Pine Forge Closure Re-Vote Falls One Vote Short

An attempt by new Boyertown School Board member James Brophy to delay the closing of Pine Forge Elementary School for one year and form a community committee to study the issue failed by a 5-4 vote Monday evening.

Meeting for the first voting meeting of 2020, the newly configured school board heard impassioned please from advocates of keeping Pine Forge open during the meeting at Colebrookdale Elementary School.

Voting in favor were Brophy and board members Ruth Dierolf, Christine Neiman and Roger Updegrove.

The pleas followed a report by Superintendent Dana Bedden on the changes being made as a result of the Nov. 26 vote by the previous board to close Pine Forge Elementary School.

Bedden said one result will be classroom size will be "more equitable and more consistent" and within the district's guidelines. In grades K-3, sizes will be 25 or less and 30 or less in grades four and five.

He said district vacancies are being filled by staff from Pine Forge and attendance areas were being

Photos by Evan Brandt

Supporters of keeping Pine Forge open wore tops 

emblazoned with the hashtag #PineForgeStrong.

mapped for new bus routes with a goal of no student's ride being more than 50 minutes.

Bedden also said the closure will save $750,000 this year, which will cut the projected budget deficit of $1.4 million, this despite the lowest number of staff retirements in recent memory.

"We usually get 11 for a savings of $1.1 million. This year, we have only three," he said.

As the staff prepares for the transition, he said more savings will be highlighted in future budget presentations.

But the closure of a school is about more than money, argued the speakers last night. Although, they argued that the burgeoning development in the district, primarily on the Montgomery County side of the 100 square-mile district, may soon have the board regretting a decision to close a school they may soon need.

The two elementary schools on the Montgomery County side, Gilbertsville and New Hanover/Upper Frederick are both already at capacity. The district's re-districting plan will re-distribute some of those students to schools on the Berks County side.

But it makes more sense, many argued, to keep Pine Forge open and send some of those students there to help justify the cost of keeping the school open.

Parent Nathan Yorgi said his children's five-minute bus ride will now be 50 minutes to get them to

Parent Dawn Keebler tells the board that larger class sizes

will mean losing teachers. "Your young staff will run," she

said. "Your salaries are not high enough to keep them here."

Earl Elementary School.

"You don't want to put $4 million into Pine Forge when we've  ready to spend $6.7 million on a stadium that only benefits kids who play sports," said Kevin Patton, who said he has six children.

(The price of that stadium and related athletic facilities plan was threatening to rise to $7 million as the result of the Dec. 10 decision by the Colebrookdale Zoning Hearing Board to deny a variance sought to allow the construction of restrooms at the complex.

The alternative would have added $350,000 to the $6.7 million plan, which was recommended by the board's finance and facilities committee, but Brophy said he would not vote for a project that totaled $7 million. He offered and amendment, which was adopted unanimously, to keep the price as is and require the board to find the money for the remainder within the existing budget.)

Brophy's second motion attracted a lot of support from the audience.

He proposed that the paperwork submitted to Harrisburg to close the school be withdrawn and a committee "populated with two board members, one administrative staff member, the communications person and two parents from each elementary school but Washington to study the closure and possibly consider alternatives.

However, he also proposed limiting it to prevent the question "ending up never being resolved." The committee "must be complete with names submitted to the board in no more than 60 days from this date. If any of the named schools cannot supply the required committee members, Pine forge, as the most affected school, gets to fill the empty seats. If the committee is not formed and submitted to the board within the required time, the original board vote would be honored," Brophy proposed.

"The second requirement is that the committee would formulate and present their findings to the board for a formal vote within four months of formation, whether it be an alternative solution or finalize the original board decision," Brophy proposed. "If this hurdle is not met, the original decision will be honored."

Bedden said, to be clear, that the move would increase the deficit on the preliminary budget approved by a 7-2 vote earlier that night. "We'd either have to decimate the educational program or we'd be looking at furloughs," said Bedden.

