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Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear. I have friends with children that attend Penn Hills High. The supposed "bully" is a special needs child as well. Both kids go at it in between classes daily. The "bullied" child has done worse to the "bully". If you think that bullying is limited to "bad" schools you are ill informed.
The district is destroyed and here is way. This is a response from a long time teacher in the district. The messed up people move in and BOOM it is over! It is what it is!
This was my reply to someone saying PHSD should shut down bc of things like this happening: "Here's the problem-It's NOT the school district. The same people who have horrible behavior will just be attending a different school with the SAME ****TY behavior. The problem is an epidemic. American society has an epidemic of parents with ineffective parenting skills, which leads to children who do not know boundries, lack self-control, lack self-esteem and think rules and laws don't apply to them. VIOLENCE is the answer to everything. It's rampant now. We are in about the 2nd or 3rd generation of this cycle of ****. Honestly, you know what ALMOST every single young parent I know has in common with each other? Probably 80% of them were continually breaking rules and in trouble at school. They had no clue how to conduct themselves with integrity, no respect for authority and had very little self-esteem and now they are having their own kids. So, here we go again with another generation of troubled kids."
Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear. I have friends with children that attend Penn Hills High. The supposed "bully" is a special needs child as well. Both kids go at it in between classes daily. The "bullied" child has done worse to the "bully". If you think that bullying is limited to "bad" schools you are ill informed.
This story is being pounded on the news. If you look at the video, you will clearly see that many students KNEW this was going to happen. They were laughing and enjoying it. This kid is special needs and the other student is being charged by police. Lets face it, that district is toast. It has NOTHING to do with the school, administration or teachers at all. It has everything to do with the influx of very disturbed students that moved in the past decade or so. As the people with children in Penn Hills that want a safe good school move out of that district, it will just deteriorate to another Wilkinsburg. There is no stopping it. You can pretend it has something to do with the school district, but it doesn't. All about the no care parents. The same parents the fill the Animal Rescue League with TONS of Pitt Bulls because they just don't take care of them either. It is just all the same old crap over and over and will NEVER change EVER!
I suggest your friends get the heck out of that district if they want their kids to have a chance of learning. We all know how this will play out. The amount of students leaving that have parents that value education will be massive. I suspect most are already gone. Who could blame them? No one!
The pride of ownership is very evident in many of these Penn Hills communities. Here in Churchill Valley, we all have the same spec home that was popular in the 40s and 50s, and it's fascinating to see how individual homeowners have distinguished their homes from each other. Some have converted porches into spare rooms, added custom masonry, and bumped out dormers. On weekends, families touch up their yards and wash their vehicles. During the summer, many of us come out to the Barn for coffee and jazz night. It's very nice here. But the best part is the diversity. It's city life without the pollution and traffic. I don't want to live anywhere else. I feel like I benefited from a secret deal. All the news wants to talk a out is our perceived lackluster school district, which is very sad, given how many athletes graduate with high honors and go on to national acclaim in their fields.
As I think about this thread we need to realize what has happened. Black people from the projects have moved into Penn Hills in large quantities. Therefore property values have DROPPED in a huge way. An increase in millage is needed to offset the influx of black residents, just like Wilkinsburg. Now is that popular to say? No. Is it reality? Yes. Penn Hills will slowly become Wilkinsburg and be doomed. What a shame. This trend will continue because the uneducated poor seem to reproduce a lot, so the housing demand for super low end section 8 will continue to grow. There is now stopping it. The black on black crime that happens daily can't keep up with the massive reproducing. This cycle will go on forever.
I don't know the details of PHSD finances, but I'm guessing the issue is on the revenue side, rather than the expense side.
The average salary of staff in Penn Hills School district is just under $58,000. For comparison, Fox Chapel pays $73,400, North Hills $69,500, Mount Lebanon also $69,500, and Upper Saint Clair $69,300. Cranberry's Seneca Valley is $65,300. Data can be found here, for anyone who wants to peruse.
The bottom line is Penn Hills does not overpay its teachers - they are underpaid compared to other districts in the region. This may be why they decided to cut headcount - wage freezes or cuts (even if possible through negotiation) wouldn't have been tenable because teachers were already making so much less than in other districts.
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