Half a mill is unnecessary. If they did their jobs, the school board and the 2 superintendents could find cost cuts or shave the fat off the budget that Administration builds in. But they are lazy. Half a mill is a rounding error on a budget that is now so out-of-control.

I agree with bd definitely. They could start with getting rid of some of the administrators in the district that we DO NOT need and are useless. For instance, the Dean of Students at the high school? Really? What do we need a Dean of Students for? That was just a favor from the Schmotzers to the Wagners. And could they cut the bus service any to save money? Every day I see a lot of half full/half empty buses on their routes from the schools because there are so many parents who are driving their students back and forth. How dare they raise these taxes until they start to cut ALL of the waste in this district. There are families in this district who struggle to pay their bills and this doesn't help them while we have others who pay nothing and are costing the rest of us extra money.

I know of 4 teachers that will be laid-off at the end of the year. 2 of which live in the district. I say we raise it 3/4 and keep their jobs. I'm not saying there is not fat to cut.. I just believe that it should not be at the students expense.

After what the state did, 1/2 mill is not bad. And I don't believe anyone cannot afford it. It is only a $50 increase per year for a 100k house if I am understanding this correctly. For goodness sake that is a little over $4 per month.

With the thought of let the people who use it pay for it... When your house is robbed you will have to pay the police with the money the criminals just took off with. Or give your credit card number to 911 when your house is on fire before the trucks leave the station. How about when your assaulted you have to pay the district attorney to go to trial for you. But you(bd) were educated in a school so you should have to pay?

Well since I have never used social security, the FBI, police, welfare, EMS, the fire department, the library, I have 4-wheel Erie and don't care about snow or the condition of roads, I guess I can quit paying most of my taxes.

Everyone does use schools, it's our future! When you and I are old they will be incharge, so it's our job to make sure they have the right schooling and it's funded properly. I'm not saying it's spent properly now! But I do say it is very very under funded.

4-wheel drive***

ML, people don't want to buy now in Baldwin/Whitehall because of the school district. We had to make a video to try to lore people into the district. Baldwin School District is on a downward spiral. Ten years ago Baldwin/Whitehall was a great school district and there wasn't many homes up for sale, but look at web sites now for homes sales and see how many houses are up for sale in Baldwin, Baldwin Township and Whitehall. Maybe the School District can start making TV Commercials to advertise why they should move to BW School area, since the video that they made didn't work

The district does not the best facilities... Paynter is about 15 years past an update. The Elementry tech department is a joke. The grounds are horrible looking, when the grass looks like the neighbor you don't want next door we have a problem. The weight room is small and out dated... And that's after they took the wrestling teams gym and shrunk their square footage in 1/2. The lap tops in the high school used in classes are missing keys, because kids don't care and there are to many kids in a class for the teachers to notice. The district pays a large sum of money so the gymnastic team can practice off campus. Just because tinfoil is shinny and bright does not make it priceless.

Michael I so agree with your comment there. The new and improve High School on the first floor has many cracks showing already that need to be fixed already. They send the baseball team down to Wallace to practice since they don't have a baseball field up at the high school and they bus the kids from the high school down to Wallace during baseball season for practice and games. Have any of you took a tour of Bethel Park's new High School, now that is state of the art and real impressive.

ML I most certainly paid for your children to go to school with my taxes unless you say they went to Catholic School, oh wait you said that the state funds them also.

"Public schools are funded through federal, state and local taxes and do not charge a tuition. Private schools, on the other hand, receive their funding through tuition, fundraising, and partial government funding. Private schools do not receive tax revenues, although all residents that live in the same school district pay the same amount in school taxes. This raises the question on whether this is fair or not and integrates the idea of vouchers. If money was attached to a child, schools must perform well or they will loose the money. In today’s world, public schools know that they will have the money allotted to them regardless of enrollment. In private schools, they do not have this luxury. Programs, resources, extra curricular activities and teacher salaries are all dependant on how they receive their funding."

