The Sanatoga Post

POTTSTOWN PA – An annual Bingo and Bling Night fund-raiser that benefits the choral department of Pottsgrove High School will be held Friday (Feb. 24, 2012) beginning at 7 p.m. in the high school cafeteria, Kauffman Road, Pottstown, and the public is encouraged to attend, choral Director Cynthia Foust reports.

• This event has been added to The Post calendar.

Filled Longaberger-brand baskets and sterling silver Silpada-brand jewelry are among the prizes offered. Dinner will be available for purchase; the doors open at 6 p.m.

Tickets cost $20 and can be bought at the door or in advance from Foust by calling 610-326-5105 Ext. 6501. Extra cards also will be available for sale.

Graphic from Potsgrove High School

POTTSTOWN PA – How does a school attract parents – who are busy with work, children, household chores, and the minutiae of daily life – to become more involved in its activities? A group at Lower Pottsgrove Elementary School, Buchert Road, Pottstown PA, hopes to answer that question.

The school’s Parent Involvement Committee will meet tonight (Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012) from 6-7 p.m. in its cafeteria, Principal Ruth Fisher said. On its agenda is an attempt to create what she called a “parent/teacher-friendly” survey that seeks information on family participation in education.

Of course, the meeting is open to Lower Pottsgrove parents.

Photo from Google Images

HOT AND JUICY FUND-RAISER AT UPLAND SQUARE – Who wouldn’t want to be served by these two colorful characters? Pottsgrove Middle School Assistant Principal Dr. David Ramage, left, and hamburger look-alike and Principal Dr. William Ziegler, were delivering meals to customers Tuesday night (Feb. 21, 2012) inside the Jake’s Wayback Burgers franchise at Upland Square Chopping Center in Pottstown. Franchise owners Lynda and Darryl Hendershot, who have long been active in Pottsgrove School District affairs, donated 10 percent of their sales yesterday between 4 and 8 p.m. to the Middle School Parent-Teacher Organization. Patrons also helped fill a PGMS jar sitting on the store’s counter, right, with additional cash.

POTTSTOWN PA – What were considered both extensive and expensive repairs to the hillside retaining wall and some support columns at the entrances of Pottsgrove Middle School on North Hanover Street are now not only completed but paid in full, following an approval granted last week (Feb. 14, 2012) by the Pottsgrove School District Board of School Directors.

Board members unanimously voted to pay the remaining $40,231 owed under an invoice from general contractor E.R. Stuebner Inc. The company’s work to rebuild the wall and support pilasters at the school, which is only 13 years old, was made necessary by water seepage behind its masonry that caused the blocks and mortar to crumble.

The total repair cost: $402,318.

Board members and district administrators acknowledge the wall and columns were poorly built, but claimed they could not pursue legal action against the original contractor. The original estimate of the project was for $381,000, but additional work required $21,318 in change orders.

Board Vice President Scott Fulmer was absent and did not vote.

Related:

• Wall Repair Done, Entrances Not Yet, At Pottsgrove MS
• Stripped, Naked And Worked Over At Pottsgrove MS
• Pottsgrove Board Awards MS Retaining Wall Bid, Others
• Pottsgrove Calls For Bids In MS Wall Repair Project
• Retaining Wall Tops Pottsgrove List Of Needed Repairs
• Pottsgrove MS Retaining Wall Needs ‘Significant’ Repair

One of the signs in West Pottsgrove

POTTSTOWN PA – In hopes of bringing more public pressure to bear on the Board of School Directors, as its mulls choices for redistricting in the Pottsgrove School District, lawn signs began popping up last week to reinforce opposition to a proposal that would create grade-level education centers in its elementary schools.

The signs appear on front lawns and at curbside of properties along Kauffman Road, North Pleasant View Road, East High Street, and North Charlotte Street in Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township; and in West and Upper Pottsgrove along Maugers Mill Road, Farmington Avenue, and Glasgow Street, Rick Rabinowitz of the “Pottsgrove Residents Against Centers” group indicated Monday (Feb. 20, 2012) in a Facebook post.

The group is fighting a plan, introduced by Superintendent Dr. Bradley Landis, to balance student population across Pottsgrove’s elementary classrooms by creating two kindergarten-through-second grade centers, and a third-through-fifth grade center. They would replace the current K-5 attendance at West Pottsgrove, Ringing Rocks, and Lower Pottsgrove elementaries.

The only other alternative discussed by the board is to re-draw attendance boundaries that wold shift students from one school to another.

