School board members say additional police an interim move until buildings are made more secure
By Kyle Carrozza, Staff Writer, The Times
King’s Highway students who did exceptionally on their MAP tests are honored at Tuesday night’s school board meeting. Introduced by Principal Stevan Lefever (at the podium), these students did the best out of their classes, far exceeding the improvement goals set for them.
CALN – School security was a main subject of debate at the Coatesville Area School District Board of Education’s meeting held Tuesday night in the 9/10 Center auditorium.
During the second public comment portion of the meeting, Debbie Willett, a parent, questioned the measures that the board passed last month in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn. Willett’s concerns were not, as one might expect, questioning whether or not the district has done enough but whether the district has done too much.
Citing National PTA press releases and Democracy Now, Willett expressed fear that additional security could set up a negative environment for the students.
“The National PTA believes schools must be completely gun free,” said Willett. “The administration’s recommendations to expand the school resource officer program therefore comes as a disappointment.”
She voiced concerns about how increased security could lead to increased suspensions, expulsions, and referral to alternative schools, actions that make students more likely to drop out of school and end up incarcerated, feeding into what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) calls the “school-to-prison pipeline.”
“There are better ways to improve school safety and reduce child victimization,” said Willett.
Board member Dr. Tonya Thames Taylor, herself a member of the ALCU, she noted, responded to Willett’s comments, assuring her that the school-to-prison pipeline does not occur in Coatesville.
“The Coatesville area school district goes over and beyond to make sure that doesn’t happen,” said Taylor. “If I even suspected a hint of that happening in our school district, I wouldn’t participate.”
Dr. Taylor also clarified that the district’s plan consists of more than simply hiring more police officers, stating that the district has approved construction to make it more difficult for unwanted people to enter the school, and administrators will have increased crisis response training, for example.
“Until those measures are in place, we want to have more people on hand. There will be no creation of a police state,” said Taylor.
She also said that Coatesville offers restorative justice to prevent students from being pushed toward dropping out.
The other theme of the night was standardized testing. King’s Highway Elementary Principal Stevan Lefever and Rainbow Elementary Principal Cliff Maloney made presentations to show the actions they have taken to ensure their students do their best on the tests used to measure the district’s progress.
Lefever organized a recognition assembly open to all students and parents. In the fall and spring, students take MAP tests to gauge how much they learned through the year. The tests have a margin of expected improvement for each student, and during a King’s Highway’s assembly, students who exceeded that margin were recognized.
“We spend a lot of time looking at data and numbers trying to improve our schools. We forget one crucial part: how to honor and recognize students who do well,” said Lefever.
Students who showed the most improvement were called to the front of the auditorium and greeted with applause at Tuesday night’s meeting.
Rainbow Elementary had its own unique approach.
While preparing for tests, fifth-grade teacher Brian Toth with assistance from music teacher Tom Hartwell and art teacher Matthew Reeves, wrote a song to help students remember the steps of the UNRAAVEL reading strategy.
Rapping over Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow,” Toth drops lines like “Now you’ve got to go and read the questions / read them all before you start, you know that it’s a learned profession.”
The school even shot a video for the song, which they played at Tuesday’s meeting. Available on Rainbow’s website and You Tube, it includes students in the classroom highlighting passages, dancing in the cafeteria, and Toth rapping as he stands next to Route 82.