The School Taxes that you pay goes to Baldwin/Whitehall School District and none of it goes to Catholic or Private Schools. Pennsylvania pays a small portion to have Title 1 Catholic Schools. None of my children used Title 1 in school so the state did not spend any money on my children to get a Catholic Education. Since it is illegal to use tax money on Catholic Schools then your taxes or did not go towards my children education as all of the money is giving to public schools.

BD... Let's do some simple math... $75 an athlete, 250 athletes. That's only 18,750. That pays for the head football coach and the double dipping as the weightroom coordinator. So unless you create and extra couple hundred athletes or make it $500 an athlete pay to play does not make up much.

Someone pointed out that this district "once" was a decent school district. It was years ago and that is why my spouse and I bought our home in the district. But, unfortunately, that has changed. The school district was brought way way down by several things; Green Meadows and Prospect Park. Sorry, I am not politically correct. There are some very nice people who live in and around those areas. But, unfortunately, there are a lot more who are NOT. I will not go into detail so as not to start a war on this thread but the district went down when these complexes became 99% Section 8.

Jack O
http://www.rentalhouses.com/Pennsylvania/Pittsburgh/172431
Leland Point does not accept Section 8 5492 Youngridge Drive Pittsburgh, PA 15236
Rent $450-$900
Deposit Please Call
Bed 1 - 3
Bath 1
Style Apartments
Available Date Please Call
Lease with buy option/contract No
Section 8 Acceptance No

Whitehall Place doesn't accept Section 8

These are a list of Apartments in the 15227 and 15236 Area that takes vouchers and section 8

BALDWIN TOWERS, CHURCHVIEW GARDEN APTS and GRAYSON COURT

Public schools are funded through federal, state and local taxes and do not charge a tuition. Private schools, on the other hand, receive their funding through tuition, fundraising, and partial government funding. Private schools do not receive tax revenues, although all residents that live in the same school district pay the same amount in school taxes. This raises the question on whether this is fair or not and integrates the idea of vouchers. If money was attached to a child, schools must perform well or they will loose the money. In today’s world, public schools know that they will have the money allotted to them regardless of enrollment. In private schools, they do not have this luxury. Programs, resources, extra curricular activities and teacher salaries are all dependant on how they receive their funding. The resources available between public and private schools vary as well. Many public schools have access to numerous technological resources while private schools may not. The number of computers available to students, and the use of technology in the classrooms are significantly different between both schools. Also, the text books that are available to students cause a problem. In public schools the books are constantly updated through government funding, while in private schools outdated books are common to be found in the classroom. If students are to be equally educated the resources available should be equal.

U.S. public schools lag behind in basic mathematics, reading and science despite such huge expenses on public education. Even more surprising is the fact that Washington D.C. has one of the poorest rankings in the quality of education in the US. Are teacher resources and the study skills of students to be blamed? Are the funds being drained away on areas that are not fundamental to basic education, such as sports and extracurricular activities (although these activities are important and should be available to students as well)? Is it instead government failure and corruption that is causing such waste of educational funding in the US? These questions need to be answered when we as taxpayers fund our public educational systems.

Private schools, on the other hand, are typically funded by a combination of tuition, gifts, and endowments. These schools seem to continually provide an overall higher quality of education to our students, but at a cost that not many families can shoulder. If our public school system could find a way to provide everyone a high quality education with the funding provided, it could provide every student the opportunity to succeed despite the economic situation of his or her family.

I graduated from Baldwin a few years ago and didn't realize what a mediocre school it really was until I got to college. Having graduated from Baldwin with highest honors despite not showing up for class very often and hardly doing any work, it was a pretty rude awakening to actually have to try in college. Baldwin's fine if you plan to join the military or go straight to work after graduation, but it's awful if college prep is what you're after. You can send your kids to Baldwin for an easy diploma, but don't expect them to be challenged along the way.

