Community Conversations
March 2023
Dear Methacton Families,
Welcome to the March 2023 edition of Community Conversations. In this newsletter, you will find updates on school safety and food services, as well as an invitation to attend my upcoming Community Town Hall Meeting.
SCHOOL SAFETY
Our commitment to the education of your children starts with the safety of your children. While there is no question that our teachers and staff are dedicated to the advancement and growth of your children (their students), we also believe it is imperative that everyone (students, parents, staff, visitors) is safe and feels safe within our schools. This Community Conversations article is designed to provide you with an overview of our commitment to safety, along with sharing some of the actions recently taken as part of our continuous assessment and strengthening of our safety measures.
Safety in our schools starts with our belief that our best plans and efforts require us to constantly monitor, revise, learn, adjust, and improve to ensure we remain congruent with the latest protocols, trainings, best practices, policies and programs. To this end, we have developed an internal team of dedicated professionals to lead, coordinate and collaborate as part of their primary responsibilities. Our safety teams are led by Assistant Superintendent Mr. Che Regina and Technology Director Mr. William Brannick. Their focus on safety is supported with staff from within the buildings and across the district, as well as with our contracted safety professionals, the county’s emergency management professionals, State Police and Lower Providence Township Police.
Our safety strategies cover a number of areas including communications, physical security, student/staff mental health services, staff and student training, and response protocols. One of the communication strategies is extensive use of the Safe2Say Something statewide notification/reporting system. This system can be used by student or adults for reporting child abuse, bullying, threats, self-harm, depression, and other troubling behaviors or actions. Certain matters immediately engage local law enforcement and school personnel to respond. Our administrative team is on call 24/7 with Safe2Say Something in order to triage life threatening and other serious matters.
Another communication strategy was recently addressed following a lock down protocol earlier this school year that limited our distribution of text messages to families. During that event, no students or staff were in danger, but the lock down protocol was initiated due to the police response in the area. The district conducted a debriefing session following the event and discovered that our text messaging notification system failed, and our frequency of communications and type of messaging needed improvement. As such, we resolved the technical issues and have been communicating with parents over the past several months about the importance of adding their number to the text messaging system. Currently, more than 75% of parents with elementary students have opted in to the text messaging system and 67% of parents with secondary students have opted in. Furthermore, based on feedback from our security and safety professional team (Cardinal Point), the district produced a communications protocol that establishes the what, who, when, and regular frequency of communications given the threat level. Our building Emergency Response Teams have been active for a number of years and their frequency of meetings has increased to support the communications needed at the local level.
In terms of physical security, the district has changed its building access protocol to keeping all doors locked at all times. This practice went into effect at the beginning of this school year. This created significant challenge for outside groups and our athletic groups. However, these actions are appropriate changes that are indicative of maintaining physical security. Efforts are in the works to better support the frequent challenges with use of facilities after hours while not compromising the integrity of the response.
Moreover, we have made a $100,000 investment into additional video surveillance on a number of campuses to address blind spots and areas of concern. We standardized our classroom door magnet system and will be installing interior door window blinds systems to eliminate challenges observed during lock down drills.
In terms of student and staff mental health services, the district has implemented an award-winning mental health program in R.E.A.C.H. to support students at all levels and to provide professional development to staff in an effort to best support students. Furthermore, there have been assembly programs designed to support students with respects to challenges with bullying and drug and alcohol abuse. The district continues to provide a high level of nursing support (far beyond state requirements) at all buildings, and training for staff to ensure that the Student Assistance Program (SAP) is well positioned to support students.
One of our most important areas, staff training, led by Assistant Superintendent Mr. Che Regina, included parent reunification with each buildings respective Emergency Response Team (ERT); training for all staff on our standard response protocol; and, additional cooperative trainings among the district, Lower Providence Township Police and Pennsylvania State Police.
Another avenue of focus this year was to complete our parent reunification protocol. In the instance of weather, a power outage, hazmat incident or a crisis at the school, this reunification protocol will provide a formalized, controlled release of children to their parents from a safe environment.
The district utilizes the CSTAG threat assessment protocol for the evaluation of matters. Central office administrators, building administrators and SRO officers are trained in the proper utilization of the protocol. This protocol outlines the necessary steps to distinguish between a real threat and a transient non-credible threat.
Our protocols have been supported through an increase in our number of armed school resource officers in the district, along with increased coverage by our unarmed security personnel during non-school hours for events.
We have implemented a new visitor management system that creates consistencies across buildings and provides assurance of on demand background checks for all visitors.
While the above is only a snapshot of the security and safety measures taken recently, it is important that we share that we have updated our district safety website. You can find additional information at www.methacton.org/safety.
FOOD SERVICES
In an effort to improve access to better quality/variety/dietary options for all students at all levels and to increase our district ranking in Food Services from C to an A+, the district created student/staff/parent teams at Arcola and the High School to assist with feedback to prepare for issuance of a RFP for a food services vendor for the next 5 years. The timeline and process for issuing an RFP for bids is required by law every 5 years.
The feedback teams held discussions, conducted menu option selections and taste testings, and the high school students took a site visit. We incorporated that feedback in to the RFP and will have those team members assist us in reviewing the applications and selection of final vendor with a recommendation to the Board on April 18, 2023.
