As Decision Nears, Focus is on Pine Forge Closing

Pine Forge Elementary School

Tuesday's Boyertown School Board meeting at the New Hanover/Upper Frederick Elementary School was one of the shortest Boyertown meetings I have ever attended.

But they still found time to dance around the edges of the story top on the minds of most Boyertown taxpayers -- will the school board close Pine Forge Elementary School.

The matter has been before the board for months and last month, about 125 parents urged the board to keep the school open during a hearing required by law before a school can be closed.

But the board faces a problem of a stagnant commercial tax base, increasing housing developments in the Montgomery County half of the district and rising costs.

Keeping the school open will also require millions to bring it up to snuff with the districts other six elementary schools.

At the hearing, Superintendent Dana Bedden said closing Pine Forge could save the district between $1.9 million and $8.7 million because of what it may cost to modernize the building, which dates to 1928.

Last night saw the introduction of the board's newest student
member, junior Eric Muthersbaugh, left, who joins
senior Hailey Levengood.

Tuesday night, School Board President Steve Elsier took the opportunity to answer what he said is a frequently asked question about the matter: What happens if the school board closes Pine Forge and the district's student population grows?

"No one has a crystal ball," said Elsier. He said while the economy is growing, and has been for 10 years, "economies are cyclical and there have been signs of a recession."

Elsier further pointed out that the district's birth rate has slowed, "which is something to consider. What growth there is, is on the east side (of the district) and some of any might be at secondary level," he said adding that Pine Forge is the district's "most remote" school.

There is currently space for around 900 more students in the and should it become necessary, "we can always re-district," Elsier said, noting that even if Pine Forge stays open, the district will still need to re-district.

If all else fails, an addition could be put onto an existing elementary school, Elsier said, noting that the district's current "Plan Con," the process for getting state aid for construction, already includes an addition to Colebrookdale Elementary.

What it also once included, but no longer does, is plans for a new elementary school somewhere in Montgomery County.

Board member Christine Neiman raised the point that some board members had said mis-information was being spread about that, but it had been included in the district's Plan Con.

Board member Donna Usavage said it was included during the financial crisis when Harrisburg was freezing all new requests for Plan Con funding and the school board wanted to preserve its options.

Capacity at New Hanover/Upper Frederick Elementary,

where last night's meeting was held, is at 94 percent.

The option of building a new elementary school in Montgomery County was removed from the district's Plan Con in 2017, said Neiman.

Bedden threw some facts into the mix.

He said overall, Boyertown has 6,819 students currently across all buildings.

On a per-school basis, it breaks down as follows:

• High school -- 88.5 percent capacity;
• Middle school east -- 88.5 percent capacity;
• Middle school west -- 88 percent capacity;
• Washington Elementary -- 71.4 percent capacity;
• Boyertown Elementary -- 62 percent capacity;
• Colebrookdale Elementary -- 76 percent capacity;
• Pine Forge Elementary -- 61.4 percent capacity;
• Earl Elementary -- 63.7 percent capacity;
• New Hanover/Upper Frederick Elementary -- 94 percent capacity;
• Gilbertsville Elementary -- 103.7 percent capacity.

Those figures make it obvious that the growth, and most crowded schools, are in the Montgomery County portion of the district, which only has three of the district's 10 school buildings.

And with that to chew on, here are the Tweets from the meeting:
Pine Forge On Their Minds

Cost of Boyertown Athletic Project Jumps by $1M

Photos by Evan Brandt

Boyertown Area Senior High School's former Memorial Stadium bleachers have already been  and the footers for the new home bleachers are already in place.

The cost of the $5.7 million project at Boyertown High School to replace Memorial Stadium, upgrade the softball field, build a concession and team room there and to construct a new maintenance building has increased by $1 million.

Tuesday night the school board voted 5-2 to make changes to the plans for the project in order to ensure it complies with federal Americans with Disabilities Act and Title IX regulations.

Board members Ruth Dierolf and Christine Neiman voted against the changes. Board members Jill Dennin and Donna Usavage were absent.

