{"id":1423,"date":"2012-06-28T11:39:28","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T15:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=1423"},"modified":"2012-06-28T11:39:28","modified_gmt":"2012-06-28T15:39:28","slug":"coatesville-welcomes-displaced-graystone-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=1423","title":{"rendered":"Coatesville welcomes displaced Graystone students"},"content":{"rendered":"

District forms outreach program for displaced Graystone Academy students<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Jamie Richard<\/strong>, Staff Writer, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>COATESVILLE \u2013Middle school-age students left high and dry by the sudden decision by Greystone Academy to drop grades 6 through 8 will be warmly welcomed by the Coatesville Area School District, which is planning an aggressive effort to bring the roughly 100 displaced students into the district.<\/p>\n

District officials announced the formation of the Coatesville Area School District Outreach Initiative at the CASD Board of Education meeting meeting Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The initiative was formed in response to the recent events at Graystone Academy Charter School.\u00a0 Approximately two weeks ago, Graystone\u2019s board voted to eliminate grades 6-8 for the 2012-2013 school year, effectively ending its middle school program.<\/p>\n

According to Coatesville Superintendant Richard Como, the decision was made without any notification to the CASD.\u00a0 More than 100 students were displaced as a result of Graystone\u2019s decision; Como stated it was the goal of the initiative to bring these students back into the district.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoatesville will, and must, step forward to accept the responsibility abdicated by Graystone\u2019s callous decision,\u201d said Como.<\/p>\n

As part of the Outreach Initiative, the district will host school tours and open houses, as well as directly contacting families to encourage them to visit district schools.\u00a0 The district will have a registration booth at the \u201cCelebrate Coatesville\u201d event on Jul. 1 for prospective students and has made all district school principals and registration staff available for those interested in learning more about the CASD.<\/p>\n

Como asserted Graystone\u2019s decision to cut the middle school program was motivated by an attempt to improve the charter school\u2019s PSSA scores.\u00a0 A presentation led by Director of High School Education Dr. Angelo Romaniello indicated that Graystone\u2019s most recent PSSA scores were significantly lower than those of the CASD.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn nearly every category Graystone\u2019s PSSA scores were well below state standards and lagged behind ours significantly,\u201d said Como.<\/p>\n

The presentation indicated that Coatesville students performed almost 30% better in reading and 20% better in math than Graystone students.\u00a0 Board member Joseph Dunn expressed his concern over these findings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s criminal,\u201d said Dunn.\u00a0 \u201cThose kids are getting cheated.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the presentation, Como reiterated his intent to bring the displaced students into the school district, as well as any kindergarten through 5th grade students currently attending Graystone Academy.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur students are not commodities or chips to be traded or cashed out,\u201d said Como.\u00a0 \u201cThey are the community\u2019s most precious natural resource and though Graystone has decided to abandon them, the Coatesville Area School District and the Coatesville community will not.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

District forms outreach program for displaced Graystone Academy students By Jamie Richard, Staff Writer, The Times COATESVILLE \u2013Middle school-age students left high and dry by the sudden decision by Greystone Academy to drop grades 6 through 8 will be warmly welcomed by the Coatesville Area School District, which is planning an aggressive effort to bring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[166,29,441,442,443],"class_list":["post-1423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-board-of-education","tag-coatesville-area-school-district","tag-greystone-academy","tag-middle-school","tag-pssa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}