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State of School 2022 - 2023

Added Aug 29, 2022 •

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Fellow board members on behalf of myself and my fellow board members I want to thank you for attending this important meeting today our goal today is to share some positive changes and upgrade you may have seen at both East and West campuses some of these changes help improve the overall parents and functionality or School in our classrooms or more importantly other changes have been put into place to help ensure the safety and security of our most important stakeholders are children our board has worked closely with our Administration to implement significant security upgrades that will further enhance our best in practice security upgrades and measures in a few minutes Mr. Woodruff will detail some of those measures that we have put in place some will be seen and some will not be seen but please feel confident in the fact that many of the positions have been put in the place will provide a safer environment for students from an education stand point Divine Mercy Catholic Academy is again positioned to be the leader in our area in education and its Social Development of our young students this is all done in nurturing space-based environment are command teachers bring an average of 19 years teaching experience the Divine Mercy I continue to be amazed by her teachers and administrators in their unrelenting commitment to our students we here quite often about the DMCA advantage and they truly are the DMCA advantage tonight you will learn where we are at as a school and how you can help us grow from a funding perspective the state of Pennsylvania doesn't treat all students equal equally unfortunately it cost about $12,500 educate Divine Mercy student in the state doesn't really assist us too much of a degree the families at the attend our local parishes have nearly 60 percent of their tuition responsibility offset by the parishes themselves because they believed in Catholic system we're grateful for our parishes we're grateful to all of you for making that commitment the DMCA enclosing may God continue to bless and watch over our faculty staff families and our children as we begin another school year at the DMCA on behalf of myself and the board of directors welcome back now turn it back to principal Woodruff thank you Mr. Martella just like Mr. Martella I have three daughters within our system currently I have a 5th grader I have a first grader and I have a Pre-K 3 three-year-old so invested into school to say the least my wife is currently teaching as the Art Teacher down at Bishop McCort. And I'm also the 7th and 8th grade Jr High coach for Bishop McCort so that being said in order to keep this overall state of the school somewhat manageable time wise if you do have any questions we ask that you put them in the chat you reach out to us tomorrow during our open house or if you see us out and about feel free to pull us aside and ask your questions and as always our email and our phone lines will be open if you have any questions there was an opening for recitals nice picture so we'll look after sec so who are we are we are a pre-k through 6 centered Catholic school we are part of the Altoona-Johnstown diocese we do work in conjunction with the diocese are they help us for certain areas and they do offer offer us resources while we are Middle States accredited we are currently halfway through our latest accreditation so we are again planning to get recertified here in a few short years did the diocese does recognize us as on of the top parochial elementary schools within the region we do offer a full range of academic and extracurricular offering I will go through some of those little bit later in our slide but there's not all-encompassing there are extra things we are implementing every year and we are currently serving students from four counties and 12 different school districts a little bit about the structure right now we do have daily faith based lessons every student within our school has a daily religion class we have weekly Mass attendance at our East Campus we go every Wednesday at our West Campus we go every Thursday we currently are sitting at a 15:1 teacher to student ratio we have 32 certified instructors we have a certified school nurse and a certified school counselor now the school nurse goes back and forth between both of our campus is everyday she tends to start off at our East Camp and then before lunch transitions to the west campus the school counselor she does service both schools her schedules little bit different she tends to spend one full day at each campus and rotates and we do have supportive parent organizations I will put a plug in for our PTO the next PTO meeting will be September 7th it is a Wednesday the link will be sent out that day in a few days beforehand some of the research is that we are currently utilizing to make us a success we are working very closely with local parishes especially with our two I guess I'm going to call home parishes of our Mother of Sorrows and St. Benedict's we try to do in conjunction with them we have worked very closely with our local law enforcement agencies including Our West Hills Police Department and the Geistown police department they have also helped us Implement some of our safety things that I will go through a little bit later in the presentation but they have worked with us hand-in-hand to keep our students safe we do have world-class curriculum and state-of-the-art technology that if you do join us tomorrow for open house you be able to see that every classroom has a new a smart TV in them you can ask the teacher to go give you the demo and they are pretty neat you can also be a little bit more in-depth about what curriculum is being utilized within our walls we do have Community Partnerships currently working with Saint Francis University the Bottleworks Sandyvale Gardens Learning Lamp Footsteps and again I can spend the next five minutes listing more of them but this is just a quick overview of some of the outside resources that we are utilizing within our school a steps to a better education we're going to go through each one of these again the Divine Mercy advantage which encompasses Faith the growth of our students goal-oriented and we focus on the potential of our students not necessarily perfection and the hope that all students will grow with us first and foremost is our safety this is the physical emotional and intellectual safety of all of our students this is not something that we do set in stone before school