Images from Pesentation

According to a 44-page presentation by the project planners -- KCBA Architects; Barry Isett & Assoc. engineers; Fidevia construction management and Stadium Solutions, which is undertaking the grandstand design -- changes include: 

• Move Softball Varsity Field to area adjacent to Bear Stadium (current Junior Varsity Baseball Field)
• Relocate Junior Varsity Baseball Field to current Junior Varsity Softball Field 
• Relocate Junior Varsity Softball Field to current Varsity Softball Field 
• Perform some field maintenance work with BASD Staff
• Add 92-seat grandstand and pressbox to softball field and scoreboard
• ADA accessible ramp and a press box that accommodates two individuals
• Add support facilities that include: Concession (no food preparation); team room; toilets; utility/storage room
• Two free-standing dug-outs, each with storage

The presentation warned that the school district could be sued for violating either Title IX or ADA rules if the changes were not made.

Title IX requires schools to maintain policies, practices and programs that do not discriminate against anyone based on sex and the varsity softball facility needs to be made "comparable" with the boys baseball facility to comply with Title IX, Superintendent Dana Bedden said Tuesday night.

In addition to a lawsuit, the district could also be disciplined by the U.S. Dept. of Education's Office of Civil Rights for title IX violations, which could even result in the loss of federal funding for the district, according to the presentation.

Neiman demanded to know why none of the Title IX requirements were identified in the original plan. "We hire all these people, we give them titles, they should know what they're doing," she said. "We run into this constantly."

Bedden said he could not speak to what went on before he arrived, but said he is Title IX certified and can help advise the district how to steer clear of violating the rules.

"It's better to catch these errors now, while the contractors are here," said Board President Steve Elsier.

Neiman also objects to the maintenance garage which is to be built as part of the project, saying she believes it will cost too much. But board member Clay Breece said providing a space for vehicle maintenance to be done will save money because it will allow district employees to do the work rather than having it outsourced to outside contractors.

Other factors increasing the cost of the project, according to the presentation, include a sharp increase in construction costs since the original scope was approved and stormwater issues such as:

• Poor on-site soils and NPDES permit process that will force force spray irrigation 
• Triggers upfront construction for all future items 
• Dramatically increases initial costs 
• Downsizing of project permits a single, cost-effective rain garden

To deal with the stormwater issues, the board unanimously approved a further erosion study by Barry Isset & Associations not to exceed $13,000.

To pay for all this additional cost, the project will be downsized and some other plans for other improved fields, which were to be designed and approved by the township but not yet built, will not be drawn up.

Footers and infrastructure for the new Memorial Stadium 

grandstands as they appeared Tuesday evening.

Other aspects of the project will be reduced, such as building a second ticket booth, omitting work to improve the Berks Street entrance to the stadium and reducing the size of the maintenance building, all of which will save more than $854,000, the consultants calculated.

The board also voted 6-1 Tuesday night on a resolution which allows funds remaining from a 2015 borrowing  to pay the additional $1,025,437 cost.

Several other things of interest happened during the meeting, but its too late to write them up now, although you can get a sense of them from the Tweets from the meeting below:

$1 Million More for Stadium & Fields

Boyertown Takes $1M Step Toward New Stadium

Boyertown School officials hope to have a new set of grandstands, replacing these, ready to go for the first football game of the 2019 season in August.

The Boyertown School Board voted Tuesday night to spend more than $1 million for new grandstands at the new stadium being built at the high school.

Although the financing for the $5 million project has not yet been decided upon, the vote occurred to take advantage of an offer to skim $100,000 off the price of the new stands if the order was placed before Dec. 1.

The board decided in June to move ahead with demolishing the old stadium, which developed structural problems due to water infiltration.

The package the board approved Tuesday is with Stadium Solutions and includes the home side grandstands, the home side press box and a new handicap platform for the visitor side.

The price is $1,167,200 and there would be a three-year warranty on the grandstand and it's installation, along with a one-year warranty on the press box.

The vote was not unanimous.

Board member Ruth Dierolf, who said she likes the package and agrees it is the right one for Boyertown, said she nevertheless had to vote against it because she has taken the position she will not vote on anything until she knows the impact on the budget.

Board member Clay Breece was more expansive in his opposition, tying it to what he said is the board's spendthrift approach to budgeting.

"I'm not voting for new stadium. I think we need to be fixing the stadium we've got," said Breece.

"There are people on this board who have never met a spending idea they don't like," he said. "We should be fixing the stadium we've got for $2.5 million, not spending $5 million for a new one."

