The Sanatoga Post

Pottsgrove Business Administrator Daid Nester, standing at right, discusses bus transportation with members of the elementary redistricting committee Tuesday night

POTTSTOWN PA – Accusations flew Tuesday (Nov. 29, 2011), during the last of four meetings of the Pottsgrove School District’s Elementary Redistricting Committee, as several of its volunteer members charged administrators with selectively presenting facts to make a case for significant change in the way kindergarten through fifth grade classes are organized.

At issue are two proposals to balance attendance and reduce class sizes at Lower Pottsgrove, West Pottsgrove, and Ringing Rocks elementary schools. The first would simply re-draw map lines that determine which children attend which schools. The second would dramatically overhaul the buildings’ populations by creating two centers housing grades K-2, and a third with grades 3-5.

“I think some of the facts are slanted. I think the administration wants the centers. I get the feeling this is a done deal,” a first grade teacher and committee member claimed. Others – some parents, some teachers – readily agreed. “It’s hard to see” why the centers proposal is being considered, one added, “when it’s such an easy change to just move the boundaries.”

Superintendent Dr. Bradley Landis denied any bias in presentations to more than 30 committee members since their meetings began in October. He acknowledged favoring the centers model, however, because in his opinion it “makes it easier … to improve academic achievement.”

Busing rutes could change somewhat under either edistricting proposal, Nester said

The committee disbanded without making any recommendation on either proposal to the Board of School Directors. Instead, Landis said, its findings will be presented Dec. 6 to board members, three of whom attended Tuesday’s meeting, and will be followed by another month or more of research and discussion.

“The board will debate the pros and cons,” Landis said, “and we’re not going to be rushing this through.” There will be at least three opportunities, he promised, “to gather public comment.” He did expect, however, that the board would act to adopt one of the two choices by no later than the end of January 2012.

Vocal opponents of the centers model, who claimed to represent a committee majority, considered the timetable too hurried. “We’ve talked about this for only four meetings in six weeks,” one man noted. “That’s awfully fast to get something like this approved. I only hope the (school) board gets a fair, very clear representation of what we’ve talked about here.”

“Every family in the district would be impacted by a move to centers,” another offered. “Moving a line affects a hell of a lot less people.”

Elementary redistricting is being examined as additional classroom space becomes available at Ringing, thanks to its new construction, and at Lower, and in the face of increasingly crowded conditions at West. It also coincides with the prospect of even tighter budgeting during 2012, as Pottsgrove anticipates more state and federal funding cuts coupled with an unwillingness by district property owners to pay more in taxes.

The consolidated centers model would reduce the need for some teacher travel between buildings, and might even reduce the need for some staff positions, the school board has been told. It provides “a much more efficient use of space and resources,” Landis repeated Tuesday.

Beyond that, committee member and Pottsgrove Middle School Principal Bill Ziegler said, it also allows Pottsgrove to institute full-day kindergarten classes. “We should jump at that,” he said. “We can’t fiscally have those in our current model.” Music teacher Kathy Williams added that consolidation would focus learning among smaller student groups, which she believes would help improve Pottsgrove’s state-measured academic progress.

Related (to Pottsgrove School District redistricting):

• Redistricting Info ‘Slanted,’ Pottsgrove Volunteers Charge
• Pottsgrove Redistrict Discussions Quietly Move Ahead
• In Pottsgrove, Redistricting Study Work Gets Started
• Pottsgrove Sets Dates For Redistrict Committee Work
• As Expected, Interest A’Plenty In Pottsgrove Redistricting
• Landis Calls For Pottsgrove Redistricting Volunteers
• Touchy Pottsgrove Redistricting Now Being Considered

Lower Pottsgrove's municipal building.

SANATOGA PA – A special meeting of the Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township Board of Commissioners – previously scheduled for tonight (Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011), and during which bids for the township trash collection contract could have been discussed – has been canceled.

A notice announcing the cancellation was taped Tuesday (Nov. 29) to the front door of the municipal building, 2199 Buchert Rd., Pottstown PA, and also appeared on the township website. No reason was given.

The latest round of bids for the multi-year, multi-million dollar garbage contract were opened last Monday (Nov. 21), after an earlier set of bids supplied by four vendors were rejected for various deficiencies. There were indications Tuesday morning that commissioners instead planned to discuss and vote on accepting one of the new bids during their Dec. 5 (Monday) scheduled meeting.

The board may also consider approval Dec. 5 of the township’s tentative 2012 budget, Manager Rodney Hawthorne has said.

Bag assembly volunteers gathered earlier this month in Sanatoga, and will unite again Dec. 8, to help create special holiday gifts for ill children

SANATOGA PA – Sometimes, Andrea Mazzenga believes, the best gift offered during the holidays can be a gift of time.

