School Directors Back Superintendent Despite Safety Concerns In Cheltenham

CHELTENHAM TOWNSHIP, PA — The township's school directors have issued a statement about residents' recent concerns about safety, saying they are sticking with the superintendent.

In an email to the Cheltenham School District Community, the school directors said that "concerns around safety and student conduct have presented challenges that we continue to navigate."

"We take seriously our responsibility to ensure effective governance of the school district, and accountability is part of that process," the school directors said in a joint statement. "We take all concerns that are raised with us as a board with the utmost seriousness, and will be paying close attention to how such concerns are addressed. We continue to work diligently to build schools and school communities that we all can be proud of. It will take all of us to make that happen."

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School directors said they are committing to enhancing efforts around communication and community engagement.

Concrete action steps school directors said they will take include:

1. Ensuring every email sent to the school board is responded to within a week (beyond an automatic reply)
2. Restarting the Board’s Communications Committee
3. Establishing a Climate & Culture Committee of the Board
4. Committing to an audit of our special education program to make recommendations for areas of strength and opportunities for improvement that will begin by the end of this academic year

School directors said as a board elected by the community and serving on a volunteer basis, state law requires them to hire and evaluate the superintendent; approve the district’s budget; and adopt policies to govern the district.

"We are not and should not be involved with the day-to-day operations of the district," school directors said. "Instead, we work closely with the superintendent, who is charged with leading the district and operationalizing the policies of the board."

Five years ago, the school board invested in Schools Superintendent Brian Scriven and his vision for the district.

"We continue to support him and his vision. He is a strong strategic thinker who has led the development and implementation of several processes and practices in our district, which directly impact the improvement of student learning and achievement on a daily basis," school directors said.

Those initiatives include:

• Planning and implementing a 2023-2026 Strategic Plan
• Completing a feasibility study resulting in a facilities plan impacting every campus and grade reconfiguration which led to the closure of the Elkins Park School
• Establishing a functioning Multi-tiered Systems of Support process at each school building designed to identify students who are struggling early on and provide them with the support they need to get on track
• Creating Professional Learning Communities in each school to provide teachers dedicated time together to plan and discuss
• Centering the use of data as a critical component of principals’ decision-making
• Developing a six-year year curriculum renewal cycle and adopting High Quality Instructional Materials