Fixing the current stadium would be pennywise and pound foolish, said board member Brandon Foose, saying it could develop the same problems in a few years.

"If we repair stadium, and a couple years later, we have to replace it anyway, that would be a huge waste of money," Foose said.

The current plan is for the new stadium to be ready for the first football game in August of 2019.

Budget Discussion

The board also undertook a fairly lengthy budget discussion, although the discussion focused more on process than the details of the budget, which is still months away.

In January, the board can either vote to stay within the state tax cap, called the index, or go through the process of  building a preliminary which has to be adopted in February, according to Chief Financial Officer Becky Clouser.

This slide shows that if the school board had raised taxes each 

year by the state index, it's millage would be .73 mills higher.

Doing so would allow the district to apply for, as it has in past years, for "exceptions" to the tax cap without having to go to voters. This year, Boyertown's index would limit a tax hike to a maximum of 2.8 percent.

In addition to hiring a new superintendent this year, the district has also had to replace almost the entire business office, that combined with the vote to rescind the per capita tax elimination and "inconsistent expenditure reporting," has slowed progress on holding budget meetings.

Dierolf and board member Christine Neiman complained that work on the budget was supposed to start earlier. "We used to have the different school building leaders come in an make their pitch for what they wanted in the coming year. How are we supposed to vote on a budget if we don't have all the pieces?" asked Dierolf.

Board Vice President and Finance Committee Chairman Steve Elsier said work on the budget has occurred in the finance committee more than in previous years.

Superintendent Dana Bedden, who is undergoing his first budget with the board since being hired in July, said he was disturbed by Dierolf's suggestion.

"I have never, in 14 years as a superintendent, had departments or buildings lobby the board. That sounds like a 'Shark Tank' scenario and pits one department against the other. That's scary to me," Bedden said.

Instead, those pitches should be made to the administration and the administration should bring a recommendation to the board, he said.

Clouser said the deficit in the current budget has already been reduced to $1.3 million, which is less than previous years.

Bedden said he has never presided over a school district that "operated in the red" and he does not intend to start now.

His team has already saved $125,000 on copier leases and workers compensation insurance.

In fact the new copier lease will save $625,000 over the course of the five-year contract, which Elsier said "is real money."

Annual savings of more than $30,000 will also be realized as the result of a change over to a new student information system that the board approved Tuesday night.

The district needs to take a different approach to budgeting to "right the ship" Bedden said. "Whatever we've done in the past isn't working."

There are many factors that contribute to rising costs. "We feed our children milk every day and the price of milk will go up," he said, also agreeing with Elsier that the PSERS retirement costs dictated by the state-wide pension system is a huge factor.

"When I saw the figures for this year I called and checked because I didn't think that could be right," said Bedden. Another factor will be negotiations for a new teacher contract, he said.

"Like I said when you interviewed me, you can't tax your way out of this, but similarly, you can't cut your way out of it," Bedden said. "I hope we're open to doing this a different way, so we can be more efficient."

And with that, here are the Tweets from the meeting:

Boyertown Grandstanding

Boyertown Board Meeting is All About the Money

It's hard to keep track of all the major issues with which the Boyertown School Board dealt last night, but nearly all of them had one thing in common -- spending public money.

Let's take a survey of all the issues on which they voted:

• The $118 million budget that raises taxes 5.4 percent;
• Tearing down Memorial Stadium and building a new one;
• Lowering the student activity fee;
• Preserving the per capita tax;
• A one-year teacher contract;
• Spending more than $300,000 on upgrading school security;
• The extension of the interim superintendent's contract;
• Extending the contract for the district's public relations firm.

Here's the short version, they were all approved, some unanimously, some by 6-3 vote and one by a 7-2 vote.

Let's walk through them one by one, starting with the big one -- the budget.

Surprisingly, there was less board comment on spending $118,669,893, then there was about lowering the activity fee from $200 to $100 -- with a $300 cap per family instead of $400 -- a teacher contract that will cost an additional $1.2 million; or even spending $6,000 more on public relations.

It will raise the millage by 1.35 mills and taxes by $136 for owners of a property assessed at $100,000.

What comment there was on the budget came from board member Clay Breece who, as he has done before, referring to public schools as "a government monopoly."

