SUND;\Y NEIl'S
,
LANt. \STER,
PA.
\
AUGUST
11, 2015
A5
What is driving cuts
in curriculum at MT?
• Superintendent says it's
all about getting students
ready for the future. Some
parents not happy with
changes aren't so sure.
BY GIL SMART
Staff Writer
gsmart@lnpnews.com
To hear Gene Freeman tell it,
Manheim Township had no choice
but to be on the cutting edge.
With new state mandates coming down the pike, the district
last year shook up its elementaryschool curriculum, making big
cuts to art and music and physical education - and sparking an
insurrection among parents who
feel their kids' education is being
shortchanged.
That insurrection, parents
have promised, will continue
into the new school year. But
Freeman, Manheim Township's
superintendent, isn't daunted. He
said the decision to spend more
time on math and science is ulti-
mately driven not just by a desire
for high test scores, but the need
to get kids ready to compete in
the global economy. And even in a
perfect world, where money isn't
an issue, he said, Manheim Township might still have cut art and
music and physical education.
But money is an issue. It might
be more of an issue at Manheim
Township than elsewhere.
Manheim Township faces the
same fiscal woes bedeviling every
district in the state. A huge spike
in pension funding looms, special
education costs have skyrocketed and the cost of health care
has risen while state funding has
remained flat. Assessment appeals have undercut the district's
tax base, and cyber and charter
school defections have cost students and money.
Yet Manheim Township has
other, unique fiscal concerns. It
has one of the highest debt levels
of any school district in Pennsylvania Ratings agency Moody's
downgraded the district's bond
Please see MANHEIMlWP., page A9
Continued from A1
Manheim Township is
widely regarded as.the .
wealthiest school district m
the county, with the county's
highest median household
income and a tax base that
keeps growing as development continues. As one
school official at a nearby
district said, "If there's any
school district that should be
able to afford art and music
and a new focus on the' core
rating last year.
So in addition to an
acad~mic restructuring,
Manheim Township has also
undergone what's been calle~
an "economic restructurmg.
The question some parents
have is: Did the latter trigger
the former?
Freeman and other
curriculum, it's Township."
district administrators insist
Ithe answer is no. In the past,
And yet Freeman - who
some officials have acknowlearlier this year got a ralSe
\ edged that staff reductions
that made him the highestwere a factor in the academpaid superintendent in the
ic changes. A cost-cutting
county - looked down the
early retirement deal led to
road and saw trouble.
27 retirements at the end
Health care costs were
of 2011-2012 school year;
soaring - up 37 per cent
art and music teachers and
last year alone, he said. Five
librarians were reassigned to
years ago, when he arrived
fill teaching voids.
at the district, Manheim
But Freeman insists the
Thwnship paid less than $2
academic changes, at least,
million into the Public School
are all about getting the kids
Employees Retirement
ready for the future, not savSystem. In 2018, that amount
ingmoney.
is projected to spike to $11
''We have to separate
million.
what feels good versus what
Most daunting were the
is helping our children," he
looming "Common Core"
said, controversial though It
standards, which will take
maybe.
effect in 2014-15 and reqUIre
And there's more controstudents to pass exams in biversy coming up: The middle
oIogy, English literature and
school is next.
algebra in order to graduate.
The way Freeman saw
Seeing trouble
it the district wasn't going
t~ meet those challenges by
Most local districts have
buttressing the status quo.
trimmed or eliminated liSo district officials took an
brary, arts, music and physiax
to it.
cal education, or scaled back
Music and art instruction
on electives and extracurwere hacked back. Gym
ricular activities. Hundreds
class time was slashed by a
of staff positions have been
third. Formal library instruc
eliminated and districts have
dipped into "rainy day" funds tional time was cut. Language arts and math class
and raised fees, all the while
imploring Harrisburg to
deliver mor e ru
time was expanded.
The changes, enacted in
June 2012, surprised many
parents - and infuriated
some. Parents began showing up in increasing numbers
at school board meetings to
complain. In June, a rally demanding that art and music
instruction time be reinstated drew up to 75 people, local
media reported.
Parents have vowed to
keep up the pressure.
"All the other districts
around here are under the
same regulations we are, and
they haven't cut as deeply,"
said Renee Heller, a Schaeffer Elementary School parent who helped found "Taking Root," a parents' group
that sponsored the rally.
Added Shelby Witmer, a
Nitrauer Elementary parent:
"They're really pushing that
this is a test score thing, that
this is a Common Core thing.
But there's nothing in Common Core that says you have
to reduce art and music to
meet those goals."
Hannah Bartges, president of the Manheim Township School Board, acknowledged that "every decision
the board makes includes
economic considerations, and
of course it was discussed
... but our first consideration
was to support the administration's decision to meet the
needs of our students in math
and reading."
Freeman insists those
needs, and not money, drove
the curriculum changes.
But other changes can be
tied directly to what Moody's
has called the district's "narrowing financial position."
