Children's Discovery Center Gets Matching Grant

Blogger's Note: The following was submitted by the Pottstown Children's Discovery Center.

Things are moving forward for Pottstown Children's Discovery Center and they will move forward faster if people donate to the effort and double the money donated.

PCDC has obtained a portion of the funds needed for our largest and most exciting exhibit 'Farm to FoodTruck' (which will incorporate every child's favorite museum exhibit the farm, market, and kitchen) from Pottstown Area Health & Wellness Foundation. 

The center has an opportunity to max out this grant from PAHWF -- they have agreed to MATCH another $42,500 dollar for dollar over the next 10 months.

That means that any donation, which will be used toward operated expenses as we open our doors, is completely matched: $5,000 becomes $10,000, $2,000 becomes $4,000 and so on.  All donations will really make the biggest impact right now.

Also, the center has just four Founding Fifty spots left. The first four people who give $1,000 or more will join the special group recognized inside PCDC as original founding supporters. 

Those who do will join 46 other community/business members showing support of Pottstown kids, plus your financial donation will be doubled. 

PCDC is also hosting its First Annual Shortstack Competition on Sept 18. 

Lot's of Pottstown Restaurants will bring 200 of their best kid-pleasing dishes for kids to vote for the best. Check out website to sign up and for more details.

"In the past year we've obtained a centrally located Pottstown site, and have planned, designed and acquired many hands-on educational exhibits," according to a statement issued by PCDC.

One example is a big stage with lots of lights, cameras and costumes for kids to 'write, direct or act' in their own show.

PCDC has also increased its presence in the community by distributing “Discovery Kits” to local families and Barth Elementary students. 

Look for them at the upcoming Pottstown Pet Fair.

Regional Planners OK With Convenience Store

Image from screenshot.

Regional planners looked over the specs for a new Royal Farms convenience store being planned for property adjacent to Moyer Lumber on Armand Hammer Boulevard near to the interchange with Route 422.

Plans for a new place to grab some coffee, a donut, gas and get your car cleaned took another step forward the approval process Wednesday night.

A proposal to build a Royal Farms convenience store off Armand Hammer Boulevard, adjacent to Moyer's lumber, got the thumbs up from the Pottstown Metropolitan Regional Planning Commission.

This group, comprised of representatives from Pottstown and the seven municipalities that surround it, has no actual approval authority.

But they are asked to determine of any proposal is "generally consistent" with the regional comprehensive plan adopted by all eight of the municipalities. They are Pottstown, Lower Pottsgrove, Upper Pottsgrove, West Pottsgrove, North Coventry, East Coventry, New Hanover and Douglass (Mont.)

The site for the convenience store, shown in the rectangle,

shown at right on the above map, would be on three vacant
acres subdivided off the 13-acre site that houses the
Moyer Lumber yard.

That determination was obtained with a unanimous vote Wednesday night.

The plan calls for 16 gas pumps, a convenience store and a car wash.

It would be located on three acres being subdivided off the 13-acre plot on which the lumber yard sits. The proposal does not affect the lumber yard, which will remain open, according to township officials. 

Tom Troutman, who represents Lower Pottsgrove at the planning group, said the plan has not yet made its way through the entire township planning commission's land development process.

The plan was the subject of two public hearings in May, one before the zoning board seeking four variances and one before the township commissioners seeking conditional use approvals.

The property is located in Lower Pottsgrove's "interchange district," which allows such uses with the approval of the township commissioners.

Access to the new store would be via the existing

driveway opposite the entrance to Home Depot.

The developers no doubt want to make use of the site's proximity to the busy interchange with Route 422.

In 2013, township officials entertained a similar proposal to located a convenience store, or fast food restaurant on the other side of that interchange, on three unused acres at the site of the former Occidental Chemical Co.

However, that plan never came to fruition and was never built.

Both locations offer "easy-off/easy-on" access to both directions of Route 422, making it easy for use by commuters on the busy highway.

The plan is to align the entrance to Royal Farms, with Home Depot across the street to make use of the traffic light already there. Whether any changes to the signal's programming as a result of the additional traffic movements has not yet been determined.

Click here to read the Tweets from Wednesday night's meeting.

Pottsgrove Moves to Mask Mandate, for Four Weeks

Pottsgrove Schools Superintendent David Finnerty explains the district's new masking policy during Tuesday night's school board meeting.

