Tag Archives: Gene Veno

State set to appoint new chief recovery officer for Harrisburg school district

Harrisburg school district administration building

After a year marked by administrative fumbles and tension among board members, the Harrisburg school district soon will get a new state-appointed oversight officer.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education plans to select a new chief recovery officer (CRO) for Harrisburg schools in the next two weeks, according to spokesman Eric Levis. The CRO will oversee the implementation of a new, long-term recovery plan aimed at raising the district’s academic performance and financial health.

The appointment suggests that Harrisburg has, for now, dodged receivership – an arrangement in which a state administrator takes control of the district.

A state-appointed receiver has broader authority than a CRO and assumes many of the powers of the elected school board.

Board directors retain all taxing authority, but the receiver can approve contracts, charter school applications and personnel actions without their input.

Levis said today that receivership “remains an option,” even as PDE appoints a new recovery officer.

The district has been under a financial recovery designation since 2012. State law requires any recovering district to have a CRO, but Harrisburg has operated without one since July, when Audrey Utley retired after three years in the role.

Utley oversaw an overhaul of the district’s five-year recovery plan, which expired in June with 80 percent of its initiatives in place.

State Education Secretary Pedro Rivera is charged with appointing Utley’s replacement. He sought input from state Sen. John DiSanto, Rep. Patty Kim, district Superintendent Sybil Knight-Burney and Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse while making his decision, Levis said.

When approached by PDE, Papenfuse said he emphasized his belief that the district should be under the control of a receiver.

“Under the power of the law, only a receiver would produce the level of transparency and administrative changes necessary to solve the district’s clear dysfunction,” Papenfuse said. “PDE has chosen to go in another direction, but I do appreciate their seeking my input on behalf of the residents of Harrisburg.”

The district has beat back a steady stream of scandals in the past year, including a grading investigation that led to the reassignment of a high school principal, a hiring mistake that allowed 37 unbudgeted teaching positions to be filled, and criminal charges against an administrator who allegedly embezzled $180,000 from the district.

District administrators drew fresh criticism in August, when they asked 65 teachers that they hired at the wrong salary step to pay back wages.

That request was enough to make Jody Barksdale, president of Harrisburg’s teachers union, consider the merits of receivership – an arrangement she ultimately decided she could not support.

Barksdale has also been critical of the school board this year and once pleaded publicly with board members to act more professionally.

“The way you talk to each other is unacceptable,” Barksdale said at an August meeting. “You guys are the talk of the town, and it makes me embarrassed.”

Friction among board members was on high display this year, as they debated whether to retain or replace Knight-Burney, whose contract expired in June. The nine-member body frequently split on slim margins on decisions related to district personnel.

A vote on Knight-Burney’s new contract devolved into a shouting match between board members at a June meeting, leading President Judd Pittman to issue a public apology the following month.

Three board members have also resigned their seats this year, one amid allegations that he lied about his residence in the city.

This week, the board published its annual superintendent evaluation. Knight-Burney received “exemplary” ratings across nine performance standards, even though three members rated her overall performance “unsatisfactory” or “in need of improvement.”

Knight-Burney will serve in the district for at least three more years. She’ll work closely with the CRO the entire time.

PDE has not disclosed any of the candidates it’s considering for the CRO role. Gene Veno, who served as CRO from 2012 until 2015, inquired about resuming his old position but said he did not receive any response from Rivera.

Kenneth Medina, a former business manager who was demoted and later laid off, also told TheBurg he submitted his name for PDE’s consideration. Medina is currently petitioning the district to get his job in the business office back.

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State Names New Recovery Officer for Harrisburg Schools

Cougar Academy, an online school within the Harrisburg school district that has been expanded under the state's recovery plan.

Cougar Academy, an online school within the Harrisburg school district that has been expanded under the state’s recovery plan.

The Pennsylvania education secretary today appointed Dr. Audrey Utley, a Middletown native and a former acting Harrisburg superintendent, to oversee the Harrisburg school district’s state recovery plan.

Utley replaces Gene Veno, a Harrisburg-based consultant and lobbyist and the district’s first recovery officer, who announced his resignation in May.

Utley, who the education department said has worked in schools for more than 40 years, taught elementary school in the Steelton-Highspire school district and went on to serve as a superintendent in both Middletown and Steelton-Highspire.

She led the education transition team of former Harrisburg Mayor Linda Thompson after Thompson’s election in 2009, the Patriot-News reported.

Utley later served briefly as Harrisburg’s acting superintendent in 2010, in the midst of a power struggle between the city’s elected school board and a mayor-appointed board of control whose authority was set to expire that year.

“In addition to Dr. Utley’s experience as a superintendent, she also comes to this position with firsthand knowledge of the unique issues that fiscally distressed school districts face due to her time working to improve other struggling schools,” state education secretary Pedro Rivera said in a prepared statement Monday.

He went on, “I have complete confidence that under Dr. Utley’s guidance, the Harrisburg School District will continue on the path toward financial stability, which will allow the district’s leadership team and educators to focus on the goal of ensuring every student graduates college- and career-ready.”

The state appointed Veno as the district’s first recovery officer in December 2012, after declaring the district fiscally distressed under a law passed earlier that year.

Veno’s recovery plan, approved by the state in May 2013, described a district in rapid decline, with test scores significantly below state and county averages and budget deficits that threatened to put it out of business within a few years.

The plan set new targets for academic performance, sought to expand Harrisburg’s in-house options for online education, and called for two years of pay cuts followed by a wage freeze, among other recommendations.

Many proposals were controversial, and though Veno’s plan is generally viewed as having stabilized district finances, Veno himself has faced no shortage of opposition, particularly from critics who believe he has done little to improve academics.

In early 2014, Mayor Eric Papenfuse asked the state to replace Veno following a meeting in which he allegedly told the mayor he believed his plan was unlikely to succeed, a claim Veno subsequently disputed.

By some measures school performance has worsened since the plan was enacted, with state test results last November showing Harrisburg schools had universally failed to meet the plan’s academic goals by substantial margins.

“It was time,” Veno said on May 8 in reference to his resignation earlier that day, noting that he was leaving the district in a “good financial position” from which it could focus on academic improvement.

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July News Digest

HUD Disbursements Proposed

Harrisburg last month began the annual process of distributing funds received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

The Papenfuse administration proposed funding numerous social service agencies with part of the $2.6 million the city is receiving from HUD’s Community Development Block Grant funds.

Proposed recipients include the Christian Recovery Aftercare Ministry, Mid Penn Legal Services, the Tri County HDC, the Fair Housing Council, the Heinz-Menaker Senior Center, the Camp Curtin YMCA, Habitat for Humanity and the Boys & Girls Club of Harrisburg.

Harrisburg also proposed expending about $663,000 from the grant to cover debt service from two Reed-era projects: improvements along Market Street in the 1990s and construction of the Capitol View Commerce Center.

The city guaranteed a $3.8 million federal loan for the Capitol View Commerce Center, a project that collapsed after developer David Dodd ran out of money and stopped paying contractors. He now is serving a prison sentence on charges of misusing government funds and money laundering.

Eventually, John Moran of Moran Industries bought and finished the building at Herr and Cameron streets. Nonetheless, Harrisburg must pay back the federal loan that it backed.

The Papenfuse administration also proposed dispersal of $394,357 from a second HUD program, the HOME Investment Partnership Program. Most of that money will fund the city’s Homeowner Improvement Program.

Planning Meetings Held

Harrisburg last month hosted a series of meetings to gather public input on the drafting of a new comprehensive plan for the city.

The six meetings were held throughout the city to get ideas on such matters as transportation, housing, recreation, land use, mass transit and other subjects. The ideas now will be taken into consideration as Harrisburg goes about drafting a new plan, which will serve as a vision for the city’s future growth and development.

