Fort Cherry considers change to public comment policy

Fort Cherry's current meeting policy calls for seven-day notice of public comments at school board meetings. However, the board hasn't enforced that policy, instead letting audience members talk without advance notice. Some board members want to enforce the policy, another thinks the timeframe should be five days instead of seven and another thinks the way it's done now is fine.
What do you think Fort Cherry should do?

South Fayette School District Superintendent resigns

Linda Hippert resigned as the South Fayette superintendent Monday night. Her resignation is effective June 30. She is taking a job as executive director of the Allegheny Intermediate unit.

More merger talk

Cambria County state Sen. John Wozniak still wants a government commission to study how to consolidate Pennsylvania schools. His idea is similar to what Gov. Ed Rendell proposed earlier this year.
Wozniak wants a 15-member commission that would hold 20 public hearings around the state before putting forward a plan to realign districts, according to the Associated Press.
Rendell said the state should aim for about 100 school districts, but Wozniak isn't setting a goal yet.
What do you think? Should there be mergers? If so, how should it happen? If not, why not?

Property Tax Relief

Today's topic is property tax relief. As part of Governor's Rendell's promise to lower the property tax burden on the individual home owner this measure was developed as means to try to develop balanced for School District funding.

The money to provide relief is derived from the proceeds of the gaming revenue when slots were legalized in Pennsylvania.

The concept is fairly easy, use gaming proceeds to lower property taxes for the individual home owner. The program is revenue neutral in the fact that money the property owner does not pay in the form of real estate taxes is offset by proceeds from the gaming revenue delivered by the state to the individual School Districts.

Since the severe down turn of the economy in late 2008 there was some concern if "property tax relief" would be available in 2009. My understanding is that yes, in some form there will property tax relief in 2009 but whether the current economic conditions have affected the amounts available have yet been seen.

The estimated amount of property tax relief has not yet been made public by the state. Once those numbers are released by the state the qualified home owner's will be able to see if he/she can expect the same kind of tax break that they received last year.

Are cyber bullies more of a threat that sexual predators?

Experts that I talked to said that children are much more likely to come in contact with cyberbullies than online sexual predators. They, and area students, say the phenomenon of cyberbullying is growing. One poster commented on my story that this is just a new form of bullying - many of the folks I talked with agreed. Essentially those who are bullied don't have a safe haven at home any more unless they are not going online or know how to block cyberbullies.
What do you think can be done about it?

Budget Process

Hi folks, I wanted to discuss the Budget process which will dominate your local paper for next two months.

Depending on your Act 1 status (legislation passed 3 years ago to offer property tax reduction) your District has to pass a preliminary Budget in either January or May.

Contrary to what some people think, 80-85 % of the budget has fixed costs such as labor contracts, health benefits and transportation. This leaves very little wiggle room to actually trim expenses.

In Washington County where there is a wide difference in the property values among the various School Districts this becomes a difficult for the School Administration and School Board to present a balanced budget that does not raise taxes.

Also what may make it difficult is adjusting to State and Federal mandates that often are not fully by the governmental bodies passing down these programs.

In order to be effective,(in my opinion) you must have total cooperation at all administrative levels to produce a functional budget. There must be coordination between curriculum needs, projected enrollment and a realistic view of your revenue structure.

Please look at your District's budget over the next few months, it is not as simple as you may think. A lot of work goes into this process in order to meet every one's needs.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask.

Cyberbullying

This weekend, I will have a story about cyberbullying. Experts I've talked to say that children online are much more likely to deal with cyberbullies that sexual predators. My story includes tips for parents if their child is a victim and information about preventing cyberbullying. I'll have a link to it after it's on the Web site Sunday.
In the meantime, I'm curious what you think can be done to stop cyberbullying.

An alternative to the graduation test requirements

A coalition has outlined an alternative to the graduation competency test requirements that call for students to pass tests in a number of subject areas to graduate.
The Coalition for Effective and Responsible Testing said a valid assessment should not depend on a single test score and that a student who fails its tests would not necessarily be prevented from getting a diploma.
The coalition said their voluntary tests could eventually supplant the 11th grade Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests to show the yearly progress that is required by federal regulations.
What do you think should happen? Should Pennsylvania students have to pas tests to graduate?

Should Washington move seventh and eighth graders to the high school.

Washington had a community meeting Monday to unveil schematic designs for the high school. The building needs renovated before seventh and eighth grade move there. The board is expected to make a decision in June.
What should Washington do?

Do whatever it takes. It's never too late. Never give up.

Bill Sanders, author of "Chicken Soup for the Teen Soul," was in the area last week, talking to students and parents in Washington, Canon-McMillan and McGuffey. To find out more about his time spent here, visit our Web site.
What do you think of his advice?

McGuffey offers reward for bomb threat

The McGuffey School Board is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those involved in two bomb threats in the past week. Anyone with information can contact administrators.

403 B Regulations

Hi, as promised I would discuss some of the topics covered at the PASBO conference two weeks ago.

One of the relatively new regulations to come to public school Districts is the regulation of 403B plans from the IRS.

403B plans are investment plans similar to a 401K but used in the non-profit/education sector. For years the schools made payroll deductions and remitted the money to the various TSA Companies (AUL, Lincoln, ING, etc..) with no real paper trail or way making sure that the employees were following IRS rules in handling these accounts.