Doesn't it just figure that just as schools are getting ready to open, or have already opened, that COVID-19 would throw a wrench into things?

In this case, it seems more like delta, COVID-s mutant cousin, that's doing the wrench throwing. Across the region, school districts that looked to start school without mandating masks have found themselves confounded by rising infections and making early course corrections.

The latest domino to fall -- in the wake of Owen J. Roberts, Phoenixville, Boyertown and Spring-Ford -- is Pottsgrove.

Earlier this month, the Pottsgrove School Board adopted a policy that would recommend masks, but not require them. But Tuesday night, that policy was changed when the board voted 6-1 to require mask wearing by all staff and students for the first four weeks of school.

Like in other districts, the board agreed with the administration that the way the health guidelines are  written, the best way to keep students who have been in "close contact" with someone who tests positive for the virus from having to quarantine for seven days is to ensure everyone is wearing a mask.

"Masking saves two kids from being excluded" from class, said Superintendent David Finnerty.

Pottsgrove School Board President Robert Lindgren

"Remote learning and hybrid learning was not in the best interest for our students and their education. We want all of our students in school for 180 days this year, so we're going to run this experiment," said Pottsgrove School Board President Robert Lindgren. "If just as many get sick, we'll know the masks don't work."

Lindgren said when schools were closed last year Gov. Tom Wolf, "we had to invent remote teaching, on the fly."

While some school boards -- (he's looking at you Spring-Ford) -- have complained about the lack of a mandate from federal, state and county health authorities regarding masks, Lindgren said he sees it as an opportunity.

"What we're trying to do is to get everybody back in school, and we've been given this freedom. Last year, if two people looked at each other we had to quarantine the for 14 days," Lindgren said. "I'm not a big believer in masks, but if we keep masks on, we get to keep kids in school."

Not everyone agreed with that reasoning.

Four people spoke against the mask mandate Tuesday, Andrew Korman, Dustin DiTello, Katie Coppa and Brittany Bradley.

Korman said he had the virus and for the last 500 days his body continues to produce anti-bodies "to this day." He noted that "the Amish community is not running around with its hair on fire about this virus."

"When does it stop?" asked Korman. "Subtle coercion is still coercion."

After the vote, Korman pointed to all the times medical authorities have said mask wearing would make things better, but it did not. He said South Korea has a masking wearing rate near 99 percent, but cases are rising there.

Dustin DiTello

DiTello said he too had COVID and was hospitalized, but said he and his family have had an activesummer "and guess what we didn't do? Wear masks. Now I'm supposed to tell my kids to pretend COVID is a dangerous killer? It's not."

He said when he was on the COVID ward, "we had to be fitted for masks," and those masks were N-95 professional masks. Without those, Pottsgrove's precaution is meaningless, said DiTello.

After the vote, he asked "what are the alternatives" to wearing a mask. What consequences will his children face for not wearing one, a question also asked by Sanatoga Post journalist Joe Zlomek. Neither received a public answer.

If you want to wear a mask, wear one. If you want your child to wear one. Wear one. Wear 10. I'll help you put it on, said Coppa "I want everyone to ask their children how they fell about having to wear a mask eight hours a day."

After the vote, Coppa said "cases is not the litmus test we should be looking at. Hospitalizations and deaths, as morbid as it sounds, is what we should be looking at."

Christina Fisher

Bradley, who said she is a school nurse, said masks do more harm than good. "Breathing hot, warm, moist, air, is a perfect environment for viruses to grow," she said. 

Another medical professional, Christina Fisher told the board she works in bio-tech making vaccines. she said merely "recommending masks" means many people will not. 

She thanked the board members and administration for making the change and requiring masks.

Dave Duchevsky also welcomed the change. He also told the board that during a school open house, he saw kindergarten desks clustered together in groups of four and suggested that is now way to maintain the three feet of social distancing now being recommended by health authorities.

Click here to see the Tweets from last night's meeting.

Spring-Ford Reverses Again, OKs Partial Mask Plan

Spring-Ford Schools Superintendent Robert Rizzo

One week after a split vote reversed a June vote requiring masks be worn by children in grades K-6, the Spring-Ford  School Board did another turn-about Monday night.

