BY SUSAN BRYANT

sbryant@tnonline.com

Director of Curriculum and Instruction LeAnn Stitzel told the Northwestern Lehigh School Board, during its Nov. 16, 2022, meeting she had a few items to announce regarding the education foundation.

“The first thing is that on Nov. 9 (2022), the foundation celebrated all of the accomplishments of the last year with some local business partners,” Stitzel said. “They had an annual sponsorship event and there were quite a number of people there.

“And, I know they handed out a lot of good information and I think this is something they want to continue in the future.”

She said the other thing is the foundation is actively soliciting local businesses as a result for the 2023 annual partnership and sponsorship program.

“Third, they want you to all save the date because they are having a corn hole tournament on Feb. 25, at the middle school,” Stitzel said.

Visit NWLEF.org to register for the event.

“They’re hoping to get a lot of students involved,” Stitzel said.

“It is a family friendly event, so we’re hoping to get a lot more kids from all ages to attend.”

In other matters, Superintendent Jennifer Holman said she and Board President Willard Dellicker discussed the possibility of inviting state Reps. Zach Mako, R-183rd, and Ryan MacKenzie, R-134th, and Sen. Jarrett Coleman, R-16th, for a breakfast and maybe a tour of the buildings, as they don’t really have any familiarity with the district.

“We thought in a proactive measure maybe in the next 90 days or so while they are considering the budget and are considering some mandate issues that we met with them, so they know how we might be different from Parkland and Emmaus and how their vote might be different, if they wish to represent us,” Holman said.

Dellicker told the board once they have the dates settled and whoever is available, can participate.

Under new business, Holman stated the district received a donation of STEM supplies for the high school STEAM lab.

“Mr. (Jeremy) Smoyer is excited to take them,” Holman said.

“I think he actually already has them, and I have a letter from the gentleman in terms of his donation and we will certainly thank him for a donation, but it does require you accepting them.

“It is a Makeblock Starter Robot Kit, the ultimate micro controller pack and deluxe tool kit.”

The board agreed to accept the donation.

Board members also gave retroactive approval to apply for a $93,000 grant for the Safe Schools School Police Officer and Equipment grants for the 2022-23 school year.

The second item approved was the Memorandum of Understanding between Pennsylvania State Police, Troop M, Fogelsville, and Bethlehem, and the school district.

In other matters, there was a review of the 2021-22 final budget variances.

“Our final budget variances for the 21-22 school year, as you can see at the bottom, we will be increasing our fund balance by $1.4 million because of the underspending of expenditures for the past school year,” Christy Spanitz, accounting specialist, told the board.

Next the board approved the care letter of agreement with Magellan Behavioral Health of Pennsylvania Inc., the managed care provider for Lehigh County.

School directors also approved the agreement with Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit for the use of IDEA-B, Section 611 funds the school district uses to pay salaries for employees who are only serving special education students.

Dellicker said the next item on the agenda was approval of a resolution requiring the tax collector to waive additional charges for real estate taxes beginning in tax year 2023, under certain circumstances when a notice is not received, pursuant to Pennsylvania Act 57 of 2022.

“I don’t know who started it, a senator or Gov. Wolf and that makes it a little bit more difficult for us to put some responsibility on the taxpayer, because it weighs certain penalties for not paying the tax bill,” Dellicker said.

“We don’t really have any say in this I guess, it’s a law.

“It is only for new homeowners, so we will continue to hold current homeowners accountable.”

Holman in her enrollment report said the only thing she wanted to point out is the cyber charter numbers and how the district will anticipate them going forward in the future.

“If you look at the bottom like the historical trends, you see that on the end of June 2021, we had a high of 139 students who were in cyber charter schools,” Holman said. “Now it’s down to 101, so that’s really where that differential is in terms of students coming back.

“We currently ended last year at 108, so that’s why I say probably when you approved the budget in April or May you probably were around 108 or 110 and, if we continue at the same pace in the 100s, you’ll still have a differential of nine or 10 kids who could still be budgeted that might or might not be needed next year in terms of variance.”

Dellicker added his comment.

“Still that’s $2.7 million down to $2 million,” he said.