The Sanatoga Post

Bruce Castor and Jenny Brown

NORRISTOWN PA – The two endorsed Republican candidates campaigning to become Montgomery County (PA) commissioners in the fall general election said Wednesday they strongly opposed any plans to impose tolls on motorists using U.S. Route 422 between King of Prussia and Reading PA.

“Taxpayers have already paid for Route 422, and tolling in this circumstance is not appropriate,” said Jenny Brown, a tax attorney and local business owner. Her running mate, current Commissioner Bruce Castor, announced his opposition earlier; “County residents are taxed enough for their services in difficult economic times,” he told a newspaper last week, and added, “a toll is a tax.”

Brown and Castor joined what they called “growing opposition to the toll proposal.” State lawmakers also against tolling include Lower Pottsgrove, Limerick and Pottstown Rep. Tom Quigley, as well as Reps. Michael Vereb (R-150th Dist.), David Maloney (R-130th), Marcy Toepel (R-147th), and Warren Kampf (R-157th).

Brown is a founding partner at the Bridgeport PA law firm of Brown & Silbergeld, where she specializes in municipal finance. Castor is a former two-term county district attorney, and now works as a private attorney at the Elliot Greenleaf law firm in Blue Bell PA.

Related (to U.S. Route 422 Corridor planning):

• County Candidates Brown, Castor Oppose 422 Tolling
• Quigley, Other Reps Questioning 422 Tolls Proposal
• 422 Toll Proposal Wins Some PA Commission Backers
• Exec Highway Group To Hear Rt. 422 Tolling As ‘Model’
• 422 Questions Answered, For Your Viewing Pleasure
• In 422 Tolling, Planners Say, Studying Doesn’t Make It So
• Former Reporter Asks Commissioners To Support 422 Tolls
• Online Survey Seeks Opinions On Local Road Congestion
• 422 Plus Project Plays Offense With FAQs Debut
• Peering Into The Future? Gov’s Bridge Proposal And 422
• Another Township Endorses 422 Master Plan
• Neighboring Limerick Supervisors Endorse 422 Master Plan
• Understand 422 Plan Endorsement, Lower Pottsgrove Advised
• Lower Pottsgrove Holds On 422 Plan Endorsement
• Engineers Claim PA Roads Worse Now Than In 2006
• Tuesday Session Tackles Funding For 422 And Elsewhere
• Tolls, Lower Pottsgrove Station Part Of 422 Plan
• Pending Decision May Affect Route 422 Projects
• Last Day For Your Say On Route 422 Plan
• Notebook Worthy (Aug. 24, 2009)
• Consultants Express Interest In Studying 422
• Don’t Like 422 Tolling? Website Wants Your Alternative
• Truckers Alerted On Highway Partnerships Bill
• In 422 Debate, Time A Hindrance And Help
• Notebook Worthy (June 29, 2009)
• Growth, Planners Say, Is 422’s Growing Problem
• Tech Used To Draw For 422 Meetings
• Route 422 Toll Meetings Next Week
• 422 Repairs, Delays Start Tuesday
• 422 Proposal, Like Traffic, Creeps Ahead
• Got A Route 422 Idea? Time To Air It
• Train Service On The Front Burner Once More

HARRISBURG PA – Pennsylvania’s education secretary says he has “serious” doubts about the accuracy of employee evaluations conducted statewide by school districts and other education agencies, which rated the performance of 99.4 percent of their teachers as “satisfactory” even though a quarter or more of state students score below proficiency levels in reading or math.

The Pottsgrove, Pottstown, and Spring-Ford Area school districts were among those that generally gave teachers overall high marks for performance during the 2009-2010 school year, the ratings for which were released last Wednesday (June 8, 2011).

At the same time, a significant portion of their students weren’t being properly educated, Pennsylvania Education Secretary Ron Tomalis blasted.

The results “raise serious concerns about the quality of the evaluation system and whether it has any relevance to what happens in the classroom,” Tomalis said. The statistics are “a clear indication that our current evaluation system is in major need of change,” he added.

Across all five Pottsgrove schools during 2009-2010, according to a summary of its evaluations,

• 96.2 percent or 229 of 238 employed teachers were rated satisfactory by administrators.
• Eight teachers, or 3.4 percent, were not rated for various reasons.
• Only one teacher – an unidentified employee at Lower Pottsgrove Elementary School who represented 0.4 percent of the district’s entire instructional workforce – was deemed “unsatisfactory.”
• During the same year, according to the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA), 21.5 percent of Pottsgrove students only met or fell below basic math skills levels, and 26.7 percent only met or fell below basic reading skills levels.