Mazzenga, whose family operates the Buttercup Beads beaded crafts shop at 2151 E. High St. in the Sanatoga village shopping district, called Monday (Nov. 28, 2011) for volunteers to donate a couple of hours and their talents for a “bead bag sew-a-thon” scheduled for Dec. 8 (Thursday) at 6 p.m. in the store. They’ll assemble and sew decorated carrying bags given under the national Beads of Courage project to children with severe illnesses.

• This event has been added to The Post calendar.

“Our last get-together (earlier this month) was really fun,” Mazzenga said in an e-mail. That’s when a volunteer group, consisting mostly of store patrons, cut material for the bags and started sewing. “Now that we have all the material cut, we could sure use more bag assemblers and sewing machine operators. We should be able to get the rest done,” she wrote.

If you’re handy with a sewing machine and have some time to spare, Mazzenga noted, this is a perfect charitable opportunity. And if you’re all thumbs with a needle, that’s no problem; there are plenty of non-sewing tasks too. “Please join us to assembly line Bead Bags for the kids,” she asked. “We’ll go until we run out of fabric or drop to the floor … whichever comes first!”

More than 40 bags are already completed. She’s hoping to finish several dozen more before they must be shipped to project recipients. For more information, call 484-524-8231.

The colorful, decorated bags bring a smile to the faces of children, and serve a useful purpose too

Photos from Buttercup Beads

POTTSTOWN PA – Wednesday (Nov. 30, 2011) will be the last day Y-Ties will be available for sale this season at Lower Pottsgrove Elementary School, Buchert Road, Pottstown PA, school representatives say.

Y-Ties are brand-name products for quick fasteners for shoes, sneakers and boots. “They are selling quickly,” teacher Melissa Vishio and Mrs. Cies reported in an e-mail. “We have sold over 240 Y-ties to date. (They make) great stocking stuffers or rewards for those awesome report cards.”

Two new colors – sapphire blue and emerald green – are among those being offered. Y-Ties cost $4 per pair for shoes and sneakers, and $5 for bootlaces. Sale proceeds benefit the school health and physical education departments.

Photo from Google Images

POTTSTOWN PA – Pottsgrove High School’s championship-winning football team (a great-sounding phrase, isn’t it?) will benefit from a whole lotta bingo playing this Sunday (Dec. 4, 2011).

The Falcon Football Club will hold a bingo game fund-raiser beginning at 1 p.m. in the cafeteria of the high school, Kauffman Road, Pottstown PA, to help cover expenses of the year-end football team banquet. Tickets cost $20 and cover 20 games. Food will be available. The cafeteria doors open at noon.

• This event has been added to The Post calendar.

Special games will be conducted, with filled baskets as prizes, and door prizes also will be offered.

Photo from Google Images

By Glenn Isett
of the Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society,
for The Sanatoga Post

SANATOGA PA – The 2011 NASCAR season is now history, although news regarding last weekend’s (Nov. 20, 2011) Sprint Cup finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway has not yet seemed to die down. Sixty years ago, though, the points race had already been decided not in November but October, and specifically by Oct. 28, 1951, when the final 200-lap race was held at the Sanatoga Speedway.

Jimmy Ryan was points champion; Mose Moore was second and Monk Keller was third.

Gone but not forgotten: the fifth-mile Sanatoga Speedway, near what is now Sanatoga Park

Sanatoga’s place in racing history

Sanatoga Speedway was built in 1937 by Ed Moll, John Sweetwood, and Nick Pelacotti, near what is now Sanatoga Park.  It was a 1/5-mile flat asphalt track, and remained that size until its untimely demise.  It was primarily a midget track until 1941 and then closed during World War II.

With the end of the war, the racetrack obtained new ownership – and new showmanship – in the person of George Marshman. During the 1948 season he began racing “stock cars.” This was roughly a year before NASCAR held its first race in mid-1949.

The stock cars of Sanatoga were unlike the racers of today. They were primarily window-less, fender-less 1930-1940 Ford coupes, with an occasional Chevy or Dodge, and what was known then as a two-door sedan thrown in.  Most had flat head Ford V8 engines and three-speed on-the-floor transmissions.

How a grueling season gets rougher

By 1951, the season ran from April to October and included 47 meets.  This was possible because in many weeks there were two meets, and on Memorial Day, there was an afternoon and night program. Adding to this grueling schedule was the format of the program itself.

Depending on the number of entrants, there would be heat races of eight to 10 laps. Drivers who finished in the top 10 qualified for a semi-final. Then there were usually two semi-finals made up of the heat qualifiers. Again, there were a number of qualifiers for the feature race of usually 25 laps.