With a unanimous vote, the board adopted a plan crafted by Schools Superintendent Robert Rizzo that will require masks only of students and staff in grades kindergarten through 6 and only until Sept. 24, when the policy will be re-evaluated based on the number of cases in the community.

Rizzo said he has been told by Montgomery County health officials that they believe the current spike in COVID-19 cases is just that, and that they will drop back down again in the next three to four weeks.

Should that not happen, and community transmission rate remain in the "substantial" category, the mask mandate for those grades would remain in place.

For grades 7-12, masks will be recommended, but not required. Students not wearing masks will be required to provide a permission form signed by their parents, which is separate and distinct from a medical excuse form, which permits a student to not wear a mask under any circumstances.

Should community transmission rate in the towns which comprise the Spring-Ford district, reach the "high" level, all students and staff in the district will be required to wear masks, with the exception of those with a medical excuse, under Rizzo's plan.

Spring-Ford School Board member Colleen Zasowski

Rationale for the change was offered by School Board President Colleen Zasowski. 

"If we don't do this, and we have to quarantine, we're going to have too many kids out of school who don't need to be. And they won't have" the full virtual option like the one offered last year.

 "They'll have Wednesday, every day," she said in refence to having no live instruction.

She added "we've had the most emails we've ever received over the past week. I appreciate the information that came over, certainly information presented in a positive way," Zasowski said, adding that "some of the emails were very caustic"

"We need to try to do something to unify our community," she said.

Reading a statement provided by head nurse Trish Smith, who was not allowed to speak last week, for which Zasowski apologized, Rizzo noted that last year Spring-Ford ended up quarantining 2,000 students as a result of close contacts with infected students or staff "and none of them got COVID."

"Let's have the numbers dictate the rules," said Rizzo. "We need to keep our schools open and keep our children in school."

Rizzo also noted that the matrix governing community spread has been changed since the last school year.

There are now four categories -- low, moderate, substantial and, a new category, high -- as opposed to the previous three, and the number of cases comprising the four categories have been narrowed.

As a result, Spring-ford's "COVID Dashboard" has been updated as well and is now posted on the Spring-Ford website https://www.spring-ford.net/academics/2021-2022-dashboard

Rizzo explained that he chose the Sept. 24 date to revisit the mask mandate because it will come after the Sept. 20 board meeting.

In the past, the district has been criticized by parents for changing things at the last minute and the Sept. 24 date, if things change, will give parents time to make adjustments.

However, before voting unanimously to support Rizzo's plan, four board members supported a motion made by Linda Fazzini to extend the period during which K-6 students must be masked from Sept. 24 to the end of the first marking period in November.

However, only Fazzini, Christine Melton, Margaret Wright and Diane Sullivan supported that option.

Even as viewed on YouTube, the meeting was tumultuous, even though the camera operators muted the sound when members of the audience cheered, jeered or heckled speakers. 

Toward the end of the meeting, one speaker said that a high school student of Asian heritage who spoke in favor of masks told her during a break that members of the audience had told her to "go back where you came from."

Zasowski repeatedly chided in-person audience members to be quiet; to only hold up their protest signs when they were speaking; and to "speak to the board and stop trying to rally the crowd."

At one point she threatened to involve the district police officer to restore order and, at another point, threatened to end public comment, which stretched on for two hours before the vote.

The first hour of public comment was devoted to those who spoke via Zoom.

With only a handful of exceptions, the majority of those who addressed the board this way spoke in favor of masking in some form, with the option chosen by the board, masking mandated for students in grades K-6, being the minimum. 

Many asked for mandated masking for all students and staff at all grade levels.

Shaila Quazi is a physician in emergency department with two children, ages 5 and 7. "There's no cure for this disease. I'm seeing lots of kids come in with COVID after traveling to southern states," she said.

Quazi said the most prudent thing to protect everyone is to lookahead, "know that communicable diseases will be part of the agenda in perpetuity. Wearing a mask is not a very difficult way to avoid diseases that have no cure or treatment."

Liz Kepner said everyone has their own opinion on masks. She urged the board to keep kids in school, specifically K-6 kids who cannot be vaccinated by requiring masks. "Recommending means optional and optional does not protect all" she said.