"The plan of some board directors is to simply raise taxes," said Breece, arguing the board had not done enough work on the budget to reduce costs. 

"We don't have anybody who wants to make tough decisions. I don't think most of the people here wouldn't know a tough decision if it was staring them in the face," Breece said of his fellow board members, warning "they will raise taxes again if we keep electing the same people."

Breece, was joined by board members Ruth Dierolf and Christine Neiman in casting the three votes against the budget.

No one voted against, or spoke about, a one-year contract with the teachers union, the Boyertown Education Association, which will add $1.2 million in costs to the budget the board adopted the same night.

The contract makes no changes to benefits, increases by 1 percent pay for co-curricular salaries and adds $1,500 to each step on the salary schedule effective the fourth pay in the 2019-2019 school year which begins July 1.

But there will be no step movement in that year. The contract has already been approved by the union.

Similarly, the vote to spend $355,649 on security upgrades at all the district's buildings -- the first of several phases -- received unanimous support from the board.

Breece said he looks forward to the policy discussions over the summer for the coming phases of the security upgrade, saying he favors inviting armed veterans and off-duty police officers to patrol the halls.

Those people "will squash the threat in seconds, not in minutes," he said.

In terms of cost, the next most costly item would probably be the tearing down of 32-year-old stadium and replacing it. They have tentatively been estimated between $1.5 million to $2 million, but, as Neiman noted before the vote, the motion the board was asked to approve -- and did unanimously -- contained no cost estimates whatsoever.

Not to worry, said Solicitor Jeffrey Sultanik, the motion is more of a "directive" for the administration to get started, and no bids or plans could be set into motion without further approval from the board.

The board also voted 7-2 on a last-minute motion to save the per capita tax of about $14 on every resident of the district over 18. In 2013, the board voted to phase out the tax on July 1 of 2018, but Dierolf said she had continually asked to revisit the issue.

If the board did not reverse the 2013 resolution before July 1, the only way to get it back would be by a district-wide referendum which, said Breece, is what the board should do.

"Let the people vote on it and board will get a lesson in civics," said Breece. "This thing will go down like a Japanese zero into one of those aircraft carriers during World War II."

But in the end despite the fact that in previous years it has cost 40 percent of the revenue it generates to collect it, only Breece and School Board President Donna Usavage voted to let the tax expire.

After expenses, it will net about $160,000 for the district.

It was not immediately known how much extending interim superintendent David Krem's contract for another year will cost. With the withdrawal of its top candidate this spring, the board, while hoping to have another candidate by the start of school, seems to be covering all possibilities.

Krem's contract, by which he is paid $800 per day, was unanimously extended to June 30, 2019.

Krem noted the fact that he is not paid for days he does not work and said the total days he did not work this year will cover the increased cost of renewing the communications contract with Kultivate, a Gilbertsville firm that has one employee -- Kristine Parkes.

He was strongly defending the recommendation to renew that contract for another three years, saying the $6,000 increase in cost was more than covered by the money he was not paid on the days he did not work.

Neiman questioned whether any other firm had been contacted for a price, and even made a motion -- which received no second -- to cancel the contract. And Krem's response was forceful, to say the least.

"In all my years, I have not sat in any meeting where you have degraded any professional contractor they way you have degraded Kultivate, just because its a one-man operation," said Krem. "I don't want to have this conversation with you again," he said, noting he does not "have the time to keep up with what's on Facebook and Twitter," adding mostly every statement that appears over his name was written by Parkes.

The contract, which costs $3,600 per month, was approved by a 6-3 vote, with Neiman, Dierolf and Breece voting no.

The item generating the most discussion Tuesday night was the vote to reduce the activity fee paid by students who participate in extra-curricular activities.

As a result of the 6-3 vote, the fee will be reduced from $200 to $100 per student and a cap of $300 per family, down from a cap of $400 per family.

Dierolf, Neiman and Breece all voted against the reduction, asking where the revenue lost would be made up.

"Where will that  $100,000 come from?" asked Dierolf. "We're buying Underarmor socks, getting laundry done, paying insurance. Soon enough we'll be paying students to play," she said.

"If I thought for one moment that $100 was keeping anyone from participating in an activity I would change my vote," said Dierolf.

"This is more of a political payback, inside joke with a pinch of contempt for the public. It's fake virtue," said Breece.