Comment also can be submitted at a website launched last month devoted to the comprehensive plan: www.behbg.com.

Harrisburg has hired the city-based Office for Planning and Architecture to guide the creation of the new comprehensive plan.

2 Positions Created

Harrisburg City Council last month approved two new positions requested by the Papenfuse administration.

The new deputy business administrator for parking is responsible for the remaining administrative functions of the former Harrisburg Parking Authority, which shut operations on June 30.

Last year, Park Harrisburg took over most of the city’s parking assets under a long-term lease, but the city still oversees two parking garages and a surface lot. Mayor Eric Papenfuse plans to hire Richard Kotz, the long-serving HPA director, for the $60,000-per-year job, a reduction from his former $100,000 salary.

Council also OK’d the creation of a temporary assistant city solicitor position. This attorney, who will earn $27,500 through December, will pursue action against 22 commercial trash accounts dating to 2008 that total about $1 million, Papenfuse said.

Both positions were funded by transferring money already in the city’s 2015 general budget.

No School Tax Hike

For a second straight year, Harrisburg homeowners will see no increase in the school portion of their property taxes.

Last month, the Harrisburg school board passed a $137.8 million budget that will keep taxes steady for the 2015-16 school year. The tax rate will be unchanged at 27.92 mills, meaning that the owner of a property assessed at $100,000 will pay $2,792 in school taxes before adjustments. Tax bills typically are mailed in July.

The district also bade farewell to Gene Veno, the district’s state-appointed chief recovery officer. Veno left the position after serving more than two years in the post. At press time, state Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera had not announced a replacement for him.
 
Pool Openings Delayed

Harrisburg youth again started the summer without access to a public swimming pool, as both city-run pools experienced problems that needed to be fixed.

The Jackson Lick pool had electrical and plumbing issues that needed to be addressed, while the pool at Hall Manor required some electrical repairs.

At press time, neither pool had reopened.

The 1960s-era pools both have suffered from repeated problems and shutdowns, though the Jackson Lick pool was open last summer. The Hall Manor pool has been closed since 2012, and the city repaired serious foundational issues last year.

Gonzalez Is Final Nominee

Lionel Gonzalez took the final Democratic nomination last month for Harrisburg school board following a tie-breaker.

After the May 19 primary, Gonzalez was tied with Daunessy Penn with 1,159 votes for the nomination for the final four-year seat. Two weeks later, Gonzalez won the nomination by a drawing of lots.

In addition to Gonzalez, the Democratic nominees for five, four-year seats on the school board are Jennifer Smallwood, Monica Blackston-Bailey, Matthew Krupp and Melvin Wilson Jr. Krupp also will be on the ballot as the only Republican nominee.

Judd Pittman is the Democratic nominee for the sole two-year seat.
 
Townhouses Debut
 
Brethren Housing Association and PinnacleHealth System last month completed construction of the Hummel Street Townhouses, three new houses in South Allison Hill.

The project will provide housing to single homeless mothers and their children, furthering BHA’s mission to help families transition out of poverty.

The townhouses replaced several severely blighted, abandoned properties at the corner of Hummel and Haehnlen streets.
 
Home Sales Up
 
The Harrisburg-area housing market continued to show improvement, as both units sold and the average sales price increased, according to data released last month.

The number of houses sold in May increased from 763 to 796, and the average sales price went from $183,221 to 187,436 compared to May 2014, according to the Greater Harrisburg Association of Realtors (GHAR). The average number of days on the market fell from 93 to 86.

The GHAR area includes all of Dauphin, Cumberland and Perry counties and parts of Lancaster, Lebanon and York counties. Dauphin County experienced the greatest rise in average selling price, from $152,649 in May 2014 to $174,798 in May 2015.
 
Changing Hands

Bartine St., 1124: K. Adams to A. Jackson, $102,500

Benton St., 512: M. Silvius to J. Eldred, $104,000

Berryhill St., 2477: S. Nguyen to V. Dieu, $42,000

Briggs St., 1946: Secretary of Veterans Affairs to Shokes Enterprises LLC, $30,000

Chestnut St., 2214: J. & L. Coffman & V. Trimmer to D. Kauffman Jr. & J. Kantner, $145,000

Duke St., 2511: H. & A. Arahovas to P. Konstantine, $60,000

Fox Ridge Ct., 309: T. Knorr to J. Buss, $109,900

Fulton St., 1420: U.S. Bank NA Trustee & PA Housing Finance Agency to PA Deals LLC, $65,000

Green St., 1020: A. Kohr to J. & H. Piper, $91,500

Green St., 1226: W. Weidig to K. Lesher & P. Boyed, $102,500

Green St., 1504: M. Tanzini to J. Webb, $102,000

Green St., 1705: J. Weber to J. Tinnick, $109,900

Hamilton St., 201: Secretary of Housing & Urban Development & Hooks Van Holm Inc. to Braxley Renovations LLC, $75,000

Harris St., 230: Klimke Holdings LLC to C. Jackson, $175,000

Hillside Rd., 217: C. & K. White to J. Markel, $196,000

Lucknow Rd., 635, TR1 & TR3: Stabler Companies Inc. to Patlin Properties III LP, $415,000

Market St., 1845: Centric Bank to Nish Properties LLC, $45,000

Mercer St., 2456: J. & G. McCarchey to L. Bloodworth, $55,000

Nagle St., 123: E. Shover to K. Snyder & C. Kaufman, $135,000

N. 2nd St., 1217: R. Homisak to A. Campbell, $98,000

N. 2nd St., 1925 & 1927: D. & C. Herr to Reddinger Estates LLC, $30,000

N. 2nd St., 2701: P. Usner to K. Sheets & K. Hancock, $300,000

N. 6th St., 2433 & 2435: Harrisburg Redevelopment Authority to N. Wright, $35,000

N. 6th St., 3212: RT Home Solutions Inc. to PA Deals LLC, $85,000

N. 13th St., 505: A. Deimler to J. Kapp, $45,000

N. 19th St., 43: LMK Properties LLC to Equity Trust Co. Custodian, Julie Burns IRA, $55,000

Penn St., 1918: M. Gustantino to Z. Shamberg, $133,000

Regina St., 1710: Propmax LLC to Matt Walter LLC, $38,500

Reily St., 263: Fannie Mae to Nish Properties LLC, $107,000

Rolleston St., 1116: B. Quinones to M. Phan, $83,000

Rumson Dr., 385: R. & M. Spence to D. & D. Blount, $70,000

S. 29th St., 506, 510 & 514: Weis Markets Inc. to The Salvation Army, $1,250,000

S. Front St., 553: Ashbury Foundation to B. Trust, $70,000

State St., 231, Unit 204: LUX 1 LP to J. Montenegro, $119,900

State St., 231, Unit 405: LUX 1 LP to M. & K. Lastrina, $124,900

State St., 231, Unit 406: LUX 1 LP to M. & K. Lastrina, $109,900

Taylor Blvd., 52: HSBC Bank USA to PA Deals LLC, $44,300

Yale St., 222: Harrisburg Rentals LLC to M. Cole, $59,900

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May News Digest

Mayor’s Slate Victorious in Council Primary

Three candidates endorsed by Mayor Eric Papenfuse won nominations last month for four-year terms on Harrisburg City Council.

Incumbent Jeffrey Baltimore and challengers Cornelius Johnson and Westburn Majors emerged victorious in the Democratic primary for three council seats. Challenger Destini Hodges tallied the most votes for the lone two-year seat.

No Republicans ran in the primary, meaning the winners of the Democratic primary will be strongly favored in November’s general election.

Moreover, Papenfuse vocally denounced incumbent Brad Koplinski, pleading with residents to vote against him. Koplinski placed fourth, losing to Majors by just 18 votes for the nomination for the final four-year seat.

