The Sanatoga Post

POTTSTOWN PA – Pottsgrove High School musicians won permission Tuesday (May 24, 2011) from the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors to play their hearts out next spring during competitive performances in Williamsburg VA scheduled by a Douglassville PA-based company, Festivals of Music.

Board members unanimously and without comment, during their second meeting of the month at the Pottsgrove School District offices, Kauffman Road, Pottstown PA, agreed the high school Music Department could conduct the overnight trip May 18-20, 2012, on behalf of students. The event will cost $325 per person, all of which is paid for by participants.

Related (to the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors’ meeting of May 24):

• Pottsgrove Musicians Win Williamsburg Trip Approval
• Pottsgrove Plans For Re-Assignments A Budget-Saver?

Photo from Clipart.com

POTTSTOWN PA – Two major administrative re-assignments appear on the agenda for tonight’s (Tuesday, May 24, 2011) 7:30 meeting of the Pottsgrove School District Board of School Directors, and if approved may foretell other changes that could save the district tens of thousands of dollars in its 2011-2012 tentative budget.

Among personnel items being recommended to the board by Superintendent Dr. Bradley Landis are:

• The transfer of Ruth Fisher, currently principal at West Pottsgrove Elementary School, Grosstown Road, Stowe PA, to become principal at Lower Pottsgrove Elementary School, Buchert Road, Pottstown, effective July 1; and
• The transfer of Theresa Koehler, currently the district’s supervisor of secondary education and assessment, to serve as Fisher’s replacement as principal at West Pottsgrove, also on July 1.

No mention is made in the agenda, released last Friday (May 20) by the district and available for download here, of current Lower Pottsgrove Elementary Principal Ellen Siegel. Siegel herself, however, announced last week in her online Principal’s Page message that she had tendered a letter of retirement.

Other board decisions or recommendations by Landis could change the circumstances, but it would appear that tips supplied May 8 to The Post were credible: the district seems poised to eliminate one administrative position – potentially that of Koehler – and re-distribute its duties among remaining administrators to reduce overall salary costs.

If enacted, those savings would further reduce or possibly even eliminate a projected budget deficit of up to $175,000.

Siegel’s message to Lower Pottsgrove parents, teachers and students described her decision to retire as “so very bittersweet. It really hits me when students run up to hug me, when they share their accomplishments, and when Lower graduates share with me how much they loved and miss Lower.”

“I feel such pride as I have observed the steady progress our students have made both academically and affectively,” she added. “I am so very proud and am in awe of the dedication of our entire staff and their continued quest for knowledge regarding best teaching practices.”

The message also revealed, however, that the selection of Fisher as Siegel’s replacement was considered a foregone conclusion although the board has yet to approve it. “I am confident that Mrs. Fisher will be highly successful as she, along with (Assistant Principal) Mrs. (Maryann) Johnson, work to fulfill the mission of our school and district,” she wrote.

Tonight’s board meeting is open to the public.

Related (to the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors’ meeting of May 24):

• Pottsgrove Plans For Re-Assignments A Budget-Saver?

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

• Pottsgrove Plans For Re-Assignments A Budget-Saver?
• Teamsters Agree, Too, On Wage Freeze For Pottsgrove
• Does Pottsgrove Have An Administrative Cut-In-Waiting?
• Red And Yellow Items Left On Pottsgrove Budget Table
• Pottsgrove OKs 2.8% Tax Hike In Tentative Budget
• Local School Boards Face Both Cuts And Policy Changes
• 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

Sewer contractors lay pipe in Lower Pottsgrove during March (2011)

POTTSTOWN PA – If at first you don’t succeed, Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township knows, try, try again. After having been previously denied a state grant to help pay for its multi-million dollar sewer system upgrade, now being installed, the township won $455,333 for the project in the latest round of Pennsylvania’s “H2O PA” program funding.

Receipt of the grant was publicly announced Thursday (May 19, 2011) during the Board of Commissioners’ second monthly meeting, but commissioners themselves got the good news more than a week ago.

The grant award was officially revealed May 6 by the Commonwealth Financing Authority, as part of $172 million it approved for 160 water infrastructure projects in 51 counties.” I am glad we were able to quickly and efficiently get these critical funds into the hands of our communities,” said Department of Community and Economic Development Secretary C. Alan Walker.

“These investments will be a great help to cash-strapped municipalities that need to upgrade their aging and deteriorating water infrastructure systems,” Walker added.

Lower Pottsgrove most recently applied for up to $1 million in funding, but hey, who’s complaining?, Commissioner James Phillips joked last week when asked about the sum. The money will help pay for $4.7 million in improvements for Lower Pottsgrove’s connection to the borough of Pottstown‘s water treatment plant.

