Hatboro Horsham School District

Two elementary school principals in the Phoenixville Area School District have resigned to take jobs in other school districts, Assistant Schools Superintendent Dennis Blanton announced last week. Demetra Haines, principal of the East Pikeland Elementary School for the last five years, will become principal of the Arrowhead Elementary School in the Methacton School District in Montgomery County at an unspecified date. Haines joined the district in 1981 as an assistant principal in the Phoenixville Area Junior High School.

It was a night of fond memories, gift-giving and official farewells Monday as Louis Parys and Ada Reese participated in their last Hatboro-Horsham school board meeting after nearly 50 combined years of service. "I'm very proud of Hatboro-Horsham School District," said Parys, 66, who has served on the board for three decades and has been president of the school board since 1987. "I hate to leave, but there comes a point when you have to decide. " He paused, then added, "But I'd do it again.

At the Hatboro-Horsham School District, the operative word is change. Three years from now, graduates of the Hatboro-Horsham High School will walk through the halls of their alma mater and see middle school students. The students attending classes at the Keith Valley Middle School building will be elementary school students. And high school students will be attending a new high school. On Monday night, the Hatboro-Horsham school board approved the conversion of the Hatboro-Horsham High School into a middle school and the Keith Valley Middle School into an elementary school In November, the board approved plans for construction of a 1,200-student high school on part of the Keith Valley Middle School property.

Montgomery County Judge Albert Subers has revoked two months of credit for time served by a Horsham man who was sentenced to 4 to 23 months in prison on a burglary conviction. James A. Vercio Jr., 20, appeared for the second time this month before Subers after Hatboro-Horsham School District officials contradicted Vercio's testimony that he had been a teenage wrestling champion. Subers reinstated the two months after learning that a test indicated that Vercio had traces of marijuana in his system.

Peg George knows all about how far women have come in two decades, and how far women still need to go. George, 60, director of community relations for the Hatboro-Horsham School District, for many years played the role of mother at home and afterward went on to a career as a state legislator (Central Bucks, 143d District) as well as in other posts. And for many years, quietly and on a local level, she has been working to help women find their way in what not very long ago was almost completely a man's world.

It is the desire of Nancy Bobkowski to make her job a little bit tougher. Principal of Crooked Billet Elementary School, Bobkowski also hopes to become the director of a Hatboro-Horsham School District child-care program. "The need is there, it is absolutely there," Bobkowski told the school board. "This is something the children desperately need and deserve. " Many school districts have child-care programs operating in school facilities, but most of them are operated by outside agencies, according to Bobkowski.

Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was murdered by Islamic terrorists in Pakistan in February 2002, leaving behind a wife and unborn son. On Sept. 14, the opening night of the Cheltenham Township Adult School's 5 Star Forum, Mariane Pearl will tell of her life with her husband and her search for him after his kidnapping in Karachi. Pearl is the first of five speakers scheduled for events through April. The others are journalist Robin Wright, architect Moshie Safdie, radio host Terry Gross, and bioethicist Arthur Caplan.

The Hatboro-Horsham school board thought that increasing class sizes within the district would ease its money and space problems. But more than 70 parents and teachers asked the board to think again. And after a two-hour public debate at its meeting Monday night, the board voted to maintain current limits on class size for the coming school year. Parents addressing the board voiced their support for the district and said they would prefer higher taxes to diminished education. "I have some statistical information regarding the 22 public school districts in Montgomery County and class size," one Hatboro parent told the board.

John Sannini sat patiently yesterday at Blair Mill Elementary School's library, watching 8-year-old Melissa Rubbo as she slowly made her way through What Seahorse Saw. The 14-page book was giving the second grader a little trouble, Sannini saw. So the 52-year-old computer programmer intervened with a question. "Where does a seahorse live?" he asked. "In the sea," the blonde girl said emphatically. "Very good," Sannini responded with a laugh. The tutoring session - involving a corporate employee and a student in the Hatboro-Horsham School District - is business as usual in this district's schools.

John D. Thomson, 78,of Rydal Park, an educator in the Hatboro-Horsham School District for more than 30 years, died Wednesday of encephalitis at Abington Memorial Hospital. Mr. Thomson joined the Hatboro-Horsham District in 1956 as a junior high school English teacher. He became an elementary school principal in 1966 and was assigned to several schools before his retirement in 1988. Mr. Thomson's last three years as principal were spent at Hallowell School in Horsham. There he presided over an annual Balloon Day, traditionally releasing the first of more than 300 balloons attached with tags bearing the students' names and the school address.