“This is a big night for Harrisburg, absolutely phenomenal,” said Papenfuse after the final votes were reported. “I’m elated that we’re finally going to get new leadership to move the city forward.”

Primary results were as follows: Johnson, 1,474; Baltimore, 1,429; Majors, 1,257; Koplinski, 1239; Ellis “Rick” Roy, 1,048; Rhonda Mays, 760; Jeremiah Chamberlin, 719; Ron Chapel, 332; Koscina Lowe, 226.

In the race for city treasurer, Tyrell Spradley defeated challenger Brian Ostella by a count of 1,279 to 1,221. Council appointed Spradley last year to fill the unexpired term of former city Treasurer John Campbell, who was arrested on theft charges.

For Harrisburg school board, Jennifer Smallwood, Monica Blackston-Bailey, Matthew Krupp and Melvin Wilson Jr. won nominations for four-year seats. At press time, Daunessy Penn and Lionel Gonzalez were tied for the final four-year slot, each with 1,159 votes. Judd Pittman defeated LaTasha Frye for the nomination for the sole two-year seat.

 

Tax Abatement Plan Passed

Harrisburg City Council last month narrowly approved a 10-year tax abatement ordinance that many had considered dead.

By a 4-3 vote, council members passed a plan that would provide full tax abatement on residential property improvements and new construction in Harrisburg for 10 years.

“For the first time ever, we have 100-percent tax abatement,” said Mayor Eric Papenfuse. “Before, there wasn’t enough of an abatement (to promote development). This is a stronger, more powerful LERTA.”

Council twice before had failed to pass the administration’s plan for the Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance (LERTA) program.

Councilman Brad Koplinski last month introduced his own LERTA plan, a program that would have diminished the tax abatement by 10 percent a year over 10 years. However, a council majority opted instead to re-introduce and pass the administration’s plan, along with certain responsible contracting provisions.
“I was totally shocked,” said Papenfuse. “I didn’t see this coming, but it’s great for the city of Harrisburg.”

The LERTA ordinance now must be approved by Dauphin County and the city school board, which are the other entities in Harrisburg that tax property.
Veno Announces Departure

Gene Veno, the state’s chief recovery officer for the Harrisburg school district, said he would step down at the end of June.

In December 2012, Veno was appointed to help revive the struggling, debt-ridden district. Several months later, he presented a five-year plan that he hoped would lead to a financial and academic revival.

Since then, the district has been in financial surplus, due to a combination of tax increases, school closures, staff layoffs and the discovery of millions of dollars that had been kept off the books. Academically, however, the district’s performance has deteriorated further.

Veno said he was departing to focus more on his consulting and lobbying firm, Gene Veno and Associates.

Last year, Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse asked the state to remove Veno, claiming he was too focused on financial, not academic, improvement.

As of press time, the state Department of Education had not announced a replacement for Veno.
 

 

Comprehensive Plan Team Named

Harrisburg last month awarded a contract to a consulting team for the first update in more than 40 years to its comprehensive plan, a document that will guide development across the city for the next two decades.

The $200,000 contract went to a team led by Bret Peters of the Harrisburg-based Office for Planning and Architecture and that includes designers, planners and engineers from both local and global firms.

Mayor Eric Papenfuse and city planner Geoffrey Knight said the update was long overdue and would help speed the city’s recovery.

Papenfuse described the plan as “the vision of the residents and the business owners and the stakeholders and everyone who has a stake in Harrisburg and its future development.”

The mayor added that he expects the plan to be ready for formal approval in April 2016 and that it will probably result in a revision of the city’s zoning code.

Knight said the plan, when finished, would overhaul an existing comprehensive plan dating back to 1974.

“So we’re in arrears by about 20 years with updating and adopting a new one,” he said.

 

Moose Lodge Conversion OK’d

The landmark Moose Lodge Temple in Midtown Harrisburg took a step closer to revival and reoccupation last month, as the city’s Zoning Hearing Board approved a plan to renovate it as mixed-use space.

The board unanimously granted a variance to WCI Partners LP for 33 apartments on three upper floors with commercial space on the ground floor. WCI needed the variance because the size of the apartment units, about 500 square feet apiece, is less than the 1,200-square-foot size permitted under the zoning code for the 900-block of N. 3rd Street.

WCI President David Butcher assured the board that the apartments, while small, would have high-end finishes that would appeal to young professionals. He estimated that the units would rent for around $1,000 per month.

WCI is purchasing the four-story building at the corner of N. 3rd and Boas streets for $900,000 from Atlanta-based Mosaica Education, a for-profit charter school company that is in receivership.

The purchase includes several adjacent parcels of land—three dilapidated townhouses and a 40-vehicle parking lot. Butcher said that WCI also plans to renovate the townhouses into apartments and retail space and would landscape the area around the parking lot to make it more attractive.

Harrisburg City Council now must approve WCI’s land use plan. If all goes smoothly, the project should start by the end of summer with completion expected in 12 to 18 months, said Butcher.

For five years, the former Moose Lodge housed the Ronald Brown Charter School. However, the building has been empty since 2005, when the school district’s board of control refused to reauthorize the school’s charter.

The Harrisburg Moose Lodge Temple was built in 1924, designed in the Beaux Arts style by renowned Harrisburg architect Clayton J. Lappley.
 
Disclosure: Alex Hartzler, publisher of TheBurg, is a principal with WCI Partners.
 
 
Changing Hands

Benton St., 634: 8219 Ventures LLC to S. Jawhar, $32,000

Briarcliff Rd., 135: J. & J. Lawrence to A. Sawyer, $215,000

Briggs St., 207: PA Deals LLC to S. & K. Plummer, $90,000

Brookwood St., 2424: G. & M. Tipton to R. Patterson, $70,000

Capital St., 911: K. Dolphin to B. & A. Lentz, $171,000

Chestnut St., 1925: J. Harbilas to J. Munoz Tineo, $45,000

Cumberland St., 1322: D. & D. Oswandel to E. Brinkman, $109,900

Cumberland St., 1416: T. Lewis to Full Harvest Ministries, $80,000

Division St., 609: D. Miller to G. Barone & L. Ambrosino, $90,000

Edgewood Rd., 2309: W. & N. Robinson to M. Cool & J. Smith, $162,000

Emerald St., 405: P. Dobson to G. Venable, $40,000

Fulton St., 1710: Cartus Financial Corp. to W. Fletcher & K. Cropper, $97,872

Green St., 1819: K. Livingston to N. Fickes, $105,000

Green St., 3212: R. Darr to E. Griffin, $55,000

Hale Ave., 426: M. & J. Williams to Gandy Real Estate LLC, $40,000

Kelker St., 500: Hamilton Health Center to Ministerio Nuevo Renacer, $65,000

Logan St., 2446: PA Deals LLC to M. & J. Sather, $104,300

Melrose St., 1029: S. & J. Wydra to W. Hocker, $35,000

North St., 244: E&S Properties LLC to K. Bryner, $161,000

North St., 1719: G. & M. Ramsey to K. Siddal & D. Cook, $35,000

N. 2nd St., 515: M. & B. Habib to Candlelight Properties LLC, $625,000

N. 15th St., 1617: Ajaz Uddin Inc. to T. Sweet, $35,000

N. 16th St., 911: E. & J. High to M. McManus, $82,500

N. Front St., 1525, Unit 404: R. & R. Fried to J. Kelley, $210,000

N. Front St., 1525, Unit 613: J. Wirick to Pact Enterprises LLC, $108,000

Peffer St., 220: R. Scarabello to G. Cudaback & S. Cox, $190,000

Rudy Rd., 1944: V. Kelly to V. & S. Reyes, $66,900

Showers St., 616: J. Forr to S. Clearfield, $112,000

S. 13th St, 1530: M. Watson to W. Okello, $58,000

S. 19th St., 1340: PA Deals LLC to S. Orr, $81,000

S. Front St., 623: D. Sullivan et al to G. Schwab, $117,500

State St., 231, Unit 401: LUX 1 LP to S. Sehar, $164,900

Susquehanna St., 1724: Fannie Mae to B. & E. Burchfield, $35,000

Swatara St., 2101: T. Sweet to R. Gonzalez, $55,000

Swatara St., 2224: H. Romanovicz & W. Shade to L. Ho, $105,000

Wyeth St., 1412: J. Cruz to PA Deals LLC, $82,000

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TheBurg Podcast, May 15, 2015

Welcome to TheBurg Podcast, a weekly roundup of news in and around Harrisburg.

