The Mission of the Manheim Township School District is to provide an environment where everyone will learn, grow, and succeed.

There are questions being asked about the recent announcement of changes in teaching
assignment for the 2012-13 school year.

With the current budget crisis, the district offered an early retirement incentive as a way to reduce
staff (which is the bulk of our budget) without cutting programs.  As of today, more than 25
teachers decided to retire.  Currently, only one of those positions is being replaced.  In addition,
Landis Run Intermediate School, grades 5 and 6, will open for the 2012-13 school year.
Combining the 5th and 6th grades into one building will allow for some economies in staffing,
while the removal of 5th grade from the elementary schools also means a reassignment of teaching
staff.

Please know that a lot of time and consideration, by building principals and district office
administrators, was put into all of the staffing decisions for the 12-13 school year.  The district
administration worked diligently to reorganize the remaining teaching staff to provide a quality,
balanced staff in each building.  Actually, this is one of the on-going tasks for administrators.

In addition, it is important to remember that staff members are employees of the district (not a
specific building) and the district has the right of assignment each year. Staff members were
given notice a few months ago that changes would be coming, due in part, to the number of
retiring teachers that are not being replaced.  We do understand that change is hard, but at the
same time, we must make decisions about the best use of personnel for all of our students across the district.  It is the responsibility of the administration to effectively and efficiently utilize our personnel for the benefit of the entire district.

We are proud to announce that, while we may have had to reduce some programs, we have not
had to eliminate any programs such as art, music, or library; and the quality teaching staff
expected in Manheim Township will continue at each of our schools.

Yes, there will be changes in the district for the 12-13 school year.  This is a great opportunity for
everyone impacted by any of the changes to model for our children how to work through a
change in a positive and productive way.

Due to the budget issues the district has and continues to face, the district has raised the activity fee so that it may continue to provide extra-curricular activities for our students.  The activity fee helps to defray the cost of such things as coach or adviser stipends, supplies, materials, uniform costs, utilities, and facility maintenance.

There are two criteria for determining which activities will require a fee.  The first criteria is – is the activity part of a student’s grade?  If so, there is no fee.  The second criteria is – does the advisor or coach for the activity receive a stipend for running the activity?  If the answer is yes, then there is an activity fee.  There will be a list posted on the website in the next few weeks to identify which activities, based on the above criteria, will require activity fees.

We continue to search for ways to balance the budget and still provide the ‘extras’ for our students.  For instance, the administration and specialists of the district are in the second year of a pay freeze, and our teaching staff voted last year to volunteer an unprecedented two-year pay freeze.  In addition, the stipends for coaches and advisors were reduced by half last year.  We are proud of the sacrifices our staff has made, and continues to make, so that the district can continue
to offer a quality, well-rounded education for our students.

Requests for transcripts can be made by downloading and submitting one of the forms below.  Please follow the instructions included on the form.

Transcripts for Alumni:

Alumni_Transcript_Form-1

Transcripts for current students:

Student_Transcript_Request_Form

At the request of parents, Manheim Township School District does adhere to the PA “Twin Law”. Building administrators and staff members work as a team to develop well-balanced classes. Many factors are taken into account when classes are being developed (i.e, male/female ratio, academic needs, etc.). While requests are not always able to be honored (except in the case of the “Twin Law”, we do encourage parents to discuss specific requests with the building administrator.

The district continues to face a budget deficit, in the millions, for the 2012-2013 school year. Although the district is supportive and would like to offer a district-wide full day kindergarten program next year, due to the budget constraints, the 2012-2013 budget can not support this initiative at this time. The Board and Administration are scrutinizing every program and every expenditure in the budget to see where we can cut expenses. The district’s precarious budget situation does not provide us the funds to hire the new additional staff we would need for a full day kindergarten program.

Full day kindergarten remains an important goal of the district and the school board, and this worthy initiative will be reviewed for the 2013-2014 school year.

To clarify,  Owl Hill Learning Center runs and is the contact for the 4-year old Pre-K program.  If you have specific questions about enrollment for the Pre-K program, please call  Mrs. Mathers,  Educational Director at Owl Hill Learning Center, 717 779-3104.

