Downingtown Area SD reports progress on strategic plan; exits significant disproportionality list

Downingtown Area School District Superintendent Dr. David O'Donnell told the board at its June 11 meeting that the district has seen gains in kindergarten enrollment and made notable progress on the district's six-year strategic plan while continuing work on equity and student supports.

"This year, we paid $88,000,000 to charter schools," Dr. O'Donnell said, noting the district's outreach work and recruitment that he said helped raise full-day kindergarten enrollment to 778 students, up from 704 last September. He said the increase of about 74 kindergarten students may create opportunities to restore some staff positions reduced during recent budget adjustments.

The strategic-plan update focused on four broadly stated goals: students feeling safe, connected and engaged; curriculum and instruction; equitable supports and interventions; and college- and career-readiness. Board members heard detailed actions and near-term next steps tied to each goal.

On Goal 1 (safety, connectedness and engagement), a district staff member who identified herself as Justin said the district used multiple surveys (including a Pennsylvania Department of Education climate survey and a shorter district engagement survey) to track student engagement and extracurricular participation. "I'm happy to report that this year, we were able to get off of this significant disproportionality list," Justin said, referring to the state measure tied to disproportionate discipline outcomes for students with disabilities.

District staff described several factors they said contributed to removing the district from that list. Those included targeted implementation of positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS), greater use of restorative practices and closer local review of discipline patterns that can escalate (for example, repeated missed detentions that led to out-of-school suspensions). A district leader said the state worked with local staff to clarify how the three-year risk ratios are calculated, which changed how the district prioritized interventions.

On Goal 3 (equitable supports), Dr. Chance (district staff) summarized efforts to align tiered interventions (MTSS) and to expand targeted tutoring. He told the board that the district launched after-school tutoring at four Title I elementary schools and summer programming at Marsh Creek and Bradford Heights, funded in part by the Downingtown Community Education Foundation; the district provided transportation for those sessions to avoid attendance barriers. He also said the district transitioned away from a third-party data warehouse vendor, which the district reported will save "over $100,000" while consolidating assessment, iReady and PSSA data into internal reporting tools.

District staff said the curriculum department and pupil services worked to align literacy and math interventions (including math supports at the secondary level, special education supports and English learner interventions). The district plans to adopt iReady diagnostics for reading and math at additional grade levels to better link screening, benchmarking and interventions.

On Goal 2 (curriculum and implementation) and Goal 4 (college and career readiness), staff described a year of curriculum adoption and pilots: k-12 science implementation this year, a new k-8 math resource adopted for next year, algebra course resources adopted earlier in the year, and a 6-8 ELA core adoption (Amplify) that the board approved during the consent agenda. Staff also described a district "belongingness" task force that spent months defining tangible steps to make schools safe spaces for students "regardless of their lived background," and an initial cohort trained in restorative practices.

For college and career readiness, staff described a k-12 guidance plan, plans for a "portrait of a graduate" working group, postsecondary follow-up surveys for graduates and a pilot counseling model at the STEM Academy that separates college-and-career advising from social-emotional counseling. Counselor staff said the district collected contact information for roughly 500 graduating seniors this year via graduation practice QR codes and will add contact collection to the routine senior survey next year.

Board members asked questions about continuing lunch-and-learn programs, start-time changes, use of artificial intelligence in classrooms and plans to scale tutoring and summer supports. District staff said AI guidance issued by an internal think tank uses a traffic-light approach (what is permissible, what is restricted) and that local pilots (DMS, Magic School AI) are in progress but not systemwide.

The board discussed next steps including principals'-led planning days, expanding tutoring and summer supports subject to funding, and monitoring outcomes from new assessments and interventions.

Looking ahead, staff said they will continue to refine implementation timelines, monitor enrollment and report back to the board in the fall with updated staffing and budget implications.