May 15, 2015: This week, Larry and Paul talk about some surprise reversals over a tax-break policy at City Council, the departure of the school district’s chief recovery officer and the upcoming municipal primary.

Special thanks to Paul Cooley, who wrote our theme music. Check out his podcast, the PRC Show, available on SoundCloud and in the iTunes store.

TheBurg Podcast can be downloaded by clicking on the date above or by visiting the iTunes store. You can also access the podcast via its host page.

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November News Digest

Spradley Appointed Treasurer

Tyrell Spradley was named Harrisburg’s treasurer last month, ending a search that spanned more than two months.

A divided City Council selected Spradley following four rounds of voting, which included two other candidates—attorney Karen Balaban and former city councilman and controller Dan Miller.

Following his appointment, Spradley, 30, said he was eager to learn about and take on the part-time position, which pays $20,000 per year.

Harrisburg needed to name a new treasurer following the arrest in August of then-city treasurer John Campbell, who has been charged with theft from two organizations where he also served as treasurer.

Council first appointed accountant Timothy East to serve as Campbell’s replacement, but East withdrew his name after a personal bankruptcy came to light.

Spradley’s own eligibility was briefly called into question last month over issue involving his residency and the lack of a business license for an accounting company he owns. City officials later indicated those issues had been resolved.

Spradley will serve the remainder of Campbell’s four-year term, which runs until the end of next year.

 

Sinkhole Money Available

Some Harrisburg residents may benefit from a decision last month that allows federal assistance to be used to buy out homes endangered by sinkholes.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency ruled that municipalities could apply for aid to acquire sinkhole-prone structures.

Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse said the city immediately would apply for a grant to provide relief for homeowners along the 1400-block of S. 14th St., which has been devastated by sinkholes. There is no guarantee that Harrisburg will receive the money, as fierce competition is expected around the country for the grants.

Separately, Camp Hill-based Gannett Fleming last month issued more results of its sinkhole study in South Harrisburg.

The engineering firm told City Council that it had two options. The city could either buy out 27 houses in the middle of the most affected block or it could inject a substance beneath the surface to help stabilize the ground and prevent future sinkhole formation. Either option, both of which would include extensive road repair and relocating of residents, would cost about $4 million.

FEMA has put a cap of $3 million per project on its disaster allowance for sinkholes.

 

Schools Fail to Meet Performance Goals

Harrisburg public schools failed by a wide margin to meet academic standards set by the state-appointed chief recovery officer, according to state academic performance measures released last month.

None of Harrisburg’s schools met the academic goals for the 2013-14 school year set forth by Chief Recovery Officer Gene Veno in an April 2014 amendment to his recovery plan for the district.

The state’s “Building Level Academic Score” uses a 100-point scale to measure school performance. Much like a student report card, a score above 90 is considered excellent, while a score below 70 is deemed poor.

The following list shows each school’s performance, followed by a bracketed number that includes Veno’s goals for each school for the 2013-14 academic year.

  • Math Science Academy: 75.9 [94.2]
  • Harrisburg High School SciTech Campus: 63.8 [72.3]
  • Foose School: 57.8 [59.8]
  • Scott School: 57 [62.4]
  • Melrose School: 53.1 [69.7]
  • Downey School: 49.4 [67.5]
  • Benjamin Franklin School: 44.6 [63.5]
  • Marshall School: 44.4 [61.4]
  • Rowland School: 42.6 [56.5]
  • Harrisburg High School: 39.7 [57.6]
  • Camp Curtin School: 39.6 [60.3]

Scores were based upon several measures, including students’ performance on state standardized tests, improvement since the previous year, graduation and attendance rates and, in the case of high school students, SAT and ACT scores.

 

Lighting Grant Approved

Harrisburg’s plan to upgrade its streetlights took a step forward last month, as the city announced that it had received a $500,000 grant for its LED streetlight project.

Several months ago, the Papenfuse administration applied for the Pennsylvania Energy Department Authority grant, which City Council then approved.

In related matters, the administration last month asked council to approve the hiring of Doylestown-based Suburban Lighting Consultants to provide engineering services for the LED project. It also asked council to OK the engagement of Pittsburgh-based The Efficiency Network, which would conduct an inventory of existing streetlights, as well as an audit of streetlight and exterior light utility bills.

 

Green Infrastructure Grant Received

Capital Region Water has been awarded a $125,000 state grant to develop a Green Stormwater Infrastructure Plan for Harrisburg.

The grant from the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) will allow Capital Region Water to evaluate using green infrastructure to reduce the impacts of runoff on the Harrisburg community, the Susquehanna River and Paxton Creek, and the underground infrastructure it operates, according to Andrew Bliss, Capital Region Water’s community outreach manager.

Green infrastructure is a broad term for trees, gardens and other ways to help reduce runoff by absorbing rainwater.

Last month, Capital Region Water also marked the one-year anniversary of its takeover of city water and sewer operations.

In addition to the DCNR grant, Bliss said, the year included several other achievements, including a “Top 5” designation for best drinking water in the country; a bond refinancing that will save the authority $4 million over two years; progress on a comprehensive GIS mapping project; and the beginning of a $50 million upgrade to the wastewater treatment facility.

 

Midtown Distillery Proposed

Two city residents announced plans last month to open a small-batch distillery in Midtown Harrisburg in the blighted, historic “Carpets and Draperies” building.

Alan Kennedy-Shaffer and Stanley Gruen are due to appear this month before the city’s Planning Commission and Zoning Hearing Board in an effort to get a variance for the site at 1507 N. 3rd St., which is not zoned for industrial use.

The partners plan a full renovation of the century-old building, which has sat empty for more than a decade. Their plan includes a bar and tasting room, in addition to a craft distillery that would make such spirits as whiskey, vodka, gin and rye.

If all goes well, they hope to open in mid-2015.

 

Parking Ordinances Updated

Motorists are on the hook to pay their parking fines, as the Harrisburg City Council last month updated its parking ordinances to conform to the city’s financial recovery plan.

Council needed to make technical changes to the city code to give operator Standard Parking the legal authority to enforce penalties. It also changed language to increase fines and allow non-currency forms of payment, such as credit and debit cards.

Standard Parking took over the city’s parking system in January, but council did not immediately update the city code. As a result, Harrisburg will receive about $200,000 less in parking revenue than anticipated this year.

The city said it expects to receive as much as $2.5 million in parking revenue next year.

 

Playground Safety Grant

Harrisburg has received a grant that could lead to improved safety at five of the city’s playgrounds.

The $10,000 grant from the Community Conservation Partnerships Program will fund an inspection and safety audit of the Cloverly Heights and Royal Terrace playgrounds, as well as playgrounds at Norwood and Hollywood streets; N. 4th and Dauphin streets; and Penn and Sayford streets.

The grant also will fund the creation of a routine playground maintenance and safety program and the training of city staff on program implementation.

