Thursday, April 29, 2010

State education secretary: Students benefit from transfer system

Thousands of college transfer students from across Pennsylvania have benefited from a new, statewide system designed to maximize the number of credits they can transfer and count towards a college degree, according to a new report announced today by Education Secretary Gerald L. Zahorchak.
The report on the Pennsylvania College Credit Transfer System revealed that in 2009 alone, students saved nearly $35.4 million by having their transferred credits count towards a degree, according to a state Department of Education news release.
The report also shows that since 2007, there has been a 15 percent increase in the number of students transferring from Pennsylvania community colleges to the universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, or PASSHE. In 2006, Governor Edward G. Rendell signed into law Act 114, which required all community colleges and PASSHE schools to identify a minimum of 30 credits that would be guaranteed to transfer between schools.
Thirty-two institutions have guaranteed credit transfers through PA TRAC. Three private institutions and one state-related university also participate. Penn State, Temple and Pitt will join Lincoln University and the Pennsylvania College of Technology in the credit transfer system starting this fall.
The new system created a “Transfer Credit Framework,” which is a list of courses that represents the type of coursework that is generally completed during the first and second year of a student’s bachelor degree program. Students can transfer up to 30 credits, or 10 courses, of Framework courses to any of the participating institutions and have those credits count toward their degree.

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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Fort Cherry drills Range Resources about its plans

McDONALD – Range Resources representatives met with Fort Cherry School Board and district residents Monday night to answer questions about potential gas well drilling on school property.
Board members questioned attorneys about air quality, safety of students and truck traffic. Range already has property leased for drilling around the school property.
The company has leased enough property around the school campus to begin drilling, said oil and gas properties broker Lawrence Edelstein.
“We’re not here to force the district to participate. We’d love it if you will,” he said.
He said Range will drill vertically 6,500 feet to the Marcellus Shale and then drill horizontally. From the well site near the school, Range plans to drill 10 wells. Five wells will be to the west and five to the southeast, said Range contract landman Michael Hopkins. Should the board agree to a lease, there will be no surface drilling on school property, Edelstein said.
School board member Chris Lauff asked what Range does about air quality because that issue came up during the public comment portion of the meeting.
“We abide by all laws,” Edelstein said, adding that other environmental concerns are brought up in communities, but air quality doesn’t come up that often.
He said Range has worked hand in hand with other municipalities to resolve environmental issues and would do the same with Fort Cherry.
Lauff also questioned the truck traffic that would occur at the entrance to the drilling site that is across the street from the entrance to the school property.
Edelstein said Range had to come up with a similar solution for Trinity Area School District. He said some trucks will be staged to reduce traffic during hours when buses are running.
“It is not in our best interest to compete with bus traffic,” he said.
Since the school is across the street from the drilling site, Lauff asked how Range will protect students from accessing ponds and equipment there.
Edelstein said the site will be fenced in and the company will have security there.
Lauff also questioned whether Range has background checks for its employees and subcontractors. Edelstein said there is some level of checks, but he didn’t have more details.
Board member Brant T. Miller questioned if Range was planning to have bunkhouses on the site, and if so, would employees have the same clearances as school employees.
Edelstein said a decision hasn’t been made about the bunkhouses.
Range is working on the site now and within months will begin drilling. The length of time will depend on how many wells are drilled, Edelstein said.
The discussion came after a few residents questioned the board about the drilling.
Dorothy Bassett of Midway told the board about articles she read in oil and gas journals about vapor capture technology that prevents toxic gases from going into the air and eliminates need for giant frac pits, she said. The wells should not be completed without that technology, Bassett said.
Lillian Reynolds of Robinson Township said she is worried about the air quality since some students have respiratory problems.

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Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Rendell nominates new education secretary

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Gov. Ed Rendell is nominating a veteran of the state Education Department to be next state education secretary.
Rendell announced the nomination of 52-year-old Thomas Gluck on Monday.
Gluck has served as the No. 2 administrator in the department for the past five years. He will succeed his boss, Gerald Zahorchak, who is taking a new job as superintendent of the Allentown School District.
Gluck worked at the Milton Hershey School in Hershey, the State System of Higher Education and the state Senate before joining the Education Department.
The Pennsylvania School Boards Association praised the nomination, which must be confirmed by the Senate.

