Economy causes district to delay capital expenditure projects one year

Support services director Marvin Eversdyke said at the budget, finance and audit committee meeting on Thursday that because of the poor economy capital expenditure projects for the district will be pushed back one year. Projects scheduled for summer 2009 will take place in 2010.

The projects include construction, electrical and mechanical upgrades to buildings throughout the district. Originally scheduled for this summer and now postponed for 2010 were $650,000 worth of projects for Shohola Elementary School, which includes cafeteria floor replacement, heating/ventilation/air conditioning upgrades, roof construction and television distribution system upgrades. Also scheduled were upgrades to exterior lighting and stage lighting at Delaware Valley High School. 

Board member Diane French said she was concerned if waiting to complete these projects would increase their cost in the long run, but Eversdyke said there is no urgency to complete them, especially with the economic recession. 

BFA committee chair Ed Silverstone and business administrator Bill Hessling also discussed debt service and tax collector compensation, which the board will likely vote on next week. 

The entire meeting is available on the RB for DV podcast, and handouts from the BFA meeting are posted below.

BFA meeting handouts (.PDF files)

Agenda

Debt service

Capital expenditure projects

Transfers

Tax collector compensation

Safety and policy committee meeting agendas

Below are the agendas from Thursday's committee meetings (Sept. 11) in PDF format.

• Safety committee meeting agenda 
  
• Board policy and legislative committee agenda 
  

Class of 2008 report: 84 percent seek higher ed

High school guidance chairperson Jay Tucker presented his annual report on the graduating class at the July 17 school board meeting. 

Of the 448 graduating students, 84 percent will be going on to institutions of higher education, the lowest percentage since 1999, though only by a few percent, according to the report. Local scholarships added up to $184,260 and students received $3,705,900 in scholarships from their colleges and other sources.

Doubling last year's number, 26 students will enter the military.

The class of 2008 improved SAT scores by 17 points from 1505 to 1522, according to Tucker, who uses the highest score in each section of the test to compute the average, rather than using the College Board's approach that only includes the latest assessment from each student. Colleges look at the highest score in each section from all of the times students take the SAT, Tucker said.

Of the 446 Advanced Placement enrollments in the 2007-08 school year, 71 percent received a passing score of 3 or higher on the five-point AP test scale. The national average is 57 percent. 

Among Delaware Valley's 22 AP course offerings, students in the two new courses in the 2007-08 school year performed extremely well: 100 percent of the AP Statistics students received a 3 or higher and 84 percent of the AP Government and Politics students received a 3 or higher, according to Tucker's PowerPoint slideshow.

A whopping 620 enrollments in AP classes are expected for the 2008-09 school year. That figure includes multiple enrollments by single students.

More information, including a list of colleges that students are attending, can be found in Tucker's report, which is available exclusively to download here. (2.4 MB .PDF file)

Handouts not on their website

One of the uses I see for this blog is posting attachments and handouts from board meetings online for everyone to see. 

When members of the public ask for detailed board documents to be posted on the DV website, the DV director of technology, Gina Vives, insists there is no way the district's website could handle the strain caused by posting so many pages of... text. 

And anyway, who in their right mind would go through the trouble of promptly posting and archiving public school board documents online?

Fortunately for the gerbils running on the wheels that power dvsd.org, I'm more than happy to post online any extra handouts I receive at meetings. I'm also happy to post any that anyone else may get their hands on. 

From the June 19 safety and long range planning committee meetings: 

(.PDF files)

• Classroom sizes by square footage (115 KB)
• Enrollment projections (518 KB)
• Audio intercoms price quote (467 KB)
• Teaching spaces by building (227 KB)
• Enrollment figures for 2008-09 (431 KB)