Your RTM School Board: A Study in Excellence, Part Deux

Day after day, school buildings ‘wake up’ to the chatter of busy students making way to the hallowed halls of learning that we, as parents, put our faith and trust in.  We want to believe our children are involved and passionate in their learning.  We want to believe our children are the most important component in the daily rigors of teaching and learning, that the expertise of our teachers and administrators are truly ‘getting through’ to all students, at all levels of proficiency. If you have a child in any of the Rose Tree Media schools, you don’t have to wonder.   The accolades of academic excellence just keep on coming. 

During the 2011-2012 school year, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education standards, all of our RTM schools have made Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP.  AYP is the standard by which all commonwealth schools are statistically measured – and we can proudly say that ALL 6 of the Rose Tree Media schools have made the list. (http://paayp.emetric.net/District/SchoolList/c23/125237903)  It should be noted here that AYP is not measured by collective district performance, but each individual school is required to be assessed and included.  The key to
RTM’s success is that we can proudly claim each building on its own accord
reached AYP – proving a well-rounded array of educators contributed to this
achievement.

There are some individuals who dissent on the topic of AYP, so we will also prove additional measures of academic excellence.  Earlier this year, Newsweek rated Penncrest High School as one of the top high schools nationally.
( http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/features/2013/americas-best-high-schools.html)   Measures of inclusion on this list include not only state AYP rankings, but other measures of academics such as the number
of students enrolled in Advanced Placement classes, SAT scores and other
academic measures.   In speaking of our Penncrest student population, one cannot overlook the consistent performance of the DelCo Hi-Q team – capturing first place overall out of all teams competing county-wide.

So we’ve itemized national and county performance let’s take a look at Pennsylvania specific rankings.  In the past 2 weeks, the Pittsburgh Business Journal ranked Rose Tree Media School District 15th out of more than 500 districts in the commonwealth: (http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2013/04/05/statedistrictrank2013.html).  The interesting statistic about this ranking is that the RTM position was raised from 19th the previous year to 15th in the most recent ranking.  When asked what contributed to the raise in ranking, Biz Journal criteria included an increase in PSSA scores, and increase in SAT scores and collective student performance and inclusion in high school AP programs. 

The common denominator to all of these successes is the upward trajectory on which all our schools are moving.  Our Rose Tree Media schools are going from
good, to better, on the way to best.  Your Rose Tree Media School Board is not satisfied with merely linear movement – we want to see continued focus to improvement at each turn.  We have faith that our administrators and our
educators will continue to return record breaking achievements, but we cannot
do it without your help.  If you want to see your schools continue toward the pinnacle of academic excellence, combined with the level of fiscal responsibility shown by the current school board, please vote to retain your incumbent school board members on May 21.   

It is unequivocally what is best for our community, our property values, and most importantly, the future of our students. 

Respectfully submitted,

 Republicans for Rose Tree Media Taxpayers

Linda Fox, Tracy Brown Barusevicius, Harry Postles, and Nancy Mackrides