The Sanatoga Post

March edition of the Business Advisor.

SANATOGA PA – Vlahos-Dunn Insurance, headquartered at 1954 E. High St., is featured on the cover and in the lead story of the March 2009 edition of The Route 422 Business Advisor magazine, the monthly magazine published by MACnificent Pages of Pottstown PA and sponsored by the TriCounty Area Chamber of Commerce.

The article discusses the firm’s growth despite difficult economic conditions. Both President Jim Vlahos and Vice President Tom Dunn are pictured in front of their new office building.

The magazine was mailed to subscribers this week.

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SANATOGA PA – Weekend activities for Sanatogans (and anyone else!), Feb. 20-22, 2009:

Friday, Feb. 20

Sixteen miles east of Sanatoga, the Suburban Home and Flower Show opens at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center, 100 Station Ave., Oaks PA, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. today and Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. Home improvements and gardening, naturally, are its primary themes. Tickets cost $9.

Broadway comes to Beech Street in Pottstown PA as the musical “Bye, Bye Birdie” opens on the stage of The Hill School Center for the Arts at the corner of Beech and Sheridan. Admission is free for all shows, which start at 7:15 p.m. today and Saturday, and at  2 p.m. Sunday. For information, call 610-705-1039.

Saturday, Feb. 21

A free morning bird walk to explore the meadows and forested areas of the Black Rock Sanctuary, 953 Black Rock Rd. (about 1-1/2 miles north of the borough on Route 113), Phoenixville PA,will be held from 8-10 a.m. Instructor Vincent Smith, a naturalist and experienced birder in Valley Forge, will lead the expedition to learn about birds that regularly inhabit Black Rock’s natural areas, as well as those who just stop-by for a winter visit.

“From The Open Hearth,” a season cooking demonstration that features original recipes from an 18th Century kitchen, will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Pottsgrove Manor, 100 W. King St., Pottstown PA.

Sunday, Feb. 22

A free trial membership week is being offered by the Pottstown PA branch of the Freedom Valley YMCA, Adams and Jackson streets, as a membership promotion available to Pottstown area residents. The promotion runs through March 1. The week kicks off today with free fitness classes, family games, community swim, a blood drive, mini-massages, and a spaghetti dinner from 2-6:30 p.m. Proceeds benefit the YMCA Seahawks National Swim Team. Tickets can be purchased at the door.

Hundreds of brides-to-be (and probably their husbands-in-waiting as well) are expected to crowd into Sunnybrook Ballroom, 50 Sunnybrook Rd., Sanatoga PA, from Noon-4 p.m. to see an annual bridal show sponsored by The (Pottstown PA) Mercury newspaper. The day-long event allows brides, grooms, their parents and future in-laws to meet meet caterers, dress makers, florists, and entertainers, and gather helpful planning ideas. A $2 admission fee will be charged. For more information, call 484-624-5186 or visit the ballroom’s website.

The Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society has scheduled its free monthly open house from 1-4 p.m. at the society’s headquarters and museum in the former Sanatoga Chapel, 2341 E. High St., Sanatoga. Society members will be on hand to greet visitors, and light refreshments will be available.

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• None scheduled until Saturday (Feb. 21, 2009)

Provided by HighSchoolSports.net

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POTTSTOWN PA – Reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmatic: schools traditionally are known for emphasizing three “Rs.” For many students, they excel at teaching how to read with comprehension, write concisely and clearly, and accurately solve math problems. In Pottsgrove Middle School this year, teachers are working on a fourth ‘R.

Rudeness.

Positive reinforcement takes many forms, including 15 minutes of fame on the Pottsgrove Middle School principal's photo page.

No, they’re not teaching kids how to be rude, but rather how NOT to be. From buses that transport them every morning to the middle school complex at 1351 N. Hanover St.; to inside its hallways and classrooms; and even in the cafeteria, middle schoolers are getting lessons in and being rewarded for civility, under a program called “School-Wide Positive Behavior Support.”

The good news, according to middle school Assistant Principal Terresa Koehler, is that the program’s working. Her usual measures of inappropriate behavior – reports of fighting, insubordination, profanity, and disruptions on the bus – all so far are significantly lower this year than last, she told the Pottsgrove School District Board of School Directors last Tuesday (Feb. 10, 2009).

The better news, she added, is that the program, which also is operating at Lower Pottsgrove Elementary School,  is expected to expand next year to West Pottsgrove and Ringing Rocks elementaries as well. In that way, she said, “we’ll be building a habit of proper behavior” from the very first day a kindergarten pupil crosses any school threshold.

Koehler, and a team of teachers who made a presentation to board members, explained the program is based on the notion that showing children right ways to behave yields more favorable results than simply punishing them for behaving badly. Punishment remains part of Koehler’s job description as middle school disciplinarian, but if teachers and staff can change what she described as a “behavior culture,” her job becomes easier and school becomes a much more pleasant place, Koehler said.

Better bus behavior was part of the lesson plan.