 

Kim Re-Elected to 103rd

Incumbent Rep. Patty Kim will serve a second term in the state legislature, as voters returned her to office last month in an uncontested race.

Kim ran unopposed in the general election for the 103rd legislative district after beating challenger Gina Roberson in the Democratic primary in May.

In other election news, former Harrisburg Mayor Linda Thompson lost in her bid to unseat incumbent Republican Scott Perry to represent the 4th House district in Congress.

 

Changing Hands

Adrian St., 2423: B. Bisbano to C. Warble, $49,300

Benton St., 527: R. & A. Della Croce to S. Rea & M. Urgiles, $98,500

Berryhill St., 1954: C. Frater to M. Frater, $65,000

Cumberland St., 119: JB Buy Rite LP to S. Pritchard, $73,500

Duke St., 2614: PI Capital LLC to W. & A. Rivera, $88,900

Fulton St., 1710: N. Culver to Cartus Financial Corp., $107,000

Green St., 1615: R. & S. Aulakh to J. Scott, $92,500

Green St., 1902: WCI Partners LP to B. Garner, $180,000

Green St., 2024: Fulton Bank NA to J. Workman & J. Arawj, $139,000

Harris St., 213: J. Counterman to 8219 Ventures, $52,000

Herr St., 215: R. & E. Simons to Crested Enterprises LLC, $77,500

Hoffman St., 3206: Secretary of Veterans Affairs to Skynet Property Management LP, $43,000

Holly St., 1840: Tassia Corp. to Capital Properties LLC, $40,000

Kensington St., 2422: PA Deals LLC to C. & S. Feggins, $68,000

Mulberry St., 1936: C. Doran & A. Burnett to I. Peredo, $64,900

N. 2nd St., 513: T. & J. Male to Cricket Real Estate Enterprises LLC, $165,000

N. 2nd St., 2527: N. Myers to S. & A. Andrus, $193,500

N. 3rd St., 2304: Harrisburg Ventures LLC to FD Harrisburg Holdings LLC, $2,213,700

N. 4th St., 1733: PI Capitol LLC to G. Laudenslager, $100,000

N. 4th St., 2336: S&T Renovations LLC to A. & A. Barras, $58,000

N. 4th St., 2400 & 2402: M. Reed to E&K Homes LLC, $57,000

N. 4th St., 2547: PA Deals LLC to J. Tucker, $61,000

N. 4th St., 3228: A. Wlazlak to J. Tyson, $105,000

N. 4th St., 3231: J. Crutchfield to J. Grant, $79,900

N. 7th St., 2324 & 2350; 655 Seneca St.; 648 Curtin St.: M. Spangler to DAP 7 Curtin LP, $260,000

N. 16th St., 1205: D. Griffin to C. & B. Orellana, $35,000

N. 17th St., 817: G. Andrews to J. Jacob & T. Byrd, $120,000

N. 20th St., 14: Kirsch & Burns LLC to LMK Properties LLC, $32,000

N. Cameron St., 1914: D. Marino to J. Pagliaro, $72,000

Norwood St., 916: M. Flickinger to Crist Holdings LLC, $38,000

Penn St., 1509: D. & D. Dreher to D. Walker, $127,000

Penn St., 1703: B. Houtz to L. Colestock, $155,000

Penn St., 1921: S. Vanscoyc to H. Elliot, $123,000

S. 3rd St., 27: E. & R. Shore to Dewberry LLC, $190,000

S. 17th St., 38: S. Ledesma & M. Figueroa to J. Renteria & C. Figueroa, $30,000

S. 25th St., 713: S. Mosley to Kirsch & Burns LLC, $30,000

S. Front St., 595; 106 Tuscarora St. & 601 Showers St.: J. Barton to Dunkin & Associates LP, $250,000

State St., 231, Unit 202: LUX 1 LP to M. Abuel Jr., $134,900

Tuscarora St., 104: R. Rammouni & Touch of Color to J. Jones, $182,500

Verbeke St., 112: PA Deals LLC to M. & G. Modi, $125,000

Walnut St., 126: Pennsylvania Tourism & Lodging Assoc. to 126 Walnut Street LLC, $75,000

Walnut St., 128: Pennsylvania Tourism & Lodging Assoc. to 126 Walnut Street LLC, $75,000

Walnut St., 1854, 1856, 1858 & 1860: T. Vu & T. Tran to T. Van et al, $145,000

 

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Harrisburg Schools Fail to Meet Performance Goals

Harrisburg public schools failed by a wide margin to meet academic standards set by the state-appointed chief recovery officer, according to state Department of Education academic performance measures released today.

None of Harrisburg’s schools met the academic goals for the 2013-14 school year set forth by Chief Recovery Officer Gene Veno in an April 2014 amendment to his recovery plan for the district. Several schools fell short of these goals by about 20 points.

The state’s “Building Level Academic Score” uses a 100-point scale to measure school performance. Much like a student report card, a score above 90 is considered excellent, while a score below 70 is deemed poor.

The following list shows each school’s performance, followed by a number in parenthesis that includes Veno’s goals for each school for the 2013-14 academic year.

  • Math Science Academy: 75.9 (94.2)
  • Harrisburg High School SciTech Campus: 63.8 (72.3)
  • Foose School: 57.8 (59.8)
  • Scott School: 57 (62.4)
  • Melrose School: 53.1 (69.7)
  • Downey School: 49.4 (67.5)
  • Benjamin Franklin School: 44.6 (63.5)
  • Marshall School: 44.4 (61.4)
  • Rowland School: 42.6 (56.5)
  • Harrisburg High School: 39.7 (57.6)
  • Camp Curtin School: 39.6 (60.3)

Scores are based upon several measures, including students’ performance on state standardized tests, improvement since the previous year, graduation and attendance rates and, in the case of high school students, SAT and ACT scores.

School Superintendent Sybil Knight-Burney indicated during a press conference in September that scores would be poor, as she described the results as “very disappointing.” However, at the time, it was not known just how poorly the city’s schools had performed, as the state prohibited the release of the results until today.

Not only did school scores fail to meet Veno’s goals, many scores declined significantly from the prior year, before the recovery plan was put into effect.

Math Science Academy suffered perhaps the greatest year-to-year decline. During the 2012-13 school year, the school received an excellent score of 92, which last year fell to 75.9.

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Making the Grade: For years, Math Science Academy has been the gem of the Harrisburg school system. Can its success be replicated?

Over the summer, to create a sense of unity in the Math Science expansion, school leaders adopted a new motto: "Together We Achieve."

Over the summer, to create a sense of unity in the Math Science expansion, school leaders adopted a new motto: “Together We Achieve.”

These days, if you’re a public school in Pennsylvania, your worth is measured in colored shapes—squares, triangles and stars. Of these, the triangles come with the most drama. Either they’re pointing upwards and blue, which means you’re succeeding, or they’re pointing downwards and are yellow or red, depending on the depth of your failure. A square is usually indifferent, referring to missing data, unless it’s green, in which case you’re middle-of-the-road—an assessment that, in a world obsessed with constant improvement, is its own quiet condemnation. Stars, which indicate surpassing perfection, are rare.

The shapes correspond to test scores and other measures released by the state Department of Education under a program that began last year. Harrisburg’s public schools got their first set of shapes in the fall of 2013—mostly triangles, of the yellow and red, downward-pointing variety. But one school, the Math Science Academy, stood apart. In the box for its overall performance stood an upright triangle, bold and blue, corresponding to a score of 92.2 out of 100—a rating on par with the best public schools in the commonwealth.

The Math Science Academy opened in 1994 as a specialized program where gifted students in the district could excel. In its first year, MSA enrolled one section each of the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades. At the core of its philosophy were two main ideas: one, that teachers should work as a team, coordinating lesson plans and student interventions; and two, that the teaching should be “project-based,” with hands-on assignments, often involving multiple grade levels. The program also featured frequent field trips, a “looping” model under which teachers taught the same students for two years, and, as the school’s name suggests, a curricular focus on science and mathematics.

