Community Matters

The saga of outsourcing continues in Tredyffrin Easttown School District … Last week at the infamous TE School Board meeting, we listened as the Administration and School Board members presented the case for outsourcing of aides, paraeducators and substitute teacher positions.  The business manager Art McDonnell, personnel director Sue Tiede and superintendent Dan Waters provided [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 95 Comments »

I am not writing today based on an isolated email from a disgruntled school district employee.  I wish that were the case.  Phone calls, text messages and emails have come to me from teachers, paraeducators, custodians, kitchen workers, support staff and aides all painting an eerily similar picture of the work environment inside our award-winning [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 139 Comments »

Taxpayers, teachers, PTO presidents, paraprofessionals, parents, substitute teachers, TENIG members and students brought their collective voices to the School Board meeting last night, and were heard, at least temporarily. Standing three people deep and overflowing into the lobby, all attended the meeting for the singular purpose to oppose outsourcing of paraprofessionals in the TE School [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 114 Comments »

In advance of tonight’s School Board meeting, all  aides, paraeducators and paraprofessionals working in the TE School District received the following Q&A Fact Sheet this afternoon from Dan Waters. Is the message to the District employees and the taxpayers supposed to be — don’t bother to show up tonight with your questions because the District [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 10 Comments »

At the Monday TE School Board meeting, our community’s taxpayers, parents and School District employees deserve an open and honest discussion on the impact of outsourcing.  If the jobs of aides, paraeducators and substitute teachers are outsourced with a third party contractor, we deserve to know the long-term costs and financial benefits, if any.  Based [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 21 Comments »

It is almost impossible to believe that we live in a wealthy Philadelphia suburb with award winning, nationally ranked schools and our School Board is voting whether to outsource 175 aides, paraeducators and substitute teachers at Monday’s School Board meeting. Since attending the Finance Committee meeting and writing about it this week, I have heard [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 57 Comments »

FREE WORKSHOP FOR HOMEOWNERS, “ENERGY EFFICIENCY 101” WILL BE PRESENTED ON MAY 13 AT UPPER MERION TOWNSHIP BUILDING PHILADELPHIA (MAY 8, 2013): Homeowners can learn how to improve their home’s energy efficiency – and save money on utility bills – during the free “Energy Efficiency 101”workshop taking place on Monday, May 13 at Freedom Hall, Upper Merion Township Building. The 90-minute workshop [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | No Comments »

May 1 was the deadline for the School District to submit their variance application to the Township in order to be listed on the Zoning Hearing Board’s May 23 meeting agenda.  According to Township Manager Bill Martin, the application was received today. Some of the neighbors of the Valley Forge Elementary School tennis courts may [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 20 Comments »

US News & World Report ranks Conestoga HS #5 in Pennsylvania and #313 in the US. The annual rankings of the country’s best high schools are out this week from US News & World Report. The rankings offer a snapshot of a school’s performance based on test data from 21,000 public high schools which represented 49 [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 38 Comments »

The Valley Forge Elementary School tennis courts are on tonight’s agenda of the TESD.  Every time you think that this situation has moved forward, it takes a couple of steps backwards.  As a result, it is unclear exactly what is going to come out of tonight’s meeting — will the courts stay or will they [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 7 Comments »