Brandon Foose said the money represents "one-tenth of 1 percent of our budget. It was a mistake when it was instituted and when it was increased it was a mistake. We must find ways to generate revenue in ways that do not create barriers to kids getting involved."

"When students connect with their school and activities, they are less likely to have animosity toward that institution," said Foose. "Activities helps develop the whole student. The community benefits from us having well-rounded students."

I think that's everything. I have faith if I've missed something, you folks will let me know. Otherwise, here are the Tweets from the meeting:

All About the Money in Boyertown School District

Stadiums, New Superintendents and School Choice

The stadium at Boyertown Area Senior High School is currently closed to the public

It's probably safe to say that both the school board and parents who attended Tuesday's meeting hoping to get some glimpse of how long the district will have to go without the use of its structurally-challenged stadium left the meeting disappointed.

Tom Slowik, from the firm of Barry Isett & Assoc. outlined some proposed fixes for the stadium -- specifically a steel "exo-skeleton" as one board member put it, for the underside of the stadium and brick fixes and extra fasteners for the brick facade.

But the unanswered question is how bad are the pre-stressed concrete forms that hold up the seats and the riders?

The problem, said Slowik, is that the condition of the cables in the interior of the concrete is unknown and requires special testing from a special lab that could take several weeks. The absence of that information prevented him from giving either the school board or the anxious parents in the audience the two answers they crave -- how much? and how long?

Some of the parents conceded that with the timeline expanding the way it seems to be, it would be unlikely the stadium would be ready by the fall athletic season and alternative plans -- like using the stadium at Ursinus College, which plays on Saturdays -- should be explored.

Several board members spent some time explaining why the problems at the stadium -- stewing for as long as 10 years -- are not their fault.

Also of interest was the announcement by School Board President Donna Usavage that Juniata School District Superintendent Keith Yarger is the leading contender to be Boyertown's new superintendent. Richard Faidley resigned last year.

Yarger will visit on April 23 and the public will be invited to meet him, details to follow.

And in the guess-what-else department, Usavage also allowed the board to propose and pass a resolution not on the agenda and suggested by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association in opposition to proposed Senate Bill 2.

The bill would allow students in failing districts to take their state subsidy and go elsewhere, including a private school. The resolution passed 6-3, but not without some spirited opposition from board member Clay Breece.

Here are the Tweets from the meeting:

Boyertown Parents Seek Answers to Stadium Woes

Memorial Stadium at Boyertown Area Senior High School is currently closed to the public due to potential structural problems, with the exception of the track team, which uses the two inside lanes to practice.

A standing-room only crowd packed the school board facilities committee meeting Tuesday, filled with people who wanted answers about when repairs will begin on Memorial Stadium.

More specifically, they wanted to know whether it will be repaired in time for the fall sports (football) season.

They didn't get all the answers they sought, largely because those answers don't exist yet, but those that do, they received.

On Feb. 26, the board hired Barry Isett & Assoc. to complete a structural analysis of the stadium and present options for the repairs. That is the same firm that in January reported the stadium may have structural problems and should be closed to the public.

Tom Slowik, the firm's senior forensic engineer, will give an update on progress to the school board at its April 10 meeting, according to a timeline handed out by Facilities Committee Chairman David Lewis. The deadline for presenting final options is the week of April 23.

As things stood Tuesday, those findings will be presented first to the facilities committee at the May 1 meeting, and the full board will vote on a course of action on May 8.

After that, a bid must be prepared and after a month the bids will be opened and work can begin.

The parents who attended thanked the board for what information was prevented and urged them to understand the importance the stadium holds to high school athletes in the community.

The possibility of special meetings to get started sooner, as well as option for night work, were broached.

Athletic Director Nick Palladino said he has several options for the fall sports season, the selection of which will depend on how long the repairs will take.

Here are the Tweets from the meeting:

Four Apply to Fill Boyertown School Board Vacancy

Four applicants are seeking the vacant Boyertown Area School Board Region 1 seat held until last month by Robert Caso.

Region 1 includes the boroughs of Bally and Bechtelsville and Colebrookdale, Earl,  and Washington townships.

Caso resigned just two months after being reelected to a four-year term. The person who fills his seat will serve until December of 2019, the next municipal election.

