Northern Bedford School Board Learns About STEM Team, FBLA

The Northern Bedford county School Board met on Tuesday, Jan. 8, in the middle school/high school building.

A student representative spoke to the board highlighting recent events, including the amazing opportunity being given a select group of students on the STEM team. These students have been selected to represent the state of Pennsylvania at a national level competition this spring.

FBLA

Another group of students addressed the board including, Allison Ritchey, Morgan Robinson and Abby Mickle. Their objective was to describe their involvement with Future Business Leaders of America, which is a school-sponsored club. Currently there are 26 members at the NBC school. FBLA is an organization that helps prepare students for careers in business and introduces them to the free enterprise system. The program offers students opportunities to compete in activities such as public speaking and agribusiness. The goal is for these events to help students develop quality skills which will benefit them in their future employment.

In November of this past year, the students participated in a Regional Leadership Conference at St. Francis University, Loretto, where 16 of the 26 members placed high enough to move on to state-level competitions. The State Leadership Conference will take place April 8-10 in Hershey.

Three students placed first in their divisions at the regional competitions including Bryce Detterline, Agribusiness; Matt Hall, intro to Public Speaking; and Haden Reyan, Networking Concepts. Several students placed second including Maurizio Amato, Help Desk; Jay Ebersole, Political Science; Sierra Foor, Organizational Leadership; Nick Garner, Business Calculations; Abby Mickle, Intro to Business Communications; Cameron Pressel, Future Business Leader; Allyson Ritchey, Business Communications; and Kyler States, Business Law.

Students placing third included Sarah Heck, Global Business; Colby Imler, Marketing; Thad Leidy, Securities and Investments; Morgan Robison, Journalism; and Allie Snider, Global Business.

Smith Transport is donating $1,800 to the FBLA students as a means of helping with the expenses associated with the state competition.

Audit Report

Jeff Koontz of Ritchey, Ritchey & Koontz also addressed the board to present the 2017-18 audit report. He noted that the school fared well in all areas with only a minor deficit showing in the cafeteria budget. It was made mention that this has been an area of concern in the past and that this audit showed a smaller deficit margin that in previous years. It was expressed that there is hope the measures being taken by the school to alleviate this issue are working as the gap is has lessened some.

It has been determined that the overall ending balance for the 2017-18 school year closed with the school being in the black approximately $152,600. However, it was also mentioned that due to an increase in Cyber School costs over the last year some steps may be necessary to ensure the school continues to function affluently.

According to Superintendent Todd Beatty, the cyber school costs increased by 28 percent and as a result the school may need to look at raising the tax index to provide an additional $125,883 for the 2019-20 school year.

The board voted to approve a resolution to not raise taxes above the index.

Also approved at the meeting was an interim tax bill which will be issued by the Bedford County Assessment Office for 2018 improvements. The value of this interim bill would be $2,552,000 and would make the interim real estate revenue up to $21,307.

Several staff changes were approved including the approval to hire Tyler Hrivnak as an elementary night custodian retroactively since Dec. 10, 2018, and the appointment of Kendra Foor to be a substitute instructional assistant. Foor will be filling the position being left by Andrea Wertz, who is taking FMLA leave for the remainder of the 2018-19 school year.

And a measure was passed to provide signage along State Route 36 through the Loysburg Gap to help better enforce the school zone located there.

The board recognized input from Jeff Batzel, who is the athletic director, and Michael O’Dellick, high school principal. They expounded upon the latest regulation changes and corrections to rules developed by PIAA in an attempt to make organized sports in Pennsylvania’s schools more fare. These new rules primarily affect the transfer/competition side of the issue.

Batzel acknowledged that while these new rules are a good step in the right direction as far as fairness goes, it is more than likely going to take new legislation to truly bring a resolution to the issue.