Parent Teacher Organization

Parents, school staff and half a dozen teachers from Conshohocken Elementary School found little sympathy when they asked the Conshohocken Borough Council for help solving an expected parking shortage near the school. They also criticized borough officials for allowing the Continental Bank, with its drive-through and accompanying traffic, to be built next door to two elementary schools - Conshohocken and St. Matthew - at Fayette and Third Streets. "I was so pleased to be back to Conshohocken to teach," second-grade teacher Florence Baralt said.

It's been a year since the school district was rocked by news of the sudden death of Superintendent Louis Hebert, who suffered a heart attack while swimming in New Jersey's surf. Since December, the school board has been searching for a new leader and has had no luck. In the spring, two candidates came and went. As the board heads into its first meeting of the new school year Tuesday, no other potential hires have been presented by Hazard Young & Associates, the Illinois firm hired to field candidates, Board President Paul E. Morse Jr. said last week.

The lack of sidewalks along Fox Run Road poses a hazard for students walking to and from Deptford High School, parents and school officials agree. Making the way safe may take a long time. Last spring, a high school girl was hit by an auto while walking home from the school, School Superintendent David Moyer said, although she was not seriously hurt. Officials, parents and police say there have been several near misses. Eileen Santaniello, president of the high school's Parent-Teacher Organization, described the situation as a tragedy waiting to happen.

In an event that was part pep rally and part strategy session, about 1,000 parents and residents of the Pennsbury School District met yesterday in support of beleaguered superintendent-designate Matthew Costanzo. Costanzo, hired in November, was to have started work two days ago, but the school board rescinded his five-year, $500,000 contract Thursday. In response to that midnight vote, the district's parent-teacher organization met Friday to organize yesterday's event. "We are here to do battle for our children," said one meeting organizer, Kathi Wilson, to the cheers of the parents packed into the Charles Boehm Middle School auditorium in Lower Makefield Township.

For the staff, parents and students at Westtown-Thornbury Elementary School in West Chester, it was a chance for national recognition. But now, instead of chasing after a Blue Ribbon Schools award, the staff and parents will be writing to their lawmakers to protest the demise of the program due to a lack of money. "It's really a disgrace," said Ronald Grimm, principal. "My biggest problem is that (at a time when) public education in America is being criticized, here's a program that . . . highlights exemplary schools for all to see. "We know what we have here, in terms of great programs and wonderful parental participation," Grimm said.

Long before inclusion of disabled students was a major national and state initiative, it was happening quietly at Thomas Fitzwater Elementary School in the Upper Dublin School District. The Montgomery County Intermediate Unit (IU) honored the school's principal and its Parent Teacher Organization for their inclusion efforts Tuesday by naming them winners of the 1994 Cynthia Welder Memorial Awards. Joanna McCourt, named principal of the year, was cited for creating a positive atmosphere for disabled children in the school, which includes four IU handicapped classes, all integrated into the school routine.

Can't Congress do anything right? Before answering that, consider the recent ordeal of 19 Pennsylvania elementary schools - 14 of them in the Philadelphia suburbs. All they wanted was a little recognition, a merit badge, an acknowledgment that the teachers, parents and students were doing something right. So they spent years struggling to improve their curricula, test scores and programs. They spent hundreds of hours filling out applications. All for the chance to win one of the nation's highest educational honors - the president's Blue Ribbon Schools award.

When Therese West's oldest child, Nathan, started kindergarten, she traded in her job as a pediatrician for a position as a full-time mother. These days, the 41-year-old West, a dedicated Parent-Teacher Organization member at Chadds Ford Elementary School, can be found coordinating a hands-on science program and teaching children to recognize birds and their calls. "I work way harder now," said West, who worked at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia before quitting in 1995 to spend time with her children.

Arriving at her new job as acting principal of Wetherill School, Debbie McKee felt a little like she was coming back home. Born and raised in Chester, she first came to Wetherill as a kindergartner in September 1955 and years later as a teacher. Then this month, the principal shared her feelings about the gray stone school with the 368 students at the kindergarten-through-fourth-grade school. "I told the students I hope someday one of them will come back to Wetherill as a teacher or maybe even principal," McKee said.

West Chester artist Howard Thorne came to East Bradford Elementary School to teach second graders the art of squiggle. Although their parents might think a squiggle is more of a doodle than art, they would be persuaded to think otherwise when it comes to Thorne's unique style. The bespectacled artist turns his doodles into comtemporary paintings. "Imagine painting with a paint as thick as honey," Thorne, 74, said one recent morning to the interested students in Dee MacFadden's second-grade class.