Rain, rain, go away…

Rain, rain, go away….

As I write this month’s blog, there are fewer than six weeks before the school year begins and, for better or for worse, the days themselves are limited as, with the passing of the summer solstice, the amount of daylight has been getting shorter by a minute every day. Soon, regardless of the weather, our fall sports and extracurricular activities will begin.  Our cross-country runners have been putting in many miles throughout this wet summer.  Despite conditions, all of these amazing kids will begin their formal practices in August.  Their dedication, along with that of their coaches and advisors, keep our district progressive and the talk of Cambria County. 

As I mention regularly, the term “lazy days of summer” don’t apply to CCSD’s summer employees. Administrators, secretaries, guidance counselors, and maintenance personnel are extremely busy as the days zip by.  Greg Shaffer and his staff work hard during the summer break, both inside and out, to get buildings and grounds in top shape for the beginning of the school year.  Administrators are hustling to prepare schedules, staff development activities, and bus routes/stops; they are restocking supplies, tending to curriculum updates and distributing updated records across grade levels and schools, and between districts. Then, based on population shifts, they order materials for the coming school year. 

Our fields see well over 100 events during the school year and they are beginning to show wear.  The sale of the athletic field across from the former MS prompted discussion of a plan for our current fields and possible field additions to our campus.  The grounds ad hoc committee has been meeting to gather information about the needs and priorities of all users. Based on the committee’s work, the School Board, at a special July meeting, voted to hire K & M Engineers as project management consultants for our grounds projects.  The goal is to have K & M develop a comprehensive plan of options from which our Board can prioritize and determine which improvements, based on available funding, will be done and in what time frame.  This comprehensive planning will allow our district to maintain/improve facilities without “breaking the bank.”

Although our District, like all other PA school districts, has passed a budget for the coming school year, no one is sure what monies will come from the state.  We are now 16 days beyond the deadline for the state budget to be approved, and there is no end in sight.  The governor and the Republican-controlled legislature continue to be at odds over each other’s budget proposals.  Not knowing whether or not our financial obligations can be met without being thrown into deficit spending makes it very difficult to plan for the coming year. If you have the opportunity, please call our local representatives and encourage them to work out a compromise that includes relief from financial obligations for districts; by this I refer to the thousands of dollars that leave districts to pay for charter school enrollments and pension payments.  Of course, no one wants to see an increase in taxes, but our public schools have consistently been receiving less money over the last four years. A responsive – and responsible – legislature that acts with alacrity may forestall such a move.

On the subject of sports, I am again excited for the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Pitchers, batters and defensive players have been clicking on all cylinders as they have won 10 of their last 13 games in July.   They are currently 3½ games out of first place in their division, and they look solid as they head into the second half of the season. 

Being an optimist, I’m excited that the NFL training camps start next week; the defensive players the Steelers have added to their team appear to have a lot of potential.   As I usually do, I have my Steelers flag ready to fly once autumn arrives (unless I can bribe my wife with some ice cream); until then I am happy to raise the Jolly Roger for the bucs. 

Enjoy your families and what is left of July… go Bucs!

Dr. D.

Summer is here...

Happy summer, everyone!!  I need to apologize for not posting a May blog; it was an extremely trying spring for my family and me as both of my parents passed away within six weeks of each other.  I’m sure many have felt as my family did: even at ninety, we weren’t ready to lose them. I am thankful that the love and devotion they showed to each other has been passed along to all of their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren; getting together has kept them in our midst – and we wonder… does this action help us heal or does it serve as a constant reminder of something we no longer have? While I’m sure that the saying is true and that time heals all wounds, the interim is particularly painful and seemingly interminable.

Summer employees—administrators, secretaries, guidance counselors, and maintenance personnel—are extremely busy as the days zip by.  Greg Shaffer and his staff work very hard in the heat of the summer to get buildings and grounds in top shape for the beginning of the school year.  Administrators are hustling to prepare schedules, staff development activities, and bus routes/stops; they are restocking supplies, tending to curriculum updates and distributing updated records across grade levels and schools, as well as between districts. Then, based on population shifts, they order materials for the coming school year. Added to this school year is training for Skyward, our new Student Information System; secretaries, administrators and selected staff will be going through several days of training.  To support successful implementation of Skyward, the Board has approved the position of a Technical Services Specialist who will be the point of contact for all Skyward trainings, assistance, and troubleshooting issues; this person will assume other technical district related duties, one of which will be registering all new students throughout the school year and during the summer.