During opening weeks of school last September, the program’s first phase involved education. Class by class, students boarded a bus parked in the middle school lot and were taught about acceptable behavior while traveling on board. The same thing happened in the cafeteria, where the lesson was how to get and eat lunch and then dispose of the waste.

How to prepare for gym. How to walk, not run, in the halls. How to walk away from trouble. Children sometimes don’t learn these specifics at home, support team members noted.

Phase Two introduced rewards. Students who “do the right things,” as spotted by teachers and staff, receive either yellow (from regular teachers), pink (from substitute teachers) or blue (from bus drivers) tickets redeemable for special cafeteria privileges or cents-off discounts on items at the school store. The overall cost of “reinforcing desired behaviors” is minor, Koehler said; the payoff, huge.

Positive reinforcement can be found in non-monetary rewards as well. Middle school Principal Dr. William Ziegler regularly roams the hallways with his iPhone in hand, and snaps a photo using its built-in camera when he finds students and staff members at their best, smiling and happy. The result is a popular web page called Principal Ziegler’s Travels, where his picture display gives students fleeting but well-deserved fame.

Pennsylvania’s education department has taken notice. It recently featured the middle school program in flyers distributed statewide, Koehler said, citing it as an example for others to follow.

Web page image from Pottsgrove Middle School

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PHOENIXVILLE PA – Visitors to Black Rock Sanctuary can spend this weekend among feathered friends.

A free morning bird walk to explore the meadows and forested areas of the park, 953 Black Rock Rd. (about 1-1/2 miles north of the borough on Route 113), will be held Saturday (Feb. 21, 2009) from 8-10 a.m. Instructor Vincent Smith, a naturalist and experienced birder in Valley Forge, will lead the expedition to learn about birds that regularly inhabit Black Rock’s natural areas, as well as those who just stop-by for a winter visit.

Participants can learn some techniques used to identify birds, such as birding by color, shape, song, and habitat. The program is open to beginners. Register by calling 610-469-1916 or download the available form.

Similar programs will be held March 21 (2009) and April 4 (2009).

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• None scheduled until Saturday (Feb. 21, 2009)

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A scene that's all too familiar: a line of traffic on Route 422 East snakes its way toward Trooper during a morning commute.

POTTSTOWN PA – For some drivers, the weekday morning crawl known as commuting on U.S. Route 422 east between Sanatoga and Trooper is never a problem. They read the newspaper, folded into quarters for easy handling, atop their steering wheel. They drink coffee. They chat on the phone or text to friends. Those who are grooming-challenged even shave with an electric razor or fix their make-up.

The rest of us just sit and steam, but maybe that can change beginning Wednesday (Feb. 18, 2009).

The 25-mile corridor.

The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC), which thinks about how we’ll be living here 20 years from now, is asking for a drivers’ point of view on the future of Route 422. It will hold the second of two local input meetings Wednesday from 6:30-9 p.m. in the community room of the West campus of Montgomery County Community College, 101 College Dr. The public’s invited to see what DVRPC thinks could happen along the highway, and to offer its own solutions.

• The commission will hold a similar meeting tonight (Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009) at the same times in the Oaks Elementary School cafeteria, 325 Oaks School Dr., Oaks PA.

The commission characterizes 422 as “possibly the single most important and fastest growing suburban expressway in the Philadelphia region, and an integral part of the inter-regional highway network.” It’s created a master plan for the future needs of the 25-mile-long corridor that includes roadway (lane) capacity, interchange design, connecting roadway improvements, transit alternatives and connections, and future land use plans.

Some of the plan’s ideas are familiar to Lower Pottsgrove residents. They’ve heard for several years about the need to re-design the highway’s interchange at Sanatoga. They’ve been encouraged by, and then disappointed by, see-saw speculation of whether commuter train service west from Norristown PA will ever return as a transit alternative.

Land use planning also is part of the DVRPC mandate. This parcel is on the north side of Route 422 at Limerick.

For people who aren’t familiar with those and other proposals, however, the DVRPC meeting will provide an introduction. Think of it as a sort of transportation fair. Booths in MCCC’s community room – the commission refers to them as “stations” – will display maps and renderings of land use and transportation conditions along the 422 corridor. Commission staff members will be available to answer questions.

DVRPC is the official metropolitan planning organization for the Greater Philadelphia region, consisting of nine counties: Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania; and Burlington, Camden, Gloucester and Mercer in New Jersey.

The input meetings are co-sponsored by an organization known as the U.S. 422 Corridor Coalition, which consists of the DVRPC and other planning organizations, a handful of municipalities (Limerick township is a member; Lower Pottsgrove is not), elected state legislators (including Lower Pottsgrove Rep. Tom Quigley), and corporate members (including Exelon Nuclear, the Philadelphia Premium Oulets, the college, Traffic Planning and Design of Sanatoga, and the TriCounty Area Chamber of Commerce).

