Wednesday, December 22, 2010

School Board Applicants: Beware

Harrisburg is on the verge of bankruptcy.  Today’s Policy Brief from the Allegheny Institute asks,
Will we be following Maryland’s footsteps?  Maryland Considering Cuts in Education Funding
Did you happen to catch 60 Minutes on Sunday?  State Budgets: The Day of Reckoning
Just got this in my mailbox: The PSEA Is Funding Its Fight Against Kids   Here is their website. Commonwealth Foundation - Fund the Fight

And we need to build spend $113.3 million on a high school renovation now?  Remember this when trying to fill James Fraasch’s shoes.  He was the only one with any fiscal responsibility.

Updated December 23, 2010: As mentioned on Blog-Lebo, the first draft of the Five-Year Forecast from the September 30, 2010 Audit and Finance Committee meeting is now public.  It may be viewed here. September 2010 First Draft of 5 Year Forecast I was denied a copy of a later draft at the October 28, 2010 Audit and Finance Committee meeting.  As I said above, School Board Applicants: Beware!

4 comments:

John Ewing said...

The school board hired Dr. Smartschan in July 1990 to do strategic planning because they thought the district was living on its reputation. The recent Outcomes Report did not live up to the five-year goals of the District. The Plan was extended for two more years. Is this the performance we are expecting from our schools? Should the emphasis be on bricks and mortar or on academics?

John Kendrick said...

As a 33 year resident I resent being laughed at by others from neighboring municipalities who have come to Mt Lebanon for employment (notice that I did not say work), contribute little if anything to their profession or our community, and summarily create unending problems for our residents while publicly laughing and scoffing at our community, our residents, and the volunteers who for better or worse contributed their time to try to improve the institutions in Mt Lebanon.

I sincerely hope that we give very critical consideration to the selection of our future leaders. We are at an extremely critical juncture in our community. We literally cannot afford to have anything less than the very best of our community as our new leaders; and we must work with them and help them to resolve this unbelievable mess that our Board and the legacy employees of our community have left us with.

It's really not funny...nor would it be funny if our residents did the same to their community, even though it is a rather appealing thought!

John Kendrick said...

I would like to add this thought to John Ewing's comment...

Glenn was a refreshing change to a string of what I felt were unproductive and frankly useless superintendents that populated our school district, all of which lived on the largess of our community and contributed absolutely nothing!

Lebo Citizens said...

Josephine Posti's blog, Center Court, had a comparison of our superintendent's salary to other superintendents in the AIU.
10_18_10 Board Meeting
Unfortunately, she failed to mention that our superintendent had only one year under his belt as a superintendent - anywhere. Her comparison failed to show the number of years of experience. So to compare salaries of our superintendent, who was hired with no experience as a superintendent anywhere else, with other superintendents in the AIU is unfair.