In November of 2019, voters will decide who fills the remaining two years of the seat's term.

One of the four applicants for the seat, Rodney Boyer, was a candidate for the seat in last November's election for a Region 1 seat. He lost to Caso by 49 votes.

The other applicants for the seat, in the order they were interviewed, are William Yanalavage, Ruth Baker, and Robert Houck.

The candidates were interviewed publicly by the full school board Monday and Tuesday evenings at Colebrookdale Elementary School and the interviews were video-recorded by the district.

The board will vote on the new member at the Tuesday, March 13 meeting in the Boyertown Education Center on Montgomery Avenue. The candidate selected will be sworn in immediately and take part in the meeting that night, according to School Board President Donna Usavage.

William Yanalavage

A mechanical engineer with a daughter who went through the Boyertown schools and is now in

William Yanalavage

college, Yanalavage said he applied for the seat because he believes it is time to give back to the community.

A Boyertown graduate, Yanalavage said he went to Penn State for a year after graduating and then took a factory job with his father.

He decided to get a college education while working in the factory, got a degree from Temple University "the hard way," by going at night and working full time.

It took 9 years. He has been a mechanical engineer for 39 years.

Yanalavage told the board his job involves cost-cutting, working with a group to find a less expensive way to produce a quality product and the key to that is listening to all ideas, no matter who they come from.

He said he does not understand why students would drop out of high school and said education really has to "grab" students and help them find their best path to the future.

Yanalavage said school board members must balance needs of children with needs and burdens on the taxpayers. "I don't know all the ins and outs of what happens with the money, but I'm willing to learn," he said.

Boyertown provides a good education, Yanalavage said, but there is room for improvement. He said he does not know a lot about how the school board functions, but has no personal agenda.

Ruth Baker

Baker, who often speaks at school board meetings, said she best represents the views of Caso for Region 1.

Ruth Baker

Baker says she has done private tutoring, has organized donation of dictionaries to the schools in the 1990s and sat on strategic planning committee in 1990s. Baker has served on other boards, is recording secretary for Rolling Hills Landfill Advisory Council, has served on Earl Township Planning Commission and helped to establish historical society.

Baker said she hopes public schools accomplish something similar to what she received in Boyertown Schools; good grammar, writing, science she needed, strong level at math that allowed her to test out of college courses, as well as respect, community service, good citizenship and common sense.

If selected, Baker said she would benchmark district performance against other high-achieving districts in the state, and well-respected private schools. The SATs are the only nationally normed test and Boyertown is in the lower third, she said. So she would look to see what higher-achieving districts are doing differently.

Recognizing that the school board only has control over about 30 percent of budget, Baker said she would also like to streamline operations as much as possible to avoid tax increases on the horizon, without having it harm student achievement, which means she would look at administration and thats that are "nice to have but not needs."

Baker said the role of individual school board members should be to represent their region, "with honor and integrity." For the board as a whole, Baker said its role should be to act as an oversight body, ensure students get what they deserve and are well-prepared and that there is "no malfeasance or moral turpitude among staff."

Rodney Boyer

Boyer is a retired music teacher from the Pottsgrove School District, where he worked for 34 years.

Rodney Boyer

He has a daughter in the school system.

Boyer volunteered in daughter's school, was homeroom parent, volunteered in the library at Washington Elementary and dance marathon at Boyertown Junior High West. He volunteered at the jazz fest last weekend and served on the district's strategic planning committee.

Boyer said "public education is crucial to our country, since founding of the country," adding that in 21st century, public education has to be bigger than being able to read the Bible, in a technology-laden world. "Schools should teach students to be good citizens of country and of the world."

Boyer said it is the job of the school board to set policy and strategy for school district, ensure adequate resources. Individual board members bring their thoughts, ideas and backgrounds and contribute together as a team but none have more power than another.

Calling the quality of education in Boyertown "superb," Boyer said he is the best candidate, because he has "skin in the game," a daughter in the school district. He also has 34 years of experience in public education; has served on strategic planning committees and on school evaluation teams.

Boyer said the greatest challenge facing the school board is working together as a team to accomplish the mission. Also, "we have some budget problems, not unique to Boyertown, but it is a major one." the board must also hire a new superintendent, a new business manager, negotiate a new contract with the teachers and fix the problems at the stadium at Boyertown Area High School.

