interact club paints rocks to raise bone cancer awareness
From the Editor: Goodbye and good luck
Page 6 Conestoga High School, Berwyn PA, 19312
Volume 74 No. 6
April 9, 2024
Expanding horizons: Girls rugby initiative targets sport’s growth
PagE 9
Page 11
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educational expansion
How TESD created and developed its special education programs
Ben Shapiro/The SPOKE
Reading away: Freshman and member of Conestoga’s Best Buddies chapter Sam Porter makes his way through the pile of books on his desk in special education teachers Madison Galanti and Jena Lutschaunig’s class. Porter said that he enjoys hanging out with other Best Buddies members.
By Maya Shah, Ben Shapiro and Shreya Vaidhyanathan, Co-T/E Life Editor, Editor-in-Chief and Co-Managing Editor Editor’s note: The families of the special education students represented in this article provided informed consent to The Spoke to publish the included information. The Tredyffrin/Easttown School District did not reveal private student information, nor did it review The Spoke’s content prior to publication.
In 1996, Glenn Baskin entered Conestoga to receive a T/E education. His mother, Sheryl Baskin, said that he worked with TESD’s first one-on-one instructional aide and was the first student at Conestoga “with a more severe disability” to receive special education. Since Glenn Baskin attended Conestoga, TESD’s special education programs have expanded. In the 2022-23 school year, the district employed 57 special education teachers and spent more than $32 million on special education costs. Before starting high school, Glenn Baskin received his education from the Chester Coun-
ty Intermediate Unit (CCIU), which at the time provided more extensive special education than Conestoga. Sheryl Baskin felt that as a student with Down syndrome not attending a TESD school, he was secluded from the T/E community. She wanted him to attend Conestoga alongside Michael Baskin, his older, nondisabled brother. “No one knew that Michael had a brother. If we went shopping at a local place, nobody knew who Glenn was,” Sheryl Baskin said. “When it was time for him to go into ninth grade, I wanted him to be a Tredyffrin/Easttown student.” Enrolling Glenn Baskin at Conestoga was only the first
step. Sheryl Baskin said that her son’s transition from attending the CCIU’s elementary and middle school programs to starting his freshman year at Conestoga had its hardships. “Parents came to the principal at the time complaining that (Glenn) was a distraction,” Sheryl Baskin said. “After we all sat down and created a plan and used more of the resources from the Intermediate Unit, Glenn did much better the rest of the year.” The 1990 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act established that students with disabilities are entitled to a free and appropriate public education until the day before their 22nd birth-
day. With the help of a full-time aide and Conestoga’s developing special education programs, Glenn Baskin spent six years in high school and graduated from Conestoga in 2003. In 2000, while Glenn Baskin attended Conestoga, academic seminar teacher Kate McGranaghan started working as one of the school’s five special education teachers. Now, she serves as chair of the academic support department, which hosts 18 teachers and serves students of varying needs. “My obligation is to meet the needs of students,” McGranaghan said. “Some of my students see me multiple times a day. Some
see me one time a cycle. It depends on where they are with their level of independence.” This school year, 1,267 students, or 18.3% of TESD’s enrollment, carry Individualized Educational Programs (IEPs) — an increase from the 15.4% 10 years ago. The district currently employs 57 special education teachers and stated its intent to hire three more for the 2024-25 school year at the Feb. 8 Education Committee. The growth rate of TESD’s special education programs aligns with state and national patterns. The TESD school board intends to increase the special education budget by $1.6 million for the
2024-25 school year. To meet the funding goal, the board filed for a tax rate referendum exception to the Pennsylvania Special Session Act 1 of 2006, which would allow the district to increase the property tax rate by up to 1%. “People heard about all the great things that we had to offer for different populations in our school district, and then they came to us,” said Dr. Elizabeth DePascale, a special education teacher at T/E Middle School. “The more people who would move who needed or benefited from these services, the more the program grew and grew.” Continued on page 3.
Tredyffrin starts K-9 unit
Faith Zantua Co-Copy Editor
Aren Framil/The SPOKE
Voting for change: The TESD school board meets in the Conestoga cafeteria for a regular school board meeting. On Feb. 26, the board voted 8-0, with one abstention, in favor of the Resolution in Support of Fair Funding of Education and opposing Pennsylvania Senate Bill 757.
