Salvatore DiBenedetto, 95, of Toughkenamon, died Thursday, March 12, at the Jennersville Regional Hospital. He was the husband of Jessie DeLaurentis DiBenedetto, with whom he shared 70 years of marriage.
Born in Salle, Italy, he was the son of the late Pantelone and Loretta Lattanzio DiBenedetto
He was a self employed mushroom grower and owned and operated Magnolia Farms in Toughkenamon, with his family until his retirement in 1985.
He served in the U.S. Army during WWII.
Mr. DiBenedetto was an avid reader, enjoyed cutting grass, and being with his family and friends. He was a member of St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother Church.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by one son, Vincent DiBenedetto and his wife Nancy of Toughkenamon; two daughters, Donna Ferroni and her husband James of Avondale, and Sandra Bock and her husband Charles of Toughkenamon; one sister, Velda Salerni of Lansdale; six grandchildren and twelve great grandchildren.
His service and burial will be private.
In lieu of flowers, a contribution may be made to the American Heart Association, 1617 JFK Boulevard, Suite 700, Philadelphia, PA 19103
The Unionville-Chadds Ford School Board and the teachers’ union are about three percentage points away from each other in their contract talks. That’s the primary take-away from a March 13 press briefing.
School Board Directors Gregg Lindner and Keith Knauss and Superintendent John Sanville conducted the briefing. Director Vic Dupuis is also on the negotiating team, but he was out of town.
According to the presentation, the union, the Unionville-Chadds Ford Education Association, wants an annual increase in total compensation — salary, retirement and benefits — of 5.01 percent, while the board’s current offer is 2.08 percent.
“This is the single-most substantial budget issue,” Lindner said.
The board is developing its 2015-2016 budget of almost $80 million. Lindner said the teachers’ compensation package portion represents just less than $34 million.
Based on that $34 million figure, a 5.01 percent increase translates to an extra $1.75 million being spent per year, while a 2.08 percent increase adds an extra $700,000 per year.
“The board feels the teachers should be fairly compensated … At the same time, we have to balance their needs with the limitations on taxpayers,” Lindner said. “It’s our goal to bring everyone together and find common ground.”
He continued, saying there are three guiding principles to the negotiations: the need to offer fair compensation, the need to have the contract sustainable over its three-year period, and the need to keep within the state-mandated tax increase limit.
This year’s ceiling, known as the Act I limit, is 1.9 percent, though there are dollar amount exceptions for special education costs and for retirement contributions.
Lindner said sustainability means there should be no cuts in programs or increases to class size.
If no agreement were reached, the status quo — meaning no change in pay — would be maintained. However, Lindner added that there would still be increased costs in pension and benefit expenses. That increase this year would be 1.85 percent of total employment costs.
“With an Act I limit on tax increases of 1.9 percent this year, we either need to limit these benefit expense increases or limit wage increases,” he said. “We cannot afford both a wage increase and maintain current benefits.”
Under the teachers’ proposal of a 5.01 percent increase, the district risks teacher layoffs, higher local taxes, program cuts and larger class sizes. Lindner also said it would be difficult to explain to taxpayers why the teachers are getting larger increases than the average person.
“We’re living in a 2 percent world,” Knauss said.
The Employment Cost Index put out by the Department of Labor that, Knauss said, shows the average employee in the Philadelphia area gets a 2 percent increase in salaries and benefits. He said that same 2 percent is reflected in the cost-of-living increase for combined Social Security and Medicare payments.
The 800-pound gorilla in all state teacher negotiations is the contribution to the state’s Public School Employees Retirement System, or PSERS.
Knauss said the district needs to pay a competitive wage, but the PSERS’ contribution and benefits limit what can be done with those salaries.
“[Teachers] haven’t gotten much in the salary section because benefits keep going up … If we could reduce PSERS, that money could go to the salary section,” Knauss said.
The last salary increase, a 3 percent hike, came at the beginning of the current school year, according to Knauss.
Sanville interjected that this year’s PSERS’ contribution was $2.7 million, but it would be $4.3 million for the 2017-2018 school year under the union’s proposal.
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
PennDOT has announced the following road projects, which are weather-dependent and could affect residents in the greater Chadds Ford area during the week of March 15 through March 22. The department recommends that motorists allow extra time if they are traveling through one of the construction zones.