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Monday, April 26, 2010

Trinity may shuffle some students

Trinity Area School Board is considering whether to move eighth-graders to the high school and fifth-graders to the middle school.
The board also is considering whether to end full-day kindergarten and whether to redistrict students out of Trinity West Elementary because of overcrowding concerns.
The discussions came up during Thursday’s school board finance committee meeting. No decisions have been made.
Finance committee members asked Superintendent Paul Kasunich to come up with a preliminary report about the impact of those changes on education programs and finances. He will have a report for the board in May.
Jim Manley, the consultant hired by the board to review the district, recommended in his March report that the board consider redistricting as well as moving eighth-graders to the high school and creating primary centers. He said all options should be considered to gain space.
School board member Dennis McWreath said there would probably be greater flexibility of educational programs for eighth-graders if they were at the high school and for fifth-graders if they moved to the middle school.
McWreath said he also wanted to know if it would be better for the district financially.
If fifth-graders were moved to the middle school, there would be enough space at Trinity West and no need for redistricting, he said. McWreath said there is enough room at the middle and high schools to move the students to those facilities.
“If it is a good idea from an educational standpoint and it’s a good idea from a financial standpoint, then I think it should be done sooner rather than later,” McWreath said after the meeting.
During the meeting, he questioned whether the changes could be done for the fall.
Superintendent Paul Kasunich said it would be a more efficient use of staff and it would give eighth-graders more educational opportunities.
However, he said when it happened at a previous district he worked at, there were parental concerns about eighth-graders being in the same building as 12th-graders. He said the district didn’t see a lot of problems from having that grade grouping in one building.
Logistically, he said, the change would not be a problem. But should the board decide it wants to go that route, Kasunich suggesting explaining it to the community over the course of a year.
“It’s one thing to see it on paper,” he said. “It’s another when it affects your son or daughter. Then it’s personal.”
Kasunich said he’s concerned that the community buy in to the idea, or at least, understand the benefits of it.
“If implemented correctly, none of them would be detrimental to kids,” Kasunich said.
Board member Colleen Interval said if it’s going to give students more educational value, then it should be done.
“That’s what this new board is about,” she said.
From a financial standpoint, moving the grades makes a lot of sense, said board member Scott Day.
“But September is not that far away,” he said, suggesting it might be better to wait a year.
McWreath said that he was a big supporter of full-day kindergarten. However, he questioned whether it is effective since 10 percent of Trinity kindergartners were held back this year. He said Trinity never had a retention rate that high with half-day kindergarten.

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Friday, April 23, 2010

Trinity considers moving eighth graders to high school, fifth graders to middle school

Trinity School Board is considering whether to move eighth graders to the high school and fifth graders to the middle school.
Trinity is also considering whether to end full-day kindergarten and whether to redistrict student out of Trinity West Elementary because it is overcrowded.
The discussions came up during Thursday’s school board finance committee meeting. No decisions have been made.
However, committee members asked Superintendent Paul Kasunich to come up with a preliminary report about the impact of those changes on education and on finances. He will have a report for the board in May.

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Thursday, April 22, 2010

Canonsburg students plant seedlings for Earth Day

Nine Canonsburg Middle School seventh-graders spent today planting trees at the borough park to celebrate Earth Day.
The students said that all seventh-graders had to write an essay explaining why community service is important for teens. The top three essay writers on each seventh-grade team came out to plant the trees in partnership with the borough.
Science teachers Brian Cornali and Chris Hairn planned the event. Cornali said 70 seedlings were provided through the Pennsylvania Game Commission's Seedlings to Schools Program.
The student planted white pine, pinoak and viburnum seedlings.

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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Want to blog?

When we started this blog, we wanted to create a community conversation about education. We asked a variety of community members to participate - teachers, administrators, parents, students and school board members.
If you would like to blog here weekly or if you know someone who you think would be good at that, please e-mail me at dgoodman@observer-reporter.com.

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Tuesday, April 20, 2010

J-M considers drug testing

JEFFERSON – Jefferson-Morgan School Board asked district administrators Monday to investigate developing a policy requiring drug screenings for new employees and students participating in extracurricular activities.
The motion was presented by board member Mark Pochron, who said the board has talked for some time about having drug screening as part of the district’s pre-employment requirements.
In light of discipline approved by the board earlier in the meeting for a drug-related incident involving a student, Pochron said he also wanted the district to go a step further and look into requiring screenings, and possibly random drug testing, for students participating in extracurricular activities.
Board President Donna Brown later agreed the board should investigate such policy, which it has discussed in the past. “Drugs are getting more rampant,” she said.
Pochron and Superintendent Donna Furnier discussed who would be responsible for paying for the costs of the screenings. If it were decided the district will pay the costs for the students, Pochron said, the board will want to consider adding money to next year’s budget.
The board also discussed whether the tests would be given to just athletes or to students participating in other activities such as clubs.
Furnier said she knows of other districts that have included drug screening as part of their required pre-employment physical and would look at policies adopted by other districts as well as information from the Pennsylvania School Board Associations.
Furnier also said she recently talked with representatives of a new occupational medicine provider in the county and the provider could possibly be used for pre-employment testing to ensure consistency among applicants.

