School Board discusses various curriculum agreements at Thursday evening

By Christopher Miller

BALD EAGLE TOWNSHIP – The Keystone Central School Board met Thursday evening for their monthly Voting Session.

Starting the meeting, School Board Vice President Roger Elling led with the announcement that an Executive Session was held beginning at 6 PM regarding “legal issues” prior to the 6:30 school board start time.

The legal issue at hand was pertaining to an unnamed student.

The Keystone Central Board of Education agreed to waive the 30-day period to permit Student 1 who was previously identified to the board to receive their education at DTAC, the Diversified Treatment Alternative Center in Williamsport. Should Student 1 not be accepted into DTAC, Student 1 is able to attend the Keystone Central School District Online Virtual Academy. They will not be permitted to come onto the KCSD campus during the 24/25 school year.

The motion passed unanimously later in the meeting.

Superintendent Dr. Frank Redmon started the meeting noting that changes were recently made to the district website to make things “more transparent” in an effort to solve issues of logging on or finding things. “I am trying to make it easier for the public to navigate to be transparent,” Redmon said.

Policy number 706.1: Disposal of Surplus Property, Equipment, Textbooks, Supplies and Land and Policy number 800: Records Retention and Destruction Schedule & Glossary were tabled for next month’s meetings.

In a fairly straightforward meeting Thursday night, almost all items except for a handful were approved (moved) in one vote. Those items not immediately approved as part of the “blanket approval” and requiring further discussion were Bills for Payment, New Story agreement, CharacterStrong agreement, and the Nittany Learning Services agreement.

New Story

Taken from the district agenda, New Story is an approved private school and recognized by the PA Department of Education as an educational placement for students with disabilities. There are currently eight KCSD students who receive their instruction and attend New Story. The Director of Special Education continues to be a member of the student’s IEP team and remains involved with each student. Students transition back to KCSD when the IEP team determines it is appropriate.

A question over the agreement was brought up by board member Scaff, saying that the six items in Addendum A of the agreement (Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, Behavior Consultation, Individual Counseling, Group Counseling, and Crisis Intervention) are the same six items that have to be established to “do our own AEDY counseling in the school” and further asking “why are we paying for these?”

Students in the New Story school program are transported to State College and must have an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) and meet certain criteria to go into the program, Christina Manning, the Director of Pupil Services explained.

CharacterStrong

A motion that did not pass Thursday night was the agreement with CharacterStrong, “an evidence-based, multi-tiered solution to support whole child success” with “curricula and trainings that improve behavior, increase safety, and support mental health,” per information found on their website.

The agreement, which would not have exceeded $46,774.70, would have been paid for with state government funds.

The organization was involved in a lawsuit with another Pennsylvania school district, West Shore School District south of Harrisburg, that was later settled. In that case, America First Legal approved a settlement agreement for its clients against the West Shore School District for “illegally subjecting children to radical and invasive Social Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum and illegally denying lawful opt-out requests from multiple concerned parents.”

KCSD school board member Chris Scaff brought this information to light in an almost 60-minute discussion and debate over CharacterStrong being an “experimental program for school settings.”

“Essentially your children are guinea pigs for this product,” Scaff said. “It is precious learning time taken away from students, it will be used to shape a students attitude, values, and belief without their parents knowledge or consent of classroom discussion,” he added, citing information he researched online. As well, Scaff’s research brought forth information that “in Arizona, SEL is a gateway method to introduce elements of the CRT which is Critical Race Theory in the schools.”

Scaff went on to make the bold statement that “we do not need this in our school.”

The board then heard a presentation related to SEL and CharacterStrong given by Christina Manning.

She outlined why she felt it would be the best option to utilize the funds available, rather than having to “give them back” to the state if not spent by the end of July.

In her presentation, Manning outlined why the district felt the need to change to CharacterStrong.

1. All materials are accessible online.
2. Relevant – obtain student/teacher feedback often to continually improve the curriculum
3. Engaging – offers a variety of activities to choose from in each lesson, such as games, journal prompts, videos, whole group/small group discussions
4. Teachers found it easy to navigate through and implement
5. Teachers and students like that it is presented in a more ‘mature’ format than our current curriculum

As well, she outlined why CharacterStrong needs to be in the KCSD schools.

1. Students’ unmet needs will interfere with academic success
2. Schools will continue to spin their wheels attempting to implement dozens of fragmented solutions
3. Educators will burn out
4. Supports the mission of KCSD and what their stakeholders value

At the end of the meeting, board member Jeff Johnston made a last-ditch effort to pass the agreement with CharacterStrong prior to the final vote.

“This has nothing to do with race, this has nothing to do with any of that stuff, it is trying to teach these kids some skills that they are not learning anywhere at home,” Johnston said.

Board members Lynch, Scaff, Donahay, Cannon, and Baldino all voted “no,” not passing the agreement with CharacterStrong.

Nittany Learning Services

A hot-button topic for discussion recently, an agreement with Nittany Learning Services to provide Alternative Education for Disruptive Youth (AEDY) was slightly discussed Thursday.

“The only other program in our region was just opened up in Williamsport and it’s a significantly higher cost and there are limited seats,” Superintendent Redmon explained. Board member Chris Scaff raised concerns over “internal ties to KCSD staff” working or within the ownership circle of Nittany Learning Services.

“Is the program working,” Scaff asked. “We heard from one person last week, how many kids have been in it?”

“The administrators say it is extraordinary,” Superintendent Redmon said.

“I am just making sure we weigh our options right now,” Scaff said. “I just want to know my facts because once again, there is so much controversy with it.”

Lynch expressed that “the board hopefully at some point will discuss and offer to administration that we want to get a presentaiton from a local regional school district via Zoom that already has their own in-house program so we have a chance to see what our other options are and so we can ask questionns to other district who already have it up and in house.”

“We have to have Nittan Learning Services for this semester because there is no other option,” Lynch said.

“Well there is another option, but we will be paying a lot more money for lesser seats,” Elling mentioned.

“They were not approved yet and may not be until the end of August, beginning of September,” said board member Smith. “Their hope is to be approved at that point.”

“I’ve brought this topic up to the board before and the majority board never felt committed to learning about how other districts are doing their own in-house program, so I am hoping this will spur the conversation so it will finally go somewhere so next year when we are sitting at this table the board will have options,” Lynch said. “Let’s plan for next year and not be stuck in this same boat again, please.”

The motion to utilize Nittany Learning Services for AEDY was passed, with Scaff and Cannon voting “no.”

All nine board members were present.