Related:

• Train Service On The Front Burner Once More

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LOWER POTTSGROVE PA – If you needed, but didn’t yet buy, a converter box to receive digital television signals on your analog TV set, there’s no rush now.

Digital converter boxes on sale last week at Wal-Mart in Pottstown PA.

The much-promoted, federally mandated switch of the nation’s television stations from over-the-air to digital broadcasting was scheduled to occur at midnight tonight (Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009). It’s since been delayed until June 12 (2009) by Congress, which decided the $40-to-$60 cost of each box in homes with sets requiring them might be too much for consumers to bear in the current recession.

Customers with cable or satellite television service are not affected by the transmission switch. However, people who rely on set-top “rabbit ears” or an outside antenna atop their roofs would have lost all their TV channels by Wednesday morning (Feb. 18, 2009) without a converter box.

About a third of all full-power stations across the country have either already turned off their analog signal or applied to convert tonight, according to The Associated Press (AP).

Of 21 stations broadcasting from the Greater Philadelphia area, which might be received on TVs in Lower Pottsgrove, only three will end their analog broadcasts this evening, the Federal Communications Commission said. They are WTVE in Reading PA, WMGM in Wildwood NJ, and WMCN in Atlantic City NJ. The rest will wait until June.

Congress passed the law requiring the conversion in 2005. The change is intended to free up space in the nation’s airwaves for commercial wireless services and emergency-response networks. Digital broadcasts are also more efficient.

As part of the law, Congress also set up a fund that allowed each household two dated coupons for up to $80 in combined discounts on the purchase of two converter boxes. The fund ran out of money more than a month ago, but The AP reported around 100,000 coupons a day are still being mailed out as older coupons expire unused. Currently, it said, there’s a wait list of 4 million coupons.

Coupons are being distributed by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. It hopes to receive additional funding for the converter box rebate program when President Obama signs the national economic stimulus bill into law later today.

• AARP on Feb. 19 (2009) announced it was operating a national DTV call center its members can call through March 31 for personal assistance in transitioning from analog to digital television. For help, call toll-free 877-698-8068.

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POTTSTOWN PA – Back in the 1980s, as the United States and Russia were dismantling nuclear weapons under a treaty agreement, then-President Ronald Reagan encouraged a policy call “trust, but verify.” Reagan was willing to take the Russians at their word, he said, that their weapons had been destroyed, but he also wanted proof. To get it, he insisted that U.S. representatives oversee the work themselves.

Flash-forward to 2009 in the Pottsgrove School District, where the district Board of School Directors seems to have created its own version of trust-but-verify with its long-standing architect, Gilbert Associates of Lancaster PA.

Board members unanimously agreed last week (Feb. 10, 2009) to have Gilbert create three options for a limited refurbishment of the aging Ringing Rocks Elementary School. They want drawings and somewhat in-depth prices on 1) a bare-bones repair project; 2) a renovation and expansion that includes room for full-day kindergarten classes and needed space for existing programs; and 3) an in-between choice.

Directors trust Gilbert, board President Michael Neiffer emphasized, but they worry that the firm – which, like others in construction-related industries, is hungry for business – might go overboard in designing expensive options directors aren’t inclined to afford. So their verifying check against anything grandiose, suggested by board member Robert Lindgren, was to authorize payment for time and materials on the three options only.

Once they review those choices, which should be available within months, directors can ask Gilbert “to get down into the muck and work through (the renovations) with us,” board member April Kontostathis observed.

In making the request, directors announced their intent to hire Gilbert to complete work on the final project, which will include the up-front time-and-materials charges. When the architects first delivered their facilities feasibility study to board members last Sept. 24,  the estimated total cost of expanding Ringing Rocks – complete with a second-floor addition -  was $23.5 million. Directors have made it clear they’d like to cut the amount in half, if not more.

Besides saying what it would consider for Ringing, the board also attempted to ease public fears over future tax increases by flatly stating what it would not consider in other capital improvement proposals. Directors confirmed they would not pursue plans to expand Pottsgrove High School, add athletic fields, expand the district office, or add new space at Ringing for special education.

Pottsgrove School district residents attended a Nov. 11, 2008, meeting on the future of Ringing Rocks Elementary School.

The decision to seek options for Ringing followed two public gatherings, last Nov. 11 (2008) and  Feb. 3 (2009),  in which the board heard comments over the need for improvements at the school, and concerns over paying for their costs in a recessionary economy.

Board members also have been reminded that, as far as paying for whatever option they select at Ringing, time is their enemy.

The district in 2006 committed to what Business Administrator David Nester described as a $41 million “forward borrowing plan,” as a way to afford capital projects without exceeding limits later imposed by state law. The district’s total borrowing ability under the plan will drop April 15 by $65,000, Nester said; by the end of 2010, it will decline another $380,000, and thereafter will fall about $500,000 per year. “The sooner the board can make a decision (on how much it must borrow) would be helpful,” Nester noted.

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• DISTRICT GIRLS BASKETBALL VS UPPER MERION, Upper Merion, 7:00 p.m.

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