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Monday, April 19, 2010

Teacher pensions may trump curbs on tax increases

Area school district business managers estimate that if nothing changes with the state retirement system, projected rate spikes would be the equivalent of 20 to 25 mills.
And school boards may not need voter approval to raise taxes that high.
State law says that school boards can raise property taxes up to an annual rate, and if they want to go above that rate, they must get voter approval.
However, there are 10 exceptions to that law. One of those exceptions is retirement contributions.
“PDE strictly follows the law of the exceptions,” spokesman Leah Harris said, referring to the list on the department’s website.
If the anticipated increase in a school district’s share of payments to the Public School Employees’ Retirement System is greater than the school district’s index, the school district will be eligible for an exception equal to the portion of the payment increase that exceeds its index, according to documents on the PDE website.
The index rates are based on a state formula, but they are not the same in every school district. Typically, they have been between 3 and 4.5 percent.
That is less than school districts would need to pay for projected pension costs, which are estimated to jump from 4.78 percent this year to 33.6 percent in 2014-15.
PDE will approve the referendum exception request if a review of the data demonstrates that the school district qualifies for one or more of the exceptions, the documents state.
If the request for an exception is approved, PDE will determine the dollar amount of the expenditure for which the exception is sought and the tax rate increase required to fund the exception.
However, if PDE denies the request, the school district must reduce the tax rate increase to no more than its index or submit a referendum question for voter approval.
School boards are not yet discussing the possibility of raising taxes that high. Instead, they are lobbying the state Legislature to reform the pension system so they won’t see the high pension rate spikes.
The state kept the rate that districts pay into the system artificially low over the past decade. A majority of teachers union members have contributed 7.5 percent since 2001. Over the past decade, they have paid more than $7.3 billion into the system, while the state and districts combined paid $3.765 billion into the system.
In preparation for the rate spikes to come, some districts are putting money aside.
Trinity Area School Board member Scott Day, who is also on the board’s finance committee, said he would like to carve 5 to 10 percent out of the 2010-11 budget to put aside for pension costs.
“My intent is not to raise taxes,” he said. “For the next couple years, we are going to try and hold the line.”

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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Gunman disarmed at Pa. school

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A man with a gun who entered a public school for performing arts students was arrested Wednesday afternoon after he fought with a security guard who confronted him and both men crashed through a large window near the school’s entrance.
A 23-year-old man was in custody shortly after he entered the Creative & Performing Arts school downtown with the gun, police said. Pittsburgh Public Schools spokeswoman Ebony Pugh said she wasn’t sure how he got inside because the school’s only two entrances have metal detectors.
Police had not immediately decided what charges the man would face.
The suspect tried to run away after a student spotted him with the gun in a restroom and alerted a security guard, Pugh said. The guard grabbed the suspect before he could run out of the school, and the two men scuffled before crashing through the front window, she said.
School police said the gun was not loaded when the security guard fought with the suspect. Pugh could not say if the man had been brandishing the gun or how the student had spotted it.
“(The suspect) mentioned he was there to meet a student, his relative,” Pugh said. “But we have no indication what the intention was with the weapon.”
The security guard was taken to a hospital with injuries he suffered from the broken glass. Pugh couldn’t detail the guard’s injuries but said they’re not believed to be serious.
The weapon was never fired and no students were hurt. The magnet school serves students in grades 6 through 12.
© 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Report: Teacher pension funding gaps bigger than estimated

Teacher pension funding gaps are three times bigger than states are estimating and have become the nation's next greatest unfunded liability, according to a report by the Manhattan Institute and Foundation for Educational Choice.
The two groups released Tuesday their jointly sponsored report titled "Underfunded Teacher Pension Plans: It's worse Than You Think."
According to the 59 funds own financial statements, their unfunded liabilities are $332 billion. But the authors of the reports say the liabilities are $933 billion. Pennsylvania's officially stated funding gap is $9.4 billion while the report estimates it is $43.2 billion.
Find out more in Wednesday's Observer-Reporter.

