A deceptively light-looking school board agenda produced a two-hour meeting Tuesday night as board members grappled with decisions about standardized test scores, bus contracts, accounting software and whether to start teaching French (or something else) again.
Here's the short version:
1) Bill Parker said he would like to see more done to raise the scores, Rick Rabinowitz said more data was being used, as he and Matt Alexander had campaign on, and now that it was implemented, time is required to see the results.
2) Last year, CMD Services requested a 10 percent price hike after years of holding steady. The district agreed to a 5 percent hike and to implement the rest in subsequent years, with 2.5 percent this year. In the meantime, the board asked Nester to undertake a study to see if services could not be provided by another provider more cheaply.
3) A company called Jitasa, which purchased the company from which Pottsgrove bought its financial accounting software almost 10 years ago for $175,000, is leaving the software field and the program the district uses will not be available after June 30, 2019.
It's a good program which works well for the district, according to Business Manager Dave Nester, who convinced the board to spend $3,000 on a consultant who may find a way to shift the license to another Microsoft provider. If it doesn't work, the district could be facing a cost of $200,000 to $250,000 for a replacement program.
4) As for French, after cutting the program in 2014 due to lack of interest, a language program survey taken by 348 people which just about everyone agreed was skewed in favor of French found an overwhelming interest in -- wait for it -- French! Even more popular than German, apparently, one of the German teachers promptly instructed the board on the benefits of the high school's German program.
Everyone promised to proceed with open minds toward re-implementing a third language program. My money (and if I lived in the Pottsgrove School District it would be my money) is on French.
And here are all the fabulous Tweets:
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