School Board Committee Meeting Recap

There is so much to recap from the five-hour school board meeting on Tuesday night, that we're not even going to try to cover it all. Here are some topics we believed would be of interest. The meeting had many presentations, thus one of the reasons for being a lengthy one.

Professional Development:

• The first presentation was in response to a request from the board at its last full board meeting in April, where contracts for professional development (with Dr. Villa and Elinor Keene) were tabled pending teacher feedback. On Tuesday, a handful of teachers and three principals spoke about the benefits and importance of professional development. A few of the teachers who presented specially mentioned Villa or Keene, but several others simply made comments endorsing professional development in general.
• After they spoke, Brandon Rhone thanked them for their scripted presentations. He shared how he personally attended a session with Dr. Villa and discussed his co-teaching model with him. He learned from Villa that his co-teaching model requires 20% or fewer students with special ed per class and CASD's ratios are often much higher. He noted that with this knowledge, he believed the Villa's model was not helpful for CASD. Four board members shared that they fully support and encourage professional development, they just aren't sure that Keene and Villa are the right fit for us. 
• After looking at the contracts or based on your child's experience with Units of Study (Keene) and co-taught classrooms (Villa), what are your thoughts? Let the school board know.

New Curriculum:

• A presentation for PLTW (Project Lead The Way) Project Launch, a proposed science program, was well received by many with enthusiasm. While the board was enthusiastic about the program, Brandon again took the lead with questions and asked about costs. Dr. Donahue and the presenter did not directly answer this question and the presenter actually spent more time on explaining grant money opportunities than breaking down the cost. 
• Do you think we should be moving forward at this time with purchasing a new science curriculum/materials for elementary? (We were without materials and curriculum for four subjects at the high school campus this year, and teachers have had to replace Foss science kits with their own money.) Let the board know.

Free Child Care:

• In the finance committee meeting, the committee passed to the full board for a vote an agreement with A Child's Place as the childcare provider for the district’s “thinking outside of the box” idea of funding free before and after school care to attract students from charter schools. Note that the agreement with A Child's Place was not attached in the agenda, and no costs were included in the motion item. 
• Later in the meeting, during public comment, a representative from the YMCA spoke. She explained that the community and district have already used the YMCA as its on-site before and after school care provider for many years. The YMCA did participate in the district's RFP process and submitted a bid for the services, and was disappointed not to be selected. 
• She also noted that A Child’s Place is a for-profit business while the YMCA is non-profit. The representative went on to name the many programs and services they have provided to district students through their non-profit work. The sincere dedication to the district was exemplified in her comments, and she made a compelling case that the YMCA plays a vital role in our community and has a vested interest in our children. 
• As a final note, the YMCA  representative requested (if the district moves forward with free childcare to attract children back) that CASD do a trial run of being real partners with the YMCA, and they are awarded a one-year contract for the childcare option.  Should we be trying to replace the YMCA's on-site childcare services with a district-funded service using a for-profit outside service provider? Let the board know your thoughts.

Budget:

• The budget presentation offered 3.9% tax increase. The temporary business manager, who currently works at a neighboring Chester County district, stressed that it was important for the district's bond rating to pass a budget early to get tax bills out earlier and improve cash flow. The bond rating has already been downgraded several times since 2017 and the rating agencies have a negative outlook, which means it is at risk of being further downgraded. Lower bond ratings mean the district's borrowing costs will increase and it also would be more difficult to issue new debt needed for the proposed new school buildings. 
• He also talked about some of the assumptions he used to reduce the budget by $8 million from the original proposal. One such assumption is that the free lunches and proposed free childcare would help reduce the number of children who enroll in charter schools for the upcoming year, and so he reduced charter school costs from the prior budget, making an assumption that there will be zero net new students in charter schools. There are currently 103 12th graders from CASD attending charter schools this year. This assumption means that approximately 100 or fewer new kindergarten and other grade level students will choose charter schools next year. There are currently almost 260 kindergarten students from CASD at charter schools. Charter school enrollment increased 308 over the past year, according to district reports.
• He also factored in transportation savings and staff reductions from middle school consolidation and attrition but issued a cautionary note that the district should not go too far in reducing or not replacing staff who leave, or the charter school enrollment would increase and offset these savings. 
• As part of his presentation, he shared some test score statistics that compared CASD to Collegium and showed that CASD's test scores are better. However, he agreed with our team in later discussions that the Collegium data is K-12 and not separated by grade level, while the CASD data to which it was compared was grades 4-5 scores for elementary PSSAs (vs 4-8 for collegium) and grades 6-8 for keystone algebra (vs 6-12 for Collegium). This means the data is not directly comparable, and that CASD and Collegium are best compared at the aggregate district level. 
• Please view his presentation here:   https://www.facebook.com/donmessinger/videos/10156312893292544/
• At one point during the budget discussion, Brandon mentioned a request for an RFP for a new solicitor to save on legal costs. CCAP believes this is a good start to creating change within the district. 

Discipline:

• Another series in the discipline committee presentations took place. All three middle schools presented information in powerpoint format in a similar slideshow template. The presentations talked about pilot programs that worked and were continued, good ideas that were borrowed from other schools and are being successful, and some pilots that were abandoned because they were logistically difficult to implement. They showed statistics that indicated that discipline referrals declined as the school year went on and these discipline programs started to make an impact.
• Board members pushed back and said that the feedback they are hearing from parents and community members about behaviors do not match the numbers in the presentation. They questioned why there is a discrepancy from the data that is being reported to the board and the reports they hear from their constituents.
• After these presentations, Rob Marshall asked if students earn a 50 without even stepping foot in the classroom. (Many teachers and others in the audience nodded heads and verbally indicated agreement.) Then he followed up by asking about the information he heard: teachers are being asked to create a packet of work for the students to pass after not attending class repeatedly and not previously making an effort to complete their work. The middle school principals involved in the discipline presentation denied this was happening in their schools, yet many teachers in the audience had already acknowledged this when Mr. Marshall asked.

Public Comment:

• What we believed to be most impactful at the meeting occurred after most community members left. Public comment consisted of parents imploring the board to help provide a solution to helping their child feel emotionally safe, and Jill Santiago reading a letter for another parent who encountered the same issues without resolution, and whose home is now on the market. We covered this in yesterday's "Parents Speak" piece.

So what now? 

Most of the approvals at committee meetings simply move items to the full board meeting at the end of the month. All of the items above were only discussed or approved at the committee level and would need a majority positive vote from the full board to go into effect. If you have opinions, evidence, or concerns about these items, we encourage you to talk to the board members NOW, before they arrive at the next board meeting knowing how they will vote. If you have data or evidence to support your concerns or opinions, please provide them when you engage with the board, so they have a more complete and informed picture before voting.

While we encourage people to attend the full board meeting and speak BEFORE the meeting to publicly share their opinion on agenda items up for approval, hearts, and minds are most often changed outside that setting. So we have less than two weeks, Coatesville, if you want to influence any of the votings at the full board meeting at the end of this month. If you have an opinion on these topics, talk to the board now. They need to know what you think!