Spray-patching is scheduled on Route 202 in both directions in Birmingham, Thornbury, Westtown, East Goshen, West Goshen and West Whiteland Townships from Monday, March 16, through Thursday, March 19. The work, which will be done from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. between Business Route 30 and the Delaware County line, will require intermittent lane closures.
Patching is also slated to continue on Route 926 in both directions in Birmingham, Westtown, and Thornbury Townships, between the Brandywine Creek and Route 202. Lane restrictions will be needed from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. from Monday, March 16, through Friday, March 20.
Traffic signal installation in Kennett Square Borough will continue to require lane closures on Cypress Street at State, Broad, Meredith and Union Streets and on State Street at Union Street. Crews are scheduled to work from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. through Friday, March 20.
Burnt Mill Road in Kennett Township is closed and detoured between Norway and Spring Mill Roads indefinitely while crews prepare for repairs to a bridge that collapsed on April 24.
Motorists will encounter daytime lane closures when traveling on Route 100 between Shoen Road and Welsh Pool Road in Uwchlan and West Whiteland Townships. Construction crews will be working on the road-widening project on Monday, March 16 through Friday, March 20, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
One lane will remain closed on Interstate 95 North at the Commodore Barry Bridge for construction through July 14.
If you want to report potholes and other roadway maintenance concerns on state roads, call 1-800-FIX ROAD.
The Hadley Memorial Fund, now in its 52nd season, will present “Pillow Play” a Wilmington Drama League performance on Saturday, March 14,at 2 p.m. at Kennett Friends Meeting, 125 W. Sickle St. in Kennett Square.
The Chrysalis Players’ Pillow Plays series brings great theatre to our youngest audience, ages 10 and under. Pillow Plays has become a local phenomenon as these short plays have been taken to local libraries and schools, including the Newark Free Library, Woodlawn Library, the Mary Campbell Center – and now the Hadley Memorial Fund. Children should bring a pillow to sit on.
The focus of the Pillow Play is on drama and theater education through the Chrysalis Players, the children’s and youth acting classes at the Wilmington Drama League. In the desert of an electronic age, live theatre strives to offer an oasis of “face-to-face” communication.
The class, called “Doorway to Drama for Ages 7-15” offers theatre fun and instruction for young people of all experience levels. Each session includes (but is not limited to ) audition skills, improvisation concepts, diction, projection and character development, and each ends with a free performance for friends and family. These students will comprise the cast for Saturday’s play.
All Hadley Memorial Fund events are free and open to the public. Kennett Friends Meeting is handicapped accessible. For more information, call 610-444-1855 or visit www.HadleyFund.org.
Charles F. Patton Middle School teachers Betsy Ballard (left) and Kim Hisler have been sowing seeds of interest about the Patton Project Gardens to other organizations.
When it comes to meteoric growth, “Jack and the Beanstalk” has nothing on the Patton Project Gardens, even though both share inspiration consistent with a fairy tale.
The project took root in 2010 through the wishful musings of Charles F. Patton Middle School teachers Betsy Ballard and Kim Hisler. The pair, who work in the Family and Consumer Science (FCS) Department, combined a what-if mentality with a can-do spirit that spawned a greenhouse and 16 raised beds.
The Patton Project Gardens has produced more than 6,000 pounds of produce for the Chester County Food Bank since its inception in 2010.
Since then, both the scope of the student-centered initiative and its output of crops have flourished. It has produced thousands of pounds of produce – from beets to broccoli and beyond – most of which goes to area food cupboards. And it has increased the total number of raised beds to 30.
Capitalizing on grants and donations, the project has added solar panels that not only power the greenhouse but include a dashboard inside the school so that students can monitor the energy; an outdoor classroom with a pergola, where grapevines are being trained; three hydroponic tanks; and two 30-foot-long high tunnels for extending the harvest.
With virtually no cost to the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District, the program has also positively impacted hundreds of students and needy families. In the process, its accomplishments have garnered several awards.
Its latest honor comes from the National School Boards Association’s flagship magazine, American School Board Journal, whose Magna Awards recognize outstanding school district programs throughout the country. An independent panel of school board members, administrators, and other educators selected the 2015 winners from nearly 250 submissions. The Patton Project was one of five first-place winners in the under-5,000 enrollment category.