Greg and his grounds keepers have been very active aerating, fertilizing and rolling out existing fields to get them in tip top shape for fall sports.  The Board has set a July meeting for the specific purpose of discussing and voting on the hiring of a grounds consultant to develop plans for a new multi-purpose field.  This will not happen overnight but will be a work in progress as we continue to be the hub for our district’s families and community members.  Concurrent with this plan is the Interactive Playground project – and the playground is being assembled as I write this blog.  It will be quite impressive and should be a great addition to the Central Cambria area.

Congratulations to the 115 seniors who recently graduated and to their families for being a part of their educational lives.  My interview with a cadre of seniors was enlightening and informative.  Central Cambria has graduated a wonderful group of seniors.  Their influence and presence will be greatly missed; I’m confident that we’ll hear great things about them over the years.

By now my wonderful wife Judy has now been retired for a year and has managed to keep busy watching grandkids, consulting with various educational agencies and teaching as an adjunct professor.  She has always been active and I am glad she is able to enjoy retirement on her terms.  (By the way, honey, what’s for dinner tonight?)

On the subject of sports, I am again excited for the Pittsburgh Pirates.  They are only a couple games out of first place in their division as they continue their winning ways.  Judy and I recently attended a Pirates game at PNC Park and they really look good this year.  The venue at PNC is awesome; I would encourage you to make a game if you can and enjoy baseball.  In football news, OTAs (Organized Training Activities) are now over for football rookies and training camp starts July 25 – I wonder if Judy will let me fly my Steelers flag; probably not, as she always tell me “not until you smell fall in the air” (even though I did see a yellow leaf yesterday).”  Soon enough I will be watching the Black and Gold rebuild their defense and get back to their winning ways – I hope!

Enjoy your families and what is left of June… go Bucs!

Dr. D.

April (snow) showers...

April is a time when flowers bloom, buds come out on the trees and birds chirp in the morning - unless, of course, you live in western PA.  We still have some mounds of snow melting in spots across the campus.  Our fields are still soft and muddy in some spots.  Our maintenance supervisor and his guys work hard to get the fields and track ready for spring sports.  As winter leaves a messy trail in its wake, It is always challenging to get our facilities in top shape to meet the needs of all who use them in the spring.

Great news: the sale of the former Middle School and athletic field is complete.  And, as promised, we had our first grounds committee meeting last evening.  The committee, chaired by Board member Dennis Simmers, included coaches, administrators, maintenance and community members.  Goals and priorities were discussed with plans for future meetings and direction.  As a hub for the community, the committee feels it is important to responsibly maintain and improve our campus and its surrounding grounds; more to come on this at a later date. 

Our Business Manager presented our tentative budget at a public meeting on Thursday, April 16.  The meeting was poorly attended; I have a feeling this could be the result of the fact that, for the fourth year in a row, Central Cambria will hold the line on taxes.  Several factors make this an almost Herculean feat: first, employee costs, as well as our pension contribution, have risen significantly. Second, although Governor Wolf has promised to do more for public education, the Republican-controlled Legislature has not committed to his budget plan.  They are holding resolution of the pension issue as their number one priority before agreeing to any budget proposal.

Mrs. McDermott and I attended an ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) training at Richland HS.  This program is designed to give a person or group of people, who find themselves in a life-threatening situation, some mental and physical tools that could play a vital role in their survival.    It is designed so that anybody can employ the strategies.  We plan to have ALICE trainers come to our district next fall to train our staff on these strategies.  While it is rather sad that such skills are needed in the educational arena, I am a firm believer in taking the necessary steps to ensure the safety of the children in our care.

On the subject of security, our buildings continue to practice not only monthly fire drills, but also shelter in place drills, lockdowns and evacuations.  After each drill, staff and administration debrief to discuss issues and concerns that may need to be resolved before the next drill.  It is important to remember that, while there  are no guarantees of positive outcomes in a violent situation, the more one prepares, the better is one's chance of survival.

If you have young children ages 0-6, you should check out our Ready Rosie website.  You must be a resident of our district and register your child(ren) on the site to begin receiving online resources that provides daily activities for adults to do with children.  The activities are simple and  take only about two minutes a day.  Each activity is modeled on a two-minute video.  Simply watch the video, do the activity and everyone learns something new! It's received nothing but positive reviews from teachers and their own children.

I recall that last year at this time I wrote in my blog, “The Pens this year are making history with the number of wins and shutouts" (what a difference a year can make).” But how far into the playoffs will they go this year with limited evidence of scoring power, despite the efforts of Crosby and Malkin?   History is on the Pens'  side, though, as the only time in recent memory they scored fewer than 100 points (96 this year) was in 2007 – and that was the year they won the Stanley Cup!  And yes, I smell football in the air as many colleges are playing their spring games (e.g, the Blue White game at PSU), the draft is at the end of this month, and the NFL schedules are due to be released next week.  My personal gridiron drought is coming to a close. 😃

Dr. D.