It is our target to issue the following results from this process:
- All schools will provide free/reduced meals (on or off National School Lunch Program (NSLP))
- All schools will benefit from district chef (included in RFP) – better quality/variety/options
- All schools will benefit from increased Food Service staff wages (included requirement in RFP)
- All school meal prices will comply with the NSLP pricing tool (on or off NSLP) (limits an increase of $0.10 increase annually)
- All schools meals will increase in product quality based on specifications in RFP
- Skyview/Arcola/High School will gain access to new premium meal options along with regular meal options
- High School will gain access to grab and go beverage café option
- Decreased food waste at high school (if we go off NSLP)
COMMUNITY TOWN HALL MEETING
Please join me for a virtual Community Town Hall meeting on April 13 at 7pm. The town hall will focus on the following topics: Student Achievement, Food Services and Facilities.
This will be conducted in a Zoom webinar format and I will take questions following each topic area. You can register to participate at www.methacton.org/townhallmeeting.
This is a great opportunity to learn first-hand what the district is doing in each of these important areas and how they relate to meeting the goals and vision set forth in our strategic plan - To Ensure An Exceptional Methacton School District Experience For All!
Sincerely,
Dr. David Zerbe
Superintendent of Schools
Alumni Spotlight
Now let’s take a look at some of the events and achievements that took place across the district in March...
ARROWHEAD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Parent Daughter Dance
3rd Grade Art Class
EAGLEVILLE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Door Decorating for Read Across America
In honor of Read Across America, Eagleville held a door-decorating contest. The doors were decorated to represent favorite children's literature. The competition was fierce and the winners were:
- Mrs. Baker-Gingerbread Friends
- Mrs. Alexy-The Snowy Day
- Mrs. Santucci/Mrs. Pashley-Grandfather Tang's Story
- 3rd Place-Mr. Keffer-Pippi Longstocking
- 2nd Place-Mrs. Offenback-Where the Wild Things Are
- 1st Place-Mrs. Holmes/Mrs. Hart-Because of Winn Dixie
Planetarium Adventures
Rock Your Socks
WOODLAND ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Woodland Variety Show
String Jamboree
WORCESTER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Rock Your Socks!
Worcester “Rocked Their Socks” for World Down Syndrome Awareness Day. It was great to see so many colorful and fun socks at school!
Family Game Night
Flat Stanley
SKYVIEW UPPER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Career Day
Thank you to all of the presenters for sharing your time and talents with our students!
Rock Your Socks Day
Baby Guppies!
Skyview is now home to baby guppy fish in their aquaponics tank! Students noticed that there were suddenly many guppies swimming around the tank. The tank has also begun to grow plants. Students are enjoying the tank and are taking time to stop and notice the changes each day.
ARCOLA INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL
STEAM Day
Arcola Presents Disney's Frozen Jr.
MATHCOUNTS
Arcola's MATHCOUNTS team competed in the 2023 Pennsylvania State MATHCOUNTS competition in Harrisburg and won 3rd place!
The team consisted: Felix (8), Jeffrey* (7), Chelsea (8), and George (7)
*Jeffrey placed #6 in the state for the individual competition
Airheads for Animals
Congratulations Arcola Reading Olympics team!
PMEA District 11 String Fest
METHACTON HIGH SCHOOL
Montgomery County Science Research Competition
Grade 12
- Lucy W. - Biochemistry - Myofibroblast transcriptome changes in Colitis
- Maehul B. - Computer Science - Analyzing various compression techniques on Generic Data
- Sameeksha P. - Environmental Science - Mutagenicity and ROS formation in tire chemicals
- Matthew U. - Microbiology - Treating Cytotoxicity caused by oxidative stress
Grade 11
- Liya Z. - Biochemistry - Impact of various processing methods on Ascorbic Acid content in fruit
- John A. - Chemistry - The efficacy of Potassium Metabisulfate as a preservative
- Arnav T. - Engineering - Graphene Augmented PV cells for fossil fuel independence
- Angela W. - Microbiology - The Chilling truth
- Aditya P. - Microbiology - Essential Oils: The Special Agents
Grade 10
- Katie Y. - Biochemistry - Acne Alleviation
- Dylan W. - Mathematics - The Pythagorean Expectation's relationship to soccer
Grade 9
- Rasika S. - Medicine and Health - The future of Regenerative Medicine
- Carter R. - Physics - Best angles for Planetary Defense
In addition, MHS students pulled in around $2500 in special awards and prizes! MHS also won the 2023 Almac Group for Excellence in Chemistry Award which comes with a $700 check to be used to promote and support STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) activities at the high school.
Mini-Thon Success!
MHS Red Cross Club Holds Blood Drive
MHS Varsity Cheerleaders Kedron Spirit Classic Competition
Congratulations the Methacton High School Varsity Cheerleaders!
The Varsity Cheerleaders wrapped up their season with a clean sweep at the Kedron Spirit Classic! After two near-perfect routines, the team took home first place in the Small Varsity division, first place in the Game Day division and Overall School Grand Champions. The stunt group also won the Stunt-Off Competition!
Bobby Kleckner Is Named Mr. Methacton
Congratulations to our 2023 winner, Bobby Kleckner!
Academic Decathlon State Championship
PMEA All State Orchestra
Congratulations to these students for this tremendous accomplishment!
METHACTON SCHOOL DISTRICT
Email: information@methacton.org
Website: www.methacton.org
Location: 1001 Kriebel Mill Road, Collegeville, PA, USA
Phone: 6104895000
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MethactonSchoolDistrict/
Twitter: @Methacton