Requirements for entry to MSA were rigorous. Teachers, parents and students who sought to join were all interviewed. Teachers, in particular, faced higher than usual expectations. Maureen Dunbar, who has taught in the district since 1985 and who joined MSA in its second year, recalled that the administrator who launched the program, Dr. Gail Edwards, had a message for teachers who applied: “This is going to be taxing on you. You have to put in extra time.”

This year, MSA became the subject of an ambitious experiment. Throughout the school’s existence, there have been leaders in the district who felt an MSA-quality education ought to be made available district-wide. At the start of last school year, the district shuffled its building plans, breaking up some of the K-to-8 “neighborhood” schools. As part of the transition, MSA was moved from its previous home, at the Ben Franklin School on N. 6th Street, to the Marshall School on Hale Avenue, behind the high school. Meanwhile, Marshall, formerly a K-to-8 school, was converted to a 5-to-8 middle school “academy,” much like MSA.

Last spring, the district began implementing a plan to merge the schools. The short-term goal is to double MSA’s size from 200 to 400 students; if the expansion is successful, it’s possible the MSA program, or something like it, will be brought to additional schools. But the plan also raises uncomfortable questions. MSA has always been predicated on high standards for admission. Are there sufficient numbers of so-called “gifted” students in the district to fill an expanded program? Or will MSA’s expansion simply mean its excellence gets diluted?

The district is also carrying out the plan in a period of intense scrutiny. In late 2012, the state declared the district to be financially distressed. Under the auspices of a law passed earlier in the year, the education secretary appointed Gene Veno, a private consultant and the CEO of a trade group for public insurance adjusters, as its chief recovery officer. His primary task was to get the district’s finances in order, but his recovery plan, released in April 2013, also spelled out benchmarks for academic improvement. If the district doesn’t meet them, it might be placed under even deeper state control.

In this environment, asking whether MSA’s success can be replicated is really a way of asking a larger question: can the district be saved?

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Maureen Dunbar teaches fifth-grade math at MSA. A native of upstate New York, she has short hair, glinting eyes and an unharried air. The first time I met her, I was escorted to her classroom at Marshall, where her fifth-graders were working quietly. She was content to do the interview there, at the front of the classroom, prompting me in a whisper to start asking my questions.

As a college student, Dunbar wavered between art, mathematics and teaching. After deciding she couldn’t make art into a profession, she settled on math and education. Her first teaching job was in San Antonio, Texas, as a volunteer teacher at a private school. After two years there, she moved to a public middle school. “I loved it,” she said. “I found from that early age of my teaching career that you could see the camaraderie between the staff members and even the administration, and what they did for the kids, and how the kids responded to it.” In 1985, Dunbar returned to the East Coast, taking a job in Harrisburg, and she has remained in the district since.

When MSA opened, the city had one large middle school teaching the sixth through eighth grades. The program was originally located there, but it quickly became a nomad within the district. Dunbar joined the team in its second year, when it was moved to a school called Riverside. (Both the old middle school building and Riverside are gone now.) That year, its enrollment was doubled to 200 students, in two sections each of the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades. The following year, it lost favor with the superintendent and was disbanded. When it reopened, a few years later, it moved from one school building to another, until finally landing at Ben Franklin, where it remained until the move to Marshall last year.

All of this movement may have contributed to MSA’s sense of itself as off-beat, doing its own thing—as being what a former MSA teacher, Judd Pittman, described to me as “a school within a school.” Pittman, who has a blond buzz cut and a toothy grin, joined MSA after one year at the high school, where his methods, as he put it, were “too free-flow.” The principal walked into his classroom one day to find his students kneeling over a blue tarp, searching for life forms in a mound of dirt he’d brought in. But his style was a perfect fit for MSA, where, as he put it, the kids were “just old enough and just quirky enough” to get on board.

In the summer of 2013, the superintendent, Dr. Sybil Knight-Burney, and the assistant superintendent, Barbara Hasan, spoke with Dunbar, Pittman and a third MSA teacher, Kelli Recher, about expanding the school. It wasn’t the first time the idea of duplicating the program had come up. A year or two before, the principal at Ben Franklin had asked the same three teachers to write up a draft document outlining the school’s policies and methods. They prepared a write-up, but, according to Pittman, the district never did anything with it. Now, however, with the upcoming move to Marshall, the district was revisiting the idea of expansion.

In one sense, expanding MSA was about providing equal opportunities. If some students in the district enjoyed hands-on projects and field trips, shouldn’t they all? But the motivation may also have had a harder edge. Both Pittman and Dunbar spoke of perceptions that the MSA program was “elitist”—that it skimmed the best students from the district and set them apart from the rest. “There was something in the community that wasn’t fond of it,” Pittman said. “There’s a view that every child should have an opportunity for everything.” In addition, the prevailing atmosphere in public education, in which schools and teachers are measured by students’ test scores, tended to breed resentment for a program that attracted the district’s top performers.

In a way, however, the aura of elitism was a sign of the program’s success. At one point, Dunbar told me that she embraces the “elitist” label. “I think they should believe in elitism, actually,” she said. “Why not? There’s a Harvard. There’s great basketball teams. They don’t take every kid that tries out for the team.” The idea that some students could be turned away was part of what gave the program its prestige. Pittman, too, invoked the Ivy League analogy. “I was in the top 10 of my graduating class, but even then I’d never get to go to Harvard,” he said. “Does that mean there shouldn’t be any Harvard?”

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Throughout last year, Marshall and MSA operated side by side in the same building. They had different teachers and different school colors, and they ate lunch separately. Banners for each year MSA had made “adequate yearly progress”—a federal accountability measure, which no other Harrisburg school met in 2012—hung in the MSA hallway. “It created a natural divide,” Ryan Jones, a former English teacher at Marshall who was dean of students last year, told me. MSA also had a tradition of purchasing school T-shirts, which students wore on certain days. “Marshall kids didn’t have them, and they’d kind of point that out. Like, ‘Why do they get to do that?’” he said.

Jones, who was promoted to assistant principal this year, gave me a tour of the Marshall building during a visit in early September. A former employee of a record label, where he planned tours for musicians, Jones has pomaded brown hair and a laid-back, raffish manner. On his arm, exposed by a rolled-up sleeve, is a tattoo of a Tarot card, labeled “Le Fou.”

Jones explained how, before the start of this school year, he and the principal, Marisol Craig, formed a leadership team to help brainstorm how to make the building more unified. Under the expansion plan, the programs were combined over the summer into one school, Marshall Math Science Academy. “We broke everything down,” Jones said. They combined Marshall’s colors, yellow and black, with MSA’s green and silver, arriving at a new color scheme of yellow and green. Out of Marshall’s prior mascot, the Lions, they fashioned a new mascot, the Pride: “We’re multiple lions, we’re coming together,” Jones said.

They also worked to create a sense of unity among teachers. The day of my first visit, a staff member in the IT department was putting some final touches on a short video that Craig and Jones had directed. Set to Katy Perry’s “Roar,” the video traces a path through the school’s hallways, passing a succession of teachers who each hold up signs explaining who they are, what they teach, and how long they’ve been in the district. It concludes with a shot of the entire staff in school colors posing in front of the building, shouting Marshall Math Science Academy’s new motto in unison: “Together We Achieve.” Watching it, Craig and Jones exchanged a high-five.

