CCAP believes we now look ahead. We roll up our sleeves and we do the hard work to improve relationships in the community and in the schools. We need to improve the educational standards and experiences for our students. Henry Assetto gave an energizing speech on Tuesday in order to make motions to move forward. We were excited about his ideas and the needed changes they can bring. Please enjoy Henry's vision, and consider how you can help contribute to our schools and community.
Last school board meeting we had the architect’s presentation
for a new $30+ million elementary school. I want to bring the architect back
with a presentation about naming North Brandywine a secondary 7 to 12
magnet academy school based on the principles of STEAM: Science, Technology,
Engineering, Arts, and Math. What this district needs now is a vision of
21st-century education. What the school district needs now is a dream, a new
dedication, a new direction. We are at very important crossroads. We must
change the perception of the school district. People, we built a beautiful
state of the art elementary school: the Rainbow Elementary School. Did it stop
the bleeding out of kids to Charters? No! Did Rainbow Elementary encourage
anyone to say, “OH honey, we will have to buy a home in Coatesville so our
child can spend five years in Rainbow Elementary?" No! Did
Rainbow change anyone’s perception of the Coatesville School District? No!
When I began teaching in Coatesville 50 years
ago, this was an innovative school district. Other school districts came here
to see what Coatesville was doing. Those days can and must come back again. A
STEAM academy will do that. Right now no other school district in the county has
a STEAM Academy Magnet School. Yes, Downingtown has STEM but STEAM is not STEM.
Downingtown STEM School has 800 students and they are expanding it to 1000
students. Now is the time if this district is serious to bring politicians
together, national state and county and have them see that we are serious.
Now is the time if this district is serious to bring
politicians together national, state, and county, and let them see we are
serious about breaking the cycle of poverty that has damned this school
district for 50 years. Politicians dealt this community a knockout punch with
their social experiment of wave housing: the majority of the poor in one
community. That experiment was a great success for the rest of Chester County,
but a colossal disaster here. It is time to get Coatesville kids more actively
involved in their own learning. They are going to have to compete for jobs with
kids from the other school districts who are in the top 100 schools in
Pennsylvania. Almost all of the Chester County School Districts are listed:
Tredyffrin-Easttown, West Chester, Downingtown, Unionville, even Kennett, and
Phoenixville are among the top 100 school districts in Pennsylvania. We say
Coatesville is a diverse school district; Downingtown is now more diverse
because it is actively attracting new immigrants from Asia and other new
families. Even though housing prices are less here, they move there because we
are not providing the kind of 21st-century education they want for their
children. We must attract new young families, new residents to this district.
We cannot continue blindly down the same path because we will continue to get
only the same result. We cannot continue to raise taxes and spend money. That
is unsustainable.
Next year I would like to see us reconfigure the middle
years again in a better way with 6th and 7th grade at Scott, 8th and 9th grade
at the Intermediate building, and 10th, 11th, and 12th at CASH. We now have
empty rooms at CASH and the Intermediate school, why are we overcrowding North?
Let’s convert North to a STEAM academy magnet and change the perception of the
school district.
The
Coatesville community has always been an industrial community. It is the
hard-working people of Coatesville who produced the steel that would help win
two world wars. It is the hard-working people of Coatesville who made the steel
that built the skyscrapers of American cities. We must bring industry here to
help us break the cycle of poverty.
I
want Lockheed Martin to come here to help build a first class aeronautics and
robotics physics lab. I want Dow and DuPont Chemical to come here and outfit a
first class chemistry lab. Bring in Disney or United Artist to provide music rooms, a dance studio, and a first class theater. Bring in Chevron and
Amazon to encourage STEAM. I want Seed Your Future or Food for America to
build a greenhouse and a bio- technical lab. Get Coatesville kids into true
environmental green education, hydroponics, and conservation. Plow up the
center courtyard of North, and put in a garden and get kids excited about back
to nature.
Forcing teachers to put desks in groups is not true
cooperative learning. Having kids excited and involved in real world problems
that have reason and purpose is true 21st-century education and cooperative
learning. Kids involved in their exploration a real-world problems with
challenges are not discipline problems.
I want to create a consortium of university
professors from all of the major universities in Southeastern Pennsylvania: the
University of Pennsylvania, Penn State, Drexel, Temple, Villanova, West
Chester, and Lincoln, and have them design a 21st-century curriculum for our
magnet academy school, and perhaps, one of those universities will even
consider adopting our STEAM Academy Magnet School and make it a college high
school. Yesterday I met with a state legislator and the representative
from York who said they started a magnet STEAM Academy and it has made a
difference.
We must become competitive in this county because our
children are worth it. Our community is worth it. It is the time for this
community to enjoy the prosperity that the rest of Chester County, the richest
county in the state, and one of the richest in the nation benefits from. It is
time to expand the tax based and lower the tax rate. It is time to build in
this community: The Brandywine Valley STEAM Academy Magnet School will be the
beginning of making that dream come true.
With emotion Mr. Fisher I make a motion that the school
district begin an intensive investigation into bringing a STEAM Magnet Academy
to the Coatesville Area School District.
I am not finished. I will move this board to bring back
supervisors or coordinators to the school district, full-time classroom
teachers who are experts in their field of study, master teachers who are
members of the National Teachers Organization. I don’t want to hear what some
professor in California who wants to sell his latest book on educational
psychology has to say. I want our supervisors to bring information from the
National Council of Teachers of Math, the National Council of Teachers of
Science, and the National Councils of English and Reading, and I know what the
National Council of Teachers of Social Studies recommends: best practice in
each subject area. I want the supervisors to become a cabinet to advise the
superintendent, the school board, the administrators, and the public of what is
best practice in each subject area. And as a member of that cabinet I want a
director of development and grant writing.
Does this district really want to raise test scores? Then
follow the advice of these national teacher organizations. We must stop making
excuses and watering down or passing kids along. We must raise expectations not
lower them. Our children must see that it is an education that will set them
free. It is an education that will provide them with a better life in the
future. We must become a more challenging competitive school district that
encourages new residents to move here and investors to build development,
increasing the number of taxpayers, lowering the tax rate, and increasing
property values. Supervisors can empower our teachers with what is best
practice in each subject area. So it is time to empower our teachers.
Mr.
Fisher I make a motion that this district create a cabinet of master
teachers as supervisors to bring recommended best practices from the national
teachers association and director of development and grant writing to the
Coatesville school district.
Thank you.
Henry Assetto, Region 2 School Board member
The Adopt-a-Coatesville Teacher program still has many teachers, administrators, and staff members who still need to be adopted this year. This does NOT mean you need to spend money. Most of our teachers tell us how valuable just a note is throughout the year with words of encouragement! If you haven't already, please stop by and adopt a your teacher today. 