and put it in place we don't touch it ever again we are constantly reviewing and evaluating how the our students remain safe within our school and again those law enforcement agencies are with us every step of the way we do have facility safeguards and we are in process of training continuing training and preparation for all of our staff members there are some safety aspects that you will see whenever you walk into each of our campuses are East and West Campus and there are some that you will not see that are always being upgraded go through some of those little bit later our teamwork we can only succeed if we work together as one so family involve is first and foremost and helping us to remain a successful school parish support has continued and will continue to be a very active and successful reason why we are here without the parishes and family involvement working as one we would not be able to do everything that we currently are doing as I mentioned before we do do a lot within the community and with regional resources as those opportunities present themselves to enhance the potential students we base everything on our growth mindset we determine what each student has and what we can provide them so they'd be able to reach their potential just allows our students not to be successful just locally but internationally as well this will also go hand-in-hand with our growth goal days that we have coming up on September 23rd we will provide a bit more about what those growth goals are as we get closer to that day but enhancing their potential is centered what those growth goals and it what those growth goal conferences are about as I said Faith and family are there Center for who we are we have daily lessons and faith-based activities we have parent communication school-wide expectations family events and activities that promote the family as a central unit of who we are are we also try to do Outreach so starting in September we will have our monthly service project that all of our students from pre-k through 6th will be able to partake in we try to have these centered around a local or a local charity that would benefit from our generosity we try to support all this is the needs of all students we do that through a multi-pronged approach we first and foremost set a safe nurturing environment for our students we base all of our programming it from the faith-based point of view we do provide academic enrichment and support so we able to take those students who are struggling and give those supports that they would need to succeed and we also take those students who need that additional enrichment and push them so that they can reach their full potential we also provide physical and mental support as needed we try to provide many extracurricular opportunities we are also we've also implemented these past few years are Botvin prevention program that is run by Mr Harchick he visits all students from east and west campus from grade 6 the way down through third grade we do provide enrichment for all students not just to Athletics but through the art we tend to do two different celebrations of the Arts one would be right before Christmas where are we to get a snapshot of all the artwork that all of our students have completed so far and we have an opportunity to put forth some of our musical talents that night and our singing talents that night down at Bishop McCort we do something very similar for spring celebration at the end of the year again we have a snapshot from all the students their artwork throughout the year in addition to another opportunity to show how much that we have grown in the musical field since Christmas time and again some other things that we do offer again be ongoing community service robotics Esports skiing golf tennis we do provide a whole lot of different opportunities and again this is not all encompassing We are continuing to grow and evolve meet the needs of our students so what is new since day one of last year when you walk into both of our campuses you and I'll see that we have new security doors at both campuses instead of being buzzed in through one door that is now two doors this is so that we can monitor who comes in and out of all of our buildings in addition to that upgraded entrance we are now having an upgraded video system and communication system that allows us to talk to people before they enter a building and when they come into our building before that second security door were able to see what they need to see if they actually need to enter our building we have updated at least class from the process of doing more at both of our classrooms which includes fresh paint brand new up-to-date flooring that brightens up the classroom and makes it more I don't want to say more exciting for our students as they walk in again tomorrow if you do come in for open house you'll see we have Smart displays in every classroom where students are currently and where they could be in the future and exciting starting hopefully late September we are going to be 2:1 school meaning every student will have a electronic device a Chromebook within our walls with in school and starting late September they will have the opportunity to have a Chromebook as home as well so they're actually going to have to Chromebooks to use at I'm not going to switch to how we invest a little bit into our future it is currently costing us around $12,500 to educate each student with that we have a goal oriented structure that we can only strive to meet with appropriate funding we do we have taken strides by there and there's a lot more that we can do to meet this large need for funding so there are certain things that you can do first participate with in your Parish but does not necessarily need to be our Mother of Sorrows or Saint Benedict's we are active within all of our parishes are we currently pulling in from most of the parishes with in Johnstown area So participate within your parish whenever we offer opportunities to come into the school or to talk to their teachers participate in those ask questions if you're not certain of something volunteer to help us in our school PTO become a coach for one of our our teams if you'd like to come in and you can we're always looking for lunchroom helpers to help clean tables between lunch rooms I'll promote our school is on school grounds but wherever you encounter someone and one of the most important thing that you could do is consider the EITC program now I'm not an expert at it is not something that it's very difficult to go through but at least can run you little bit more through that from redefine so I'm going