Spend Our Money to Renovate Schools But Not Consider Redistricting and Maybe Reducing Buildings?

Council Rock embarked on an ambitious rebuilding plan about three years ago, talking about renovating all its buildings which wouldn’t be cheap. This was after they had commissioned a study that was expected to have called for building another school. But instead, the demographics showed a downward trend in enrollment. So there was no need [...]

District’s Special Counsel Claims Melsky Deal Is Still Basically the Same — We’ll See… Is the Track Record Really That Assuring?

At last night’s School Board meeting after I raised issues over the sudden appearance of an agreement that the District would sell the entire 134 acres of Melsky to Toll Brothers (and after questioning on this matter by school board members, notably Dr. Anagnostakos), special counsel John Donaghy proffered that this was not really a [...]

Holy Cow! Another Change to Melsky: Now Toll Brothers Gets to Buy the ENTIRE Property from Council Rock School District

The agenda for tonight’s Board meeting had a motion proposed for passage that would authorize Board president Bernadette Heenan to to act as the duly authorized agent of the Board of School Directors to execute all documents presented by special counsel to finalize the sale of the Melsky Property. Sounds innocuous enough. But looking at [...]

Melsky Appears On Agenda Again Tonight — An Extension for Settlement Until January 29, 2010?

A new item cropped up this morning on the Board Meeting agenda posted on CRSD’s website. The earlier agenda posted did not have an item regarding the Melsky Tract and the sale to Toll Brothers and Leo Holt, but now there is.  Item 1 under Items for Board Approval is the Melsky Property.  According to [...]

Proposed Extension of Time for Melsky Tract Sale Voted Down 5-4

At last night’s special meeting of the School Board, the sole item on the agenda was whether to extend the contract during which Toll Brothers and Leo Holt could execute the purchase of the Melsky Property on Stoopville Road. The original agreement allowed Toll and Holt to get three-month extensions by paying extension fees, half [...]

Melsky Decision Tonight — Extend, or Make Toll Brothers Fish or Cut Bait?

Tonight’s special Board Meeting has been called to discuss whether to offer an extension to Toll Brothers (and to Leo Holt) for the sale of the Melsky property.  This was a contentious issue at the time of the Veteran’s Cemetery decision — Toll made the sale of land for the cemetery contingent upon getting the [...]

Melsky Property Sales Agreement Renewal Up for Discussion

One of the items shown on the agenda for tonight’s meeting of the School Board is a discussion item regarding an agreement renewal for the Melsky Property sale to Toll Brothers.  This agreement caused a swirl of controversy during a period about two to three years ago, when Toll Brothers threatened to hold up selling [...]

Taxpayers Beware: Richboro Redistricting Would Create a Geographically Segregated Council Rock School Board — May Have Gigantic Cost/Tax Consequences for Years

One of the consequences of the proposed redistricting Richboro Middle School could have a much bigger impact on the future than simply the question of where students will go to school.  What is being proposed could potentially shift the power in Council Rock toward one of the two high schools.  With that power would come [...]

Council Rock High School South Capacity Figures Magically Change When It Suits the Latest Need — Don’t Official Documents Matter?

At a community forum November 4th, the Administration presented a slideshow justifying a proposed realignment so that all students graduating Richboro Middle School (RMS) would attend Council Rock High School South.  Currently, some students from RMS attend South and others attend North, depending on the address of residence. The Superintendent claimed the capacity for South [...]

When Are Enrollment Projections Valid and When Aren’t They?

At last night’s forum on possibly redistricting so that all Richboro Middle School students get sent to Council Rock South (as opposed to the current system of splitting them into the two high schools by geographic location), figures were presented about future enrollments.  The Administration was using these numbers to indicate how all the students [...]