He also said that even if the vote succeeded, "15 percent of all the students are still going to move to a different school."

But the Brophy's proposal had support from the crowd.

"We are finally being heard," said Jennifer Irey, who earlier had told the board that after the Daniel Boone School Board closed Birdsboro Elementary School for similar reasons, the district's elementary center "saw a 500 percent increase" in behavioral referrals.

"I love this plan," said Jo Yorgi. "Send us more students."

"This is a great idea," said Washington Township Supervisor David Moyer. "If you're keeping all the staff, the only real impact is the upkeep of the building. We can cut some heads at the top to pay for that. We're usually top heavy here anyway."

Gilbertsville resident Jon Emeigh said he favors the idea "in principle." But he said those who vote for it must be ready to also support the impacts. "All proposals should have a budget impact attached to them" and those board members who say they want to keep the school open, but vote against budgets, must be prepared to vote for higher costs. "Anything else is just pandering," he said.

Board member Jill Dennin disputed the Pine Forge parents' claims that no one on the board had listened to them, saying that she had.

"I do feel I've listened. Lots of parents and teachers have said we need to close Pine Forge, said Dennin, calling the vote "the most heart-wrenching decision a board member has to make."

 Neiman, participating by speaker phone, supported the idea and said "if this means we have to put the closing back by one year, we can find a way to do that."

Board Vice President Melody McWhereter said she liked the idea of the committee, but worried about "setting a precedent" of reversing previous board votes.

"As a fiscal conservative, I can't believe I am going to say this, but sometimes its about more than just the money," said Brophy.

The question was called, a procedural measure that cuts off debate, before other board members could speak and the vote resulted in a 5-4 defeat.

Board member Lisa Hogan said she worried the measure would "create devastation to our program," and had questions but rushing the vote left her without answers, which was why she voted no.

Board President Brandon Foose, who was a member of the previous board who voted in favor of the closure because he continues to believe "it is the best thing for the most students" and would help increase the district's financial stability.

Implementing goals like increasing guidance counselors,m or starting new programs, have financial impacts. "The ability to do these things is driven by dollars and cents," he said.

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

Boyertown Board Votes to Begin Closing Pine Forge

Photos by Evan Brandt

A panoramic view of the crowd at the start of the May 14 Boyertown School Board meeting.

With a 5-4 vote, the Boyertown Area School Board Tuesday night kicked off the process for closing Pine Forge Elementary School.

Voting just one week before the primary election, the members voting in favor of the closure were David Lewis, Donna Usavage, Jill Dennin, Rodney Boyer and School Board President Steve Elsier.

Voting in opposition were Ruth Dierolf, Clay Breece, School Board Vice President Brandon Foose

With enrollment of about 242 in December, Pine Forge is one of
Boyertown's smallest school buildings.

and Christine Neiman.

As solicitor Jeff Sultanik explained in some detail, Tuesday's vote is not a final decision, but only begins the process for gathering more information for a full public hearing required by the state; as well as approvals by the Berks County Planning Commission and Douglass (Berks) Township Planning Commission.

But at least four speakers Tuesday night did not need a formal public hearing to explain their thoughts on the subject.

"Closing Pine forge will create student over-crowding which will become a district-wide issue, not just an isolated issue in one or two schools." said Jen Irey. She said it will lead to larger class sizes, which will lead to less individualized attention for the students.

Here is some video of her comments:



"What is disheartening to me, is that after sitting through all these meetings, I still have not heard any of the long-term plans laid out," said Krista Gross, a parent of three children in the district.

"I would like to know what the district plans to do if their assumptions are wrong; what their back-up plan is if the district grows faster than they anticipate" said Gross. "Will our children end up in modular classrooms again?"

Here is more video of her comments:



Ellen Martignetti said some of the Pine Forge staff is already moving on to other jobs, "instead of waiting to be re-assigned by the district. Came you blame them? Isn't that what all of you would do?"

