Community Matters

The T/E School Board candidate debate was held last night.  The League of Women Voters used the same format as the night before at the Tredyffrin Township supervisor candidate debate.  Each of the eight candidates gave a 2-minute self-introduction, followed by answers submitted by audience members.  Answers by the candidates were limited to 1-1/2 min. [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Easttown School District, Tredyffrin Township | 12 Comments »

Good news — Gene Donahue, the studio manager for the township’s public access channel reports that League of Women Voters debate for the supervisors and the school board candidates will be videotaped!  The debates will be available 24//7 online at the streaming video-on-demand site. Gene reports that it usually takes about 24 hours to upload [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Easttown School District | No Comments »

There was much discussion about public education reform during Governor Tom Corbett’s campaign and this week the Governor offered four broad proposals for reform (however, the specifics are limited). (1) Charter school reform — Give the process of approving charter schools to a new state commission rather than to local school districts; (2) Expansion of [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Easttown School District | 8 Comments »

As part of the budget process for the T/E School District, a Tax Study Group composed of community volunteers was formed to determine the impact of an earned income tax (EIT) on residents and the school district.  The goal of the group was to identify the pros and cons of an EIT for residents and [...]

Filed under: Mainline Media News, Tredyffrin Easttown School District, Tredyffrin Township | 23 Comments »

Take your pick – empty storefronts and vacant office buildings, roads and bridges in desperate need of repair, unemployment, environmental issues, such as storm water, dropping real estate values, rising taxes.  Where do we start . . . how do we prioritize the issues?  Tredyffrin Township may have fared better than some other areas of [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Easttown School District, Tredyffrin Township | 6 Comments »

The T/E School District held its first meeting of the newly created Tax Study Group.  Thank you to Ray Clarke for attending and providing Community Matters with his personal observations and comments.  I spoke at length with Ray in regards to the meeting.  Based on our conversation and Ray’s notes below, it looks like the [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Easttown School District, Tredyffrin Township | 27 Comments »

The Unionville-Chadds Ford (UCF) school district and their teachers union have finally agreed on a contract.  The UCF School District teacher’s contract expired June 30, 2010. Based on UCF contract results, any lessons for T/E school district? I have posted periodically about UCF and the ongoing saga between the school board and the teachers union.  [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Easttown School District, Tredyffrin Township | 37 Comments »

Monday was township’s budget workshop as well as the T/E School Board meeting.  I attended the school board meeting and fortunately for us, Ray Clarke attended the budget workshop.  Thank you Ray for attending and for providing your notes to Community Matters readers.  The long-range budget and economic situation continues as a major discussion of the school board [...]

Filed under: Earned Income Tax, Tredyffrin Easttown School District | 3 Comments »

 I read the following update on the Radnor School District in the Main Line Suburban: Assistant superintendent Kim Maguire outlined a plan to the Curriculum Committee that would have all Radnor ninth-, tenth- and eleventh-graders take the PSAT in October with school-district funding and with across-the-board scores allowing teachers to “check for trends [as well as] [...]

Filed under: 2011 Tredyffrin Budget, TE School District, TESD Budget, Tredyffrin Easttown School District | 17 Comments »

How do we keep our dominoes from starting to fall and our house of cards from crashing? The debt battle in Washington is raging. The deadline by which Congress must decide to increase the nation’s debt limit or find ways other than borrowing to pay the interest on the huge national debt, is only days [...]

Filed under: TE School District, Tredyffrin Easttown School District | 11 Comments »