The Philanthropic Advisory Panel for 2017-2018 are:
PTA Council President Moira Aulbach
Building Principal Chris Wolfson, Mellon
Teacher appointed by MLEA Sarah Davis, Lincoln
Senior Class Co-Presidents (redacted)
Mt. Lebanon Foundation for Education Board President Natalie Wagner
Alumni Representative of the Great Alumni Nominating Committee MA Jackson
Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Education Marybeth Irvin
Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Education Ronald Davis
*Positions stay the same, name of individual assigned may change annually
Some of the earlier propaganda for the Century of Excellence Campaign incorporated The Case for Philanthropic Support "Endowed funds will protect and enhance the academic, fine arts, and student life programs that define a Mt. Lebanon education." Mary Birks told us that the endowment goal of $3 million is not attainable, so I'm guessing the "reset" boils down to sports murals, weight rooms, wrestling rooms, and artificial turf. Screw academics.
But here is the biggest tragedy. The Mt. Lebanon Foundation for Education, which was founded in 1999, embraces the same mission.
"The mission of the Mt. Lebanon Foundation for Education (MLFE) is to directly enhance student experiences in the Mt. Lebanon School District. Since 1999, MLFE, a not-for-profit, 501 (c) (3) organizations, has funded more than 130 innovative projects spanning the entire curriculum at all 10 Mt. Lebanon Schools."Many of the Board Members of MLFE are also on the Philanthropic Advisory Panel.
President
Natalie Wagner, parent
Treasurer
Julie Smith, alumna and parent
Board Members
Melissa Bailey, parent
Lynda Battista, Spanish teacher, Mellon Middle School
Josh Bilak, Physics teacher, Mt. Lebanon High School
Dr. Ron Davis, Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education and parent.
Doug Deniziuk, Special Education, Mellon Middle School
Mike Hathy, Biology teacher, Mt. Lebanon High School, alumnus, parent
Dr. Marybeth Irvin, Assistant Superintendent of Elementary Education
Jennifer McMullen, 2nd grade teacher, Hoover Elementary School and parent
Kim Robbins, 4th grade teacher, Washington Elementary School
We didn't need the Century of Excellence for the Waltons, the Conovers, Mr. McMurray, or the others who were so generous, to donate. We didn't need to waste almost a million dollars from the General Fund for start up. Everything has been set up since 1999!We have two fundraising groups housed in the same building and neither are paying rent for the space at 7 Horsman Drive. Not only do they share the same operating expenses, the director of both happen to be the same person, Sloane Astorino.
Shut down the Capital Campaign. It is an illegal operation, as defined by the PA School Code. Nobody knows how much has been raised, or how much has been spent. Katie Caste, the campaign treasurer has made statements in which donations vary from almost two million dollars to almost a million dollars. Jan Klein keeps rewriting the books. Timmy and the board keep promising to share information with residents, but never seem to get back to them. School board members have limited information, when they should be the ones in charge. We left the Quiet Phase only to return to the Quiet Phase. Videos are being removed from the District website. Documents are being reworked.
Stop wasting money. SHUT IT DOWN!
Why are the names of the Co-Presidents REDACTED! WE DESERVE TO KNOW WHO IS ON THIS BOARD.
ReplyDeleteHi Elaine...thank you for pointing out that we are doing everything in our powers as taxpayers to get our questions answered by submitting emails and attending school board meetings but when our questions still go unanswered/ignored then we are forced to file right to knows. What else are we supposed to do?
ReplyDeleteMary Birks made it a big deal in her rant last week about how so many right to knows are being submitted but she needs to realize that "she" is the problem and that "she" is the reason for the uptick in right to knows.
Even Jeanine Szalinski made a comment to me the other day when I picked up documents about how she isn't able to get all her work done because she has to work on right to knows. I told her to talk to Mary Birks because Mary Birks is the one who is not answering our questions.
I find it hard to believe that here in Mt. Lebanon we have a school board president who refuses to take responsibility for a decision she made. What kind of adult person does that?
Nick M.
2:35 PM, under the RTK law, names of minors are redacted. It is easy enough to find out student co-presidents are.
ReplyDeleteElaine
I think Mt. Lebanon would have a lot to learn from Greater Latrobe Partners in Education Foundation. They were able to raise $4.1 million of initial $5 million dollar goal in two years. Greater Latrobe Partners in Education Foundation was formed in 2012!
ReplyDeleteGo Wildcats, Blue Devils can't touch that.
I'm guessing you meant to slam this blog instead of the school board when you write "this board," Questioning the redaction of Co-Presidents is a reasonable reaction, considering so much information has been hidden. 2:35 PM probably didn't realize they were students. May I remind you that you too, 7:04 PM are a "follower of this board."
ReplyDeletePeace out.
Elaine
I wonder how much the overhead cane to in the Greater Latrobe Partners in Education.
ReplyDeleteNick M writes: "I find it hard to believe that here in Mt. Lebanon we have a school board president who refuses to take responsibility for a decision she made. What kind of adult person does that?"
ReplyDeleteLook at the history of those who have been on the SB. There is a consistent theme of immaturity. Lying, making faces, getting defensive when taxpayers ask for facts, hiding details. Now we have them physically removing public information without explanation, changing documents, avoiding adult discussions and attempting to hide failure by relabeling it.
It's ridiculous. If I were someone reading those BS "top places to live" lists, I would want to know what I was getting into with these people.
no wonder why people don't want to donate money to this group? They are not trusted and are not supported! Is it really necessary for Cappucci & Birks to continue on the board. They do more harm than good. Perhaps someone could donate golf, tennis or swimming lessons to these candidates and they could get a new hobby!