I graduated from Baldwin in 2009, and am now in College with a 3.8 gpa doing half as much work as I did at Baldwin. Although I had a bad experience with peers I got an amazing education. The writing experience I recieved at Baldwin more than prepared me for College. However, I would add I took all honors and AP classes in high school so I am sure core and academic don't prepare you nearly as much

I graduated from Baldwin a few years ago. Now that I am in college, I have noticed how mediocre Baldwin's education really was for me. At BHS, I slacked off all 4 years and graduated with higher than a 4.0 GPA. Now, I am attending a university with students who attended some of the best high schools in the country and I now feel below average. BWSD really needs to step up their game. At this point, I am for sure not living here post graduation because I do not want my kids attending this school.

I am a parent who's daughter currently attends 10th grade at baldwin high school. My son, who is much older, said he loved the school district and is proud to be from baldwin. By the time my daughter got to middle school, she was completely unhappy with the school. My daughter's grades have dropped as she gets older due to horrible teachers. She comes home from school with tons of homework she does not know how to do. The school does not take care of her. I am very upset with the school. For how much my daughter complains, it's worth moving.

I graduated from baldwin in 2005 and couldn't be any prouder to say that I went there... I played football (from 2002-2004 state ranked every year!!!!) and while I did slide on a few things from being an athelete I felt everyone got treated pretty fairly.... word to the wise if you have a senior push for Mr.youngt for english he may have been the smartest and most devoted man I have ever met in my life. He challenges his students to be the best they can and will not accept any less. So many students and somewhat diverse but always an excellent time and with the new renovations it should be even better

Baldwin offers a variety of courses for students. The teachers are dedicated and caring.

I just recently graduated in January and was very pleased throughtout my attending years. The teachers and staff were very qualified and helpful both in academics and general help. The safety within the school is great, the security guards do a great job. The fellow students are a little on the other side. You have your bad ones, your upper class ones, and then you really nice ones. But if you have children attending or will be attending, my comments about fellow classmates would be to just mind your own business and to stay with your group of friends. But other than the classmates, the safety, disipline, activites, and teacher quality are rated very, very high. I was taught and brought up right in the Baldwin- Whitehall School District, and I am happy to say that I graduated from here.

And just when the heck was Baldwin's football team rank in the WPIAL let alone the state. It's a good year if they are .500

It was a position where the Schmotzers had to pay back the Wagners for some favor. So we are paying for that. Nice.

Dean of Students position is a joke.Who came up with this position? And why?It should be looked into. Did anyone else apply or was it just handed to someone?

The Dean of Student's position is not a joke. In fact this is a creative way for the BWSD to save money and have a focus on supporting the students and discipline.

Its a creative way way to keep a football coach on the payroll and helping out a political family.

Don't forget there is a Dean Of Students at Harrison too. What was the reason to hire him?

Jean, I believe you mean PRINCIPAL, not principle and I am sure that you understand the difference.

Anyways, I believe that some people who make these comments on this website are very much uninformed and ignorant to how school districts set up their administrative teams. This is a model that was used in other school districts prior to BWSD using this setup and is a model that school districts are moving toward. I am sure that everyone has their reasoning and I am not certain exactly why they went this route, but one reason could be some stability in the administrative teams given the turnover rate that the BWSD has seen in the past decade or so.

Common Sense sorry I spelled Principal wrong, I'll write it a hundred times for you. Where is this model school that Baldwin School District is coping after with a Dean of Students? Instead of a Dean of Students, we need to hire teachers that are capable of teaching and put the time in to teach our children.

A reminder that even masked profanity is not allowed on here. Thank you :)

If I understand all of these posts correctly, the consensus of the community is to see what the Dean of Students does when called to action and control the millage rates at the same time.

I could not agree more however I think that we need to remain in a joint front as we near community day because we are in this together.

Robert, I have also seen ml do the same to others toss rude comment at them. I though everyone on here is suppose to be able to voice their opinion on matters and not be attacked.

If you go onto to the school board agenda for tomorrow, it looks like there are major changes in jobs coming along with the millage rate going up. Change is good, but I hope too much change this quickly won't do more damage than good.

Surprise! Baldwin-Whitehall Maintains Tax Line: http://patch.com/A-vgK1