"'Recommended' is code for optional," said Nicole Baskwill. "But when it comes to public health, optional doesn't cover it. You have a moral imperative to rise above partisan politics and do what's best for public health,"

Michael Krajnik said without mask mandates, "you will see what is happening in southern schools, lots of quarantine," noting that when K-6 students have to quarantine, at least one parent has to quarantine with them as well.

But not all Zoom callers were pro-mask.

Owen Olson addresses the Spring-Ford School Board

"You are proposing to mask children for reasons that have nothing to do with health," said Mari MacDougall. "I'm tired of hearing about cases. Are children dying? No. Not one Spring-Ford child has died from this."

The views expressed by those who spoke in person were more mixed.

Owen Olson. who was the first of the in-person speakers, said Rizzo's presentation "should have been part of the agenda materials posted. If you think you got a lot of emails last week? Wait until this." Olson said he wants to see data that shows masks work. "None exists, zero."

Michael Lebiedzinski said the board is suffering from "mask psychosis," adding that "most schools in Europe are not masking."

Gary Wheaton addresses the Spring-Ford School Board

Resident Gary Wheaton said the masks as used now, "don't work," because his son brought COVID-19 home.

He said if the district is going to require masks, it should set a standard and provide the higher quality masks, like those used by medical professionals, to get the desired affect.

Without giving them N-95 or K-95 masks to kids, "you're giving them a false sense of security," he said.

"Nothing has changed to warrant this," said Stacy Salazo. All health guidance remains the same. "The only thing that has changed is a weeks' worth of feedback from the community."

Mary Jo McNamara offered up some numbers, specifically, the number zero, noting that no Spring-Ford students were admitted into the hospital. "Students dying from this pandemic in our district? Zero." In Montgomery county, 96 adults have hospitalized in a population of 830,000," she said, adding "not a single pediatric ICU bed being used in county."

Click here for a Twitter recap of last night's meeting.

Bill Would Add Local Oversight to Charter Schools

Blogger's Note: The following was submitted by state Rep. Joe Ciresi, D-146th Dist.

Rep. Joe Ciresi, D-Montgomery, has introduced a bill, H.B. 1803, which would require an elected school board official to sit on a charter school’s board of trustees in order to have oversight on how money is being spent in publicly funded charter schools.

“Though our local school boards disburse our tax dollars to charter schools and are responsible to their taxpayers for how money they collect is spent, they often have little to no knowledge of what is happening inside the charter schools they’re funding and whether the money is being spent properly,” Ciresi said. 

“My bill would ensure accountability and oversight by requiring every charter school board of trustees to have a member appointed by the charter school’s local elected authorizing school board,” he said.

Currently, school boards have oversight and representation in other parts of Pennsylvania’s public education system, including intermediate units and career and technology centers.

“The basis of good government—responsibility, efficiency and accountability—requires that we have an elected representative who represents the public interest and who can be called to account for how taxpayer money is being spent," said Ciresi. "My bill would ensure that happens.”

MOSAIC Land Trust Garden Tour Set for Sept. 18

Blogger's Note: The following was submitted by MOSIAC Community Land Trust.

Purchase tickets now for MOSAIC's Fall Garden tour on Sept. 18.

The tour runs from 8 a.m. to 12 noon and you can visit any of the gardens on the tour during that time. 

Lunch afterwards, starting at 12:30 p.m., will be at at Irongate Biergarten, on High Street in Pottstown and food will be provided by Pottstown United Brewing Company.

During the September MOSAIC garden tour, come be dazzled by more than just plants at the 423 Chestnut St. community garden. 

Members of Pottstown Community Arts, the art committee of MOSAIC, will have their artwork on display along the fences surrounding the garden. 

There will be nature photography, acrylic paintings, felt masterpieces, and more. A portion of artwork sold will be donated to Pottstown Community Arts so they can continue to provide free art projects to local summer camps, complete the wall of murals behind the Pottstown Library, install temporary public art projects, and host annual events such as the Haunts on High coming up on Oct. 30.

Tickets can be purchased online for $20 in advance or for $25 on the day of tour.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pottstown-boyertown-fall-garden-tour-tickets-163217476867

Tour plus a lunch ticket for $50 per person (*tips and alcohol not included)
*raindate for this tour will be Sept. 25th

Those that would prefer to not pay online can call (484)214-5046 to reserve tickets.