Philadelphia Futures , a nonprofit organization committed to helping Philadelphia public high school students attend college, has elected Kevin R. Boyle and Stephen Lis to its board. Boyle is a partner at Stradley, Ronon, Stevens & Young L.L.P., Philadelphia, where he is chairman of the firm's Business Department and serves on its board of directors. Lis is a partner at KPMG L.L.P., Philadelphia. The Hatboro-Horsham Educational Foundation , an independent organization partnered with the Hatboro-Horsham School District, has named the following to its board: The Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board , a volunteer commission appointed by the mayor to govern the public workforce system in the city, said Mayor Nutter had appointed the following to its board: Albert P. Black Jr. is chief operating officer of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

John D. Thomson, 78,of Rydal Park, an educator in the Hatboro-Horsham School District for more than 30 years, died Wednesday of encephalitis at Abington Memorial Hospital. Mr. Thomson joined the Hatboro-Horsham District in 1956 as a junior high school English teacher. He became an elementary school principal in 1966 and was assigned to several schools before his retirement in 1988. Mr. Thomson's last three years as principal were spent at Hallowell School in Horsham. There he presided over an annual Balloon Day, traditionally releasing the first of more than 300 balloons attached with tags bearing the students' names and the school address.

Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was murdered by Islamic terrorists in Pakistan in February 2002, leaving behind a wife and unborn son. On Sept. 14, the opening night of the Cheltenham Township Adult School's 5 Star Forum, Mariane Pearl will tell of her life with her husband and her search for him after his kidnapping in Karachi. Pearl is the first of five speakers scheduled for events through April. The others are journalist Robin Wright, architect Moshie Safdie, radio host Terry Gross, and bioethicist Arthur Caplan.

Want a rundown of the key issues in the teachers' contract dispute in the Hatboro-Horsham School District? Check out the Web site run by the Hatboro-Horsham Education Association, the local teachers' union. Or, do the same on the district's Web site. Tracking the strike in the West Chester Area School District? The West Chester school board has a bounty of information - plus its views on the issues - on its Web site, which includes advice for explaining the issues to children, an analysis of teacher salary trends, even a profile of the school board's lead negotiator, Jeffrey Sultanik.

The Hatboro-Horsham Educational Foundation is still fine-tuning some of the ambitious community programs it has offered in the last decade, but officials say they are finding that diversity is the key to success. "We're going in a different direction this year with a little bit of everything," Karen Fitzpatrick, executive director, said. She noted a lineup of shows for next season's entertainment series that will feature aerialists and gymnasts, dancers, concert singers, a pianist, a group of female instrumentalists, and a Rat Pack revue.

Herb Courtney was flattered, to say the least. Last month, during a holiday basketball tournament in Lexington, Ky., University of Kentucky coach Tubby Smith told Hatboro-Horsham coach Walt Ostrowski how impressed he was with Courtney's skills. When he got word of it, Courtney could not help but picture himself, momentarily, in a blue-and-white jersey and playing for the Wildcats in nearby Rupp Arena. Because Courtney already has signed with Delaware, that won't happen.

Hatboro-Horsham senior guard David Luber loves basketball and he certainly loves what the Hatters are doing in the PIAA District 1 Class AAAA boys' basketball tournament. Luber made pinpoint pass after pinpoint pass and knocked down a key jumper at the end of the third quarter to spark Hatboro-Horsham past determined Neshaminy, 53-39, in a quarterfinal playoff game at William Tennent High on Friday night. With the win, Hatboro-Horsham (22-5), the tournament's No. 2 seed, clinched a state playoff berth.

John Sannini sat patiently yesterday at Blair Mill Elementary School's library, watching 8-year-old Melissa Rubbo as she slowly made her way through What Seahorse Saw. The 14-page book was giving the second grader a little trouble, Sannini saw. So the 52-year-old computer programmer intervened with a question. "Where does a seahorse live?" he asked. "In the sea," the blonde girl said emphatically. "Very good," Sannini responded with a laugh. The tutoring session - involving a corporate employee and a student in the Hatboro-Horsham School District - is business as usual in this district's schools.

At times during the nine years Linda Young has lived at Maple Hill Apartments in Horsham, her apartment has housed seven different people - herself, her husband, her two sons, her daughter, her stepson, and her mother. It's a good thing, then, that Young was able to rent one of Maple Hill's three-bedroom apartments when she moved from a house in Philadelphia. "It was really hard to find a three-bedroom apartment - there's not many places that have them," said Young, a dental assistant who wanted to move out of the city after a divorce and remarriage.

The Hatboro-Horsham School District has reached a $550,000 settlement with the development company that built the district's new high school between 1989 and 1991. Boro Developers of King of Prussia sued the district five years ago in Montgomery County Court, seeking $1.7 million for costs the company claimed it incurred because of a faulty design by the district-employed architect, district officials said yesterday. Negotiations to settle the lawsuit began in the spring, said solicitor Jack Dooley.