Robert Houck

A former CEO in the foundry industry, Houck said he is familiar with the Boyertown School district 

Robert Houck

largely through his wife who taught there for more than two decades.

With a number of tough financial decisions on the horizon, Houck told the board his experience could be helpful in cutting costs, obtaining money and he also has a background in human resources and helped negotiate 14 union contracts.

Houck said the role of public education is to provide best the options for students, to guide them in direction of their abilities, which is why guidance counselors are so important. Public education should prepare kids for college or a trade, to make educated decisions on what is best suited for them.

Houck said his objective is "to have best possible relationship with staff and teachers," make this an open forum to bring for the best ideas. "For me, its about what's best for the students, opportunity wise and facility wise."

The role of the school board, said Houck, is to make best decisions for the majority of people in the school district, enact obtainable budgets, but get best gang for the buck out of that for students. "I know its tough not to do major cutbacks," he said.

Houck said Boyertown schools need improvement in terms of education level, when compared to private schools. "I don't know how to do that and I don't mean that as a condemnation, but efforts need to provide more emphasis to kids and help them excel."

Here are the live Tweets from the two days of interviews:

Boyertown Talks School Shootings and Security

Photos by Evan Brandt

Marybeth Torsica takes the oath of office as

Boyertown's new assistant superintendent.

What if you had to take the oath of office for an important new job, but everyone forgot to bring the oath?

Or, to put it another way, what if you were Marybeth Torscia?

Because that's what happened to her Tuesday night when, for the second time, her swearing in was on the agenda only to hit a hiccup.

Last time, the district justice did not show up. This time, the oath of office went missing.

Luckily, the Internet came to the rescue and, after an uncomfortable delay, Boyertown Schools, which have suffered an exodus of top-level administrators in recent months, has a new Assistant Superintendent.

(Interviews for finding a new superintendent are reportedly ongoing.)

But Torscia's swearing in aside, perhaps the most significant thing from last night's Boyertown School Board meeting came at the end.

That's when, after a parent raised an issue the administration seemed intent on discussing anyway,

Boyertown High School seniors Taylor P. Winner, left, and

Ryan P. Hopkins, were recognized by the board Tuesday night for

being finalists in the National Merit Scholars program.

talk turned to the school shootings in Parkland, Florida and what school security measures Boyertown has in place .... and are they enough?

Board Vice President Steve Elsier, who ran the meeting in the absence of President Donna Usavage, became emotional while discussing the issue and said he would like the administration to provide an update and consider possible additional measures to improve school defenses against a shooter.

"We can't control the Second Amendment, but can control what do to keep children safe," he said.

"There is no amount of money you can put against a life," said board member Ruth Dierolf.

"This is a secure buildings issue, not a guns issue," said board member Clay Breece. 

"We asked for gun-free zones and that's what we got. Anyone with a gun knows where gun-free zones are," he said, adding "We need to do something and stop talking in political circles. Can solve this as a nation."

Boyertown School Board Vice President Steve Elsier, right, 

congratulates phys ed teacher Darla Lieb, who teachers at 

Gilbertsville and Colebrookdale schools. She's been named the 

Teacher of the Year by the Lancaster/Lebanon/Berks Association

of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. 

David Krem, the district's interim superintendent, said he has twice dealt with "active shooter" issues in his career and disagrees with President Trump that arming well-trained teachers is the right answer.

"The number one key element in school safety, is the parents," said Krem. "But we have to tighten up our program. Every school district does because every school district whose members walk around and think 'it can't happen here,' is as wrong as wrong can be."

"It can happen anywhere, at any time and the numbers prove it. We've had 137 school shootings since 1980 and 297 students have been killed," said Krem. 

"One thing I've learned for sure; if you have a shooter who wants to get into your building, they're going to get into your building. It doesn't matter how many armed guards you have or how many metal detectors you have."

Some parents have suggested armed guards and Krem said "I crunched the numbers. It costs $1 million for one armed guard at the front door of every school. It's a million dollars a year and it only goes up."

Board member Brendan Foose, who was present by speaker phone, said he was at Boyertown High when the Columbine shootings shocked the nation, and it's only gotten worse since then.

Instead of asking for a security update once, he suggested the board commit to doing an annual review of security measures.

Here are the Tweets from the meeting: