Lower Merion School Board Meeting Runs Smoothly

The Lower Merion Board of School Directors led by President, David Ebby, Vice President, Lyn Kugel and Superintendent of Schools, Christopher McGinley met on Monday night at Lower Merion High School to discuss the latest agenda.

Construction updates were summarized to begin the meeting. A slideshow showed plans and progress for the current renovations on Lower Merion High School including a new parking area for bus drop-off and pick-up, the restoration of windows, new HVAC system in the gym and a new storm water basin.

Educational services were discussed early on as Board member Diane DiBonaventuro gave the Report of the Curriculum Committee. The first plan up for approval as discussed by DiBonaventuro was the adoption of new reading resources for grades K-5 called Journeys, by Houghton Mifflin/Harcourt Publishers. Journeys includes support for a number of needs such as children learning the English language and children who need reading and writing intervention.

Second on DiBonaventuro’s list was the implementation of online Algebra and Geometry courses for students to use between May and August to further accelerate learning and help them advance in the math sequence prior to the start of the 2011 school year.

“This is good because it will help students jump into a higher math sequence to get to calculus by senior year,” said DiBonaventuro.

Both objectives were approved.

Board member Jerry Novick gave the Report of the Facilities/Purchasing Committee with the recommended action of approving a list of bills for payment. Four renovations have been requested and approved for two Lower Merion middle schools. Welsh Valley Middle School will have its parking lot redone at the price of $400,000. Bala Cnywyd Middle School will upgrade its auditorium seating costing $350,000, replace its lockers at $100,000 and improve its storm water drainage for $125,000.

Board Member Lisa Pliskin gave the Report of the Policy Committee discussing the newest policy up for its first reading, Policy No. 830 Comprehensive Environmental Impact Reduction Plan, which Pliskin called, “very exciting.” The policy requires that the Lower Merion school district establishes and implements a plan for best practices in energy management, solid waste management, water and soil conservation, air quality management and that they work to reduce consumption and conserve resources. Another policy up for reading is Policy No. 132 known as the Homework Policy, being implemented so the district has a universal homework philosophy in place in terms of amount and type of homework distributed by various teachers.

“We talked about how it’s measured, what it is worth, long term projects and its role in developing skills and habits,” said Pliskin. “There is a lot on the table that needs to be discussed.”

“We’re looking for consistency from teacher to teacher,” added DiBonaventuro on the homework policy. “There is not a whole lot of consistency as there are teachers with the reputation of giving a lot of homework and there are teachers at the same level who have the reputation of not giving any homework. We’re going to try to level that out.”

Also mentioned in the meeting was the achievement of Ms. Penny Glackman, a Lower Merion Elementary teacher and one of seven teachers in the nation to receive the AIAA Foundation Educator Achievement Award, one of the most prestigious awards in the country for teachers of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

“Certainly Ms. Glackman is more than worthy of the award,” said McGinley. “We’re pleased that people outside of the school district recognize her as one of the seven most incredible teachers in the nation.”

All other recommended actions concerning human resources, educational services, student services, business office and finance and facilities and operations were approved without debate or discussion.