School Board Meeting Recap - 10/8 PART 1

 "Knowledge is only given to those who are willing to seek it."

This month's committee meeting had some items discussed that we believe deserved some details. Therefore, we are going to devote two to three days to recap this month's committee meeting.

If you attended or tuned into this month's committee meeting, you found a different type of meeting. As we previously shared, Dr. Dunlap wants to engage the community. Therefore, he did not stay on the stage; instead, he was down moving throughout the auditorium eliciting feedback from the community. We enjoyed this change. We believe this is the engagement that our community needs and deserves. It allows for all voices to be heard, and it helps the board gain more knowledge to make the informed decisions we elected them to make. What are your thoughts on this change? What do you as a community member see as positive? What do you see as negative?

Education Committee Meeting

Board packet

Presentation: What makes meetings effective?

Dr. Dunlap opened the meeting with a presentation focusing on the question: What makes for an effective meeting? He shared a PowerPoint and discussed how the point of view is important. What seemed key from the presentation was how ENGAGEMENT leads to the goal of improving student achievement. He reiterated the school board's role is to oversee the following areas: vision, standards, assessments, accountability, climate, alignment, collaborative relationships, and continuous improvement.

INFORMATIONAL ITEM(S)
Dunlap revisited a topic from last month: the substitute teacher shortage CASD is facing. Acknowledging that this is a problem that is not isolated to CASD, Dunlap shared that we have instances where substitutes have accepted positions in CASD and only change to substitute for a neighboring district the morning of the job.

In Dunlap's presentation, he shared that CASD teacher's attendance is 93.95% for the month of September with the substitution fill rate of  52.44%. In numbers according to Dunlap, this is about 24/25 teachers of 450.

Other data included in the presentation was a chart comparing the daily/ over 20 days / and the building sub rates for Chester County schools. Dunlap tossed out a potential solution of increasing our per diem pay ($100) to the higher over 20 days rate ($130) to attract more substitutes.

Rob Fisher suggested that we talk to WCASD to determine their fill percentage from Insight as that is the school district we share services with.

Tom Siedenbuhl voiced concern that the teacher absences percentage has been a problem over several years, and questioned why it's so high. Dunlap added that through conversations with teachers and administrators, teachers reported the need to recover from covering so many classes for colleagues or the difficulty with some student behaviors being challenging. Dunlap included that it is in the teachers' rights as a part of their contract.

A community member asked for the comparison of teacher absentee rates at other schools across Chester County. Dunlap responded that they will be looking into that.

A community member added that teachers might have a pattern of taking off on Mondays and Fridays, and that in the public sector this is addressed. Also, she added that teachers know that working in CASD entails working with students with greater needs. Dunlap assured her that accountability will be examined across the board.

Another community member requested that we reach out to Insight to ascertain if they have enough staff available as her conversation with someone from Insight revealed that Insight is not fully staffed to meet our needs.

In reviewing this information, and looking at the numbers, it might be beneficial for the public to know how many of the 24/25 teachers needing a substitute are teachers who are out for approved extended time (requiring a long-term substitute) and how many of the 24/25 are open positions?

Enrollment Numbers 
Lastly, for the educational committee is the status of our enrollment. Dunlap is having a meeting to help this area on 10/9 to discuss with some helpful ideas.

District students 5499
3025 currently in charter schools
777 North (keeping an eye at those numbers)

Students are on waiting lists to get into the charter schools and Dunlap stated the need to look at "programming and what we are offering to retain these students...key for what we need to do moving forward."

A community member disagreed and said that there are so many advancements with AP and that our problem is "the teachers and the union on Facebook" She continued and said that it is the bashing of the Coatesville Area School District on pages that people are trolling that are causing our charter enrollment to increase. She also noted that the numbers are increasing instead of decreasing with the departure of Dr. Taschner.

Amelia Mills (Region 3 Candidate) provided the suggestion that we offer something out of the box to attract students to the district.

Lyryn (CAP leader) mentioned that a survey was completed on social media that revealed charter school parents reasons for leaving, and requested that the district consider gaining more information through a district survey.

Another parent in the district offered that parents are pulling their kids because they don't think their kids are getting their needs met. She told of one parent who pulled a child was not doing her part in working with the teachers. She praised the teamwork that is happening for her children at her children's school. She encouraged that parents and schools need to work together.

We encourage our readers to review CCAP's September 2018 CASD Charter School Survey Summary  and also read what charter school parents had to say in the comments portion.

Let us know what you thought of the board meeting or any thoughts related to the items covered in the Educational Committee Meeting.

Here's What's Happening

Good morning! First, CCAP would like to apologize for slacking on the posts lately, but we can assure you that we are still here and involved. CCAP has been very busy!  Here is a small recap of some of the activities our group has involved in.

Lyryn Yacoe & Katie Hadzor met with Dr. Dunlap to create a liaison relationship between the community and CASD. Dr. Dunlap has been very open and excited to work together to share information with the community ensuring that all stakeholders are invested and informed. One of the discussions in their meeting was to visit a change in committee meeting format. Interestingly enough, the format discussed is what the Coatesville Area School District used in the past.  Each committee meeting would be held in the library and conversation would be open for community members to discuss with school board members.  This will allow community to have a lot more input in the process. In order to have this change, the current policies will have to be reviewed.

CCAP is very excited to have Audra Ritter back at work. Audra is now at North serving students as a special education teacher. Her students are excited to have her back, and her colleagues have some restored confidence in the process. 

On another note, the technology task force (many CCAP leaders are part of this task force) has been meeting weekly since August, and they have been working hard to create a plan for the district to effectively and responsibly roll out the Chromebooks.. Unfortunately, when this grant was accepted in March, no plan was designed or considered. When the task force started to meet, it was clear that there were many details to resolve: insurance, filtering, hot spots, procedures for the use, the repair, and the incorporation into curriculum (and all of the parts for each of those.) At this time the task force is excited that we have a handle on various aspects  moving forward. The district is waiting for the hot spots arrival and finalizing final processes.. Task force member Andy Finkbohner and Dr. Dunlap are organizing a town hall meeting for parents an opportunity to hear about the initiative and ask any questions about the 1:1 initiative. We will inform you as soon as a date is set.

One of the largest changes that our team has noticed is that conversations with administration at this point seem to be leading to a thoughtful investigation of the problems and discussions of processes in which we can solve the problem. This explains why we no longer have been publishing blog post about the concerns/ problems within the school district.

There are still many changes to work toward; we still have concerns about the special education processes and the use of the special-education supervisors. We still have concerns about the class leveling as they’re only two levels within classes - prohibiting us from meeting our student needs/ adequately preparing them for their future. We have concerns about the course offerings at both the 9/10 and the 11/12 causing too much overlap and therefore not offering enough courses to our students to complete in 9-12 grades. We still have concerns over some of the reports we are hearing in some buildings. But, again, we feel like there are open lines of communication that allow for these issues to change. We are still helping to find solutions, but it is able to be behind the scenes. If we find that the district is not hearing the needs of the students, community, or teachers, don't worry, we will be addressing it to enlist the public support.

Lastly, we do want to note that the environment of  the past several years under the former administration does not look the same for most buildings. Many teachers are reporting the joy they lacked has returned. We are working to ensure it's better for all. 

As always, reach out to us with your story. Let us know how you think CASD is doing or reach out to us with any questions or concerns.