The sewer upgrades serve both to solve problems with the township’s system, criticized by the state Department of Environmental Protection, and to expand sewer capacity commissioners anticipate will be needed for commercial growth surrounding the Sanatoga interchange of U.S. Route 422.

The H2O grants were established during 2008; Lower Pottsgrove initially applied for funding during 2009, the first year in which grant money became available. It didn’t win then, although the boroughs of Pottstown, Phoenixville, Schwenksville and Birdsboro, among others, did. Township Manager Rodney Hawthorne at the time said he was discouraged, but not overly so.

“We’ll make some adjustments, tweak the application a little, and resubmit it,” he said at the time.

Those tweaks apparently worked.

POTTSTOWN PA – The last piece of the Pottsgrove School District‘s juggling exercise in labor agreements has fallen into place, district spokeswoman Beth Trapani said Monday (May 23, 2011), as unionized school custodial and maintenance workers voted during the past weekend to voluntarily have their wages frozen for the next 12 months – along with all other Pottsgrove employees – to help reduce costs in its 2011-2012 tentative budget.

Pay raises on ice for 12 months

About 30 workers who are members of International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ Local 384 of Norristown PA voted to accept no increase in their wages during the coming school year, even though the three-year labor contract they signed with the district in 2009 entitles them to a pay increase of 2.65 percent.

Their act of generosity, Trapani reported in a press release, will save the district $40,000. She claimed the Teamsters’ vote to follow the actions of district teachers, administrators and secretaries likely makes Pottsgrove the first school system in Montgomery County to obtain a district-wide pay freeze for next year.

The district will combine the Teamsters’ reduction with those offered by …

• Members of the Pottsgrove Education Association, which represents the bulk of the district work force – its teachers – and who were the first to propose a voluntary pay freeze. It will save about $515,000, Trapani said earlier; and
• The district administrative team – consisting of Superintendent Dr. Bradley Landis and his staff, down to school principals and assistant principals – and their accompanying secretaries, saving another $70,000.

“I am pleased to see all of our employee groups pull together in these difficult economic times to preserve programs for our students,” Pottsgrove Board of School Directors‘ President Michael Neiffer said in the release.

The school board, which meets tonight (Tuesday, May 24) at 7:30 p.m. in the district office on Kauffman Road, Pottstown PA, on May 10 approved a $57.3 million tentative budget that includes all but the new Teamsters’ increment and proposes to raise district property taxes next year by 2.8 percent. It also includes a $175,000 deficit, which if necessary will be covered by a withdrawal from the district fund balance.

With the Teamsters’ help the deficit should now stand at $135,000, and it could be lowered even more if the board makes other budget changes before its official adoption as final next month.

The teachers’ acceptance of a freeze, urged in part by their state leadership, was celebrated earlier this month as a watershed event in the budget process. Their current three-year labor contract with Pottsgrove was set to expire Aug. 31 (2011). In exchange for a 12-month pay-raise hold, the district agreed to avoid teacher layoffs or demotions for the same period; other terms of the contract remain in place.

In addition, a group of about 70 volunteers who made up a Community Budget Task Force found roughly a million dollars in proposed savings acceptable to directors. There’s even more money to be saved in some task force recommendations, but they need further consideration, Landis said.

The clearest indicators of progress on the budget are the deficit and tax rate increase numbers. Slightly more than a month ago the deficit stood at about $2 million; now it represents only 6 percent of that total. Some district residents and at least one board member, Philip Keogh, think the proposed 2.8 percent tax rate increase remains too high. Keogh said he’d prefer to see it come in at about 2 percent.

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

• Teamsters Agree, Too, On Wage Freeze For Pottsgrove
• Does Pottsgrove Have An Administrative Cut-In-Waiting?
• Red And Yellow Items Left On Pottsgrove Budget Table
• Pottsgrove OKs 2.8% Tax Hike In Tentative Budget
• Local School Boards Face Both Cuts And Policy Changes
• 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

POTTSTOWN PA – Although supporters of the Pennsylvania Senate’s program to create a school voucher system have postponed a vote on that plan, possibly until the fall, the Pottsgrove School District and others that stand to lose more state funding if the proposal goes through have wasted no time making their opposition to it publicly known.

Superintendent Dr. Bradley Landis, left, and Pottsgrove school board President Michael Neiffer talk before the board's May 10 meeting

Senate leaders last week reportedly struggled to work out differences with state House representatives, among them Lower Pottsgrove’s Rep. Tom Quigley, who would prefer vouchers as part of an expanded but somewhat more subdued tax-credit program. Meanwhile, the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors earlier this month (May 10, 2011) joined the growing chorus of their colleagues in asking taxpayers and voters to fight the effort.

