News from the NPSD Board of School Directors

March 2012 Issue

ARC Committee Looking for Money Generating Ideas

Inglewood Elementary School Renovations Update

NPSD Board Members

President

Vincent Sherpinsky

Vice President

Timothy Kerr

Members

Steve Hladik

Suzan Leonard

Rick Miniscalco

Carolyn Murphy

Frank O'Donnell

John T. Schilling

Joseph Sullivan

Upcoming Meetings

Board Meetings

April 10 - Work session

April 19 - Action

Alternative Revenue Committee

April 11

Education/Community/Policy (ECP) Committee

March 19

Finance Committee

March 28

Support Services Committee

March 26

For a complete list of all NPSD

Board of School Directors meeting dates for 2012, please click here.

ARC Committee Looking for Money Generating Ideas

ARC

Since December, the Alternative Revenue Committee (ARC) of the North Penn School District (NPSD) has been hard at work investigating new ways to increase money coming into the district. Finding alternative funding sources is becoming more important as school districts face increasing costs yet diminishing support from taxes, state subsidies and other revenues.

One major area researched by the ARC and presented to the NPSD Board of School Directors is the concept of advertising in schools. Over several weeks, committee members worked with a local district that is currently allowing advertising in its schools. After visiting this school district, discussing the benefits of such practices and researching other advertising opportunities, the ARC presented information to the school board about the possible revenue that could be generated through advertising, somewhere upwards of $400,000 per year.

The NPSD Board of School Directors instructed the school district to conduct a Request for Proposals for outside agencies that could manage this opportunity and to work with the district solicitor to analyze and redraft any related board policies.

Another area currently under review by the ARC is the creation of a fund development component of the school district. Currently, fundraising is conducted by individual Home and School Associations, booster and student clubs and the NPSD Educational Foundation. An expanded development function, modeled after universities and colleges, could further this fundraising into areas of alumni development, planned giving, grants, naming rights and more.

Other areas ARC will focus on in the upcoming months include trademark licensing, user fees, intellectual property fees and other advanced topics. Community members are also invited to bring their ideas forward. ARC meetings are open to the public and held at the Educational Services Center, 401 East Hancock Street, Lansdale. Upcoming meeting dates are April 11, May 9 and June 13 at 7 p.m.

The Alternative Revenue Committee's mission is to identify new revenue source options, make recommendations to the school board on alternative revenue streams and communicate to the community the financial situation faced by the district and the recommended revenue options in order to ensure that the core mission of delivering a quality education for all students is protected. The committee is comprised of volunteer community members.

Inglewood Elementary School Renovations Update

ING Renovation

NPSD is currently seeking bids to conduct all work and provide materials for proposed construction and renovations at Inglewood Elementary School. These bids, which are due April 10, will then be reviewed by the school board and a decision will be made at that time whether or not to move forward with the project.

The original project, estimated at a cost of $14 million, includes renovations to the current building such as accessibility upgrades, roof and window replacements, kitchen alterations, classroom renovations, HVAC and plumbing renovations, electrical upgrades and security upgrades. The project also includes the construction of additional areas related to the main office and health suite, two classrooms, a receiving area and gymnasium storage.

Upon approval of a bid, work would begin at Inglewood this summer and would last through the summer of 2013. As has occurred in other schools in the district, when work is done in a particular area of the building, students will be relocated to modular classrooms on site. In February, the school board addressed an idea to move students temporarily to other buildings to save the costs associated with the modulars and to shorten the time it will take to complete the project. It is the school board's hope that any cost savings that could have occurred from this will be realized through lower bids than originally estimated based on the economic times.

Although the school district is working extremely hard to cuts costs on the operational side of the school district, the school board believes that it is smart to take advantage of lower priced services, materials and loans and complete the Inglewood project now. The project was originally scheduled to begin in the 2010-2011 school year as part of a Master Facilities Plan. The school board delayed the project one year.