April 26, 2015

On Tuesday, April 28, starting at 6:15 p.m., Concord Elementary School will be the site of informational picketing and a rally organized by Garnet Valley teachers, according to a press release.

Teachers and education professionals, along with parents, plan to display informational signs and pass out literature to raise awareness about the fact that they have worked the school year so far with an expired contract. Their collective bargaining agreement ended on June 30.

The release said the teachers have been working since January 2014 to secure a new agreement, using efforts that have included state mediated fact-finding, three-day marathon bargaining sessions, and off-the-record meetings. “The goal of the peaceful protest is to demonstrate to the community and the school board that the time to settle is now,” the release said.

Speakers will address the crowd beginning at approximately 6:30 p.m. Then the group will walk in unison to the 7 p.m. school board meeting, where many will provide public statements to the school board, the release said.

In a prepared statement, Garnet Valley Education Association Kathy Petrini said: “We believe it is time to settle a reasonable and competitive contract. This is one of the best school districts in Delaware County, even the state, and the reality is these protracted contract disputes are not good for all parties. We hope that when the school board sees how many parents and members of our community want this to end, they will come to the table with a reasonable proposal.”

The statement said that although the district has worked with teachers, parts of the proposed contract “would still cause a substantial number of our members to, in effect, accept a reduction in take home pay,” a “regressive” element that is not acceptable. “We have to reach an agreement that moves our entire membership forward and, right now, while their proposals help some of our faculty, it hurts others,” the statement said.

Concord Elementary School is located at 114 Station Rd. in Glen Mills.

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West Chester University has been ranked No. 21 on a list of top values in public colleges, according to rankings from Consumer Digest published in the magazine’s June 2015 issue, a university press release said.

The magazine used data from College Board and the Department of Education’s College Navigator to determine the top 227 public institutions. The formula they used to narrow the field further “balanced students’ academic excellence (standardized test scores, high-school rank, and the GPA of entering freshmen) with the quality of education offered (as indicated by the student-to-faculty ratio, the four-year graduation rate, the six-year graduation rate, student retention rate, and percentage of faculty who hold a doctorate or terminal degree) to compile a Value Index score for each institution, the release said.

Certain categories were weighted more heavily than others. That score and the estimated cost of attending each college for the 2014-2015 academic year (tuition, fees, and room and board) were then applied to a formula to determine which schools deliver the most academic value per dollar.

Consumer Digest also only used out-of-state tuition figures for public universities, “because attending a public school in your state of residence will almost always provide the best value for your education dollar. Military institutions and extremely specialized colleges that don’t charge tuition weren’t considered for this chart,” the release said.

The only other Pennsylvania universities listed in the top 50 values for public institutions were University of Pittsburgh at No. 37 and Penn State, University Park, at No. 45, the release said.

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