ReplyDeleteBut there would be no conflict of interests with any of those new hobbies. They would not be able to continue covering up information. Now that the Candidates Forum has been canceled, they're starting to panic. They must continue on the board to keep hiring friends, neighbors, and relatives or funneling money to their employer.
ReplyDeleteElaine
Found this Trib article to be enlightening.
ReplyDeletehttp://triblive.com/neighborhoods/alleghenyneighborhoods/alleghenyneighborhoodsmore/7148417-74/district-campaign-foundation
For starters—
“Mt. Lebanon will become the second school district with an endowment handled by the foundation after the Fox Chapel Area School District established a fund there about six years ago, Uranker said.
The district will pay the foundation to manage the account.
The district is planning an initial investment of about $50,000 in the Century of Excellence fund after the school board approved the partnership at Monday's meeting. Grants to the district will be available after about a year, Uranker said.”
• Fox Chapel started theirs with the Pgh Foundation about six years before Lebo.
• How much are we paying the Foundation, looking at the financial statements it doesn’t look like there is much left to be paying anybody.
• when did the initial investment jump from $50,000 to $923,520.
• ““You try to get the majority of contributors before you make a big public splash, so you can say, ‘We have this much of our $6 million campaign done, now we need your help,'” he said. He declined to say how much had been pledged so far.”
They started hiding the results almost from the beginning.
• “Once up and running, an endowment fund could boost the district budget to support programs that would otherwise be cut due to rising costs or declining revenue. The program will initially support sports and arts programs at the district, Uranker said.”
Notice the priorities! Initially support sports and arts programs. No mention of academics, special ed or technology.
And finally: “The board originally hoped for a campaign of up to $30 million to prevent the need for a second bond issue for the $109.65 million high school renovation and expansion, but a consultant quickly said a $6 million goal would be more feasible.”
These people at one time actually thought they could raise $30 million! They can barely bring in $1 million and they spent $700,000 doing that.
Dreamers!!!
Driving around Lebo, my unscientific pole based on yard signs puts the Riemer, Strotmeyer Diamond Team slightly ahead of the Timmy Team.
ReplyDeleteWe’ve got to get more people interested in the facts and ready to vote.
You drove around lebo counting yard signs and then called it a "pole." Cool. No need to hold the election, 12:35. Thanks for calling it now.
ReplyDeleteNo, didn’t intentionally drive around counting signs, 4:11, just decided on my usual runs to work, store, etc. to count the signs I saw. It always seemed that Riemer’s crew had a few more signs than the Timmy Team along each route.
ReplyDeleteHopefully, that unscientific ‘poll’ holds up on Election Day, but it could be I just don’t hit your neighborhood, 4:11, and that’s why I suggested getting more Riemer, Strotmeyer and Diamond supporters out to vote.
Can you help me understand this: I thought the capital campaign was to help the fund the district, with really anything that the people who donated wanted it to goto, Matts Maker space etc or just general funds help. And why in the world would we want to shut this down, I'm not looking for my taxes to go up even more to fund these large projects, but I'd like the students to benefit from them.
ReplyDeleteThe foundation for education I thought was to fund grants for teachers who wanted to try new things in their classrooms. This is the one that Strotmeyer is involved with right?
How do you think they are the same?
9:07, hopefully you are on the verge of an ‘ah ha’ moment. At least I hope so, if you’ll stop for a moment and think about what people are upset about instead of looking at them as obstructionists.
ReplyDeleteI don’t believe, at lest I hope, that people aren’t upset if someone wants to donate ‘their’ money to some initiative— be it a weight room, library room, computers, showcases, murals or whatever. God bless them for doing so.
There’s nothing wrong with the fundraiser if that is how it works.
Trouble is though that it hasn’t. The district put $923,520.02 of cash IT ALREADY HAD from its General Funds into the campaign and now because of the overhead and expenses they have less than that left. If you read the financial statements, which seem to change monthly, expenses outpace revenue from donations! Plus you can’t spend pledges since there is no guarantee those pledges will ever come in.
So, to be clear, I don’t believe anyone is opposed to people donating. Had the board put in just $50,000 seed money as originally intended and said if they burn through the $50,000 the campaign shuts down and we rethink. No they pumped almost $1 million into it and while the revenue was mere fractions of their goal kept lying to taxpayers that everything was going as planned.
As for the Foundation, why would one charity that was doing good deeds close to teachers and their classrooms and is always looking for donations itself pledge money to another that has a different set of goals like the renovations, athletics and fine arts.
Some districts from my research actually set up their “Foundations” originally to do what we have two - the foundation and the campaign - to do.
From my little bit of reading it seems that those districts put out a disclaimer that while they’ll gladly accept donations specifying a specific initiative in the end it would be up to the board/administration if it fit into the district’s prime objective of educating students.
I don’t know if other people concur with my opinion. That’s what makes this blog so great, people can or should be able to exchange thoughts, ideas and hopefully arrive at some good ideas.
Let’s say the board follows up with Remely’s fundraiser suggestion of letting people buy bricks (like they do for the MTL library) and the sports cabal gets together and says we’ll buy $4,000 worth of the bricks for a retaining wall at the Rock Pile! It hasn’t been decided yet that we even need a retaining wall at the Rock Pile since it hasn’t gone anywhere in 40 years or so, would it be OK if the district used that donation as an excuse to proceed with a million dollar turfing and expansion of the Rock Pile that the sports nuts are hoping for?
ReplyDeleteJust wondering what people think.