School Security, Transportation Upgrades For Centennial

WARMINSTER, PA —With the 2023-2024 school year in the Centennial School District just weeks away, Schools Superintendent Dana Bedden answered five questions posed by Patch about what challenges the district faces and what should be expected by parents of their children's schooling

The first day of school for students in grades K-12 in the Centennial School District is Aug. 24.

Here are the Patch questions and Bedden's responses:

1. How excited are you about a new school year starting up?

I am enthusiastically looking forward to year four working with our team here in the Centennial School District and another year removed from the past challenges of the pandemic. While, like most school districts, we are working hard to recover from the impact on our student's performance as a result of the unfinished learning, our local-level benchmark data showed significant growth by our students. For that, I see the glass as half full versus half empty and am proud of the continued work occurring by our students, staff, and parents.

2. What are the biggest challenges the district faces this year?

We are working to overcome the impact of the pandemic like most school districts in the nation and state. Additionally, we will continue to be challenged with meeting the needs of a significantly changing student population. Our percentage of free and reduced student population continues to rise, and the number of homeless students has doubled, along with an increase in the number of students needing English Language Development (ELD) services. Last year, we had students in our school district representing 46 countries and speaking 34 different languages. While we are proud of students and the countries they represent, we also continue to require more resources to meet their diverse needs which includes additional funding from the state to provide some local-level property tax relief.

3. What are you most proud of that you accomplished in the past year?

I think it is more appropriate to say what "we" accomplished. I am most proud of our students’ academic growth, the variety of things we do, and the programs we offer at CSD to meet the needs of our students. We are working hard but more importantly; we are working smarter and implementing more systems thinking to support the work. The increased number of school districts who are reaching out to inquire about the programs and process changes, etc. we have made during the past few years is a point of pride and testament to the CSD team.

4. What stands out most that will be new for students/teachers/staff for the upcoming school year?

Over the past few years, we have made several changes to increase our focus on teaching and learning and the better use of data as a part of the puzzle in the decisions we make. Last year, we implemented our Reimagine Middle School effort and this year we are implementing changes in our elementary school schedule that allows for more teacher collaboration and support time for our students. We are systemizing our district work around our ELD program based on the completed program quality review and also around our Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS). Our teachers will also be introduced to an awesome new data warehouse system that, based on the teacher feedback of those who helped review, will be significantly user-friendly, whole-student focused, and helpful during many of our internal and external collaborative meetings.

5. What should parents expect from the Centennial School District?

Our families should continue to expect continued improvement, but to share a few things:

Teaching and Learning

With the update we have made to align our curriculum to state standards that had not occurred in some areas for twelve years, our families should expect continued growth and development in our students.

Communications/Engagement

We hope with the recent launch of our new website which is more mobile device focused and has its own newsfeed that looks and feels like a Facebook or Twitter feed within our system (not external), our families should expect improved engagement.

Additionally, we are looking at some additional resources that may provide families with 24/7 access to answers to questions they may have regarding CSD.

Food and Nutrition

This past June, we launched the SchoolCafe portal which will improve our families' experience when paying for school lunch and monitoring their student's meal program.

Transportation

We will be rolling out a Global Positioning System (GPS) on all buses and a family mobile app.

Safety and Security

We have increased the number of school security personnel versus the old school monitor model. School security staff are required to complete the PA ACT 67 training (School Security Basic Training Course). In addition to safety, the course provides a knowledge base for school security staff to build a rapport with students and staff.