Board salutes AFJROTC students during meeting
By Lauren Parker- Gill, Staff writer, The Times
The Coatesville Area School District will withhold some payments to charter schools due to the ongoing budget impasse. The state has been without a budget since June 30 and has not reimbursed local school districts for their share of charter school payments.
CALN – The Coatesville Area School District will withhold some payments to charter schools as the state budget impasse impacts local funding, officials said during the Coatesville Area School District board of directors monthly board meeting, Wednesday.
Superintendent of schools Dr. Cathy Taschner informed the board and the public of the move, speaking about the state budget impasse that has placed many districts in a difficult financial situation and has the potential to negatively impact the education of the children in Pennsylvania. Taschner said the district is committed to providing students with an excellent education to and to continue providing them with the materials, resources and teacher support needed to be successful.
“In an effort to ensure that we continue to meet the needs of our students, we will be withholding a portion of our charter school payments, effective this month. We have continued to pay our portion and the state portion but will no longer pay the state portion until the state adopts a budget.” Taschner stated.
When contacted for further comment, Taschner responded with the following statement, via email:
“The budget impasse is an issue that is impacting the Coatesville Area School District and school districts across the Commonwealth. Without a state budget, everyone is being forced to make very difficult choices in order to conserve resources. One such choice has been to delay the payments (that we have not yet received from the State) that would follow students attending Charter Schools. These are difficult decisions and as always, the District seeks counsel as it carefully and thoroughly considers the implications of decisions that impact the resources allocated to educating our children. It is our hope that the state Legislature will pass a budget that fully funds education and implements a fair funding formula. In the interim, our District and districts across the Commonwealth will continue to struggle. Notwithstanding, we will continue to do the very best we can to ensure that the students of the Coatesville Area School District receive the very best public education possible.”
Earlier in the meeting, the PA 771 AFJROTC gave a presentation in celebration of the Air Force’s 68th birthday, and issues such as the district phone system, PSSA scores and the state budget impasse.
After the AFJROTC color guard posted colors, Lt Col Eric Turnbull spoke of the cadets’ service hours and commitment to the program.
“We’re off to a great year. We’re already doing a great job of accomplishing our mission of developing citizens of character, dedicated to serving our nation and community.” Turnbull said.
In just over three weeks into the school year, Coatesville High School’s JROTC unit has over 400 service hours so far and is well on their way to achieving their goal of 1,200 community service hours for the school year.
In celebration of the 68th birthday of the Air Force, retired Air Force officer and school board vice president, Stuart Deets led the cadets with Taschner in singing the first verse of the official song of the United States Air Force.
The board of directors then introduced Andrew Scott Patterson as the senior class representative and Kameron Reeves, who is representing the junior class. Together, they gave the first student representatives’ report that highlighted a successful beginning to the school year.
Most items on the agenda including bills payable, human resources items and the first readings of several policies, were voted upon under the consent agenda. The Internet Usage and Social Media Policy survey is on the district website and will remain active until next week. As of Wednesday, 158 teachers and 32 parents had taken the survey. Once the survey results are compiled, a summary will be provided at the October committee meeting.
At the last board meeting in August, the school board voted to approve a new Act 93 agreement for administrators, which authorized administrative salary increases of 1 percent for the 2014-2015 school year. In the future, salary increases will be awarded based on performance evaluations.
Taschner gave an update on the district phone systems, as part of the superintendent report. All phones were scheduled to be fully operational with the regular phone numbers and auto-attendants at 11:30 Friday morning. Taschner explained the added delay with the upgrade:
“We had approved the financing and then it was sold to another company and they didn’t realize that in schools, we can’t do that. We have to come back for board approval,” said Taschner.
As a result, Ronald Kabonick, the director of business administration, contacted a local lending agency in Malvern to get the financing ready in time for Wednesday’s board meeting and was able to negotiate a lower price that will save the district an additional $17,000.
In addition to new phones being placed in every classroom, the new system will offer several upgrades including cloud hosting, video conferencing, conference calling, and other options that were not previously available through the former phone system.
“We are pleased that these upgrades have been done and also that they provide a substantial savings in hardware and in monthly phone costs.” Taschner said.
The board of directors went on to rescind prior approval of a three-year lease agreement with Fidelity Capital that was initially approved at the Aug. 25 board meeting. The school board then approved the motion for a three-year lease agreement with Susquehanna Commercial Finance, Inc., located in Malvern.
Teachers at all three middle schools have received the first wave of new laptops. High school teachers will receive the next release of new machines and elementary teachers will follow. Student computers will be distributed shortly thereafter, which will enable them to be closely connected to today’s technology and learning opportunities.
Board members will eventually start to work with computers as well; this will eliminate the number of expensive copies being made of board packets, documents and enclosures for the committee and board meetings each month.
During the superintendent’s report, Taschner announced that the PSSA results will soon be released; the department of education notified districts across Pennsylvania that students’ scores were significantly lower this year than in previous years, due to a change in the test as it aligned with the new PA common core standards that were implemented in the 2013 – 2014 school year.
“This has been an extremely frustrating experience for schools across the Commonwealth,” said Taschner.
Pennsylvania has received a one-year waiver from the U.S. Department of Education in using the 2015 PSSA scores to calculate school performance profiles and teacher effectiveness rates.