For the last 5 years, MTSD has partnered with Owl Hill Learning Center to offer a 4 year old Pre-K program. This program is funded through the PA Pre-K Counts Grant. The PA Pre-K Counts Grant has specific requirements that we must fulfill in order to receive continued funding. The state funding for this grant is on a year to year basis. We are hopeful that the funding will continue to be part of the state budget. More information on the proposed state budget will be released in the upcoming months.

November 2011

The Decision to Establish the International Baccalaureate Organization’s Diploma Programme

The impetus for offering the IB Programme at our high school began with the Strategic Planning Committee in 2007. The committee was comprised of students, parents, community members, teachers, staff members, administrators, and school board members. In 2008, the committee presented its 6-year plan to the school board, who adopted it in September of that year. The Plan called for many action items to address the needs of low-achieving, proficient, and advanced students. Two of those action items related to students who fell into the latter two categories:
• Examine and create global educational opportunities
• International Baccalaureate (IB)

During the strategic planning process, the committee determined that there was a high degree of compatibility between the newly established district mission and vision and the IB program.

After the Board adopted the strategic plan, the district began gathering program and cost information by visiting other school districts with existing IB schools (Lower Merion, Upper St. Clair, and School District of Lancaster.) When visiting those schools, administrators looked at the program itself, as well as, the cost to implement the program. It was decided that the program was a good fit for our students and the district could spread the startup costs over the course of several years. The determination was made that the district would seek out grant monies to defray at least some of those expenses. Once administrators made that determination, the district began the process to apply to be an IB school, which includes preparing staff to teach IB courses through staff development:

During the 2010-11 year, the district received federal stimulus money in the form of a PA-PACT grant. A portion of that grant could only be used for initiatives such as staff development, library materials, and new curriculum initiatives/materials. The district used that money for district-wide non-IB staff development ($46,000), additional library books district-wide ($24,000), non-IB curriculum materials ($39,000), and IB startup costs ($70,000). The PA-PACT money covered 91% of our IB costs in 2010-11. The following table lists the startup costs for the two years prior to the implementation year, 2011-12:

This startup investment will serve our current IB students and all future students in the same way our Project Lead the Way startup costs have served our past, present, and future engineering students.

When conducting site visits at other schools with IB programs, the district learned to expect a low number of students in the first year of the program; however the numbers will grow – sometimes significantly – in the following years. In this first year at MTHS, there are a total of 44 students taking IB classes; 12 students are full-time Diploma Candidate students. The other 32 students are taking IB courses as certificate students. The numbers for next year look promising as 125 sophomores have requested an IB application for next year.

In our experience it is typical to have low numbers in special programs, especially in their infancy. Our established engineering (STEM), Chinese, and some specialized music courses carry low enrollments and higher than typical costs. However, we expect that the growth in IB enrollments will outpace other specialized programs offered at the high school. This also holds true for the increase in enrollments in Advanced Placement (AP) courses. The district is seeing a high level of interest in IB from this year’s sophomores as well as an increase in AP enrollments. This translates into a greater number of students choosing more rigorous courses.

We believe the IB program is a good alternative for many students. There is a set 85% minimum GPA for a student considering IB, thus providing the program to be available to the large number (43%) of students who have a high GPA and would like to take challenging courses. In addition, as Charter/Cybercharter schools gain popularity among many who feel they offer more than public education, the IB program provides our district with an academic advantage. To learn more about the IB program, please visit their website at www.ibo.org or contact Larry Penner, IB Coordinator, at pennerla@mtwp.net.

There are several ways to contact the School Board; you may write a letter and send it to the district address listed below, you may call and leave a message with the Board Secretary, Kathie Arnold, at 560-3110, or you may come to a meeting and speak. Each meeting agenda has at least one section for citizen comments. The meeting dates, and individual Board member contact information, is listed under the School Board on the home page.

Manheim Township School District
Attn: School Board
PO Box 5134
Lancaster, PA 17606-5134