Across all seven Pottstown schools, its summary showed,

• 91.2 percent or 217 of 238 teachers were rated satisfactory.
• Two other teachers, representing 0.8 percent, were rated “satisfactory with improvement needed;”
• 18 teachers, or 7.6 percent, were not rated; and
• Only one teacher – a unidentified employee at Pottstown Middle School representing 0.4 percent – was considered “unsatisfactory.”
• For the same period, Pottstown PSSA scores show, 28.6 percent of its students only met or fell below basic math skills levels, and 35.2 percent only met or fell below basic reading skills levels.

Across all 12 Spring-Ford schools, its summary showed,

• 99 percent or 572 of 578 teachers were rated satisfactory.
• Six other teachers, representing 1 percent, were not rated.
• Not a single teacher in Spring-Ford’s employ during the 2009-2010 year was considered unsatisfactory.
• For the same period, according to Spring-Ford’s PSSA scores, 8.5 percent of its students only met or fell below basic math skills levels, and 13.3 percent only met or fell below basic reading skills levels.

“The current system makes it extremely difficult to be rated as unsatisfactory,” Tomalis charged. A new evaluation system has been proposed, and could be in place by the 2012-2013 school year.

POTTSTOWN PA – Approval of the Pottsgrove School District’s final budget for 2011-2012 will be delayed until almost the last minute, after the Board of School Directors split Tuesday (June 14, 2011) in a 4-4 tie over a proposal that could have lowered next year’s real estate tax increase to a locally unprecedented 1.8 percent.

As it now stands, the board’s last approved budget – its “tentative” $57.3 million spending plan accepted May 10 – carries a 2.8-percent property tax hike that Business Administrator David Nester said would cost the average Pottsgrove home owner an additional $115 next year.

That’s low compared to tax increases discussed in neighboring districts, but it could be lower still.

Directors were equally divided over a suggestion by board member Philip Keogh that would have sliced the tentative budget’s tax increase by about a third, to an average of $74. Keogh proposed the board take money directly from undesignated reserve funds, the district savings accounts, and use them to both cover an anticipated $300,000 budget deficit and further whittle down the increase.

His plan counted, in part, on Nester’s belief that the state Legislature will restore before September about $375,000 in district funding previously cut by Gov. Tom Corbett. But even if that money didn’t come through, Keogh said, the district could still pay the difference with cash in the bank; money, he noted, that district taxpayers had already put up.

Three other directors – David Faulkner, Fred Remelius, and Jodi Adams – voted with Keogh in favor of the plan. Four opposed it: Nancy Landes, Patti Grimm, Scott Fulmer, and Michael Neiffer. Director April Kontostathis was absent (she had previously announced she would be unavailable), and so the proposal, which needed 5 votes to pass, died.

Final budget approval must be made before June 30; the board has scheduled a June 27 meeting for that purpose.

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

• Plan To Further Cut Pottsgrove Tax Hike Dies In Tie
• Pottsgrove Cuts Admin Job Among Leadership Changes
• 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

Related (to the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors’ June 14 meeting):

• Plan To Further Cut Pottsgrove Tax Hike Dies In Tie

SIGNS WARN AREA DRIVERS – Roadside signs near the Rupert Road bridge crossing Hartenstine Creek (above) on the east side of Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township, as well as on Pruss Hill Road just west of the Woodgate residential community, went up late last week to warn motorists of limited access and occasional closures there. The southbound lane of Rupert, for dozens of feet before the bridge, and also near its intersection with Woodgate Lane, were partially closed Monday (June 13, 2011) so Reid Paving Company of Gilbertsville PA can fix road surfaces there. That work continues today (June 14), too. On Pruss Hill, intermittent closures are expected through Wednesday (June 15), another sign said.

POTTSTOWN PA – School buildings close their doors for the summer this week in the Pottsgrove School District, but the librarian, principal and assistant principal at Pottsgrove High School let students know Sunday (June 12, 2011) that learning doesn’t stop when formal teaching officially ends.

They distributed an e-mail introducing the high school summer reading program, which includes substantial changes from years past.

Pottsgrove’s summer reading list has been criticized by students, parents and members of the Board of School Directors during the last two years as being boring, uninspired, and in the word of one school board member, “blech.” At the time, students were required to read several books, and report on them when school resumed.

