March Meeting Highlights:
Dr. Carol Birks, CUSD Superintendent helped us kick off our meeting by sharing the wisdom, “No significant learning can take place without relationships.”
Our spring activity flyer is finalized and available to share with the community.
We have also created a very short survey for families to share their concerns about their children’s level of physical activity during the pandemic. Please feel free to share it and let us know if you want to have the results for your grant applications or other purposes: https://forms.gle/1ynTVjpc6gv6FJwR6
New members who introduced themselves included:
Chris Hanlon of the CCSA Foundation, who aspires to start a wrestling program for Chester
Kate Schrauth, who has 30 local mentors from Bryn Mawr Trust ready to work with Chester kids through her ICouldBe.org program
Kathleen Gast of Holcomb Behavioral Health Systems who advised us that her organization has grants for prevention education programming. Details at https://chimes.org/services/behavioral-health/prevention-and-education-programs/delaware-county-prevention-services/
Alexia Clarke shared: A coalition of community leaders from across Delaware County is working together to develop a plan for strengthening the behavioral health, mental health, and substance misuse services for K-12 students attending schools in Delaware County. Please take one of the short surveys linked below and/or register to participate with a virtual focus group at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSenvRyP--Z7qSMjmmRRvUzmBBwGLtW0LIIupkwEhFUL0faqIg/viewform?usp=sf_link
Family Survey: https://survey.iad1.qualtrics.com/.../SV_e50niW3YVTEM2Ym
Staff Survey: https://survey.iad1.qualtrics.com/.../SV_agURER8n8tiRhuC
Our guest speaker was Tre Hadrick, an educator and literacy advocate who learned firsthand through his son’s experience about the importance of decodable books. He recommends The Science of Reading for background. He hopes that we can all find ways to weave reading into our programming. Free books are available to schools and organizations at https://form.jotform.com/202163609898061
A number of our members emphasized the importance of modeling reading as a leisure activity, especially men as role models to boys. Others talked about the opportunity to integrate reading into every activity. One breakout group discussed the possibility of starting a newspaper that children from all mentoring groups can contribute to. Please reach out to jeannine@chesteruplandyouthsoccer.org to discuss if interested.
Some statistics on the importance of literacy:
According to the National Adult Literacy Survey, 70% of all incarcerated adults cannot read at a 4th grade level, “meaning they lack the reading skills to navigate many everyday tasks or hold down anything but lower (paying) jobs.” Data supports that those without sufficient income earned by work are the most prone to crime.
85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally low literate.
High school dropouts are 3.5 times more likely than high school graduates to be arrested in their lifetime.
Penal institution records show that inmates have a 16% chance of returning to prison if they receive literacy help, as opposed to 70% who receive no help.
Our next meeting will be April 15 at 10AM, featuring Tina Jackson on CHIP.
Thank you all for your amazing contributions to our community.