The board’s statement of protest was neither original or unique. It basically filled in the blanks with its name, or that of the district, on a cookie-cutter form distributed by the state School Boards’ Association. It did, however, receive unanimous approval in condemning plans to let state educational funding “follow the student,” as one advocate calls it, rather than stay with the district where the student lives.

School boards across the state have signed similar pronouncements.

Pottsgrove estimates it annually hands about $70,000 in state funding over to so-called cyber-charter schools online in which its former students have enrolled. Directors contend that a voucher program robs the district of needed funds to educate all children, and instead favors families with both the desire and ability to have their children attend cyber-charters or other privately operated schools.

Their resolution also claims “there is no consistent evidence to demonstrate … students who utilize vouchers make any better academic progress in non-public or private schools than they did (before) transferring” from pubic schools. That’s intended to counter an argument from proponents who charge public schools are poorly educating students and have, by a lack of performance, created a demand for school choice.

• A signed copy of the Pottsgrove resolution is available for download from the district website, here.
• Watch a video, above, of a press conference last month (April 12, 2011) in Harrisburg conducted by the Pennsylvania League of Women Voters and other groups that oppose school vouchers, or see it at the YouTube account of user PSBA video, here.

Related (to education tuition vouchers):

• Pottsgrove Board Officially Opposes School Vouchers
• Local Rep. Quigley Favors Tax Credits In School Choice
• PA Senate School Choice Vote Possible Next Week
• Two Unions Break Ranks, Back State School Vouchers
• Idea: Pottsgrove Might Prosper With Own Charter School
• Choice Amendment Would Remove Vouchers’ 3rd Year
• Teacher Unions Say Budgets, Vouchers Top Their Agendas
• Poll Claims Public Opposes Tuition Vouchers
• Senate Education Chair Preps For Voucher, Choice Battle

Related (to the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors’ May 10 meeting):

• Pottsgrove Board Officially Opposes School Vouchers
• In Under 2 Minutes, Pottsgrove Spends A Mil Or So
• ‘I Gotta Go?’ Pottsgrove Holding Summer School (Again)
• Latest Pottsgrove Special Education Costs Questioned
• Six Pottsgrove Coaches + Five Camps = Busy Summer
• Pottsgrove 2012 Travels Include Italy, Latin America
• School Board OKs Personnel Items Affecting 25 Positions
• Does Pottsgrove Have An Administrative Cut-In-Waiting?
• Red And Yellow Items Left On Pottsgrove Budget Table
• Pottsgrove OKs 2.8% Tax Hike In Tentative Budget
• Teachers’ Contract Extension On Pottsgrove Agenda

Cover of the 50th anniversary edition of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

POTTSTOWN PA – If Guy Montag, the protagonist of science fiction writer Ray Bradbury‘s award-winning 1953 novel “Fahrenheit 451,” had a Facebook page, would anyone have the courage to write on its wall?

It’s an esoteric question, to be sure. To answer it, you probably need to know that “Fahrenheit 451″ is about book-burning censorship in a fictional, anti-intellectual post-1990s America; that Montag is a bad-guy book-burner turned book-saving hero; and that the novel itself remains required reading for most 8th- and 9th-grade students.

None of that needs explaining, though to 8th-graders in the Pottsgrove Middle School, North Hanover Street, Pottstown PA, classes of language arts teachers Susan Smith and Richard Royce. As an exercise that blended one of the world’s most popular online social media platforms with literary understanding, Smith and Royce recently had their readers create imitation Facebook pages for characters in Bradbury’s novel.

What might Montag say in his Facebook profile?, the teachers challenged students. How would his wife, Mildred, look in her thumbnail photo? And could secretive book lovers ever dare reveal themselves by writing encouragement to a man who eventually proved willing to rescue copies of The Bible and other important works from the flames?

The project “allowed students the opportunity to make sense of what they have read by constructing a product while also using technology,” Smith explains. It also gave them a chance “to make display some personal choices – which character they wanted to profile, (or) pictures to represent that character – in their work,” she says.

Not a bad way to learn while having fun, the teachers surely reasoned, but shhhh! … don’t tell that to the kids.

POTTSTOWN PA – A Sanatoga resident, a well as nine from Pottstown, three in Royersford, and 10 others from Boyertown, Pennsburg, Collegeville and Phoenixville were among 71 students from Montgomery County Community College’s Class of 2011 were named last week to Who’s Who Among Students in American Junior Colleges.