That requirement? Gone.

Students this summer are being asked by high school library reading specialist Danielle Moore, Principal Chris Shaffer, and Assistant Principal Yolanda Williams to choose a single book and, when they get back to school in August, to talk about it in a discussion group with others who read it too.

Students also must complete a project that reflects their completion of the book, but that assignment is intended to appeal to their creative instincts. They can write a blog entry about what they’ve read, or make a video tape of a scene in the book they’ve acted out with friends, or take photos that depict the experiences of one of the characters in a selected book.

“Our mission,” they explained in Sunday’s message, “is to have students read for pleasure, and to enjoy picking up a book to either learn or just relax with!”

The summer reading list consists of 31 choices offered by Moore and others at the high school, complete with categories about who might find the books interesting, and quickly read summaries of their stories or content. Those assembling the selections “felt each title was unique and special to the students’ interests,” the e-mail said.

All titles are available to physically check out from the library; some are available as e-books on a library web page; and for those who prefer to buy rather than borrow, the high school is providing coupons for a 10-percent discount on purchases at the Towne Book Center and Cafe in the Providence Town Center shopping complex, 130 W. Main St., Collegeville PA.

While any one book of the 31 is a must-read, students who spend their summer whiling away the hours with their noses between pages, reading several books, also can earn extra credit as either distinguished or honors-level summer readers. Those accomplishments, the e-mail noted, can be listed on school transcripts … a motivator for those interested in hitting college books later in life.

The Goddard School in Sanatoga, and its owner (inset), Ed Shaw

SANATOGA PA – Fathers are more involved in their children’s lives as decision-makers and caregivers than ever before, according to national research conducted for The Goddard School for Early Childhood Development and distributed locally Monday (June 13, 2011) by Ed Shaw, owner of the Goddard School franchise in Sanatoga.

Top 10 areas in which fathers are most focused on their children’s welfare, listed in what the study said were their stated order of importance:

• Providing basic needs (food, clothing, shelter);
• Providing and maintaining a safe home environment;
• Giving financial support;
• Ensuring children have a good education;
• Teaching children to respect their mothers;
• Providing health care;
• Supporting their children’s mothers;
• Telling their children they love them;
• Understanding and relating to their children’s problems; and
• Spending quality time with their children.

The findings were drawn from a survey of more than 1,000 fathers across the United States.

Compared to an abundance of available research on mother-child relationships, there is significantly less information “on father-child relationships and fathers’ roles in the home,” according to child psychiatrist and Goddard adviser Dr. Kyle Pruett. “We felt it was imperative, given the changes in the family in recent generations, to look into the importance of fathers in the lives of our nation’s children,” he said of the research.

Today’s fathers “want to learn more about their child’s (pre-school educational) program, experience the overall environment, and understand what their child will be learning … before they commit to enrollment,” Shaw added.

The local Goddard school is located at 2074 E. High St., Pottstown PA. Others are located in Gilbertsville and Royersford.

POTTSTOWN PA – Americans tightened their belts in the weak economy, and reduced credit card debt by an average of 15 percent since last May (2010), a national credit news service reported Thursday (June 9, 2010). Even with less debt, though, average credit scores – the yardstick most banks use to determine whether or not to loan money – also dropped, it said, by about 3 points to an average of 667 during the same 12 months.

All the more reason, a Pottstown lawyer and Lower Pottsgrove resident might contend, for local consumers to know what their credit reports say about them. “If you have a credit card, any other kind of loan or even unpaid bills, there is a credit report about you!,” writes attorney R. Kurtz Holloway, and understanding what it tells others is important, he adds.

Holloway this month (June) authored an article titled “Credit Reports Explained,” that was published on the website of his law firm, Wells Hoffman Holloway & Stauffer LLP, 635 E. High St., Pottstown PA. Read it in full, here.

Reporting agencies, which collect credit information on almost every individual and provide it to financial institutions for their loan decision-making, most commonly use a standardized scoring system to rate personal creditworthiness, Holloway wrote. The score can range from 300 to 850; the higher your score, he noted, the better the credit rating.

In a separate article, which coincidentally appeared last week, Collections & Credit Risk magazine reported that – despite the factn many consumers cut their debt – overall credit scores went down too. The reason, it said, was a combination of prolonged unemployed among some of those who owe money, and declining real estate values that adversely affected their level of personal wealth.