Directors have said they will consider voting on the matter during their Feb. 28 meeting. The board last week (Feb. 14) confirmed the meeting would be moved from the administration building on Kauffman Road to the auditorium at Pottsgrove High School. It starts at 7:30 p.m., and is open to the public; a large audience is expected.

The group also is circulating petitions to gather signatures that it intends to demonstrate the centers’ plan is opposed by families without children in the district and those whose children have already completed their education, and not by parents of current students alone.

Related (to Pottsgrove School District redistricting):

• Bright Yellow Signs Flag Pottsgrove Centers’ Opposition
• The Case Against Centers in the Pottsgrove School District
• Pottsgrove Ed Centers’ Opponents Launch Petition Drive
• Pottsgrove Principals Distribute Redistrict Info Letters
• Debate Aside, Pottsgrove K-Classes Sign-Up Starts
• Pottsgrove’s Case For Education Centers, Take Two
• Pottsgrove Says It Will Work To Improve Public Notice
• Pottsgrove Centers’ Talks Subdued; Decision Delayed
• Notebook Worthy: Pottsgrove, The Master Of Brevity
• It’s Official: ‘Grove Meeting Moved To High School
• Pottsgrove’s Case For Ed Centers: A Nutshell View
• In ‘Horse Race’ Of Opinions, Pottsgrove Serves As Track
• ‘Grove Residents Want Proof Ed Centers Will Succeed
• ‘The Blues’ May Await Pottsgrove’s School Board Tonight
• Both Sides In Pottsgrove Redistricting Head To Facebook
• Pottsgrove Crowd Vocal In Opposing Educational Centers
• Advocate: Pottsgrove Centers ‘Best Access’ To Resources
• Debate Over Pottsgrove Redistricting Gets Started Tuesday
• No Matter What Plan Pottsgrove Adopts, Buses Ready
• 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

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

• Bright Yellow Signs Flag Pottsgrove Centers’ Opposition
• Casual, Smiling Pottsgrove Directors Pose For Yearbook
• Pottsgrove District, Teachers Resume Labor Negotiations
• March On! Pottsgrove OKs Buying Instruments, Uniforms
• Pottsgrove Multi-Tasks Through MCIU Budget Approval
• State Suspends $3.2M In Ringing Rocks’ Reimbursement

Photo by Tracy Swanson Romig via Facebook

WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE WHEN THEY’RE WORKING – It happens about this time every year: members of the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors are asked, just before a meeting, to assemble so a high school photographer can take their group picture for the annual yearbook. No one ever likes their fashion choices that day – they would have worn something different had they know this was coming, most board members say – but they all smile wonderfully nonetheless. The Post was positioned behind and to the left of the school photographer when this shot was taken last Tuesday (Feb. 14, 2012). Directors, from left, are Justin Valentine, Nancy Landes, David Faulkner, Philip Keogh, Jodi Adams, Theodore Coffelt, Michael Neiffer and Patricia Grimm; Scott Fulmer was absent.

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

• Casual, Smiling Pottsgrove Directors Pose For Yearbook
• Pottsgrove District, Teachers Resume Labor Negotiations
• March On! Pottsgrove OKs Buying Instruments, Uniforms
• Pottsgrove Multi-Tasks Through MCIU Budget Approval
• State Suspends $3.2M In Ringing Rocks’ Reimbursement

SANATOGA PA – An idea inspired by a prayer breakfast discussion of educational difficulties among families living in the Rolling Hills apartment complex on Buchert Road has blossomed into a tutoring-and-sports program at Coventry Christian Schools that recently won a $20,000 grant to boost its growth.

Coventry Christian's Lower Potsgrove campus

Coventry Christian, whose campus occupies the former Lower Pottsgrove Elementary School on North Pleasant View Road, received the grant from the Pottstown Area Health and Wellness Foundation for its Project Purpose program.

It offers private tutoring on Sunday and Wednesday nights with Rolling Hills students, most of whom attend the Pottsgrove School District. It also sponsors a basketball team, the Chesmont Hills Warriors, whose players must be enrolled in the tutoring program to ensure they are what Coventry Christian Director of Advancement Mark Fisher describes as true scholar-athletes.

• Read a story by reporter Frank Otto, titled “Coventry Christian School receives $20,000 grant” and published online last Wednesday (Feb. 15, 2012) by The (Pottstown PA) Mercury.

POTTSTOWN PA – Labor contract negotiations have resumed between the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors and the Pottsgrove Education Association, the union representing school district teachers.

