CASD What you need to know

Here is quick recap of events this past week and what YOU should know before you come to the school board meeting tonight:  

Top Agenda Concerns:

FINANCE COMMITTEE

A.   Financial Statements (Enclosure) –  This is a standard part of the meeting, but we wonder how closely people have looked at the financial statements and bills payable. There are many items that raised concern for us once we did! There are very high legal fees being reflected, payments to what appears to be a lobbyist, and many more items that lack adequate transparency. We question the lack of transparency in this, and have some serious questions about some of the items we are paying for with no explanation!

F.  MindUP Train the Trainers Contract (Enclosure) – This is a contract to train 15 people to be certified MindUP trainers - a 2-year certification. While the information provided by Ms. Perez indicates the agreement is for UP to 15 people, the contract itself does not appear to reflect this flexibility. 

The board has been a lot more vocal about the type of professional development the district is doing and continually requesting feedback from the teachers; we truly would have thought that the administration would have made a better attempt to get that input for the board to make an informed vote for tonight. 

However after talking to CATA ourselves, we were sadly informed that when the district originally sent out its teacher survey it wasn’t anonymous at all so it was difficult to get responses. While the district shared results from their surveys, they don't share the response rate. So CCAP took it upon ourselves to work with CATA to get that anonymous survey distributed to the teachers so that the board would have the accurate data. 

The results were telling!  MindUp is only done K-8^th so out of 176 teachers, 75% of them were not in favor of doing this program.  The comments really opened our eye to what teachers really felt.   Furthermore, the survey CATA put out to their members also asked them about Dr. Schoenly who does in-service training with teachers and is paid nearly $5000 a month to do so.  You can see the full survey here on our blog.

I. Human Resources Report – In support of the middle school reorganization, Dr. Taschner met with middle school teachers the week of May 20 to tell them their building assignments for the upcoming school year. This includes teachers at the now-closed South Brandywine school, as well as teachers at Scott and North Brandywine. Now that the board has approved the grade reconfiguration, those teacher transfers should be presented to the board for approval. Why is it taking so long for the district to put them on the agenda? Also, why on the Change of Status does only one of the employees have a salary?

EDUCATION COMMITTEE

B. A-TSI School Improvement Plans (Enclosure) - This is a similar document to the one Rita Perez presented at the June committee meeting, although there are some changes from that original 93 page document. As we previously noted, this document claims community input when it was not actually created with authentic community engagement. As this is a document that sets a plan for improving student achievement in schools that fell into the bottom 15% of the state for various subgroups of students, we believe that it is of extreme importance to the community.  

Does the administration plan to answer the many questions we had or is the board just going to push this through?

D. Discipline Code of Conduct (Enclosure) – At the last board meeting it was evident that the board wanted to make some major changes to this document.  However, it was incredibly confusing that they chose to vote it forward to the full board meeting (tonight) even after Dr. Taschner said 3 times that this was going to be worked on until the end of July.  Why would she make a recommendation like this to the board if we are truly working on it until the end of July?  We call into question her competence for this recommendation. 

Not only were these agenda items a major topic of concern for us over the past couple of weeks, but there has also been a growing list of concerns we have privately addressed with administration and board with little to no response so we believe this is the time to address them.  We agree with the community and say Enough is enough.   

We have some big concerns with board training and the policy they have for training.  Two weeks ago, we were informed by a board member that two of them were trained by our solicitor, Mike Levin.  This was concerning on many levels: 

1. Is Mike Levin an approved Act 55 Trainer?  According to PDE he is NOT on their “Approved Providers” list.
2. On top everything we pay him now, what does it cost us to have our solicitor train board members and why would the district choose to use him when we could get FREE online training from PSBA?  Seems like a waste of money. 
3. Information required under Act 55 was not part of the training the board member received, and some of the board member's questions were not given accurate answers.
4. Are all the board members properly trained and advised so they can truly make informed decisions about our district during board meetings and during executive session? Do they know how to add and remove items from the agenda, how to comply with the sunshine act, the purpose of a consent agenda, and how to request an item get a separate vote at a board meeting? 

CCAP also wants to state publicly that we stand behind CATA president, Audra Ritter, who has been suspended without pay and benefits for months. The punishment in this case is not being administered in a fair and equitable way, and others in the district who have made similar errors have not been treated the same way. Enough is enough

It has also been brought to our attention by some of the CASD booster clubs, that it has been an extreme uphill battle to finalize the snack shack for the multipurpose field.  The booster club paid for everything about the shed to date and had electrical plans ready to move forward. They were told they needed to sign the concession stand to the district before the remaining work could be done. Despite repeated promises for support from Dr. Taschner, once the shed was signed over, the remaining work came to a halt. Over the last year, several booster have work diligently for it to meet health codes, file permits with the township, and get sealed electrical plans submitted and a licensed electrician to donate time. All these efforts were made through district administration yet there is no response and the shed cannot be used as intended. How is it possible that the Scott Field project gets support and permission to modify district property for use of youth sport feeder programs, but a snack shack that is used year-round by current students of teams sponsored by CASD cannot be completed? Enough is enough. 

Lastly, CCAP would like to address the banning and zero due process of community activist Fonz Newsuan.  On October 11th 2017, Fonz was given a “Stay Away Order” from Lamb | McErlane (attorneys who represent CASD) for his “threatening facebook/video pertaining to CASD’s cross country team”.  Since then he has not been permitted on CASD property, apparently with no end date to the ban and no judge's authorization.  I’m sure he would agree that his passion got the best of him that night, however what concerns CCAP most is the fact that the district has never given notice of his due process and has yet to communicate that process.   

We understand the feeling are somewhat mixed when it comes to Fonz.  Mr Newsuan, has a tendency (and I think he would agree) to be aggressively passionate about the things that happen in our district.   Yes, at times he can be a little overzealous and loud and sometimes he doesn’t always have the best delivery of his message. However, I don’t know a single person in Coatesville that doesn’t realize his heart is in the right place.  Fonz LOVES this city and he is and has been the loudest voice for THESE KIDS over the last four years!  

No matter what you believe happened two years ago, the fact of the matter is that Fonz Newsuan is a US citizen and has every right to be given his due process to be seen and heard before the board of the district where he is a resident.  By not allowing this to occur, the district is violating his rights. He’s right.  Enough is enough.  

Today CCAP is choosing to stand with Fonz and our community and say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.  We will all be standing in unity together at 6:15 on Foundry Road (since that is NOT CASD property) and align our mutual goal to see a better district for our kids and say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!  

Who is with us????