As of last month, Collections & Credit Risk said, the average consumer owed a total of $6,740 on his or her credit cards. That’s down from about $7,700 over the past year.

Things elsewhere in Pennsylvania were worse, the Collections & Credit Risk report cited. Consumers in the Harrisburg-Carlisle PA area, it said, are among five communities nationwide that currently “have the highest amount of credit card debt in the country, at $7,000 or more.”

Other statistics noted in the Collections & Credit Risk story:

• Average mortgage debt nationwide fell 2 percent over 12 months to $172,957;
• Consumers increased auto loan debt 2 percent to $15,217;
• Home equity debt fell by 5 percent to $48,310; and
• Student loan debt increased 5 percent to $29,680.

Holloway, who also serves as solicitor for Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township, wrote that consumers can obtain free copies of their credit reports each year from each of three credit reporting agencies, here. Free copies also are available by calling 877-322-8228, Holloway wrote.

Graphic from TheDigeratiLife.com

SAN FRANCISCO CA – Valtech Corp., the Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township manufacturer of epoxy adhesives, molded polymers, coolants and detergents used in the solar panel industry, says it will be among the exhibitors July 12-14 (2011) at the Intersolar North America convention in San Francisco’s Moscone Center.

Valtech, with headquarters at 2113 Sanatoga Station Rd., Pottstown PA, will occupy Booth 9115 at the show. The company also operates a research and development facility in Livermore CA, has a manufacturing plant in China, and also operates offices in China, Thailand, and the Philippines.

Photo from Google Images

Coming soon in Lower Pottsgrove, Limerick and Pottstown: tech way to keep bad guys at bay

POTTSTOWN PA – Your home television system could soon be part of a home security system, if you’re a customer of Comcast Corp.

Comcast – which provides cable television and other services to homes in Lower Pottsgrove, Limerick and Pottstown under franchise agreements with each municipality – will begin offering home security services using its Xfinity brand name, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported Thursday (June 9, 2011).

Like traditional security services, it will feature burglar and fire alarms, and a 24-hour monitoring service, the newspaper said. But it also allows subscribers to get streaming video from wireless cameras they deploy in their home, adjust digital thermostats and turn lights on or off, and get e-mail or text alerts when doors open or close or when motion detectors report activity.

Comcast began offering the service in Houston TX in the middle of last year, according to The Journal, and this week made it available in its Philadelphia, Chattanooga and Nashville TN, Naples and Sarasota FL, and Portland OR markets. The service reportedly is available in most of Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware counties.

• Read a story by reporter Peter Key, titled “Comcast home security available in six markets including Philadelphia” and published Thursday by the Philadelphia Business Journal, here.

PITTSBURGH PA – With the once-a-decade redrawing of U.S. congressional lines on the horizon at the state capitol in Harrisburg PA, about 60 attendees jammed into a Pittsburgh area meeting room Thursday (June 9, 2011) for a two-hour public hearing on the subject, The Pittsburgh (PA) Post-Gazette newspaper reported.

Legislators from joint state House and Senate government committees heard a consistent message from speakers, almost all of whom asked that the final districts do not slither through the middle of municipality or county lines, its story said.

Redistricting, as the process is called, could affect Congressional representation for Lower Pottsgrove and Limerick (PA) Townships, and the borough of Pottstown, local politicians agree. Concerns voiced by greater Pittsburgh residents have been heard as well in western Montgomery County.

Pennsylvania currently has 19 congressional districts, but after the results of the 2010 census it must cut the number to 18, the newspaper noted. That means carving out district lines among the state’s 67 counties that as closely as possible all share the same number of constituents. The lines are approved through state legislation – agreed to by the Republican-controlled House and Senate and signed by GOP Gov. Tom Corbett – so they are inevitably subject to political whims, too, it said.

• Read a story by reporter Timothy McNulty, titled “State committees begin Congressional redistricting talks” and published Thursday by The Post-Gazette, here.
• Read redistricting news aggregated from several sources by the Stateline online news service, here.

Related:

• Congressional Redistricting Process Under Way In Harrisburg
• Audience Packs Congressional Redistricting Hearing
• Business Of Pennsylvania Redistricting Gets Started
• Is State’s Redistricting Already Less Than Transparent?
• Local Congressmen Attend State Redistrict Meeting
• Lower Pottsgrove May Again Be In Redistricting Battle

Logo from Stateline.org