In August, 2007 the IRS issued Procedure 2007-71 which set guidelines for the administration and monitoring of these accounts effective January 1, 2009.

The key change was that the school districts were to appoint a Third Party Administrator (TPA) to monitor all transactions between their employees and their respective TSA's.

This change has led to school districts (an other non-profits) in developing an action plan that would be compliant under the IRS rules. Not only would current employees be monitored but any employee with a 403B after January 1, 2009 who left your employment would have to be tracked for compliance.

Most School Districts in Washington County selected a independent TPA to handle this issue. The costs were small and it enable Districts not to tie up hours of staff time dealing with paper work.

How these regulations play out in the long run remain to be seen, but hopefully this will prove to be one Federal Regulation that doesn't cause too many headaches.

Building Successful Families Presentation

Washington High School, partnering with the National Character Education Foundation, will host Bill Sanders, contributing author of the best- selling book “Chicken Soup for the Teen Soul”, on Thursday, April 16th at 7 p.m in the high school gymnasium. This presentation, Building Successful Families, is open to the public and children over 12 years old. Mr. Sanders will be addressing students on the benefits of good character and will be sharing what it took for him to achieve his wildest dreams.
Bill Sanders speaks to over 200,000 people each year. He has appeared on numerous TV shows and spoken on over 400 radio stations.
Sanders encourages students to work hard in school and stresses that achieving good grades is important. Students will be captivated by Bill’s exciting presentation. This assembly is fast moving, laughter filled, thought provoking, and for many parents and students a life-changing experience.
Sanders’ message addresses current youth cultural issues and encourages students to overcome life obstacles, work hard, and never give up. Some of the topics covered will be: How to maintain a positive outlook on life, developing teamwork in the family, how to open communication channels, understanding today’s teenager better, the harm of drugs and depression, how to beat peer pressure, and much more!
Bring your student and come out to hear this inspiring speaker.

So ... is that stimulus coming?

Some districts say they don't think they will get their piece of the federal pie because of a letter sent by several state Senate leaders. Those leaders are asking districts to be cautious with their budgets because until the state budget is approved, there is no promised dollar amounts for school districts.
Should districts be getting some of the stimulus or is it OK to move money around the the budget to fill holes and not give schools a windfall?

Picking your SAT scores

A new policy allows students to pick which SAT scores they want to send to colleges for the application process, according to the Washington Post. Before now, all scores were sent to colleges, no matter how many times students took the test.
Should students be able to pick their scores or should all of them be sent to colleges?

Should the Washington School District make an effort to recruit minority teachers?

The Washington School Board decided this week to send a hiring team to predominately minority colleges to recruit qualified teachers. The team will have the authority to hire immediately. Currently, more than 30 percent of Washington students are minority, most of them are black. Seven of the district's teachers are minority and one of those is retiring. Board members say it would help students to see more teachers who look like them in the front of the classroom. Some posters commented on the story I wrote that race shouldn't play a role at all. Another poster said the district should be recruiting qualified teachers of all races.
What do you think?

Plan Con

Hi folks, I am back after attending the PASBO Conference in Valley Forge last week. I will try with each of these upcoming blogs touch a subject covered by the conference.

This blog will touch on the Plan Con process, which is State program to reimburse School District's for building contruction or renovations to existing structures.

The Plan Con process which has listed parts A-K walks a School District through this process. The time frame for renovation is 20 years from last time a building was constucted or renovated.

Issues covered by this process include feasibilty studies, enrollment changes and educational purposes for any planned project. Additional consideration is used for projects with LEED (Green) technology or projects using Plan Con based designs.

Projects such as Athletic Facilities, Air Conditioning or other non-educational projects are not reimburseable under the Plan Con process. This is just a summary of the process.

Normal construction time frames usually take 3-5 years depending the scope and type of project (New Construction vs Renovation).

The Plan Con process provides School Districts the opportunity to get low interest loans from state to fund these projects and provide a reimbursement to the schools for using Plan Con.

Again this is just a summary, if you would like PDE has website to look up the Plan Con documents. www.pde.state.pa.us

The profile police

I have had numerous conversations with people about what students, both under 18 and in college, put online. A few years ago, I spoke with one college administrator who took pictures of students off of Facebook and Myspace and put them up on the bulletin board outside his office. The message was clear - what you put on the Internet is not as private as you think it is.
Now, according to the Washington Post, school police are using that to their advantage. They are searching social networking sites for campus-related crimes.

University of Maryland cancels weekend showing of porn flick

This definitely makes for an interesting First Amendment discussion. Does a state government have the right to withhold money if a university plans to show a hard-corn porn movie or is it taking away the university's First Amendment rights? According to the story, no state dollars were involved - the showing was free. Are there limits on what can be shown on a college campus? If not, why not. If so, what are they?

To Cell or Not to Cell?

Just about everyone has a cell phone these days, what did we ever do before we had them? In contrast, most schools do not allow the use of cell phones by students. In fact, phones are confiscated if found in use during the school day by many teachers. However, Karl Fisch, who is a teacher in a Denver school district, has a different perspective. I am having mixed feelings about this topic and just wondering what everyone else thinks. Mr Fisch comments in his blog The Fisch Bowl, that we should embrace the new technology of cell phones and use it for good. He made a very thought provoking video called What If? that likens our ban on cell phones to a time in history when schools were against the ballpoint pen. This idea seems silly now, years later. Will our ban on cell phones seem silly 10 or 15 years from now?