to stop my share and I'll hand it over to thank you so much Ryan I'll make this quick I know many of you have EITC program so for those of you I want to be respectful of your time all right so as Ryan and both Chris talks about the cost of education is pretty significant at DMCA and they do an incredible job of keeping parents from having to make that $12,500 investment each year to cover that cost so EITC is such a large way for schools to help fund that gap and keep tuition affordable for all families so there's that parent contribution and the total cost of education and we want the EITC to help cover that gap so that parents don't have to get that total cost of Education out of pocket and we can do that with her tax dollars so what is EITC it is the educational Improvement tax credit program and it's a 90% tax credit that's provided to taxpayers there's that director tax dollars for financial aid and scholarships to local students so the easiest way to think about it is for every dollar that you give you get $0.90 back and it's a way to give to scholarships and then again give back get back from that contribution and I'm just going to take you through very quickly Brooke will I she also is on our team so you guys will hear from her and she's going to walk you through quick how it works to participate in the EITC basically the first thing that you want to do is you want to determine what your annual PA state income tax liability is and that number is found on your PA form 40 line 12 and you can also figure out that number by roughly estimating it roughly estimating your income by the .0307 I am not the PA income tax rate of 3.07 and what is a wonderful opportunity for a lot of the individuals and families around here you can participate as long as your income and that can also be joint your joint income is above $35,000 a year you would be eligible to direct your state tax dollars to the DMCA at through this EITC program household making $35,000 or more able to take the tax dollars that you're already paying so you can actually send them directly to add through this EITC program they all all of those dollar that were your taxes will then go to DMCA students and families to help cover the cost of tuition it's really simple simple process so today or anytime in the future you would sign that pledge form they did get sent home with all of the students today there are two forms I'm so if you have any question you only have to fill out one or the other and send it in to us so you would sign a pledge form send it to us you get an approval and you write your contribution then refunds do you get 90% of that contra the back-to-school gets that fool contribution again you get 90% back at tax time to very very simple The Pledge forms already have them if you do want to participate and you are paying taxes and would rather them go to the families in are in a Johnstown Community it's very simple fill out the form and send it to us write your contribution to the school gets the contribution and then you receive 90% of that contribution back as well so $1,000 turns into $1,900 the students of dmca would get $1,000 to cover tuition but then you would also receive $900 back if you did $3,000 that would be $5,700 worth of students of DMCA would receive all $3,000 and then you would also receive back $2,700 in the form of a refund again our company handled the entire approval process simply filling out that one page pledge form that was sent home scan it email it to us and then we will take it from there and notify you when it's time to take the next step in the fall so with that is very a simple we will make sure that the school sends out our contact information but you are more than welcome to find us on redefiningeducation.org the website you can go to contact us directly send us your form but we'll leave you with this because it is so important in that gap is so large for DMCA it does take all of us to come together as a community and support of one another through our EITC program when you think of all of the families that are paying PA state income taxes right now everyone or good majority of DMCA families would sign up for this program since you divert the tax dollars that you already have to pay to our students here at DMCA an incredible amount of change can happen and we could fund that gap and the school could fundamentally change the way that they run their financial aid program making it affordable for students and families in your community and then lastly if your income is below the $35,000 mark and you're not eligible to participate that's okay let's just everyone understand how important this program is and if you if you can't participate I'm sure you know someone who can show us it's about spreading the word they don't have to be Catholic they don't have to be connected to DMCA and anyway as long as they pay PA state income tax they can send those tax dollars to the school as well so we do run into you do business owners and individuals outside of Johnstown that end up giving to that financial aid bucket through the EITC program that is then disperse disperse to all of your you know families and students for tuition assistance so that was short and sweet if you have any questions feel free to reach out to myself which is the Elise or Brooke Sheasley who is on here as well and you can visit redefiningeducation.org on for more information or to contact us so with that I'll turn it back to Ryan so if you do need those pledge forms or if your students misplace them just let us know we have a stack the office that we can send home again it's a very easy process get the ball rolling again if you do have any questions feel free to reach out to myself or to Brooke or Elise they'll be more than willing to answer any questions they may have she will put are you going to send your email on the chat Elise I will leave that up we're going to end with the closing prayer but I will leave all of the the chats stuff there so get a  chance to copy and paste that it took you like to join me the closing prayer name the father time holy spirit amen as we close this meeting Lord we went to give honor to you thank you God for the time we had today to discuss issues and to share ideas may you bless each person who took time to gather here today and that your hand of protection be on them throughout the rest of the week in your name we pray amen the father son holy spirit thank you for your time tonight and if you do know of any family or friends did miss this this was a recorded presentation so that we can share it with them whenever they need it so thank you for your time