But, wait! There was one more chance to get into the feature event.  All non-qualifiers could race in a consolation race and usually the top two would qualify for the feature. It was possible that drivers could run four races in one meet. Just to show the tenacity of a champion, on May 30, 1951, Jimmy Ryan won the afternoon feature and finished third in the night feature.

Folks loved the race, but came for the show

Marshman, the showman, in 1954 hosted a demolition derby that featured a Sherman tank. It was always a thrill to see a car go through the wooden back fence only to have it come crashing back through further down the backstretch.

Long after he left the business, Marshman finally admitted that the fence-crashing was staged.  The fence was very loosely constructed near the beginning and the end of the backstretch.  There was a rudimentary road for the driver to follow, and there was a spotter near the entrance to the third turn to wave him back through to the track when it was all clear.

Suddenly, the roar was no more

In 1958, placards began appearing to herald the arrival of the fastest drag strip in the area. Land was cleared in preparation, but suddenly it all ended, without explanation. The once bustling, noisy, thriving attraction that drew thousands weekly was silenced.

Mother Nature has slowly taken back what was originally hers, except for a few random patches of macadam that can be found among the weeds and high grass. Old racing aficionados will tell you with a note of pride and a hint of misty-eyed melancholy that “this is where the fourth turn was.”

Editor’s note: The Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society was formed in 1985 to share the heritage of Lower Pottsgrove Township with its residents. It meets on the second Wednesday of every month at its museum and offices in the former Sanatoga Chapel, 2341 E. High St., Sanatoga PA. Author and society member Glenn Isett has joined society President Beth Scherer in writing about Lower Pottsgrove history monthly for The Post.

Articles in this series:

• Love NASCAR Now? You Would Have Adored Sanatoga
• Timeless Treasures Fill Historical Society Chapel Offices
• Hilltop’s Still Making History, 59 Years After Opening
• Historic Answer To Heat: Township Swimmin’ Holes
• Need A Local Hotel? There Once Were Four, Right Here
• What’s Changed Most In ‘Grove Grads? Their Schools
• Shantz’s Mound Presence Made Sanatoga ‘Pheverous’
• Stars Danced In Lower Pottsgrove Long Before TV Show
• Never Heard Of Sanatoga’s Longview Hotel? Here’s Why

Photo from the Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society

A sign outside the Sanatoga Fire Company congratulates the team

WHITEMARSH PA – It’s time once again to celebrate being a Pottsgrove Falcon.

The Pottsgrove High School football team on Saturday (Nov. 26, 2011) beat Phoenixville 42-13 and won its second PIAA District One title in three years. The Falcons will next face District 11 winner Archbishop Wood (12-1), which ended their 2009 bid for a state title.

• Read a story by writer Dave Conard, titled “Falcons Win District Title” and published Sunday by The Pottstown Patch online news service, here.
• Read a story by Sports Editor Don Seeley, titled “H.S. FOOTBALL: Pottsgrove rolls Phoenixville” and published Sunday by The (Pottstown PA) Mercury newspaper, here.

POTTSTOWN PA – To give parents a visual and written idea of what’s been keeping their students at Lower Pottsgrove Elementary School busy during their opening months of this year’s education, Principal Ruth Fisher has done a little scrapbooking.

Fisher on Wednesday (Nov. 23, 2011) posted a three-page, photo-filled virtual scrapbook (it’s a downloadable Adobe Acrobat document) to Lower Pottsgrove’s page on the Pottsgrove School district website.

• Find it here, but beware; it is a 9Mb file that, even with a fast Internet connection, can take a little time to load.

The scrapbook shows how kids at Lower Pottsgrove, Buchert Road, Pottstown PA, have been serving their community by making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for those in need of lunch; what they’ve been doing in class to honor veterans and observe Thanksgiving; and the way they were entertained by members of the Pottsgrove High School theater troupe production of “Mother Goose Inc.”

Photo from Lower Pottsgrove Elementary School

POTTSTOWN PA – OK, so maybe things weren’t picture-perfect the day your son, daughter or grandchild had their school photo taken earlier this year at Lower Pottsgrove Elementary School. Maybe there was a stain on her blouse, or a cowlick sticking up from the back of his head, or – worst yet – they wore the exact same clothes for last year’s pix.

Time for a re-do.

LifeTouch, the school’s photography vendor, will have one of its photographers make a return engagement to Lower Pottsgrove on Tuesday (Nov. 29, 2011) from 1-2 p.m. in the building on Buchert Road, Pottstown PA. You can have photos re-taken during that time, a Pottsgrove School District e-mail advises.

However, the complete photo package already brought home by the kids must be returned in its entirety for the retake, the district said. And if a child was absent during the first photo day and will be seated Tuesday for his or her first portrait, the order envelope distributed by LifeTouch and the payment due must be brought to the re-take session.

For more information, call the Lower Pottsgrove Elementary office at 610-323-7510.