Tatem School Parents Protest Playground Rules at BOE Meeting

Tensions—or the perceptions thereof—on the elementary school playground have led administrators to enforce 'structured play' during recess, and some parents are upset.

2013 School Taxes Down $20 Per Household on Average

Superintendent Scott Oswald made good on his promise of 'not one penny more' in taxes in the final draft of the budget, while also securing enough funds for needed capital improvements.

2013 School Taxes Down $20 Per Household on Average

Superintendent Scott Oswald made good on his promise of 'not one penny more' in taxes in the final draft of the budget presented Monday.

Thanks to a net increase of about $94,000 in state aid, a number of shared service agreements and increased ratables in the borough, Collingswood Superintendent Scott Oswald should be able to make good on his promise of "not one penny more" in taxes for the public school district. In a public presentation made at the March 25 meeting of the borough board of education (attached to this story as a .PDF), Oswald said that he calculates the average taxpayer will see almost a $20 decrease in school taxes while retaining the same $13,854,194 amount budgeted since 2012. The average home in the borough is assessed at $231,300. Under the guidelines of the 2 percent budget cap, the Board could levy the maximum 2-percent tax increase in 2013 ($277,…

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Joe

2:05 pm on Sunday, March 31, 2013

"I am not an educator but parental involvement, is a key influencer on student performance." Kevin, I agree with that 100% (maybe replacing "key" with "important"); unfortunately, school districts cannot control the activities students engage in between 3:01p and 7:29a. I also agree wholeheartedly that the status quo is not acceptable and I know for a fact, as you indicate, that it is not …   more ›

School Lunch Update: New Regs Throw Curveballs

New federal guidelines mean big changes for public school lunch menu planning, but students might not be buying enough to support the program at a break-even cost.

School Lunch Update: New Regs Throw Curveballs

Federal regulations on school lunches mean that districts face a number of challenges, including fewer full-price sales and calorie changes. Here's how Collingswood is faring.

In September 2012, Collingswood Patch reported on the impact of new federal guidelines for public school lunch menu planning, which took effect during the current school year. As the semester approached the halfway mark, we revisited the issue to see how things were going. Some of the hurdles of the new system that were observed at the beginning of the year—smaller portions for older teens, larger portions for younger students, the regulations about what qualifies as an a la carte meal—haven't gone away. And as students come to terms with the new regulations, they might not be buying enough lunches to support the program at a break-even cost.  Here's our update on the impact of the new program thus far. Estimating a loss Collingswood …

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Collingswood and PILOTs Part II: Impact on Schools

Taxpayers may have differences of opinion on the value of a PILOT agreement, said Superintendent Scott Oswald, but abatements don't affect the school budget.

The “biggest and longest” PILOT agreement in Collingswood, said Mayor James Maley, is that into which it entered with the Ingerman Group, the property management company that will complete Phases III and IV of the LumberYard project before moving its home offices the first floor of the new building. Next is the 10-year agreement with Kitchen & Associates, and then there are 5-year PILOTS with new businesses, a standard offer “that anybody in town can get,” Maley said, including Dr. John B. Tedeschi of Advocare, who is building a new office in town. But the idea that any PILOT agreement costs the Collingswood school district by keeping taxes off the books “is totally, completely wrong,” Maley said. “The impact is that you don’t have a …

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New 'Student Loan Literacy' Law Aims to Help NJ Kids Avoid College Debt

As families get caught up in 'the prestige' of Ivy League schools before they really grasp the price tag, the state is working to make county college more attractive and affordable.

When Julia Barbour was 18 and graduating from Moorestown High School, she wanted to be a lawyer. But she only qualified for less than half the amount of financial aid she needed to attend Rutgers University. So Barbour went with a private lender to cover the difference—at a variable rate, with her parents as cosigners, for about $50,000. “I clicked online, I put in some information and I had money,” she said. “And it was great.” Post-graduation, however, things had changed. Barbour had gone to work for an attorney, was laid off and needed more school to facilitate a career change (a graduate degree in occupational therapy). She tried to put her loans into forbearance. Her lender told her a deal was approved—and then started sending her …

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Social Media Implicated in First-Half Bullying Report from Collingswood Schools

The district logged 13 reports of harassment, intimidation and bullying in the first half of 2012-13. Social media is "our biggest challenge," said Superintendent Scott Oswald.

There were 13 alleged and four confirmed incidents of bullying in the first half of the 2012-13 school year in Collingswood, and according to Superintendent Scott Oswald, social media is a big part of the overall problem. “Our biggest challenge is and probably will remain the social media stuff that happens outside of school grounds,” Oswald said at the Jan. 28 meeting of the Collingswood Board of Education. “The initial contacts there almost never happen in school.” Of the confirmed incidents noted in the Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying (HIB) report Oswald presented at the meeting, the one involving cyberbullying resulted in the stiffest punishment levied by the district: an external suspension and "alternate in-school instruction" …

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Collingswood Graduation Rates Down, but 'a Story Behind the Numbers'

Superintendent Scott Oswald says that behind every student who fails to graduate Collingswood High School is a story that every teacher there knows.

According to the latest report from the New Jersey Department of Education (DOE), the Collingswood High School graduation rate fell about 5 percent last year, from 86.55 in 2011 to 81.33 percent in 2012. That's while the overall state graduation rate climbed from 83 to 86 percent from 2011 to 2012. And although the figures are calculated using a new formula that Collingswood Superintendent Scott Oswald says is “probably the tightest it’s ever been” in terms of meaningful data, there are still a number of factors that come into play when a student doesn’t make it to the finish line. “Behind every single student who takes us below 100 percent, there is a story,” Oswald said, “and it’s a story that’s well known to the teachers and …

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