Board passes ‘fair funding’ resolution Aren Framil
Co-News Editor During its Feb. 26 regular school board meeting, the TESD school board voted 8-0, with one abstention, in favor of the Resolution in Support of Fair Funding of Education. The decision opposes Pennsylvania Senate Bill 757, which aims to institute the Pennsylvania Award for Student Success (PASS) program. The bill would create private school scholarships — known as school vouchers — of up to $15,000 for students in households below 250% of the federal poverty level, which is dependent on household size. Vouchers would only be available to students attending schools scoring in
the lowest 15% of statewide performance tests. The state Senate approved Bill 757 on Aug. 30, 2023 and sent it to the House of Representatives’ Education Committee for consideration. The school board’s resolution asserts that the PASS program “diverts public money away from public schools and into non-public schools” and would “make the court ordered mandate for the fair funding of public schools more difficult to achieve.” The PASS program would renew scholarships annually for students who qualify regardless of changes in household income level or student academic success. The school board ad hoc legislative committee, which monitors how relevant pend-
ing legislation could affect TESD, wrote in the resolution that Bill 757 contains no meaningful reporting requirements or accountability. “We’re not quite convinced that those funds would be limited only to students in ‘failing’ school districts or students and districts who want the opportunity because their school is not meeting certain standards,” school board president Todd Kantorczyk said. After pushback from teachers’ unions and a budget stalemate, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro passed the 2023 budget without the PASS program, line-item vetoing funding for the program. The most recent budget proposal designates more than $1.1 billion
toward basic public education funding instead. According to TESD Superintendent Dr. Richard Gusick, the Pennsylvania General Assembly is considering different strategies to resolve the inequities in public education funding. “I think they’re in the process of figuring out what it is they need. It’s always hard to get agreement — everybody’s got a different idea or approach that they want to take,” Gusick said. “If there needs to be more funding for inadequately funded public schools, then the state has different mechanisms they could use to raise those funds and make sure those school districts are adequately funded.”
On Feb. 20, the Tredyffrin Township board of supervisors approved a memorandum of understanding with the Chester County Emergency Response Commission to implement a new Emergency Response Team K-9 program. The program involves Tredyffrin Township Police Department Corporal Eric Meoli working with a Dutch Shepherd dog. Township police captain Tyler Moyer said that the dog is currently operational and acts only for “tactical purposes,” such as searching buildings, pursuing suspects and detecting narcotics. “There’s a lot of different components to it that give them an advantage,” Moyer said. “If somebody would run from them or
it’s a situation where they need to search a building quickly, the dog’s going to give them a little bit more advantage to being able to search that building a little more efficiently.” Around a year ago, the commission proposed the idea of the K-9 program to improve the township’s emergency response force. Since then, Meoli and the dog have completed the necessary training to become certified as a K-9 team. Township assistant manager and financial director Joseph DiRocco said at the Feb. 20 meeting that the commission is handling most of the financial responsibilities. The initiative resembles nearby K-9 programs established by security organizations in recent years, such as security contractor Allied Universal’s K-9 unit stationed in King of Prussia Mall.
Mike Handshoe, one of the unit’s officers, works with a dog to patrol and detect around the mall. He views K-9 programs as a regrettable necessity. “I think (needing dogs) is just an unfortunate way that our world is going these days,” Handshoe said. “It’s just another level of different avenues you can take.” Unlike the dogs in Allied Universal’s unit, the Tredyffrin Township dog is not working as a patrol animal, which Moyer attributes to a lack of officers. Moyer said that there are no plans to expand the program. “Right now we don’t have the staffing to dedicate someone to just K-9, and there’s also a lot of other factors that go into operating a K-9 unit on patrol,” Moyer said. “It (the current plan) was proposed to us, and we felt it was the best option at the time.”
Faith Zantua/The SPOKE
Added security: Mike Handshoe works with a dog at the King of Prussia mall for Allied Universal, a security contractor. The organization stationed K-9 officers at the mall starting last year, drawing some similarities to Tredyffrin Township’s new program.