"Imagine what that looks like to a child. It looks frightening." Martignetti said. "Imagine a building full of unfamiliar faces."

Here is video of more of her comments:

Resident Jon Emeigh said his comments would not be popular.

"I don't know if everyone realizes how dire our financial situation is. It's really bad," said Jon Emeigh. "And we have only a choice of bad decisions"

"If we vote to keep Pine Forge open, it's going to cost about $8 million, spread out. Over the course of 30 years, it will cost about $16 million," Emeigh said.

"So the trade off for you keeping your school, is probably not being able to spend more on counselors; potentially not upgrading other schools and potentially threatening programs."

Nevertheless, he said, he would not support closing the school without more details on what would happen next.

Here is more video of Emeigh's comments:



But Boyertown Superintendent Dana Bedden said that if the administration went to the extra step of putting together those plans, the public would argue that the board's mind was already made up before the vote.

"Tonight's decision is not a closing decision," said Sultanik, noting state law requires a public hearing with full details a full three months before the final vote is taken.

In fact, two of the "yes" votes, Boyer and Dennin, said they voted yes in part to move the process forward so that those very questions can be answered.

Supporters of keeping Pine Forge open, wore red.

"If the data changes, I'm willing to change my mind," said Dennin.

But Neiman doubted that. "Once we start having hearings, it's going to be a done deal," she said.

She said Pine Forge students will most likely be sent to Earl, Boyertown and Colebrookdale elementary schools and will be "on the bus for an hour."

Dierolf agreed that the school district "is in financial crisis, but we're building a new stadium."

Lewis said closing the school will save the district $4 to $5 million, but Dierolf said she does not see those savings being realized.

"Cosing a school to close a budget shortfall is wrong," said Breece. "This will not raise academic outcomes for our kids," said Breece. He also predicted that in a few years, it will be decided that a new elementary school is needed "five or six miles to the east."

Pine Forge Elementary School was first constructed in 1928 as

Douglass Township Grade School. It was upgraded in 1957 and 1987
and is located on eight acres.

He was perhaps referring to the fact that enrollment growth driving re-districting is coming primarily from the Montgomery County side of the 100-square-mile district, in Douglass (Mont.) and New Hanover townships, where hundreds of new housing units are planned or already approved.

But Bedden insisted the one thing "not on the table is a new elementary school. That will cost as much as $26 million, and that is money we don't have," he said.

According to the district study, last year it costs $2.7 million to operate Pine Forge Elementary.  It would cost between $1.8 to $4 million to upgrade the building to be compatible with the other elementary schools.

Pine Forge has about 17 teachers and 18 other staff. The administration does not call for any lay-offs as a result of closing the school. Personnel savings would come from attrition, retirements and resignations.

Donna Usavage said the studies have shown there is enough room in the other school buildings and closing Pine Forge "is in the best interests of the entire school district."

After voting, the school board went into a executive session, closed

to the public, for more than an hour, which did a good job of 

clearing out the audience from the meeting.

But the question of whether there is enough room in Boyertown's school buildings is exactly what is driving the re-districting plan which was adopted unanimously prior to the Pine Forge vote.

In the first vote, the board voted unanimously to begin the process of re-districting, which will change which school hundreds of students attend among Boyertown's seven elementary schools and two middle schools.

After the meeting Elsier explained that the re-districitng plan, or "rightsizing" as Bedden has labeled it, can be found on the district website and affects all school buildings but the high school.

According to that information, last updated on May 5, Boyertown's school buildings have the following capacities and enrollments as of December:

• Boyertown Elementary: Capacity of 700 with 445 students, or 64 percent of capacity.
• Colebrookdale Elementary: Capacity of 350 with 291 students, or 83 percent of capacity.
• Earl Elementary: Capacity of 350 with 246 students, or 70 percent capacity.
• Gilbertsville Elementary: Capacity of 700 with 689 students, or 98 percent of capacity.
• New Hanover/Upper Frederick Elementary: Capacity of 700 with 675 students, or 96 percent of capacity.
• Pine Forge Elementary: Capacity of 350 with 242 students, or 69 percent of capacity.
• Washington Elementary: Capacity of 700 with 483 students, or 69 percent of capacity.
• Middle School East: Capacity of 1,050 with 895 students, or 85 percent of capacity.
• Middle School West: Capacity of 860 with 782 students, or 91 percent of capacity.

