Spring-Ford Schools Receive $35,000 STEM Grant

Ram QUEST teacher Zach Laurie guides students as they work together to build a class project.

 Blogger's Note: The following was provided by the Spring-Ford Area School District.

The Spring-Ford Area School District was recently selected by the Pennsylvania Department of Education to receive a $35,000 grant through the PAsmart Program to grow the current Ram QUEST program in grades 1 through 6. 

RAM Quest is a class where students engage in authentic learning experiences in which they have to think critically and creatively to solve problems, to inquire, and to explore.

PAsmart is built on the recommendations of Governor Wolf's Middle-Class Task Force, comprised of business, labor, education, and workforce development leaders. 

In response to the task force's findings, the governor secured $30 million to strategically invest in education and workforce development with competitive grants to enhance the skills of Pennsylvania residents. These competitive grants will expand classroom instruction and professional development in the fast-growing fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and computer science.

Heidi Rochlin, Math and Science Curriculum Supervisor, completed the grant application for the district. 

"Grant applications can often be a daunting task, but I really enjoyed this process. I looked at it as an opportunity to focus on our strengths and identify how and where we can grow," Rochlin said. "Our STEM education is already quite impressive, and now we have additional resources to provide more opportunities for our students. Our targeted grant of $35,000 will be structured so that our Ram QUEST team can experience new and innovative training and materials in order to further implement STEM learning in their classrooms."

A $11M Yes Vote for Spring-Ford High Expansion

The Spring-Ford Area School Board recognized the high school wrestling team Monday nights for its many achievements during the season.

Years of debate, study, analysis and meetings -- so many meetings -- all came to an anti-climactic head Monday night when the Spring-Ford Area School Board voted 7-1 to accept the bids for the $11 million expansion of Spring-Ford Area High School.

The proposed project includes three additions: a 10,700-square-foot performing arts expansion, a 17,200-square-foot physical education expansion, and a 6,900-square-foot corridor expansion.

The bids were opened last week and although estimates last year had ranged from $10.5 to $12.1  million, the total came in at $10.9 million.

School Board member Mark Dehnert cast the only vote against the project and told me afterward he believes it is unnecessary.

"That's a lot of money to spend for a facility that already provides most of these things" Dehnert said. "We can get by with the weight room we already have and we didn't even know we needed a band room until a consultant said so," he said.

"We have security concerns now and we could use the money on that instead of on things that are not important educationally," said Dehnert, although he conceded that the widening of a pinch-point corridor is probably warranted for safety reasons.

But Dehnert was in the minority both on the board and from the public comments that preceded the vote.

Clint Fetterman told the board the marching band had just returned from Disney World with lots of awards and "no place to put them," adding that the new expanded music facilities would have a place for them.

Former board member Joe Cerisi said ti had taken six years to get to this point for a vote, calling it "One of the greatest steps we've seen this district take in a long time."

Gail Wellington, who owns three commercial properties in the district, said the project would improve quality of life, improve the school district's reputation and increase property values.

School Board President Tom DiBello said the vote "has been a long-time coming."

He said the low-bid contractors have all been notified, so they can start ordering steel and other supplies, and that work is scheduled to begin shortly after the last day of school, currently scheduled for June 14.

Overall, the project will taker about two years, but because most of the work is new construction, there should not be much disturbance for students. The corridor re-construction and expansion will be undertaken first so as to minimize disturbance to students.

The budget for debt payments for the district is fixed at about about 14.9 million, but currently payments are only $14.1 million. leaving $700,000 to cover additional borrowing costs for expansion, DiBello says. 

Even though the district could borrow the entire cost of the project without exceeding its debt budget, the board decided it would be wise to use $3.4 million from capital reserve, he said, which will still leave "$10 million to $11 million in the capital reserve fund," he said.

"After about five years, we'll see a huge drop-off in debt, down to about $9 million, and another three years after that, we'll drop off again so our payments will be about $3 million," said DiBello.

DiBello said Spring-Ford has a good year financially and did not have to raise taxes last year, and used some of the excess funds to help fund the project.

Here are the Tweets from the meeting:

Spring-Ford Looks at Armed Guards in Each Building

The travels of my company's sole municipal reporter for the region can take me far and wide ... and sometimes to more meetings than one in a night.

Having been attracted to the Limerick Township Supervisors meeting by a vote on a new police contract -- more on that tomorrow -- I found myself free by 8 p.m., only a half-hour into the Spring-Ford School Board meeting just down the road.

And so your intrepid reporter trundled down Lewis Road to what, according to the agenda, would be the back half of meeting with no big news anticipated.

And then Mark Dehnert spoke.

Noting the recent tragedy at Marjorie Stoneman Douglass High School in Parkland, Florida, Dehnert said he would like to see the administration look into having armed security in every school building.

And suddenly, there was news, both timely and poignant.

It just goes to show you, never trust an agenda.

Anyway, as you will be able to see from the Tweets below, the conversation ranged from whether armed security would be effective -- "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," said Dehnert in his best NRA impression of NRA President Wayne LaPierre -- to when and how longs the doors to the school are open.

The fact that the district just had a security audit two years ago seemed relevant, said Superintendent David Goodin. After all, the district already has two armed security guards based at the high school, but which visit all 11 buildings, he said.

Ultimately, the board agreed to ask for a cost-analysis of having armed security in each building, as well as a cursory review of the two-year-old audit by the company that did it.

You can read about that, and more, in the Tweets below: