The Conewago Valley school board narrowly passed the first vote to approve its 2024-25 budget on Monday evening.
The board grappled with the question of whether to agree to raise taxes to fund its budget at 16.7971 mills for real estate.
Board member William Getz refused to vote for the budget and said that as a conservative, he urged a “strict implementation” of the Pennsylvania school code, which he interprets to mandate no requirements for the board to fund anything outside of academics. Getz voiced concerns about raising taxes.
Getz said he hoped the community would support extracurriculars if the district did not raise taxes and did not fund them.
“If the members of our community are strong supporters of these programs, I have every confidence they will come out and lend the support needed to ensure the activities are successful and prosper, and if this is the case, the participants won’t really need funding from the school district,” Getz said.
Getz named several items he felt could be left unfunded.
“We will each vote as to whether we will continue to apply valuable funds to football fields and stadium lights, auditorium lighting, PIAA fees, and the maintenance of fields, or pivot those funds to meet the needs of the educators as classroom budgets remain stagnant in this budget versus the current year’s budget,” Getz said.
Members were asked to vote on six finance items at once, but the vote quickly became split and complicated.
Finance items numbers three, four, five, and six were:
- The approval of the Adams County Technical Institute general operating budget for 2024-25,
- The purchase of new high school marching band uniforms,
- The proposed 2024-25 budget, and
- Replacing the roof of the athletic wing at New Oxford High School.
Board president Jeffrey Kindschuh, vice-president Eric Flickinger, treasurer Michael Buckley, and members David Thad Meckley and Melanie Sauter voted yes to all six items.
Board member Lindsay Krug voted against the uniforms and the 2024-25 district budget.
Board member April Swope voted against the ACTI budget, the uniforms, and the district budget.
Getz and board member Meredith Miller voted against the uniforms and the district budget.
The 2024-25 district budget passed 5-4. The final vote to approve it will take place in May.
Elementary school renovations
Superintendent Sharon Perry updated the board on the ongoing project to renovate and add onto both New Oxford Elementary and Conewago Township Elementary schools.
Soon, students, faculty and administrators at NOE will begin the same visual learning exercise recently completed by representatives of CTE. Like the previous group, select NOE representatives will help identify aspects they like or dislike in various designs, spanning colors and furnishing styles to storage options. That process will help customize the design process to be a better fit for the school.
“Also, for CTE, we’re at that official phase now where we’re interacting with engineers,” Perry said. “So we’ve been working through that process with them. One key area that I’d like to publicly thank Conewago Township is that they’re accepting, or will be taking a look at, our application seeking a parking variance. We’re looking for larger parking spots, so we will be seeking that variance.”
Conewago Township is anticipated to arrive at a decision in May.
“We appreciate the support of the townships,” Kindschuh said.
Safety and communications
Matthew Muller, the district’s director of safety and communications, apprised the board of the school security officer’s activities as he does each month.
In the past month, Officer Dwayne Smith spent 33% of his time at the high school, 34% of it at the middle school and 14% of it at the K-6 levels, totaling about 81% of his time directly in the schools, according to Muller.
The remainder of Smith’s time was spent in district meetings and other business.
Muller said the monthly safety task force meeting welcomed 28 people this month, including Warren Bladen, the director of EMS services at the Gettysburg 911 center, who attended as a speaker.
Bladen told the task force about “mass tragedies and disasters,” how emergency services could assist the district in an emergency, and how the chain of command would function.
Muller told the board he hopes to schedule a guest speaker to appear at each task force meeting.
Comprehensive planning
Dr. Brad Sterner, assistant superintendent for the district, said the second meeting of the steering committee for the comprehensive planning process went smoothly.
“We continue to look at our goals that we’re looking forward to in our new comprehensive plan that will span over three years,” Sterner said. “This main topic that we looked at was our mission statement, our vision, and also our belief statement, so we started digging into those to make sure that we were satisfied with those or if we wanted to tweak those.”
Sterner said the steering committee will review data as it develops the comprehensive plan.
In response to a list of six questions about the comprehensive plan sent in by a community member and read during the time for public comment, Sterner provided a detailed breakdown of the process, committee members and goals of the committee.
Recognition
The board noted that Madison Cohee was named the New Oxford High School Rotary Student of the Month in March.
Sydney Winpigler and Miranda Leatherman were nominated for the Gettysburg Times Athlete of the Week for the week of April 1. Winpigler and Leatherman play lacrosse and softball, respectively.
Dr. Charlie Trovato, the director of curriculum, also recognized the contributions of New Oxford High School science teacher Kara Olewiler.
Olewiler also serves as a science curriculum leader and was able to help lead other districts in the area at the monthly FRAYSEL (Franklin, Adams, York Science Education Leadership committee) meeting at the Lincoln Intermediate Unit in March.
“She came in virtually and connected with people across the tri-county area,” Trovato said. “She is definitely putting science on the map, both here at CVSD and across the state, so it was really cool to see her present on what classrooms are going to look like in the future as we get ready to align our curriculum to the STEELS (Science, Technology and Engineering, Environmental Literacy and Sustainability) standards.”
The new STEELS standards were published in 2022 but will be implemented in July 2025.
Trovato said the district was able to use the eclipse on Monday as a unique science opportunity for the students.
“I’m really excited that all of our building administrators and district office administrators and all of our science leaders across the district were able to help support a K-12 effort to get our kids out and seeing everything safely,” Trovato said.
Christopher Cobb, principal of NOES, agreed.
“Yes, shout-out to the total eclipse,” Cobb said. “That was awesome for our kids to experience that science, that natural science experiment in front of us. It was awesome.”
Christina McLaughlin, principal of Conewago Valley Intermediate School, told the board a pathway created by an art teacher was dedicated during the school’s first annual spring community night.
“This pathway was funded by an awarded grant from the Gettysburg Arts Council to Ms. Jessica Vassallo, our art teacher, and her along with a lot of supporting students and staff worked together to bring her design to life,” McLaughlin said. “There is a long path along the playground accessible to our community as well as our students at recess, and they are loving it already, (and) all the different things they can do with the painted designs on the path.”
Joshua Schaffer, principal of New Oxford Middle School, said the school was able to show off the hard work of its students and music instructor Ashley Kriel earlier this month.
The school hosted the Adams and Cumberland County Music Educators Association adjudication for middle school orchestras on April 5.
“This is the first time in five years that we participated in this, and we actually ended up hosting,” Schaffer said. “There were seven orchestras that came, and the adjudicators raved about how far our students had come in the time that they had last been here. I know it’s been five years, but it’s been bit of a tumultuous five years for music education when you think about what that looked like through Covid… and to see what Ms. (Ashley) Kriel has done with our students and has grown the orchestra is really outstanding.”
Doug Wherley, the district’s athletic director, called attention to the boys’ swim team, which won the YAIAA sportsmanship award.
The award was granted after league coaches voted for the team.
“We’re always proud of the sportsmanship displayed by our student athletes, and it’s always nice to be recognized by them,” Wherley said.
Wherley also told the board about Winpigler, who recently made her 100th career goal in lacrosse.
“She is on a very short list of those who have achieved this record in the girls’ lacrosse 16-year history, so it is quite an accomplishment,” Wherley said.
The board was also apprised of recent college acceptances and scholarships awarded to district students. As of Monday, a total of $1,056,000 in scholarship money had been offered to students.
The next study session will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, May 6.
The next regular voting meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. Monday, May 13.
Imari Scarbrough is a freelance journalist. She was a staff newspaper reporter for five years before becoming a freelancer in 2017. She has written on crime, environmental issues, severe weather events, local and regional government and more.
You can visit her website at ImariJournal.com.