Multiple items were handled during Monday’s meeting of the
Bradford Area School Board.
During her report, Superintendent Sandra Romanowski announced
three items of good news for the district.
A district fund, called the Miriam Barcroft Blaisdell/Bradford
Area School District Fund, has been established by Sarah Dorn and
Harriett Wick in honor of their mother, Miriam Barcroft Blaisdell
with an initial gift of $50,000.
The fund will primarily focus on assisting economically
disadvantaged students, who make up approximately 40 percent of the
district, and will also create four $2,500 scholarships for
students who earn advanced scores on the Pennsylvania System of
School Assessment (PSSA) test and are accepted to a post-secondary
school.
The district has also been the recipient of $136,000 as an
Enhancing Education Through Technology grant from the Pennsylvania
Department of Education.
The funds will be used to purchase six sets of mobile laptops,
four for the middle school and two for the high school. Each set
includes 30 laptops and a storage cart, adding 180 laptops to those
already available to students. The grant was submitted by John
Petruzzi, district technology director, and Lori Hannon.
Finally, Romanowski announced that as a result of Pennsylvania
not being chosen for the first round of Race To The Top funding,
Bradford will have a second chance to apply to be recipients of
that funding. Romanowski noted that further details for applying
should be received within the next week and application submission
will be required by June 1.
“As you know, we were unsuccessful in the first round because we
were unable to obtain teacher support for our submission,”
Romanowski said. “Once again, I will be reaching out to the
membership (Bradford Area Education Association) with the hope they
will join us in our application.”
Bradford could have received between $500,000 and $1.5 million
for staff development, instructional planning and curriculum
improvement had it been approved and the state chosen as a
recipient, based on the statistics for the first round of funding.
For the district, that is equivalent to between one and three mills
of taxes.
Meanwhile, a resolution was passed to expel a student for a
possession of weapons violation that occurred on March 18.
The student is the sixth to be expelled from the district during
the 2009-10 school year. Each student has been expelled for the
remainder of the school year and could be re-admitted for the fall
of 2010, pending a meeting with Romanowski and the successful
accomplishment of any required therapy.
In other business, bids were awarded for new school buses for
the district and also for planned summer work at George G.
Blaisdell Elementary, Floyd C. Fretz Middle and Bradford Area High
schools.
A bid for three 72-passenger buses for 2011 was accepted from
Blue Bird of Pittsburgh for $242,280. The buses will have engines
that meet pre-2010 emissions, rather than include the new
technology created for 2010 emission engines.
Both Business Manager Kathy Kelly and Transportation Director
Barry Bryan reported that no other school districts have yet
purchased buses with the new 2010 emission engine technology, which
are much more expensive and will have as yet unknown benefits.
The other bid for buses without the 2010 emissions technology
was for $245,520 from Wolfington Body Co. The three bids that
included the new technology were from Blue Bird of Pittsburgh for
$256,230; Myer’s Equipment Corp. for $253,749 and Wolfington Body
Co. for $254,760.
Meanwhile the Capitol Project Bids were awarded as follows: the
resurfacing project at GGB was awarded to Glenn O. Hawbaker Inc.,
for $762,235.95; for the bathroom alterations and gymnasium
glassblock replacement at Fretz, general construction was awarded
to J.C. Orr & Son Inc., for $149,762, plumbing construction was
awarded to Scobell Inc., for $30, 220 and electrical construction
was awarded to Tech Services Inc., for $4,900; and for the
renovations at Bradford High, general construction was awarded to
J.C. Orr & Son Inc., for $95,343, plumbing construction was
awarded to Kandefer Plumbing & Heating for $7,238 and
electrical construction was awarded to Tech Services Inc., for
$93,889.
During the Students and Curriculum segment of the agenda,
Bradford High students Jessie Mascho, president of Skills USA, and
group members Matt Geitner, Mike Updegrove and Mike Pire gave a
presentation on the accomplishments of the program. Pire will be
among those competing in the state competition in Hershey from
Wednesday to Friday of this week.
Scholar athlete awards were also given out to students who
earned a letter in fall and winter sports while maintaining at
least a 95 percent grade-point average. Those students included
freshmen Patrick Hollenbeck (swimming); Rebecca Newburg (swimming);
sophomores Jeffery Cattoni (swimming); Dylan Lamberson (wrestling);
Lucas McMurtrie (wrestling); Ryan VanGuilder (wrestling); Ryan
Mackey (boys basketball); Emily Marshall (girls basketball); Kayla
Hayden (girls basketball); juniors Lacey Frownfelter (swimming);
Alice Chen (swimming); Danielle Hollenbeck (swimming); Megan Barnes
(swimming); Kaitlyn Russell (cheerleader); and seniors Jacob
McMurtrie (wrestling); Gage Bunker (wrestling); David Fuhrman (boys
basketball); Matthew White (boys basketball); Michael White (boys
basketball); Brittni Wiseman (girls basketball); Shelby Runyan
(fall cheerleader) and Tate Slaven (cheerleader).
