$2.5M for New Roof, 2% Raises for Administrators

A view of the Pottsgrove Middle School roof, now 20 years old, which must be replaced.

The Pottsgrove School Board re-organized Tuesday night, returning Matt Alexander to the presidency and installing Robert Lindgren in the vice-presidency.

Two new members, Charles Nippert and Scott Hutt, were sworn in, and then the board proceeded to make some decisions.

One sad one was to accept the resignation of the now-legendary Rick Pennypacker as football coach, due to his pending retirement.

Another was a long time in coming, the spend no more than $2.5 million to replace the roof at Pottsgrove Middle School, now 20 years old.

(I must point out the construction of this school is one of the first things I covered for The Mercury, meaning I am in the midst of my 20-year anniversary at the paper. Wow. I still think of this building as "new.")

The board also approved across-the-board 2 percent raises for building principals and mid-level administrators.

Board member Bill Parker questioned whether he could support such increases given the poor performance of so many Pottsgrove school buildings on recent School Performance Profile scores.

But Superintendent William Shirk noted that there is a rubrik used to determine goal meeting, of which SPP is just one part, and assured Parker that the raises were warranted under that rubrik.

Changing it would mean re-negotiating the agreement, which has one more year before it expires.

That said, here are the Tweets from the meeting: