Schools
Congressman Tim Murphy Presents District with Congressional Proclamation
Rep. Murphy was in attendance at Monday's school board meeting to recognize the district's national character award.
U.S. Congressman Tim Murphy paid a special visit to the Peters Township School Board during its regular meeting Monday night to present a Congressional Proclamation in recognition of the district’s National School District of Character Award, won in 2010.
Peters was one of two districts nationwide to receive the honor from the Character Education Partnership last year. Nationally, 13 schools also received the unique award presented last October at the National Forum on Character Education held in San Francisco.
The winners were selected following an extensive application process and through a site visit. CEP evaluators measured Peters schools against the "Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education."
Find out what's happening in Peterswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The district won the award for character education initiatives spanning kindergarten through high school.
Murphy spoke to board members on the "remarkable partnership" that Peters Township schools have with the community, including the township government, chamber of commerce and library, and the Character Counts partnership.
Find out what's happening in Peterswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The Character Education program began more than 10 years ago in the Peters schools through the township’s Character Counts initiative.
Also Monday night, the school board accepted the retirement of assistant superintendent Anthony Mercante. His retirement will become effective June 30.
As the school board begins planning for the budget that will be posted next month to cover 2011-2012, they also voted to approve two amendments to the collective bargaining agreement with the Peters Township Federation of Teachers to extend time for teachers contemplating retirement to make their decision.
The board voted to change the April 1 notification of retirement date to June 1, and also voted to change the minimum of 33 years of service requirement to 30 years of service.
The budget and finance committee of the board has held several work sessions on the new budget, which will be without some $900,000 in state funding, which is being cut under Gov. Tom Corbett’s .
The board voted in November not to increase any taxes above the Pennsylvania Department of Education index of 1.4 percent.
The board will post a tentative budget on May 16.
