Appropriations Committee last month. Smucker has said the measure aims not only to save money through the cyber-charter cuts and reducing pension funding for some charter employees, but also would require open meetings and regular audits, and create a commission to study a fair funding formula.
Joseph Watkins, the state-appointed receiver for the Chester Upland School District, supports the bill, saying that in the short term it could save the district more than $1.5 million annually in cyber-charter reimbursements and retirement payments.
Under the bill, charter-renewal periods would double, from five to 10 years, and terms of the schools' charters could be amended without permission from local officials. In Philadelphia, the School District would have no authority over charters.
The bill would create an 18-member Charter School Funding Advisory Commission, consisting of the secretary of education; six legislators, four of them from the majority party; and, appointed by the governor, 11 representatives of charters, school districts, and a university.
"The commission in this bill is only designed to consider charter school funding needs, not the funding needs of our neighborhood school district schools, nor how the needs of both are intertwined," said Education Law Center attorney David Lapp. "In addition, the commission is not bipartisan. Sixteen of the 18 members come from, or will be appointed by, the majority party."
Districts contribute fixed amounts for students who attend charters. The law center holds that since they tend not to serve the most-vulnerable students, charters impose a burden on poorer districts where a high percentage of pupils are enrolled in charters. With their hefty charter contributions, the districts have less money available for their needy students, the group said.
The primary law establishing charter schools - independently operated, often with unique curriculums, funded through tax dollars - in Pennsylvania was enacted in 1997, and proponents say it is in dire need of an update.
Of about 176 brick-and-mortar charter schools across the state, more than half are in Philadelphia. Statewide, enrollment has risen sharply, to about 119,500 students.
"Pennsylvania was on the leading edge of charter schools. Now, all these years later, other states have more modern laws," said Justin Quinn, spokesman for Smucker. "This legislation is necessary because there are all kinds of problems school districts have with the funding formula, questions about the effectiveness of cyber charter schools and charter schools in general."
He acknowledged that "there is going to be additional work with this legislation to make sure people are on board."
One point of particular concern, said Lawrence Feinberg, a Haverford Township school board member who heads the Keystone State Education Coalition, which opposes the bill, is the language giving colleges and universities free rein to open charters.
Feinberg said he feared that a charter company would be able to open a school under the brand name of a college or university in exchange for a donation to the institution.
Quinn said that while concerns about so-called university authorizers were valid, "the positives we've seen in other states far outweigh that."
The acting president of Widener University, Steve Wilhite, said he believes the measure could encourage more higher-learning institutions to serve students in struggling communities. Widener has launched the first university-sponsored charter, the Widener Partnership Charter School, in Chester, which was aided in 2012 by a $1 million grant from the Peco-Exelon Foundation.
A university-authorized charter "can serve its community while at the same time providing important educational opportunities for students as well as faculty and staff of the university," Wilhite said.
Such arguments do not sway critics such as Duvall-Flynn, who said the language regarding university-backed charters is too loose.
"It is designed cleverly to dismantle any local system," she argued, adding that "each of these children have a little backpack of money attached to them. When the child leaves his classroom, he takes his backpack with him."

BY THE NUMBERS

15
Number of cyber charter schools
in Pennsylvania.
176
Approximate number of brick-and-mortar charter schools
in Pennsylvania.
119,500
Approximate number of students attending charter schools in Pennsylvania.
$708M
Amount the Philadelphia School District expects to pay charter schools this year.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Morrisville Council Seat up for Grabs; Three Residents Interested

