FCAVTS to lose LH ninth-graders
While Brownsville Area School District board members contemplate a withdrawal of its students from the Fayette County Area Vocational-Technical School (FCAVTS), directors in the Laurel Highlands School District voted Thursday to keep ninth-graders at their own high school, starting with the 2005-06 school year. Sophomores, juniors and seniors will still be afforded the opportunity to attend the vo-tech, but freshmen will get more time to get acclimated and prepared academically by staying at the high school, according to Superintendent Dr. Ronald Sheba.
“We’ve tried to separate them within the building and we’re going to try to do more in terms of physical moves,” he said. “The emphasis is academic preparedness.”
Sheba said the district supports the vo-tech school, and having ninth-graders at the high school will lead to better students at the vo-tech if they decide to enroll in a shop there.
“They will have a better chance for success because they will have a better foundation,” he said, stressing that the board’s action was not an indictment of the programs at the vo-tech.
Nationally, schools are looking at freshman classes and working to give them a better start to their academic career, Sheba said, and that effort will continue at Laurel Highlands this fall.
Directors voted unanimously in favor of the new alignment, while Tom Vernon and James F. Burns were absent Thursday.
“Make no mistake, we are not pulling out of the vo-tech. We just feel it is important to keep our ninth-grade students at the high school for a year before giving them the change to go to the vo-tech school in 10th, 11th and 12th grade,” said Board President Edward S. George.
Brownsville Area School Board members are slated to meet Tuesday and vote on a plan to withdraw its students from FCAVTS and send them to the Mon Valley Career & Technology Center in Speers.
Board members there have expressed concern about Brownsville students being turned away from programs at the vo-tech, that vo-tech students have lower scores on state standardized tests and that the Mon Valley center is much closer than the FCAVTS, which is located in Georges Township.
In another matter, the board approved the district’s single audit report and annual financial report for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2004, which showed that the district ended the year with a fund balance of more than $500,000.
Michael E. Revak and Gregory S. Hensh of McClure & Wolf Certified Public Accountants reviewed the financial report with board members.
Revak said the district spent $211,000 more than was budgeted, and the district ended the fiscal year with a fund balance of $561,455.
“When you are working with a $32 million budget and you try to project ahead, given the size of the district and the complexity of operating it, coming within $211,000 is pretty reasonable,” he said. “I think the board and the administration did a pretty good job.”
Hensh noted that the cafeteria fund lost $98,777 in the 2004 fiscal year, mainly because of contractually obligated increases in salaries and benefits. Food costs also increased by $60,000 during the year, which is another reason for the loss, he said.
The cafeteria now has a negative fund balance of $290,140, Hensh said, and the board may need to look at covering the loss with a transfer of money from the district’s general fund.
He said the cafeteria has always carried an annual deficit, with the best possible outcome occurring when the fund breaks even, but encouraged the board to consider subsidizing the cafeteria fund to cover the losses.
“If you have people working there and students eating there, those costs are going to be there,” Hensh said. “The general fund almost has to subsidize this thing or you’ll have to find another avenue.”