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Monday, April 12, 2010

Should high schoolers read aloud in class

Jay Mathews takes on this topic in the Washington Post. Teachers come down on both sides of the issue. What do you think?

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Friday, April 9, 2010

Teacher dies after collapsing in Western Pennsylvania classroom

NEW CASTLE, Pa. (AP) — An autopsy is set on a 44-year-old teacher who died shortly after collapsing while tutoring four students during lunchtime at a western Pennsylvania high school.
Lawrence County Coroner Russell Noga says Neshannock High School teacher John Thompson, of Grove City, had a family history of heart problems. The autopsy was set for Friday.
Noga says Thompson collapsed Thursday and was pronounced dead a short time later at Jameson Hospital in New Castle. That’s about 45 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.
School superintendent Mary Todora says Thompson was tutoring four students when “he just fell over.”
Students summoned another teacher, and a school nurse tried to revive Thompson with cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Thompson was hired in 1994.

© 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Thursday, April 8, 2010

Offers on the table at McGuffey

McGuffey School Board and teachers union have submitted their final best offers as part of the arbitration process.
The submittals, which were released Wednesday, are the latest step in negotiations that have lasted more than 15 months. Teachers struck for two days in March before the mandatory nonbinding arbitration.
The best offers show that the two sides have differences on salary, benefits, retirement incentive and length of contract. The union wants a five-year deal while the board wants it to last three years.
The board wants a retroactive 3.59 percent salary increase for 2009-10, 3.53 percent for 2010-11 and 3.59 percent for 2011-12. The starting salary for 2009-10 would be $33,500 while the maximum would be $73,732 for teachers with doctorate degrees. No teachers in McGuffey have doctorate degrees. In the third year of the contract, the board wants a starting salary of $34,700 and a maximum of $75,732.
The union wants a 4.16 increase for each year of the contract. It also wants to eliminate the doctorate pay scale from the contract.
In 2009-10, the union wants the starting salary to be $34,420 and the maximum to be $78,623. The maximum is for a teacher with a master’s degree plus 30 credit hours. In the fifth year of the contract, the union wants the starting salary to be $43,304 and the maximum to be $78,623.
School board member Doug Teagarden said the sides are close on salaries. He said he hopes that the negotiations can be resolved soon.
However, the district’s stance on health insurance is firm, said Teagarden, who is also on the negotiating team.
“I don’t know how you can get much more fair than that,” he said of the district’s proposal.
The board wants the amount teachers pay for health care to remain the same for this school year at $15 for single coverage and $30 for family coverage. However, it wants teachers to pay half the cost of increases in premiums for future years of the contract.
The union wants to pay $15 for single coverage and $30 for family coverage in the 2009-10 school year, $20 and $40 respectively for the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years, $25 and $50 respectively for the 2012-13 school year and $30 and $60 respectively for the 2013-14 school year.
The board wants a retirement incentive that pays $10,000 a year for eight years or until age of Medicare eligibility. The board also wants to offer the incentive in one of the last two years of the contract.
The union wants a retirement incentive of $9,500 deposited into a tax-sheltered retirement account for nine years or until the age of Medicare eligibility.
After perusing the board’s best offer, union spokesman Andrew MacBeth said that this is definitely moving in the right direction.
“The board submitted a credible offer,” he said. “We submitted a credible offer as well. I hope this will help us reach a fair agreement.”
The public will have 10 days to comment on the two offers. All comments should be written with name and address so the writer can be identified as a McGuffey resident.
The comments should be placed in a sealed envelope and addressed to arbitrator Robert Gifford. The envelope should be taken to the administration office and the sealed envelope will be forwarded to the arbitrator during the hearing.
The hearing will be May 10 at the district administrative offices.
A decision must be made within 20 days of the hearing and then the board and union will have to vote on the decision within 10 days.
Read the two offers at www.observer-reporter.com/OR/sourcedoc/. Copies are also available in the district administrative offices.