MORRISVILLE
Morrisville council seat up for grabs; three residents interested

Posted: Wednesday, December 4, 2013 4:13 pm

By GEMA MARIA DUARTE

Staff writer

His time as a Morrisville councilman is coming to an end for Dave Rivella. And someone needs to replace him.Three residents have thrown their names into the ring: Ted Parker, Bryan Tomasulo and Kevin Larison.Rivella said he expects to stay on the council until he's sworn in as mayor in early January. His replacement for the fourth ward council seat will be appointed by the council sometime in January, he said, adding that he had two more years in his council term.
Parker, a school board member, submitted his letter of interest in early November. Tomasulo and Larison submitted their letters mid-November.
“I believe I can be a voice of reason. I don't like the infighting I have seen from the council in the past few years; this needs to stop,” Parker said. “I believe my years on the school board have taught me how to work well with others whose views maybe very different from yours, and the school board has made great progress moving forward. The council needs to work together so it can focus on progress. I believe with my experience I can help with that.”
Parker said his top priorities as a councilman would be economic redevelopment and public safety, as well as making an effort to uniting the divided council.
Tomasulo, who has been a borough resident for 11 years, said he is also concerned about safety in the borough.
“Like many residents, I share in the concerns of what is transpiring in our borough on a daily basis. The accelerating crime rate, coupled with difficulty of attracting and retaining respectable businesses, makes Morrisville a very difficult sell for the young family trying to start out on their own and also in retaining the wonderful families that came to Morrisville in hopes of raising their families here,” Tomasulo wrote in his letter of interest for the seat.
Tomasulo said his 12 years of working on Wall Street can help him attract businesses to the borough. He also said he has an “attitude of fairness and willingness to work” with other council members.
“My only hope is (that) whoever is awarded this seat occupies it with true intent of respecting its authority and wanting to dutifully represent the fourth ward and its residents,” he said.
Larison has the same safety concerns as Parker and Tomasulo.
“It’s ridiculous that we haven’t had a (police) chief in almost a year,” he said Wednesday afternoon.
The Morrisville Police Department has been running with an officer in charge since Jan. 1. In July, the council hired a consulting firm to help with the hiring of a police chief.
In the 25 years he’s been a borough resident, Larison said public safety and political disagreements “are probably the worst" they have been and "that’s reason enough to go for council.”
His top goal as a councilman would be to “have more cops on duty,” he said.

Cops: Morrisville Woman Made 50 False 911 Calls

Morrisville
Cops: Morrisville woman made 50 false 911 calls

Posted: Wednesday, December 4, 2013 3:30 pm | Updated: 4:00 pm, Wed Dec 4, 2013.

By Jo Ciavaglia

Staff writer

A 35-year-old Morrisville woman is accused of filing nearly 50 false reports about drug activity and drunken behavior in an effort to get people locked up, police said.Malinda Clavell was charged after what police said was her most recent false report, on Nov. 22. Police said she called the 911 emergency dispatch center to report drunken people in a 7-Eleven bothering the cashier. She didn't leave her name and was described as uncooperative, police said.When police arrived at the convenience store, the only person there was an employee. The employee said there were no intoxicated people in the store before police arrived and added that a man and a woman had come in separately earlier.
Morrisville Patrolman William Smith thought the call sounded similar to others received over the last few months involving a local barber shop. All the calls were from a woman with a blocked number who didn’t leave a name or other information and said she didn’t want police to contact her.
After further investigation, authorities determined Clavell was responsible for the calls about both businesses, police said.
When police met with Clavell at her home, she admitted calling in the complaint about the 7-Eleven. She told the officer she called the police because she wanted the people in the store arrested, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Police said Clavell also admitted she made false reports about drug dealing involving the barbershop. Those calls to 911 started April 3 and continued into November.
“Malinda displayed no regret for calling in false reports and only seemed interested in seeking revenge directed at employees of the barber shop and residents who live in the immediate area,” according to the affidavit.
Clavell was charged with 48 counts of misdemeanor false reports and police will proceed by summons with the case.

Monday, December 2, 2013

New Board Members Get Taste of Friction

New board members get taste of friction

By Elizabeth Fisher Correspondent

Newly sworn in Morrisville school board members no sooner took the oath of office before they briefly sampled just how rocky meetings can be.New members Ivan Colon, John Perry and Joe Gilleo, along with incumbent Daniel Dingle, took the oath of office Monday night to the applause of friends and relatives. For the most part, the agenda meeting went smoothly, but when it came time to reappoint Hill Wallack as solicitor, veteran Steve Worob took exception.Despite the support of district Superintendent William Ferrara, who praised the firm’s “quality work and timely response” to district requests, Worob criticized the appointment because of what he called exorbitant solicitor bills.
“The bills have been way over $100,000 this year; there were two months over $17,000. It is irresponsible of this board not the look around,” Worob said, adding that he did not question the work or the service of the firm.
But the board majority overrode Worob’s objections, saying that the higher legal bills this past year were not because of higher rates, but of a lawsuit with the Bucks County Technical High School that required an increased number of hours.
“Thank God for Hill Wallack,” said board member David Stoneburn, who pinned the added expense this year on an increasingly litigious society.
For the most part, however, the meeting went smoothly as the board finalized items to be voted on at next week’s meeting including: the appointment of student representatives to the board; the proposed approval of purchasing ePlus Meraki Options (wireless access points), plus two switches for $10,227, and a motion to participate in additional legal services offered by the Bucks County Intermediate Unit 22 and Sweet, Stevens, Katz and Wiliams, at a cost of $780.
The board will also vote on proposed teacher tuition reimbursements, appointments to the 21st Century after-school program’s staff, and various other appointments.