After the video, we sat down in a conference room. Craig, a tall woman with light brown hair and a calmly enthusiastic bearing, has worked for the district since 2003 and was most recently a principal at the high school. She became Marshall’s principal in 2013, overseeing its first year as a fifth-through-eighth academy with the MSA program in its halls. She began by saying she was happy to have me there, because she felt the MSA expansion was a positive step for the district. “We always invite media and community folks to come in and kind of see what we’re doing, but it seems like they never come unless we have an issue,” she said.

Cosmetic changes, like the ones made to the mascot and colors, are important to the school’s image and morale. But the most substantive aspects of the expansion relate to academics, where the hopes and challenges inherent in the plan come more clearly into view. In the past, students applying to MSA were scored on a rubric that takes into account test scores, grades, recommendations from past teachers and an in-person interview. According to Craig, there were “more kids out there” in the district ready for the rigors of MSA. “It’s really hard when you’ve got one slot left, and you have to choose between 10 kids,” she said. Doubling the program would “provide the same opportunities for more students who could meet the same criteria.”

The reality, though, is more complicated. Starting last spring, all of the Marshall students went through the traditional MSA application process, but only some scored high enough on the rubric to be admitted. Over the summer, the school sent out copies of an unusually gentle rejection letter. It explained that, though the student hadn’t been admitted to MSA, he or she would still be invited back to the building next year, and would be able to partake in all the same opportunities as the regular MSA students. The result is that this year, “Marshall Math Science,” though portrayed on the district website as a single school, is actually two schools on paper: Marshall, with two sections each in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades, and Math Science, with two sections in each of these grades and four in fifth.

Partly, the school retained Marshall students to appease parents, for many of whom Marshall was the neighborhood school where they had sent their children for years. When Craig and Jones announced they could stay, the parents “were like, ‘Oh, my God. Thank you, thank you, thank you,’” Craig said. Under the expansion plan, the Marshall school will be “phased out” over the next three years, as the Marshall classrooms age out of the program.

But the decision also foreshadowed a challenge that will face the school in years to come—and one that has implications for the school’s state rating. Contrary to what Craig suggested, at least in the initial year of expansion, the district simply didn’t have enough students who could “meet the same criteria” as the smaller MSA core. Up until last year, the minimum score on the rubric for admitted MSA students was 80 out of 100. This year, in order to fill the available MSA classrooms, the school had to lower the threshold to 70—and that’s for students admitted to the program, not the ones enrolled as Marshall students, who scored even lower.

Dunbar, acknowledging the change, was not particularly dismayed. Referring to the expanded fifth-grade class, she said, “Are all 100 of our kids at the level our 50 were? No. But we still have enough that there’s more than the 50. It’s not like there’s 50 great and 50 that are not great.”

Additionally, for students who are new to the program, its reputation can be a powerful incentive to better performance. Craig told the story of one child who struggled as a Marshall student all through last year. As a student at Marshall Math Science, however, he’s flourishing. “He’s like, ‘Mom, I gotta be straight, because I’m Math Science,’” she said. “I gotta do this, and I need you to be doing this for me, and getting me here on time, because I can’t be late for school.”

.

Last summer, the Harrisburg school district relocated its offices from Front to State Street, inside what used to be the Lincoln School. On the morning of Friday, Sept. 26, district leaders gathered for a press conference in the building’s gymnasium, which has served as a venue for school board and other public meetings since the move. They sat at a long table at half court, basketball hoops and steel mesh-covered windows to either side and a projection screen on a dark stage behind them.

The purpose of the conference was to discuss district schools’ scores on last year’s state assessments, which the state originally planned to release to the public on Sept. 24. In the end, the release was delayed, but district officials, who had seen the scores privately, went ahead with the conference anyway. At least in theory, a great deal was riding on the results. In an update to his recovery plan last April, Veno set new goals for improving district test scores. Some people, most notably Harrisburg’s new mayor, Eric Papenfuse, criticized the targets as too low, but they were still ambitious. Veno wanted to see average gains in proficiency of around 4 percent in each subject area tested.

Superintendent Knight-Burney began the Friday conference by saying there was “no good way to share bad news.” Though she was forbidden from revealing the actual scores, she could describe them in general terms; the overall results, she said, were “very disappointing.” As she later confirmed to reporters, it wasn’t just that district test scores had failed to climb as high as Veno wanted—they had actually fallen from the previous year.

Then the conference took a curious turn. Despite Knight-Burney’s disappointment, neither she nor the other district officials showed any urgency about what the low scores might mean. In fact, Knight-Burney said, the results were “not unexpected.” The scores were explained, she said, by Harrisburg’s extraordinary rate of turnover in recent years. (According to figures later provided by the district’s public relations officer, since the 2012-13 school year, 247 teachers and 28 administrators have either resigned, retired or been furloughed.)

The conference illustrated the peculiar disconnect between the things district leaders identify as key to their success and the steps they actually take to achieve them. At no point did Veno, in releasing his updated benchmarks, couch them with the anticipation that the district would perform poorly because of high turnover. Nor did his plan take any steps to retain or identify top teachers. (To the contrary, the likely explanation for at least some of the turnover was the 5-percent pay cut for teachers implemented in his plan.) The district mentioned the turnover rate as an excuse for past scores, but it ought to have been a warning. However impressive the recovery initiatives look on paper, they are meaningless without skilled teachers to implement them.

This is particularly obvious at MSA, whose curriculum depends heavily on exceptionally committed teachers. Judd Pittman, the former MSA teacher, told me that, during his seven years at the school, it “defined” him. One Saturday per month, he led students on what were called “inner-city outings”—outdoor excursions like hiking or canoeing, often funded by donations or grants that the teachers pursued themselves. “Working at MSA, it’s not a job, it’s a lifestyle,” he said. “The academy is a family.” Last spring, after his wife gave birth, a group of former students showed up on his doorstep in Midtown, saying “We heard Mr. Pittman has a little Pittman.”

On a follow-up visit to the school, I met Sue Gibson, a Marshall teacher who has been with the district for 27 years. Last year, when MSA entered the building, Gibson resented it. “There was a lot of jealousy from the other teachers,” she said. When the school announced the expansion, which initially seemed like it would exclude her Marshall students, “My feet were stomped so far down on the ground you couldn’t see them,” she said. “‘Cause I was pissed. I’m like, ‘If I’m not part of Math Science Academy, I don’t want to play.’”

When she learned about the plan for the combined Marshall Math Science Academy, however, her attitude changed. The message to her, as a teacher of the “Marshall” sections of sixth grade, was “Get your butts down here, you are a part of Math Science Academy. You may not have the top-level children, but you have children here who want to learn.” In her first week, she stayed an extra two hours after school, working with the fifth- and sixth-grade team on lesson plans and objectives. “We literally have everything already planned til May. Everything! Projects, lessons, things you wanna focus on for the whole year.” Where she used to be out the door at 3:36, now she routinely stayed til 5 or 6. “It’s the best year I’ve ever had,” she said.

Characteristics like these may be less quantifiable than test scores, but they can still be detected and, in some rough way, measured. At one point I asked Dunbar about MSA’s identity. In addition to having a new principal and assistant principal, it had lost a core teacher in Pittman, who left to enroll in a professional development program through the state. Was the MSA culture still intact after all the changes? “No,” she said. But, she thought, it could be built back in the next four years. “I also think that the kids rise, if the expectations are up there,” she said.

The great thing about Math Science, she said, was the feeling of collaborating as a team. “You build it with the teachers, with each other, and then the kids build it, and the kids build it with the teachers. And it goes from fifth grade to sixth grade to seventh grade to eighth grade.” When her students go on to high school, she said, their new teachers report back to her: “All of your kids aren’t the smartest,” they tell her. “But they know how to work together.”

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TheBurg Podcast, Oct. 24, 2014

Welcome to TheBurg Podcast, a weekly roundup of news in and around Harrisburg.