Elsier conceded that should the board ultimately vote to close Pine Forge Elementary, that the plan will have to be adjusted to put those 242 students in other buildings.

In other news, after coming out of an hour-long executive session, from which the public was excluded, the school board voted 7-2 to adopt a $121 million preliminary budget that, if unchanged by June, will raise taxes by 3.6 percent.

Now, here are the Tweets from the meeting:

Closing Pine Forge Elementary School

Boyertown Picks Boyer for Open School Board Seat

Photo by Evan Brandt

Rodney Boyer takes the oath of office Tuesday night after being chosen by the Boyertown Area School Board to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of Robert Caso, who defeated him for the seat in the November election.

In a result that surprised few, the Boyertown Area School Board voted 5-3 to appoint Rodney Boyer to the seat left open by Robert Caso, thus diminishing by one, the block of fiscally conservative votes on the board.

School Board members Ruth Dierolf and Christine Neiman voted for William Yanalavage to fill the post while Clay Breece cast the only vote for Robert Houck.

No one on the board voted to nominate Ruth Baker, who had also applied and who, at the start of the meeting, urged the board to appoint someone who shared Caso's fiscally conservative views, which is what the voters had chosen.

That view was also echoed by Breece, Dierolf and Neiman, but the board chose Boyer, who board member Steve Elsier said seemed the most familiar with the district and board operations.

The board also voted to hire a new chief financial officer, Rebecca Clouser, C.P.A. at salary of $139,000.

Also decided was a location and date -- June 7 at the Santander Center in Reading -- for this year's high school graduation, due to the questions that remain about the safety of the high school stadium.

The board also received the first of what will be monthly reports on safety and security in the wake of last month's school shooting in Florida.

Here are the Tweets from the meeting:

Boyertown Adopts $115M Preliminary Budget That Raises Taxes 5.4%, Pledges to Bring Increase Down

The Boyertown Area School Board voted 8-1 Tuesday night to adopt a $115 million preliminary budget for the 2018-19 school year that would raise taxes by 5.44 percent.

Even tax hawks Clay Breece, Robert Caso and Ruth Dierolf voted for the plan convinced, evidently by Interim Superintendent David Krem's argument that not adopting the plan would limit flixibility later on.

Board member Christine Neiman cast the only dissenting vote.

"I want to keep all programs, but comes a time in life when something's got to give," she said. "We have to stop spending unnecessarily on stuff, be more fiscally responsible to community."

Breece, Dierolf and Caso had also all indicated their opposition to the plan until Krem spoke.

"Even if you decide to close a school, the state procedure takes 24 months. It would not affect the coming budget," said Krem, arguing for the necessity of the "flexibility" applying for exceptions gives.

Krem was referring to the "exceptions" contained in Act 1 which requires school boards to either adopt a preliminary budget that stays within the state-imposed tax cap, or index, by the end of February; or adopt a resolution pledging to keep within that index in the final budget adoption in June.

Boyertown has adopted that resolution in recent years, but a motion to do so two weeks ago failed on a 5-4 vote, with Caso, Breece, Dierolf and Neiman all voting to stay within the cap.

Under Act 1, if you don't stay within the index, which for Boyertown this year is 2.9 percent, you need to seek voter approval in the spring primary -- unless you seek "exceptions" from the state for a set of prescribed reasons that include pension payments, special education and construction.

In Boyertown's case, they are seeking the special education exception, approved by the board with only Dierolf and Neiman voting no, that allows the spending of up to $1,583,570 above the amount raised by the index.

