WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 2017
CHESTER COUNTY PRESS
3A
Chester County Press
Local News Hispanic parents of the district’s Head Start, Migrant Education and other programs that serve the local Latino population about the importance of encouraging their children to achieve academically. Additonally, Kennett schools have enrolled 12 Hispanic parents in its APEX program, that introduces them to school structure and gives them the skills to help them work with their children to complete homework, stress the importance of education and provide them with other schools that will enable the children to succeed. ‘Perception vs. Reality’ Yet despite these efforts, the disparity between what the KCSD is doing to assist its Hispanic community and what the Hispanic community has asked from them can be seen as two like-minded initiatives, connected by aspiration, and disconnected by perception versus reality. While the district continues to address the rising concerns of its Hispanic students with increased attention and resources, the Hispanic community continues to live in a constant and isolated bubble of fear, the severity of which, they claim, the district, for all of its efforts, simply cannot understand. Kennett Square psychologist Winden Rowe said that the local Hispanic community is one “saturated in anxiety,” a keystone member of the Kennett Square community who has become the vicitim of a federallyenforced mandate. “When you look at what’s happening with families being very suddenly broken up and an individial or individuals in the family being deported, that’s a trauma to the family,” Rowe said. “What’s happening is because immigration groups are going into mushroom farms and homes and residential complexes and finding people and deporting them without warning, it’s causing a lot of anxiety in children who have parents, uncles, aunts and grandparents who are undocumented, and they are under that constant stress as to whether their family will be able to stay intact because of policy.” Villafuerte’s four suggestions are not the only ideas being submitted to the KCSD board. In a letter to the board, Kennett Square resident Laura Gonzalez, Ph.D., supported the creation of the Borough of Kennett Square Human Realtions Committee. “We have seen improvements in terms of de-segregation but there are still many discriminatory practices happening among groups of people,” she wrote. “Some of these people are not even aware that they are discriminating, judging and misunderstanding each other. There is still a lot of work to do, but I am sure that we can do better.” Gonzalez recommended that the proposed commission teach workshops on cross-culture skills and ethnocentrism, designed to celebrate cultural differences among populations. Rowe recommended that KCSD consider providing home-bound educational opportunities for their Latino students, where children will be able to do schoolwork from home, blended with visits to school for instruction and assessment.
Incorporating the principles of a more sanctuary-based learning environment in the district, she said, can be achieved by changing the language of how teachers are trained. “Teachers are on the front lines of this,” Rowe said. “If anyone is going to know what’s going on with a student, it’s a teacher. These are people the student is in front of five days a week, and they are the most observant of what’s really going on with a student.” Villafuerte and Zavala -who attended Kennett High School and graduated from Penn State in 2016 -- belong to a contingent of local college-educated young adults of Hispanic ethnicity who are taking the conversation of immigration and deportation out of the kitchens of their parents and into the offices of local leaders. Some meetings have gone well and others have not, Zavala said, including a meeting she had with Tomasetti in November, soon after the presidential election. “I had been hearing post [presidential] election about the stress of the Latino community, and the emboldening of bullying in schools,” she said. “I decided to call on some of my friends - including Rosendo -- to meet with Dr. Tomasetti and [Assistant Superintendent] Dr. Michael Barber, and ask them why they hadn’t put out a statement. “We were met with a lot of resistance, and they accused us of overdramatizing the situation. We had also asked for social justice awareness, because we believed that we have a responsibility for compassion. Dr. Tomasetti said that it was important for the [Kennett schools] to remain free of politics.” Zavala said that the efforts of she and others are in response to a tendency in the Latino population to retreat from conflict for fear of retaliation, a practice mostly applied to the older generation. “There are many of us who have gone to college and come back and are taking care of our community and trying to hold our institutions accountable,” she said. “There is fear, but we all need to go beyond that, regardless of that fear.” While both sides of the
issue wrangle their way through a conflict in an effort to address a national crisis, many continue to applaud the choices being made to distance Kennett schools from the hot-talk political conversation of immigration and deportation and, rather than choosing to segregate its focus on just one cross-section of the school’s population, remain inclusive. KCSD board member Bob Norris listened to Villafuerte’s presentation on May 8. “I was searching my soul for what was the right answer for the community, and specifically, the kids,” he said. “The beauty of the Kennett Consolidated School District is seen in the diversity of Kennett Square. Fifty one percent of our children [in the district] are not white. Diversity is the reason a lot of us came to Kennett Square for, to provide our children with exposure to new cultures in order to broaden their upbringing. The schools are a representation of that diversity. “Our entire focus -- and it’s led by Barry -- is that every single child needs to rise to his or her potential, and we will do every single thing we can do to help that happen. It’s not just our marketing tag line. It’s the truth. So much of what our district does to help our children goes beyond just teaching them algebra. “In the end, education is not about politics, it’s about the kids,” Norris said. “It’s about how we can help them reach their highest potential.”