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Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Pension payments loom for districts

Trinity Area School Board is the latest board to consider asking the state Legislature to revamp the employee pension system because of projected escalating costs.
The pension system is set up so employees, local districts and the state pay into it. Districts must pay a certain percentage of salaries into the system each year, which is determined by the Pubic School Employees’ Retirement Board. It’s a defined benefit plan, so the amount of a member’s pension benefit is not tied to investments of the fund.
This year, districts paid 4.78 percent into the system. Next year, they will pay 8.22 percent. By 2014-15, that number is projected to be 33.6 percent.
“Realistically, within three years, that would mean a 20- to 25-mill tax increase just to pay the pension obligation,” said Trinity School Board member Scott Day, who is also on the board’s finance committee. “It’s going to be a huge problem for years to come unless they decide to do something.”
He said that is $5.1 million on top of what the district already pays. Trinity paid $470,000 into the pension this year. Even if the board wanted to raise taxes that much, which it doesn’t, it would have to take a request that high to the voters, Day said.
State law allows school districts to raise taxes by an annual index without getting voter approval. The rate varies per district, but it is usually between a 3 and 4 percent increase, which is well below what would be needed for the sharp pension increases. Day and others said voters wouldn’t approve that type of increase if it were put on the ballot.
That means cost cuts are coming, and they could be severe if the pension system doesn’t change, Day said.
Trinity brought in a financial expert from the Pennsylvania School Board Association to look at ways to cut costs to get ahead, he said.
“We are looking at doing multi-year budgeting to look at ways to save money,” Day said.
Trinity is scheduled to vote on a resolution next week asking the Legislature to make changes. The board is not alone in its concern about the skyrocketing costs of the pension fund.
State legislative committees have been holding hearings about the matter. Pennsylvania State Education Association President James Testerman testified before the state Senate Finance Committee in December, saying that the pending spike is primarily the result of significant losses in investment returns and a lack of state and district funding.
A majority of teachers union members have contributed 7.5 percent since 2001, he said. Over the past decade, they have paid more than $7.3 billion into the system, while the state and districts combined paid $3.765 billion into the system, Testerman said.
He also said the union cannot accept a resolution where pension costs were simply kicked down the road for someone else to pay. That happened because the state kept the rates artificially low for the past decade.
Testerman also said union members see harm to the retirement security as harm to the profession.
“Courts have ruled that our current members’ pension benefits are constitutionally protected against impairment,” he said. “But we know that a severe reduction in benefits for future employees would also have a devastating effect on current employees and our profession.”
Meanwhile, PSBA has been urging school boards across the state to pass a resolution asking the state to change the system.
McGuffey School Board recently did so. Business manager Scott Burchill said pensions will cost the district an additional $6.3 million over the next five years.
At that March meeting, a resident asked whether the board could have paid extra into the system over the past decade to prevent such high increases now. Burchill said the district could only pay in the percentage approved by the retirement board.
The projected increase for Washington School District is an additional $1,396,000, or an additional 23.25 mills, between the 2010-11 and 2014-15 school years.
That board also unanimously passed the resolution.
When Ringgold approved a similar resolution in March, board President Denise Kuhn described it as a desperate situation for all districts.
It would cost Ringgold an additional $20 million between 2010-11 and 2014-15.

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Monday, April 5, 2010

Trinity mulls change to job expense policy

By Dawn Goodman
Staff Writer
dgoodman@observer-reporter.com
Trinity Area School Board is debating whether to limit the amount that employees can spend for meals while at conferences.
A proposed change to the job-related expense policy calls for teachers to receive a maximum of $10 for breakfast, $10 for lunch and $15 for dinner. It calls for administrators to have $10 for breakfast, $10 for lunch and $25 for dinner.
Acting Superintendent James Dick suggested that the board not put the exact amount in its policy. Instead, he said at Thursday night’s meeting, that type of information should be in administrative regulations to implement the policy.
“Things are going to change with inflation,” he said. “Are you going to change the policy every year? That’s not what policies are for.”
Assistant Superintendent Yvonne Weaver said there may be times at conferences when meals are more than that amount. She questioned if the board wanted employees who attend conferences to not participate in meals that cost more than the limit. Those who attend conferences must fill out a form explaining their expenses, she said.
Board member Tamara Salvatori said preventing employees from participating in meals at conferences is not the purpose of the policy. She said the issue came up because the board has received receipts for hundreds of dollars with no justification, sometimes related to sports teams.
“When nothing is justified, then you feel it’s time to review, or do you give people leeway and hope they use common sense?” she said. “We have to vouch to the taxpayers and say we’re using money wisely.”
Dick said he asked surrounding districts for forms they use to justify expenses and said he will pass those forms on to the board.
The policy was scheduled for a first reading later this month, but the board tabled it and sent it back to the policy committee for changes.
It was one of several policies scheduled for a first reading later this month. The others are, hiring of athletic coaches/directors/supervisors, sportsmanship, sponsorship and evaluation of the athletic programs, nepotism and physical examination.
Dick said the hiring policy creates an athletic committee for hiring that doesn’t include a board member, unless a head coach is at issue. He said the district already has rules about sportsmanship, but it was not in policy format.
One resident asked whether the revisions would be available to the public. At a meeting in March, board members said they wanted them to be available publicly prior to meetings.
Dick said revised policies and new policies will be available if the board agrees to vote on them later this month at the agenda meeting. Past practice has been to require a written public records request to be approved by the superintentendent before the documents are released.
Board member Dennis McWreath said he doesn’t see how the public can comment on policy revision if they can’t see them. The policy revisions were not available before Thursday’s meeting.
“Why can’t we run a few copies so they can take them home and stew over them?” Salvatori asked.
School board members also were seeing them for the first time Thursday night. Administrators may propose changes that the board doesn’t want, which could create frustration in the community, Interval said.
School board President Tom Bodnovich said he doesn’t want the public to have the perception that the board is trying to hide something.
“There’s got to be a better way here,” he said.