Oct. 24, 2014: This week, Larry and Paul discuss turmoil in the treasurer’s office, the school board’s public meeting on tax abatement, and the recovery plan for Harrisburg’s schools.

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August News Digest

Museum Funding Targeted

Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse has asked the Dauphin County commissioners to cease channeling a portion of the countywide hotel tax to the National Civil War Museum.

Papenfuse said that he objects to an arrangement worked out by former Mayor Stephen Reed that funnels a certain amount of money each year to the 13-year-old museum, despite a county ordinance designating that the money be spent on promoting tourism in the city. In the last fiscal year, the museum received $290,000 out of the portion meant for promoting the city, which totaled around $500,000.

The museum, located in Reservoir Park, used that money to pay for operational costs as part of its $1.1 million budget.

Instead of giving that money to the museum, Harrisburg would be better off using it to promote other tourism initiatives, such as the city’s annual summertime festivals, Papenfuse said.

The city owns most of the museum’s artifacts, as well as the building, which it rents to the museum for $1 a year. The museum pays its operational expenses, but the city is responsible for maintenance and upkeep of the building.

Tax Abatement Discussed

The Harrisburg school board last month listened to a proposal to revive tax abatement for property improvements in the city.

Brian Hudson, executive director of the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, shared with the board a plan to stimulate development and renovation in the city through a 10-year, citywide abatement program.

Mayor Eric Papenfuse is expected to push this fall for an initiative that would lead to no tax increases for property improvements over a decade. Instead, taxes would be levied for that time based upon the pre-improvement value of the properties.

In order for the program to take effect, the school board, the city and Dauphin County all would have to sign off on it.

New School Administrator

Education consultant Drue Miles, author of the education chapter in the Harrisburg school district’s state-sponsored recovery plan, last month was named the district’s new acting school improvement administrator.

The position, which pays $600 per day, was vacant after the departure of Sherry Roland-Washington, who left Aug. 15.

Gene Veno, the district’s state-appointed chief recovery officer, said that he recommended the emergency hiring of Miles while the superintendent searched for a permanent replacement for Roland-Washington.

City Audit Delayed

Harrisburg’s audit has been delayed several months due to a budget oversight that did not fund the outside assistance the city needed for prep work before the audit could begin.

The Thompson administration did not request—and City Council did not approve—funds for the engagement of Trout Ebersole & Groff, the accounting firm that has assisted the short-staffed budget office with audit preparation in recent years.

The oversight stemmed in part from a decision by the state Department of Community and Economic Development not to assist the city with audit prep this year, as it had in prior years under Act 47 and receivership.

After taking office, the Papenfuse administration worked to apportion the necessary funding for outside help, which will cost around $45,000. Brian Ostella, chair of the city’s audit committee, said that prep work was completed in mid-June and actual audit work began in mid-July.

Maher Duessel, the accounting firm that has performed the city’s audit for the last decade, expects to complete the audit by mid-November, Ostella said.

Sinkhole Probe Launched

Harrisburg City Council has approved hiring an engineering firm to conduct an emergency sinkhole investigation.

Camp Hill-based Gannett Fleming is performing the work, focused around the 1400-block of S. 14th St., where several sinkholes have formed in recent months. The probe, which will employ seismic surface waves and verification drilling to develop a site map, should be completed by year-end.

The cost of the investigation will be shared with Capital Region Water. It is estimated to cost $166,000.

Trash Fees Adjusted

Harrisburg’s small business owners have received some relief, after City Council temporarily lowered fees for trash collection.

For years, small businesses have complained that they were subject to high commercial collection rates, even though they generated little trash.

Under the new provision, small businesses will be charged the same rate as residential customers: $156 a year or $13 a month. To qualify for the lower rate, they must produce no more trash each week than can fit into two trashcans with lids.

The lower rate applies only until the end of the year. In November, the Department of Public Works will assess the impact of the reduction and report to council whether it should be made permanent.

Mansion Re-Named

The mansion in Reservoir Park last month was officially re-named in honor of Harrisburg Councilwoman Eugenia Smith.

The prominent building was named the Honorable Eugenia Smith Family Life Center during a ceremony featuring music, speakers and a release of doves.

Smith, 53, died suddenly in April at the start of her second term as city councilwoman.

Changing Hands

Cumberland St., 119: R. Nordberg to JB Buy Rite LP, $50,000

Duke St., 2614: A. & V. Morelli to PI Capital LLC, $61,300

Ellerslie St., 2346: PA Deals LLC to D. Clark, $70,000

Fulton St., 1419: JP Morgan Chase to G. & D. Hanslovan, $63,000

Green St., 1112: M. Monathan & M. Taylor to M. Fitzgerald, $165,000

Green St., 1514: J. Couzens to E. Sheaffer & D. McCleskey, $180,000

Green St., 1711: R. Mehiel & L. Kackman to B. Rockwell & N. Gurley, $168,000

Green St., 1811: R. Ruiz to M. Bonsall, $100,000

Green St., 1921: J. & A. Webb to WCI Partners LP, $117,000

Green St., 2031: J. & A. Webb to WCI Partners LP, $119,000

Green St., 3234: R. Krasevic to T. Ash, $119,900

Locust St., 122: DLK Partners LLC to Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network Inc., $130,000

Luce St., 2332 & 2314½: R. & C. Sheetz to Care Properties LLC, $60,000

Mercer St., 2441: M. Davenport et al to O. Diallo & M. Barry, $46,000

N. 3rd St., 1408: F. & M. Cavanaugh to GreenWorks Development LLC, $139,900

N. 3rd St., 3026: L. Curtis to R. Daniels Jr., $35,000

N. 4th St., 2427: D. Seymore to B. Jones Sr., $35,000

N. 6th St., 3014: J. Hadfield & W. Grace to K. Dixon, $73,000

N. 6th St., 3212: R. & B. Snyder to RT Home Solutions Inc., $30,000

N. 12th St., 33: Kirsch & Burns LLC to LMK Properties LLC, $40,000

N. 18th St., 1000: JLB Properties LLC to S. Donald, $44,900

N. Front St., 111: J.A. Hartzler to BCRA Realty LLC, $250,000

N. Front St., 1525, Unit 101: A. Ferraiolo to A. Mohanavel, $156,500

N. Front St., 1525, Unit 602: M. & C. Heppenstall to R. Hostetter Jr., $250,000

Paxton St., 1924: L. Zaydon Jr. to Steve Fisher Rental Properties LLC, $125,000

Penn St., 1520: S. Litt to A. Fortune, $114,000

Penn St., 2411: J. Shockey to D. Wendt, $78,375

S. 2nd St., 314: J. Wansacz to D. Bowers & K. Shifler, $115,000

S. 3rd St., 19: P. Dobson to Dewberry LLC, $325,000

S. 13th St., 506: PA Deals LLC to J. & A. Garbanzos, $65,000

S. 19th St., 1133: M. & B. Faulkner to N. Colon & R. Romero, $85,000

S. 23rd St., 600: G., D. & M. Complese to S. Wright, $69,900

State St., 219: WCI Partners LP to B. & K. Sidella and J. & N. Jones, $225,000

State St., 1516: Kirsch & Burns LLC to LMK Properties LLC, $37,000

Susquehanna St., 1737: Secretary of Veterans Affairs to L. Reapsome, $43,500

Walnut St., 1206: Kirsch & Burns LLC to LMK Properties, $32,000

Walnut St., 1525: ABC Solutions LLC to Choukri Auto Services LLC, $40,000

Wiconisco St., 620; 621 Emerald St.; 2352 Derry St.; and 612 & 614 Seneca St.: R. Shokes Jr. & Shokes Enterprises to JDP 2014 LLC, $259,000

Harrisburg property sales for July 2014, greater than $30,000. Source: Dauphin County. Data is assumed to be accurate.

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