POTTSTOWN PA – For 36 Pottsgrove High School students, “Xuéxí” – a phonetic translation of the simplified Chinese word (seen at left) for “learning” – seems to become more complicated every year.

District Assistant Superintendent Shellie Feola delivered the budget task force Educational Programs Committee report Tuesday to the Pottsgrove school board

The students have been involved since January (2011) in an online, or “cyber,” school program to learn the Mandarin Chinese language, because the Pottsgrove School District couldn’t hire a suitable substitute teacher. Its only Mandarin expert quit her job last December (2010) after budget cuts of the previous year reduced her full-time hours by two-thirds.

Now the district Community Budget Task Force has proposed eliminating Mandarin entirely as a course offering, to save $23,661 of a roughly $2 million deficit in the district’s preliminary 2011-2012 budget. Meanwhile it also is promoting establishment of a cyber-charter school, ironically similar to the online Mandarin program already in use, as a possible way to bring disgruntled district families back to the Pottsgrove fold.

The district under Pennsylvania law must pay cyber-charters an average of $7,000 annually for each student whose families are somehow unhappy with Pottsgrove’s classroom experience and opt instead to go online. The task force suggested a district cyber-charter might initially attract 10 students. But it would need time to set up a program, members acknowledged, and did not attach any cost estimates for its creation.

Both the Mandarin and cyber-charter school recommendations are products of the task force Educational Programs Committee. It and five other committees of volunteers delivered cost reduction and revenue-raising suggestions last Tuesday (April 12, 2011) to the Board of School Directors, after researching and weighing options since February.

Cumulatively, the committees’ suggestions could close the deficit gap by about $1 million. There may be more, too, in savings explored but to which not all committees’ members could agree and therefore were not included in their reports.

If approved, cuts to the Mandarin program would represent its students’ second consecutive year of sacrifice to help balance district books. Such sacrifices are inevitable, observers contend, under a poor economy in which federal and state education funds are shrinking and always-despised district tax increases can’t be afforded, much less tolerated.

Of the 36, 29 students are taking Mandarin 2, a beyond-entry-level course, and seven others are taking more advanced Mandarin 3, high school principal Chris Shaffer told school board members on Jan. 11. His teacher had already submitted her resignation; the district had $11,134 remaining in its 2010-2011 budget for Mandarin education; and no acceptable substitute was available, he added.

As an option, Shaffer suggested the high school contract with “My Chinese 360,” an online Mandarin program approved for grades K-12. It uses certified language teachers in the U.S. and China and what it calls “innovative educational technologies to connect with American students in real-time, creating a virtual classroom experience.”

That’s the same sort of attractive experience the Educational Programs Committee hopes Pottsgrove could provide in a cyber-charter school.

School board members liked Shaffer’s idea, and agreed. The cost for My Chinese 360 for the remainder of the school year: $8,966. “The administration should be applauded for finding this kind of alternative,” director April Kontostathis said at the time.

Whether the alternative exists over the next 12 months will also be up to the board. Mandarin students could think of the decision, whatever it is, as another “Xuéxí” opportunity.

Related (to the Pottsgrove School District 2011-2012 budget):

• Pottsgrove Chinese Language Students Face Cuts Again
• Pottsgrove Task Force Didn’t Shelve Pay-To-Play Plan
• Committee: Charter School May Save Pottsgrove $70K
• Pottsgrove Paying $28K Next Year For MCIU Support
• Secretary Says Schools Must Find Funds Themselves
• College Students Protest Proposed Ed Budget Cuts
• Pay Freeze Endorsed As Pottsgrove Labor Talks Start
• Pottsgrove High Protesters Exercise Art Of Compromise
• Pottsgrove’s Landis Distributes State Fund Comparison
• Pottsgrove Budget Deficit Balloons With Gov’s Proposal
• MCIU Budgets On Pottsgrove Schools Agenda Tonight
• PA House OKs ‘Cut And Replace’ On Education Funding
• Idea: Other Local Schools Consider Extracurricular Fees
• Idea: Pottsgrove Might Prosper With Own Charter School
• Pooling Resources Could Save Pottsgrove On Special Ed
• Like Pottsgrove Task Force, Outsiders Weigh Cost Vs. Value
• Task Force Crowd Packs Into Pottsgrove For First Session
• School Budget Task Force Kicks Off Its Work Tonight
• Does Western PA School Tax Uprising Foretell Mood Here?
• Pottsgrove Schools Budget Short Another $400,000
• Pottsgrove, As Expected, Adopts Budget First Draft
• Pottsgrove Tentative Budget Adoption Expected
• Weather Postpones Pottsgrove Budget Meeting
• Still Time In Pottsgrove For Budget Volunteers To Enlist
• Challenge To Pottsgrove Budget Advisers: 10 Percent
• Best Guesses, Deficit Launch Pottsgrove Budget Season
• Senate Education Chair Preps For Voucher, Choice Battle
• School Board Questions Pottsgrove Recreation Costs
• Pension Reform Vote Could Benefit Pottsgrove, Others
• Notebook Worthy: News Reporters Made News Tuesday
• Pottsgrove Isn’t Waiting In Search For Budget Volunteers
• If You’ve Got A Budget Idea, Pottsgrove Says It’ll Listen
• Pottsgrove Seeks More Public Input On District Budget

Related (to the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors’ April 12 meeting):

• Pottsgrove Chinese Language Students Face Cuts Again
• Pottsgrove Task Force Didn’t Shelve Pay-To-Play Plan
• Committee: Charter School May Save Pottsgrove $70K

Feola photo for The Post by Aimee M. Herbert, Aimee Marie Photography