Penn Township seeks tracking system to fulfill state mandate By Nancy Johnson Correspondent At their May 3 meeting, the Penn Township Board of Supervisors discussed a resolution that would help them track small building projects in the township. Director of operations Karen Versuk explained that MS4 regulations are making this necessary. “Legally, we are required to track all stormwater [implications], so building inspectors need to record the square footage of all structures,” she said. The square footage of a house or other large structure on a property is recorded, since a building permit is required. But some small structures, such as sheds or patios, often don’t require a permit, so the township has no record of additional impervious ground on that parcel. “It’s a state mandate that’s kind of run downhill,” Versuk said. “We need to find a way to keep a total square footage per parcel.
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Continued from Page 1A
Legal marijuana growing and marketing were redhot items recently passed by the state legislature, and are drawing strong business interest everywhere in Pennsylvania and other states that have legalized medical marijuana. Some think that the idea is a bonanza – a no-lose operation. But just like gambling, any business soon runs into supply/demand cycles. (Uncle Irvin’s column is his opinion only, and is not a news story.)
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a traffic study should be required. The supervisors concluded the meeting with praise for the recent intersection reconstruction groundbreaking ceremony near the former Red Rose Inn. “It was good to see everyone come together on this. It wasn’t just about the Republicans or Democrats,” said O’Connell. “The bureaucracies involved are just unbelievable,” added Curtis Mason, the chairman of the Board of Supervisors. “It’s a state highway and there’s nothing we can do about it. We have no say, but yet we have to maintain the traffic light. It’s frustrating for us and it’s been frustrating for John [Lawrence, Pennsylvania State Representative] and Andy [Dinniman, Pennsylvania State Senator], who have both worked so hard to get this done.” While he is very happy that there is a firm commitment to reconstruct the dangerous intersection, Mason warned, “People really want this intersection done, but it’s going to take a while. You won’t see a shovel of dirt until next spring or summer.”
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To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, e-mail rgaw@chestercounty.com.
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We don’t care for it, but we have to do it.” Planning early for next winter, the supervisors approved the purchase of a backup snow-plowing truck. While they contract out the snow removal for the township roads, there are situations when having a fully equipped truck of their own would be helpful. Supervisor “Radar” O’Connell explained that they put out bids for a plow truck with a dump body and spreader through Pennsylvania’s Co-Stars cooperative program. “We got four bids and they were amazingly close – like only a couple hundred dollars apart,” O’Connell said. The lowest bid, $75,654 from New Holland Auto Group, was accepted by the supervisors. Skip McGrew reported that the Planning Commission met to welcome their new member, Bruce Van Kleeck, and to review the application for building a new Dunkin’ Donuts. “While we have no objections to a Dunkin’ Donuts, a land development plan is necessary,” McGrew said. He said the commission concurred with the traffic engineer that
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June 7 Cecil County Life June 21 Kennett Square Life July 5 Greenville & Hockessin Life