CASD knows, you can drop the facade

After many months of not attending school board meetings or writing about the concerns that were shared there by members of the community, the Daily Local News finally responded to the community's requests and sent a reporter to last Tuesday's meeting. We appreciate the engagement and coverage. Although the reporter included detailed reports from the meeting, he also included a statement from Superintendent, Cathy Taschner. 

We found it interesting that Cathy emailed her statement to the Daily Local News after the meeting. Her response is insightful as it shows what she must have believed to be the talking points from the meeting. None of her answers actually address the statement delivered by Ms. Ritter, on CATA's behalf, or the concerns raised by the school board members throughout the meeting. Let's take a closer look at Dr. Taschner's statement, piece by piece.

“CASD superintendent, Dr. Cathy Taschner, said in an emailed statement after the meeting: ‘The district appreciates and values the input of students, teachers, administrators, parents, community members. Often the topics discussed will lead to discourse that challenges everyone to see the perspective of another. ”

While we do believe that many people within the District appreciate and value input, Dr. Taschner and her top administrative team repeatedly reveal that they do not. Our CAP team members have sat on multiple committees with teachers and community members, and none of the input given has been utilized in any meaningful way. Sometimes these meetings are scheduled with little notice, and without adequate time for community input to be incorporated into work before important deadlines. Additionally, over the past five years, concerns about special education, curriculum, unfilled positions, discipline, etc., have not only been left without resolution, the concerns have heightened as the problems have grown more severe. Discourse may challenge everyone to see the perspective of one another, but those perspectives that differ from that of Dr. Taschner and her top administrative team do not make it out of the room where the discussion takes place. 

“While there have been people who have criticized the district, we are not aware of a single instance in which someone has shown that any action against them was taken was absent from wrongdoing prohibited by policy or school code, and solely for criticizing the district. The district has made it clear in policy and practice that it will not tolerate retaliation."

Dr. Taschner's attempt to refute the idea of retaliation is quite wordy and does not actually say that retaliation has not happened. It actually states, “we are not aware of a single instance in which someone has shown that…” Therefore, she is putting the burden of proof on the employees to prove retaliation. Further, public criticism of the district by employees is prohibited by a policy that Dr. Taschner enacted when she arrived. Simply speaking truth that is perceived as negative could result in disciplinary action. And let's be honest - if Dr. Taschner is looking to retaliate against someone, she will start by finding some policy she has created that they failed to comply with. It's nearly impossible for the staff to keep up with the many policies she piles on them. Meanwhile, when she does parse out discipline, she fails to follow a progressive discipline policy, routinely neglects to invite board members to "board hearings," and piles on legal fees for the district by holding hearings with lawyers when the appropriate next step in the process would be a meeting with the head of HR. Does that sound like retaliation in practice?

“While the district has made many positive changes, like all districts, we are in constant pursuit of improvement.”

The positive changes that Dr. Taschner often touts from her first year include new technology, new phones, updated curriculum, and smaller class sizes. The new technology included five Chromebooks per classroom, introduced at the same time entire computer labs were dismantled and eliminated.  Phones often drop calls and parents cannot reach the building or staff member they are trying to contact. Curriculum was being updated on a five-year cycle before Dr. Taschner arrived. She replaced some curriculum with little-to-no teacher input, yet has missed the update cycle in other areas - some of the high school curricula was last updated in 2012, and several newer courses run with no curriculum at all. Class sizes were made smaller when Dr. Taschner first arrived, as she hired more staff, but the number of unfilled positions since then combined with deliberate reductions in staff have led to class sizes growing larger again. At the same time, our student body as a whole is certainly smaller.

“This is true in many areas, including special education. We value students with disabilities and what they bring to our school system.”

What type of statement is this? This actually is offensive. Why would we distinguish students with disabilities from our student body? It is simply a filler sentence that has no meaning. Further, her referenced improvements to special education include adopting a full inclusion program that eliminated numerous support services and resource rooms students had available to them in the past. She may see this as a positive change, but many of those working with the students on a daily basis do not.

“No school is perfect, but we will continue to work diligently to create a system that provides multiple access points and multiple layers of support that will result in meaningful educational progress for students."

We do not feel this is an accurate statement at all. We do not see diligence towards creating a multiple access point/ layers of support. In fact, we see the opposite occurring. Mental health specialists are spread thin and only available to select students, resource rooms were eliminated, and students have limited access to their case managers as the case managers are co-teaching five classes a day. Further, we are seeing a decline in educational progress for students as demonstrated by schools targeted for improvement by the state and the three schools where students are eligible for the opportunity scholarship program, by virtue of scoring in the bottom 15% of the state.

 

“With respect to discipline, Mr. Palaia, the Director of Elementary and Secondary Education continues to work closely with building administrators to ensure that discipline is handled as events occur and consistent with policy. This year each building has had a discipline committee comprised of teachers and administrators who have worked together to identify strategies to address discipline concerns."

Due to the multiple positions Mr. Palaia must fill (including currently serving as an interim middle school principal as well as managing the policy regarding advertising on school property), we are concerned about how he is able to sustain working the number of hours that he puts in. It is interesting to note that this states that discipline is handled consistent with policy. The discipline code policy looks much different than it did four years ago. At that time we had consistency in discipline as it was outlined by the code. The referenced discipline committees have presented to the school board, but some school board members recognized and commented on their presentations as being “scripted,” much like Dr. Taschner's statement. 

“The Coatesville Area School District is filled with students who come to school every day and do the right thing. Is there more work to be done? Sure. The work of schools is challenging and it will take us all working together to accomplish it, even when we disagree.”

Of course we have students who come to school and do the right thing. However, we have others who may make poor decisions. The role of the schools is to help students make positive choices and when they don’t, it is important that they know there are consequences for their choices. Although we know "the work of schools is challenging," we think Dr. Taschner simply says, “we need to work together” when what she means is that people need to do what she wants accomplished. She wants the community to work together for HER common goal even though they disagree.

What is not included in Dr. Taschner's statement is any explanation of the plan for a sixth grade center and a 7/8 building. This plan was asked for earlier this month when the item appeared on the committee meeting agenda and again at this most recent board meeting. One can only conclude there is not an action plan for the timeline of events, the people responsible for said deadline, or the list of tasks to complete. Additionally, the middle school students have not seen course selection guides to understand how the current range of courses would be divided between two grade-segregated buildings.

There is also no acknowledgement of the reason so many teachers turned out - the item that originally appeared on the agenda pursuing the dismissal of the union president from her teaching position. While this item was removed from the agenda by a majority vote of the school board, the appearance of it in the first place seems to run counter to Dr. Taschner's claim that no retaliation happens "in practice."

It may be easy to produce a prepared and written statement that conveys compassion and caring for students, teachers, parents, and community members. It's much harder to take actions every day that make these individuals feel valued. As we've shown time and time again on this blog, the actions behind the facade tell quite a different story.