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Pennsbury School District

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The Pennsbury School District is located in Lower Bucks County, in southeastern Pennsylvania. Its boundaries include all of Falls Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Lower Makefield Township, Pennsylvania and Yardley, Pennsylvania as well as portions of Morrisville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and Tullytown, Pennsylvania. It currently has a student population of 11,532 and employs 1,499 people.

Schools

  • High School [1]
  • Middle Schools [2]
    • Charles Boehm (Pop. 743)
    • Pennwood (Pop. 996)
    • William Penn (Pop. 996)
  • Elementary Schools [3]
    • Afton (Pop. 643)
    • Edgewood (Pop. 782)
    • Eleanor Roosevelt (Pop. 510)
    • Fallsington (Pop. 186)
    • Makefield (Pop. 491)
    • Manor (Pop. 456)
    • Oxford Valley (Pop. 518)
    • Penn Valley (Pop. 303)
    • Quarry Hill (Pop. 673)
    • Village Park (Pop. 280)
    • Walt Disney (Pop. 374)

Board of School Directors

The Board is comprised of nine residents with voting power, each elected for a four-year term. Five members will complete their terms in the year 2007, and four in 2009. [4]

Voting members

  • Deis, Michielle
  • Dolnick, Gene
  • Goldberg, Howard
  • Gordon, Arlene: Vice President
  • Governatore, Adele
  • Johnson, Richard: Assistant Secretary
  • Lucidi, Jr., Gregory: President
  • Palsky, Linda
  • Smyth, Gabriele

Non-voting members

  • Godzieba, Joanne J.: Treasurer
  • Miller, Isabel M.: Secretary

District Administration [5]

  • Alexander, Elliot: Administrative Assistant to the Superintendent
  • DiLorenzo, Daniel: Director of Information Technology
  • Gillette, Thomas: Director of Physical Plant and Facilities
  • Godzieba, Joanne J.: Director of Financial Services
  • Harm, Donald E.: Assistant Superintendent of Administration, K-12
  • Hinterberger, Theresa: Director of Personnel
  • Hughes, David: Supervisor of Special Education, 9-12
  • Johnston, Dr. Patricia: Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction
  • Kline, Steve: Supervisor of Food Services
  • Kurtzer, Dr. Peter: Supervisor of Grades K-4
  • Long, Paul B.: Superintendent
  • Miller, Isabel M.: Business Administrator
  • Paul, Diane: Director of Special Education, 9-12
  • Reed, William: Purchasing Agent
  • Taylor, Jr., Sherwood: Supervisor of Child Accounting & Related Services
  • Williams, Charles: Supervisor of Transportation
  • Zervos, Christine: Community Development Partnerships

District Facts

Financial [6]

Revenue

  • Local Sources: $124,613,042
  • State Sources: $29,934,077
  • Federal Sources: $1,007,881
  • Other Sources: $3,241,000
    • 2006-2007 school year revenue: $158,796,000

Expenditures

  • Instructional: $101,834,997
  • Support Services: $43,307,334
  • Non-instructional Services: $1,344,245
  • Facilities Aquisition: $0
  • Other Outlays: $12,309,444
    • 2006-2007 school year expenses & budget: $158,796,020

Top Five Largest Taxpayers

  • Waste Management, Inc. & Wheelabrator (Industial)
  • Oxford Valley Road, Associates (Commercial)
  • Healey, Robert T., & William, J. (Residential)
  • Bucks County Industrial Development Authority (Industrial)
  • National Prop Invest 4 (Residential)

Transportation

  • Number of vehicles in District fleet: 126 buses, 4 vans
  • District vehicles transport students to 78 schools (both district and non-district) daily

Enrollment

  • Elementary Schools (K-5): 5,216
    • Student/Teacher ratio is 25:1
  • Middle Schools (6-8): 2,735
    • Student/Teacher ratio is 26:1
  • High School (9-12): 3,581
    • Student/Teacher ratio is 26:1

Highlights

  • Recognized by Standard & Poor's for well above average student results and exceptional above average AP courses
  • Rated one of the "Top Twenty" school districts in the Greater Philadelphia region by Philadelphia Magazine year after year

Class of 2005 Profile

SAT Scores

  • Verbal: 520
  • Math: 538
  • % taking test: 75%

National Merit Scholarship

  • Finalists: 6
  • Commended Students: 10

Post-Graduate Activity

  • College: 92%
    • 4-Year: 58%
    • 2-Year: 34%
  • Employment: 5%
  • Other: 2%
  • Military: 1%

Highlights

Music

Pennsbury Marching Band

The Pennsbury Marching Band, also known as the Long Orange Line, is one of the United States' premiere marching bands. Since its inception in 1948, the band has enjoyed tremendous success the world over. Here are some of the band's highlights:

Pennsbury Concert Jazz Band

The Pennsbury Concert Jazz Band is one of the premier high school jazz bands in the United States. The group has been an integral part of the instrumental music program at Pennsbury for the past forty years. During that period of time, the band has had the opportunity to perform on NBC's The Tonight Show, at the Newport Jazz Festival, Montreaux Jazz Festival, and Montreal International Jazz Festival, in the People's Republic of China, the United Kingdom for Queen Elizabeth II, France, Canada and Switzerland, and at the Disneyland Resort Paris.

The band has had the honor of opening for the Dave Brubeck Quartet at the Villanova Jazz Festival. It has also performed concerts with Stan Kenton, Maynard Ferguson and the Jazz Ambassadors of the United States Army.

The group has the distinction of performing six times at the Pennsylvania Music Educators' State Convention. Four years ago, the band performed at New York's Lincoln Center as part of the first annual "Essentially Ellington Festival," hosted by Wynton Marsalis.