The Who's Who Book

To qualify for Who’s Who, students must have graduated during the 2010-2011 academic year with a grade point average of at least 2.75 and must be nominated by a member of MCCC’s faculty or staff.

The honored group includes

• Maria Kelley of Sanatoga;
• Kerri Cruz, Juliet Kabatt, Joge Maddux, Nicholas Natale, Eric Scott, Kelly Spieth, Cristie Underwood, Kim Weber, and Nicole Weising, all of Pottstown;
• Michael Anderson, Caitlin Norris, and Hannah Thompson, all of Royersford;
• Paul Goraczko and Lauren O’Neal of Collegeville;
• Jenna Kulp and Antonio Marrero of Pennsburg;
• Ashley Beutler, Megan Byrum, Jessica DeStefano, Karen Vasko, and Jonathan Zadrejko, all of Phoenixville; and
• Rebecca Krick of Boyertown.

Photo from Who’s Who

Can you spare a pint?

POTTSTOWN PA – Nine blood collection drives begin today and continue through June 4 (Saturday, 2011)  in Lower Pottsgrove, Pottstown, Limerick, Douglassville, and Gilbertsville PA, conducted by the Miller-Keystone Blood Center.

Drives are scheduled for:

• Today (Monday, May 23) from 1:30-8 p.m. at New Hanover United Methodist Church, 2211 Swamp Pk., Gilbertsville PA;
• Friday (May 27) from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, 410 W. Linfield Trappe Rd., Limerick PA;
• Sunday (May 29) from 11 a.m to 7 p.m. at Bruster’s Ice Cream, 241 W. Ridge Pk., Limerick PA;
• May 30 (Monday, Memorial Day) from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Subway, 955 Ben Franklin Hwy. West, Douglassville PA;
• June 2 (Thursday) from 9 a.m. to noon at Sealstrip, 103 Industrial Dr., Gilbertsville PA;
• June 2 (Thursday) from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Diamond Credit Union, 1600 Medical Dr., Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township;
• June 3 (Friday) from 8 a.m. to 12:40 p.m. at National Penn Bank, 401 Creekside Dr., Pottstown PA;
• June 3 (Friday) from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Coventry Christian School, 962 E. Schuylkill Rd., Pottstown PA; and
• June 4 (Saturday) from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Monarch Fire Company, 50 Pennsylvania Avenue, Douglassville PA.

Appointments are required and may be made by calling the blood bank at 610-926-6060.

Photo from Clipart.com

DRIVE BENEFITS POTTSGROVE MUSIC LEAGUE – Volunteers like Pottsgrove High School parent Kristina Keer, left, and Velva Zarley, president of school’s Music League, will be on hand again today (Saturday, May 21, 2011) from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the band trailer in the parking lot of Pottsgrove High School, 1345 Kauffman Rd., Pottstown PA, to collect clothing and other used items in a fund-raiser to benefit the league’s activities for students. The drive opened Friday night (May 20) and in only four hours received more than 40 bags of items, below. Wearable and usable clothing items of all kinds for men, women and children are being accepted, including shoes, belts, handbags, and linens (bedding, curtains, towels), as well as stuffed animals, hard toys, and other items. League members ask donors to ensure all materials are placed in tightly tied plastic bags.

Photos for The Post by Aimee M. Herbert, Aimee Marie Photography

POTTSTOWN PA – Linda Rudolph, a branch manager for Diamond Credit Union, headquartered on Medical Drive in Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township, has been named “Campaign Chairperson of the Year” by the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania for her work during the past five years as the leader of United Way fund-raising for the financial institution.

Linda Rudolph, center, is honored by Diamond Credit Union CEO John Faust, left, and United Way President Jill Michal

Rudolph’s honor was presented last week (May 11, 2011) during the non-profit agency’s 2011 United Way Champions for Impact Breakfast held at RiverCrest Country Club in Phoenixville PA.

One of Rudolph’s accomplishments, United Way organizers said, was her ability to promote campaign participation from Diamond’s entire staff each year.

“It is a privilege to have been able to work with the United Way over the past five years. This is a cause I truly believe in, and I have been fortunate to share the mission of the United Way with employees at Diamond … This award would not be possible without their support and generosity,” Rudolph said.

Diamond’s 2011 United Way campaign resulted in contributions totaling more than $27,700, according to credit union President and CEO John Faust. The credit union has enjoyed full employee participation in its United Way campaign for 10 consecutive years.

Diamond Credit Union is the 18th largest credit union in Pennsylvania. It holds more than $355 million in assets and includes more than 40,000 members.

Photo from Diamond Credit Union