School News – the Good and the Bad

The Times Herald has the good news and the bad from the Norristown Area School District (NASD).

In the bad, The Times Herald says the district is worried that a proposed 5% cut in Gov. Corbett's budget for state reimbursements to local districts will mean that not all of the $1.62 million dollars the district was expecting for air conditioning and heating upgrades to will come in.

NASD Chief Financial Officer Anne Marie Rohricht said the district is expecting clarification on the situation from the Department of Education sometime in the next few weeks.

You can read more about NASD and other area districts' finances here.

In much nicer news, some students at are also in need of some money, but it's becasue they're headed to California.

According to The Herald, three students from the school's robotics team have earned a spot in the 2012 Vex Robotics World Middle School Competition in Anaheim next month. Imer Vazquez, Francesco Fernandez and Tony Zevallos wil be competing against middle schoolers from across the globe, designing functional robots and putting them through their paces.

Before they can bring home the laurels, they need to raise $7,000 for travel expenses and robot shipping costs.

"We’re looking for donations and we just started working on that this morning,” Team Captain and NASD's Instructional Technology Coordinator Beth Roth told The Herald. “We have contacted benefactors of the school district and we are planning pretzel sales and a Chick-fil-A event. I don’t know beyond that. I have one week to register the team and that is $750."

Read more about the robotics team here and see what our boys will be up against in the video clip from the 2011 competition in our media section.