In April, athletic director
Kevin Raquet was laid off
and the district reassigned
his duties to an assistant principal. Raquet, who served as
AD for seven years, declined
to speak at length about his
termination. But he did say
he was told the decision was
part of the district's "economic restructuring."
That "restructuring" also
included a 2011 decision to
halve stipendsi'or coaches,
music directors, club advisers and other extracurricular
positions - a move that
prompted the departure of
longtime football coach Mike
Melnyk.
In 2012-13, the district
restored funding for some
stipends but eliminated other
positions to keep costs at bay.
Activity buses were cut,
a high school work-prep
program was eliminated. The
district instituted student activity fees that are the among
the highest of any school district in the county. This, even
as the teachers' union agreed
to a two-year wage freeze
in 2012 and taxes have gone
up - by 1.7 percent, the state
maximum, for 2013-14.
Said one teacher, who
asked not to be identified:
"From top to bottom the
past two years, they've been
pinching pennies like crazy."
Manheim Township is
hardly alone. Most county
schools raised taxes for the
upcoming year, while cutting
millions in expenditures even as other costs rise.
All districts are losing students and money to
charter schools and all face
steep increases in pension
contributions, health care
and special education costs.
All are getting pushback, to
some degree, from residents
fed up with continual tax
hikes.
Debt load
But few have Manheim
Township's debt load.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of
Education, Manheim Township ended the 2011-12 school
year with $141.3 million in
debt (debt has since fallen to
about $134 million, district
officials say).
That's up 142 percent
from $58.4 million at the end
of the 2002-03 school year.
Of the 499 school districts
in Pennsylvania, only 24 had
more debt in 2011-12 than
Manheim Township. Its 201112 debt load was secondhighest in the county, behind
only the School District of
Lancaster's $163.8 million.
But the School District of
Lancaster's budget is much
larger; SDUs debt as a percentage of overall expenditures ($172.2 for 2011-12)
was 95.1 percent. Manheim
Township's debt as a percentage of expenditures was a
whopping 194.3 percent - by
far the highest in the county.
For 2013-14, Manheim
Township has budgeted $12.4
million in principal and inter-
est payments. That's about 16
percent of all expenditures
for the year.
Freeman points out that
the district remains well
within state guidelines concerning its indebtedness. But
the district's "above average
debt burden" led it afoul of
Moody's, which last year
cited it as a reason for downgrading the district's bond
rating from Aa2 to Aa3.
Most of the district's borrowing was done to pay construction costs. But some was
done to payoff earlier debts,
such as a $61.35 million deal
involving an interest-rate
swap in 2011 to consolidate
four earlier swaps.
Swaps are complex transactions that allow a school
district, municipality or other
party to obtain a "synthetic"
fixed rate on its debt. It's
supposed to lower borrowing
costs while at the same time
hedge against the possibility
of rates rising.
In 2009, Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack
Wagner issued a blistering
report, noting that 107 school
districts and 86 local gov,e rnments in Pennsylvania had
$14.9 billion in public debt
tied to swaps, and many
had lost money. The Bethlehem Area School District
lost at least $10.2 million in
taxpayers' money through
swaps, said Wagner, who
subsequently called for more
oversight of public swaps.
Some legislators have called
for outright bans.
Manheim Township officials say the district lost no
money on its swaps, and that
the decision to consolidate
the four earlier swap transactions into a new deal was
done for the sake of "convenience."
The district used the swap
financing to issue $61.35
million in new bonds, using
$60.96 million to payoff the
older bond obligations meaning the district taxpayers paid $390,000 in finance
costs.
The borrowing, district officials said, is done for now.
But the changes aren't.
"Common Core changes
... are moving into the middle
school the next two years;
we're looking at how we're
going to have to redesign our
math instruction," said Mike
Bromirski, the district's assistant to the superintendent
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Debt rising
By the end of fiscal year 2011-12, debt for Manheim Township School
District had grown 142 percent in 10 years.
$Mll.
$150 -
MANHEIM TOWNSHIP SCHOOL DISTRICT
1125 -
OUTSTANDING DEBT
$141.3 Mil.
$100 -
I5O-CIII_
$25-----2002-03 2003-04 2OIJ4.{l52005.{)6 2CJ06.07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12
SOURCE: Pennsylvania Dep.:1rtmcnt of Education
for elementary education.
That could, again, mean
cuts to art or music. Fiscal
constraints may force other
changes.
Officials say they realize
all of this puts the district
on a collision course. On one
hand, there's the district's
educational needs and fiscal
reality. On the other, what
parents want.
---
Todd B. Spidle/SUNDAY NEWS
In other words, the fight
may have just begun.
''The issue is, how do we
do what parents want, but
maybe do it in a different
way?" superintendent Free-man said.
"We're going to have to
find new ways to give kids
what they need. It's going
to require everybody to do
more work."
=
Jeff Ruppenthal! Staff
In this June 21, 2013, file photo, Campbell Heller works ona sign before a protest against
cuts to extracurricular programs in Manheim Township School District.