This ensemble meets every day after school from 2:30PM until 5:00PM, beginning at the conclusion of the marching band season until early May. The ensemble performs between twelve and fourteen times each year, including hosting two annual jazz festivals at Pennsbury High School.

Best 100 Communities for Music Education

The Pennsbury School District and the areas it serves were, yet again, named in 2005 as being one of the Best 100 Communities for Music Education by the American Music Conference. The sixth annual nationwide survey of music education was conducted by a partnership between the American Music Conference, National Association for Music Education, Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation, Music for All Foundation, Music Teachers National Association, National School Boards Association, VH1 Save the Music Foundation and Yamaha Corporation of America. Students, parents, teachers, school and community leaders were asked to answer questions about and rate their district's and community's support for music education.

Sports

Varsity Girl's Volleyball

Since its inception in 1988, the Falcons varsity girl's volleyball team has won a dozen Suburban One League (SOL) championships and three District One AAA championships under founding coach and physical education teacher George Eastburn. The Falcon's best performance in the PIAA-AAA tournament was in 2003 when the team placed second. The team is regularly considered to be one of the best high school girl's volleyball teams in the United States.

George Eastburn retired from teaching in 2003 and from coaching at the end of the 2005 season. Lisa Sondej, the team's assistant coach for six years, became head coach at the beginning of the 2006 season.

Quite possibly the most well-known team member is Melissa Walbridge, who made the All-State team as a senior in 2003 and was named Gatorade Player of the Year, also in 2003. She went on to play volleyball for Pennsylvania State University on a scholarship. As a freshman, she led the Big Ten Conference with a .407 hitting percentage and 1.5 blocks per game in conference matches.

Senior Prom

Pennsbury's senior prom has always been a local treasure though it has recently attracted worldwide attention.

The prom has always been held at the school itself, a rarity considering many senior proms in the United States are held in halls that are rented out by the school. Planning for the prom begins with the selection of a theme at the beginning of the new school year and work continues daily until the date of the prom, usually in late May. Dozens of students, faculty and parents come together to design, paint and setup, working literally around the clock during the last week of prom preparations. Members of the public are invited to look at the decorations the day of the prom and thousands take up the offer.

Senior students and their dates begin prom with a large parade on roads leading to Pennsbury High School. Thousands upon thosands of people line the parade route to watch as students make their entrance in unique ways. A typical limousine does not cut it at the Pennsbury senior prom. Students try to outdo one another year after year with their prom entrances. From a helicopter landing to a Zamboni, exotics cars to horse-drawn carriages, actual parade floats to shopping carts, students put their creativity to the test to try to make the night's biggest impression.

In recent years the prom has become world famous. In 2004, the novel "Wonderland: A Year in the Life of an American High School" by Michael Bamberger was released to critical and commercial acclaim. Based on the 2002-2003 school year, it follows around a handful of students as they deal with the trials and tribulations of high school while centering around senior prom. Paramount Pictures, in conjunction with MTV Films, has optioned the rights to a film based on the book.

Also in 2004, Grammy Award-winning multi-platinum star John Mayer performed at the prom, following in the footsteps of bands Maroon 5, Michael Tolcher and Eve 6 who had previously performed at Pennsbury High School due to the work of former Pennsbury Student Government President Bob Costa.

Teacher's Strike of the 2005-2006 School Year

After voting down a tentative contract agreement the leadership of the Pennsbury Education Association (PEA), the union in which all of Pennsbury's teachers belong to, was authorized by its members to strike on October 24, 2005. Although the majority of the members authorized the strike, some teachers felt that the staff should have accepted the tentative deal brought back by their {union} leaders. It was rumored that the proposed contract was turned down by as few as seven votes. An very vocal faction of PHS teachers were said to have conviced their coworkers to walk the picket lines. The strike lasted a total of 21 days, the maximum allowed by state law, and students went back to class on November 22, 2005. Originally, students were only given off on Thanksgiving Day and Memorial Day in order to make up for lost time, however, the school board agreed to make December 26 and 27 days off in order to account for the Christmas holiday, which fell on a Sunday in 2005.

According to both the PEA and the school board, salary and health benefits were the main sticking points, and there was a gap of $1 to $2.5 million between what the teachers wanted and school district wanted to allow. Teachers balked at having to pay a growing percentage of their health insurance premiums without a cap, larger co-pays for drugs, larger costs for doctors visits and hospital stays, a longer work day, and a raise that was lower than the local rate of inflation. The teachers wanted to see their salaries to stay competitive with the neighboring school districts. The starting salary in the district has been one of the better for some time, but the salaries and benifits allowed under the contract have become less competitive in the area.

It appeared as if the majority of the community responded with outrage and contempt for the teachers, calling them "greedy" and protesting against them. In fact the community was split, with most members siding with the teachers. The local newspaper printed page after page of letters aimed at the teachers. Later the newspaper reported that letters had been running heavily in favor of the teachers’ positions. They promised to print some in due time. The mother of a Pennsbury student passed around a petition seeking to end to teacher's strikes by legislation rather than negotiation. Her efforts have encountered a lack of community support. The school board held meetings where they would segregate the audience. Time after time the majority of the speakers rose in support of the teachers and asked for reasoning by the board.

Due to the fact that an agreement was not reached during the strike, both sides entered non-binding arbitration on November 22, 2005, following state law, and posted their final offers on December 6, 2005. The public was able review and comment on these offers for 10 days. In January 2006, teachers and the school board accepted a contract, hoping to put the recent past far behind them and beginning the long process of repairing relations with the community. The strike, like all rancorous negotiations, is considered to be a loss by almost all those involved. The students, the commnity, the PEA and the school board were all happy to see it end. Those involved have expressed hope that the district would not see another.

Alumni

General

District Schools

High school

Middle schools

Elementary schools

Music

Sports

Media

Misc.

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