Join the Observer-Reporter’s conversation about education at our blog at http://www.observer-reporter.com/or/behinddesk/.

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Friday, April 2, 2010

Trinity makes money on swap agreement

By Dawn Goodman
Staff Writer
dgoodman@observer-reporter.com
While many school districts and municipalities across the state lost money because of financial swap agreements, that’s not the case at Trinity School District.
Tom Kinney, who works for HT Capital Markets, updated the school board Thursday about the swap agreement Trinity entered into with Wells Fargo Bank several years ago.
At that time, the board wanted more cash up front instead of having higher monthly payments, Kinney said.
At closing in May 2005, Trinity received $431,000, he said. Since 2006, the district has earned roughly $20,000 from the swap, he said.
“The district wanted to maximize an upfront large payment instead of $10,000 a month cash flow because of the district’s capital needs,” Kinney said.
He said the district has had a positive cash flow with the agreement every year except 2009, which was because of the Lehman Brothers collapse.
That was because the district took a conservative approach to the swap deal, he said.
An interest rate swap is a financial contract between a district and bank. In Trinity’s contract, the district paid Wells Fargo the tax-exempt money market rate and Wells Fargo paid Trinity the taxable money market rate.
Typically, the taxable rate is higher, making it profitable for districts, Kinney said.
The swap must be tied to bonds, he said. Trinity’s is tied to part of its 2003 series bonds. Though they were worth $30.4 million, just $17.03 million was swapped, Kinney said.
Though the swap agreement made money for Trinity, state Auditor General Jack Wagner describes financial agreements as tantamount to gambling with taxpayer money because they are so risky. He supports legislation banning the swaps for school districts, local governments and municipal authorities.
“It’s unconscionable that greedy Wall Street bankers are rewarding themselves with excessive bonuses whose profits were derived, in part, by hard-working Pennsylvanians whose elected officials gambled away their tax dollars in risky financial schemes they didn’t understand,” Wagner said in a March news release. “Interest-rate swaps have no place in local government and the General Assembly should put a stop to this.”
Join the Observer-Reporter’s conversation about education at our blog at http://www.observer-reporter.com/or/behinddesk/

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Thursday, April 1, 2010

McGuffey students collect loads of clothes for poor


The area’s less fortunate will be able to update their wardrobes because of students at McGuffey junior and senior high schools.

The high school German Club collected hundreds of pounds of gently worn clothes and shoes from their teachers and classmates to donate to the Washington City Mission.

“There is a mountain of clothing,” said German teacher Pam Stewart.

“There are some nice things here – teachers’ clothes, shoes. This is like consignment shop stuff,” Stewart said Thursday, when the items were delivered to the mission, which will sell them in its thrift shops in Washington and Greene counties.

The project began in January after Stewart said she “encouraged the officers to come up with something altruistic.”

Andrea Martin suggested the clothes drive, and the club added a contest to see which homeroom could donate the heaviest load.

“The winning room received a free hot breakfast with a cappuccino bar and everything,” Stewart said.

“It kind of made me feel like I was giving back to the community,” said Martin, 18. “It makes me feel a little more responsible.”

Her classmate, Brandon Gilmore, 17, also helped to oversee the effort.

“Not everybody has what we do, nice warm clothes,” he said.

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