On March 21, the project will be spotlighted at the Best Practices for School Leaders Luncheon, which occurs during the annual conference of the National School Boards Association. In addition, a description of the program will appear in a special section of the April 2015 issue of American School Board Journal. Representing the district at the luncheon in Nashville, Tenn. will be Ballard, Patton Principal Tim Hoffman, and school board members Kathy Do and Carolyn Daniels.
Ballard and Hisler both said the news that they had achieved national recognition was thrilling.
“We applied not knowing what to expect but thought we would give it a shot,” said Hisler. “That seems to be our motto: Try, and the worst that could happen is we don’t get it.”
Ballard said they could remember winning the Environmental Community Service Award in 2011 for donating more than 50 pounds of vegetables to the Chester County Food Bank. At the time, that seemed to qualify as a remarkable achievement.
“Thanks to our summer Adopt-A-Bed program helping us to grow 12 months out of the year, to date we have donated over 6,000 pounds to the food bank, as well as using additional fresh items in our FCS kitchens, donating to our cafeteria, and providing food to local homeless and domestic violence shelters,” said Ballard.
In 2014, the program was selected to be the Pennsylvania nominee for the U.S. Department of Education’s Green Ribbon Schools award.
Students can participate in multiple ways, its creators said. In addition to taking the hands-on FCS elective in middle school, they also have opportunities to contribute through Honor Society or other service groups, or to volunteer with their families during Adopt-a-Bed, which involves tending a bed for a week each summer.
Victor Dupuis, who heads the Unionville-Chadds Ford school board, said when he saw the criteria for the Magna Awards, he immediately realized that the Patton Project Gardens was a good fit and recommended that Ballard and Hisler pursue it.
“I knew this was an opportunity to share our success on a national level,” he said. “I can only hope that other districts around the country will hear of this program and seek to replicate it in their own communities. Imagine the long-term impact this idea could have if it was repeated in 100, or 1,000 districts around the country.”
Dupuis explained that under Ballard and Hisler’s direction, the students learn “about the power of teamwork, about advocacy for the less fortunate, and about the science and technology of natural and organic food production for the next century.”
Unionville-Chadds Ford Superintendent John C. Sanville concurred. “The Patton Project Garden is a success by every measure,” he said.
A solar array for the greenhouse, donated by Tri-M Group LLC, is one of the more recent additions to the Patton Project Gardens.
Phoebe Kitson-Davis, program manager of the Chester County Food Bank, has said that one raised bed can produce 10 pounds of food a week during the 10-week growing season, an amount the Patton gardeners routinely exceed. The food is desperately needed, she said. Despite the district’s affluence, three percent of the population lives in poverty, and a mile and a half away in Kennett Square, the percentage rises to nearly 40, she said.
Ballard and Hisler, who have no interest in slowing the program’s growth spurt, said recent grants will mechanize the sides of the tunnels; enable them to purchase two large wire wagons to get the harvest from the tunnels to the school, a distance of about a half-mile; fund a walkway making the tunnels wheelchair accessible; and subsidize a welding project so that high-school students can create decorative arches for the squash, peas, and beans.
In the spring, compost bins will be constructed in both the front gardens and at the tunnels as an Eagle Scout project, they said, adding that the project never would have materialized without support from the school board, the administration, and the community.
In addition, the greenhouse will soon be sprouting hydroponic lettuce, and grapes will begin climbing up the pergola/outdoor classroom to create a shaded area as well as provide a healthy snack. Still on the drawing board: rain barrels and a community garden.
“I never dreamed that this project would have grown into what it is now, but hard work and perseverance have paid off,” said Hisler.
The seeds of their labors are also spreading.
“We just presented at the Pennsylvania Association of Middle Level Educators’ (PAMLE) conference and have been asked to provide support to programs at a Pennsylvania college and several middle schools,” said Ballard. She said they will also be meeting with the Delaware Food Bank “to show off our program and to see how we can help inspire Delaware schools.”
Hisler added that West Chester is starting a community garden in the borough and contacted them for assistance.
The project “exemplifies how schools, community partners, and local businesses can work together to achieve more than they would otherwise on their own,” Dupuis said. “The UCFSD School Board, and, indeed our entire community, is exceedingly proud of this program and all the young people and adults that have made it a success.”