Neiffer, at last Tuesday's meeting

A bargaining session was held during January, and others are scheduled for this month and during March, board President Michael Neiffer announced last Tuesday (Feb. 14, 2012) during the final minutes of the directors’ meeting at Pottsgrove Middle School. It is not known if talks were held before January as well.

That employers and employees are meeting again represents a change in light of the teachers’ turn-out at a board meeting last September, at which they complained the district had delayed discussions after union members agreed to a one-year wage freeze valued at $515,000. The wage freeze was a major factor in helping Pottsgrove minimize its tax increase for the 2011-2012 school year.

Dozens of teachers gathered to face directors in September, coincidentally also at the middle school, and voice their dissatisfaction over last summer’s lack of activity in negotiations. Neiffer at the time said the district was unwilling to talk separately about economic and non-economic issues, and anticipated talks would not be re-opened until the start of the new year.

Teachers at the time privately said the union considered bringing unfair labor practice charges against the district.

In his announcement last week, Neiffer offered no characterization of the negotiations or either side’s proposals. “We’re just continuing to meet,” he said.

Related:

• Teachers Challenge Pottsgrove Board: ‘Return To Talks’

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

• Pottsgrove District, Teachers Resume Labor Negotiations
• March On! Pottsgrove OKs Buying Instruments, Uniforms
• Pottsgrove Multi-Tasks Through MCIU Budget Approval
• State Suspends $3.2M In Ringing Rocks’ Reimbursement

CHINESE STUDENT DELEGATION JOINS THE FALCONS – A group of students and advisers from Harbin Normal University High School in Harbin, China, have been the guests this week (Feb. 12-18, 2012) of Pottsgrove High School. They’ve spent time learning about students, subjects, teaching methods and life here. During spare time they also visited the Philadelphia Premium Outlets in Limerick PA; Harrisburg, Hershey, Philadelphia; and Washington DC. They were honored Wednesday night during what school board President Michael Neiffer said was a “working dinner” for the Pottsgrove exchange program.

Photo from Pottsgrove High School

The assembled 2011 Pottsgrove High School Marching Band

POTTSTOWN PA – March on, Pottsgrove High School band members; march on. The district Board of School Directors said Tuesday (Feb. 14, 2012) it’s willing to put an additional $21,000 worth of pep into your step.

Directors voted to use a portion of about $60,000 raised in the district’s local merchant marketing campaign to pay in advance for marching band uniforms and percussion equipment. That allows the high school music department to place orders for those items before the end of March, ensuring their delivery for the 2012-2013 fall band season. Otherwise, it might not have gotten them until the season was almost over.

Band members, parents, and department heads applauded after the board decision.

Music education in Pottsgrove is happily suffering from a success problem, teachers Kathy Williams and Victor Holladay told the Board of School Directors last October (2011). Dozens of Pottsgrove Middle School students headed for the high school next year have already indicated they intend to join the band. Dozens more are ready to follow them from the elementary school music program in later years.

“The numbers are drastically improving,” Holladay said with a smile. “The band will more than double its size next year.”

Its fast growth, and its invitations to play later this spring in locations like Washington DC, have caused an immediate demand for percussion instruments valued at about $12,400 and 25 new band uniforms that will cost about $9,050, he explained Tuesday.

The department has already added those items to its 2012-2013 budget request. Problem is, Business Administrator David Nester noted, Holladay can’t spend what the board hasn’t yet approved … and potential acceptance of any budget remains months away. If the order is delayed, band members wouldn’t have their needs met until November or December.

Board President Michael Neiffer, who is a band volunteer and whose children are band members, notably abstained from voting. He announced his conflict of interest at the start of the discussion, but nonetheless advocated board approval of the advance purchase. “We don’t want to nickle-and-dime this,” he said specifically of the uniforms.

The money will be taken from revenue raised under the district’s partnership with the MarketStreet Sports Group of Lancaster PA. MarketStreet make a business of attracting local, regional and national companies to school districts primarily for advertising and promotional purposes. In Pottsgrove, it has signed the TriCounty Area Federal Credit Union, Mishock Physical Therapy and Associates, and Hallman Retirement Neighborhoods as clients.

The $60,000 fund was initially planned to be used for improvements and renovations to the high school girls’ softball field, Nester said. Enough money may be left to do that work too, he said.

Related:

• March On! Pottsgrove OKs Buying Instruments, Uniforms
• Successful Pottsgrove Music Programs On A (Drum) Roll

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

• March On! Pottsgrove OKs Buying Instruments, Uniforms
• Pottsgrove Multi-Tasks Through MCIU Budget Approval
• State Suspends $3.2M In Ringing Rocks’ Reimbursement