"The hammer hasn't even dropped yet in terms of what's coming in the next two or three years," said Krem, referring to the pension crisis, urging the board to ensure it has all its options available to deal with the difficult decisions ahead. 

Not adopting the preliminary budget before the February deadline means, "you're basically cutting your own throat," he said.

"Take special education for example," said Krem. "If don't approve this budget, that's $1.5 million you can't claim that your taxpayers will have to make up," he said.

The budget, as it stands now early in the process, has a deficit of nearly $5 million — $4,973,252 to be exact -- according to the agenda.

Raising taxes to the index would reduce the deficit to $3.2 million and adding extra revenue from the exceptions would reduce it further still to $1.6 million.

Residents also supported the board's choice.

GOOD JOB: School Resource Officer Gregory Miller, right,
a former 

Boyertown Police Officer, is congratulated
by Brandon Foose on being 

named Police Liaison
Officer of the Year by the Community Youth 

Aid
Panel of Berks County.

Resident Stephanie Deiterich said regular, manageable increases are like investing in a retirement account, except the beneficiaries over time are the community and the students.

She urged board members to stop using "houses up for sheriff's sale" for non-payment of taxes as a tool to instill fear about the budget. She said her research shows less than 1 percent of the homes in the district are up for tax sale.

John Landio, the board's former president, said some had "duped the community into thinking we can have zero tax hikes, and said the board needs to "work together," noting that The Philadelphia Eagles did not win the Super Bowl as individuals, but as a team.

Lisa Hogan of Gilbertsville said she has four children in school and although she "loves my money," she advocated for increased taxes to preserve the programs and reputation of the school district.

As Finance Committee Chairman Steve Eisler pointed out, it is very early in the process and the figures are likely to change several times before June.

In the interests of maintaining flexibility, Caso and Breece both said they would change their vote. Ultimately, so too did Dierolf. "Let's pass it, get it over with and sharpen the pencils afterward," said Caso.

Caso also criticized the previous board for failing to undertake a year-long budget review and Krem agreed. "when you're doing a budget, you should also be looking two and three years out," he said.

Eisler agreed.

"We need a new CFO, new look, and new ideas. We need new blood," he said. 

Longtime Chief Financial Officer David Szablowski announced his departure in November.

"So much of what we do is mandated, we have so little control of much of our budget," said School Board president Donna Usavage. "What's left is close to the students."

Board member Brandon Foose suggested the board set up a workshop meeting dedicated solely to brainstorming about ways to cut costs and trim the tax hike without cutting programs.

Resident Ruth Baker offered up some suggestions, including using solar power, having energy audits done to sdave on operating costs; cutting the number of vice principals in the high schools and planting trees to shade buildings and cut down on air conditioning costs.

In another matter of interest, the board also voted to spend $16,000 on further study and suggested solutions to structural problems at the Memorial Stadium at Boyertown Area Senior High School.

We'll have more on that in later editions of The Mercury.

In the meantime, here are the Tweets.

Boyertown Area School Board Faces the Music

Photo by Evan Brandt

Washington Elementary School music teacher Anita Boyer

outlines the performance by the senior orchestra at

Tuesday's Boyertown Area School Board Meeting.

The Boyertown Area School Board faced the music Tuesday night in several ways.

The first and most pleasant was the performance by the Washington Elementary School senior orchestra, which played two pieces for the board.

The second, and decidedly less pleasant, were some budget numbers that put some hard choices in front of the board, including saving saving $1.8 million by cutting the very music program that had just serenaded them.

The third, and most political, were comments from three residents of the district who take issue with an email sent out by board member Clay Breece, which they believe violates the board procedures adopted just two weeks ago, and which, they say, is dividing the board and the community.

One of the speakers even called for Breece's resignation.

He responded with a statement, seen in the video pasted below and which did not respond to the call for his resignation, but instead doubled down on his concerns about the school district interfering with parents' oversight and notification about things like questions about gender identity and that even warned of the "collectivism" championed by Karl Marx.

You can read about it all in the Tweets below: