DASD Parent Partners

Here in DASD we are especially sensitive to the great need that we have for mental health services in our schools. These grants were part of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities act, passed after the horrific tragedy in Uvalde, Texas...just one of many of the same kind.

School shootings are only partly the result of the lack of enough common sense gun laws.

They are also due to a sad lack of access to mental health care.

Halting these grants is just one more barbaric attack on our schools.

Please show up to our school board meetings and get involved with making sure our kids can still thrive without this money. This includes electing school board members who value empathy and diversity and will always fight to ensure that ALL kids are SEEN and INCLUDED.

Education Department stops $1 billion in funding for school mental health Congress created the grants in the aftermath of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. The goal was to help schools hire mental health professionals, including counselors and social workers.

This children's book was written by a DASD family as a way to raise money and spread kindness in memory of their son, who left us much too early at the age of 15. It is a story of empathy and inclusion and how one small act of positivity can make a big difference.

It's a message that we need more of in the world these days...please consider buying a copy for your little ones or to donate to a DASD or public library, or to leave in one of the little libraries around town.

Phil's Bright Star Join Phil and his family as they discover that even the smallest act of kindness can brighten someone's day. With every act of kindness they share, the night sky grows brighter for all.

These kids make us hopeful.

Thank you for this thoughtful post, Chester County Ramblings . We couldn't have said it better ourselves.

If you don't feel like learning about the book banning problems our country has, please at least read this:

If you don't want your child to read something because it goes against your "deeply held beliefs", you have every right AND the ABILITY to call your school/librarian/district and let them know that your child is not to check that book out. They will make a note on their account and your child will be restricted from it.

Easy peasy, lemon squeazy.

You DO NOT have ANY LEGAL RIGHT to restrict ALL children from reading materials because YOU don't like it. Calling it po*******hy by YOUR STANDARDS does not make it so by LEGAL standards.

And if you don't know the difference, maybe you should educate yourself about it.

A book would be a good place to start doing so.

radnor township school district is banning books. what’s next? branding students they don’t feel are normal according to klanned karenhood? To say I am outraged is an understatement. We’re talking about books that no matter what you think about them aren’t being taught as part of curriculum, they are merely on shelves in a library. Peo…

If your child has an IEP or a physical disability, they are benefiting from diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs.

The federal Department of Education provided 10% of Pennsylvania's Education budget last year. This was distributed to school districts to fund Headstart and school lunch programs, Title I school funding, and special education and disability services for kids under IDEA.

The loss of DEI and the federal DoE is bad for our special needs kiddos.

Please download the FiveCalls app and raise your voice to your elected officials every day about this and so many other issues (guidance/scripts on a variety of topics and phone numbers are provided).

The federal Department of Education has deployed an End DEI portal and encouraged citizens to submit complaints about diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

If you know someone who is anti-DEI, help them understand what it really looks like in schools; every child benefits from an education built with diversity, equity, and inclusion in mind.

Thank you for voting for common sense school board members in DASD. Let's continue to fight extremism by voting blue up and down the ballot on November 5th. Every race has an impact on your life and the future of your children.



“The fiscal costs to the district are enormous, but [so are] the cultural costs of not standing up to the extremists,” a superintendent said.

..an average district that experienced a relatively low level of political conflict in the last school year had to spend around $250,000 to address the direct and indirect costs and staff turnover, while districts with the highest level of conflict were faced with costs of more than $800,000.

The largest portion of that money came from the “turnover costs” of replacing staff members who left their jobs or retired early because of personal attacks or the broader demoralizing school climate, they said.

Nationwide, that per-school cost added up to an estimated $3.2bn for one school year... for just under $2bn, they estimated “it would be possible to expand the national Free Breakfast program budget by 40%”, or “hire an additional counselor or psychologist for every public high school in the United States”.

It wasn’t that (superintendents) were “being challenged because they weren’t doing their work correctly, or following a vision that someone thad set out. They were being called a pe*****le, or their staff members were being called pe*****les, or their school board members,” he said.

US public schools burned up nearly $3.2bn fending off rightwing culture attacks – report Researchers surveyed 467 schools and found funds for learning improvements were diverted to security, PR and attorneys in wake of targeting

Very well said. For everyone urging us to "be more inclusive of other viewpoints"...
And to those who doubt that devastating harm and HATE still befalls the LGBTQ community EVERY. SINGLE. DAY...

"If you talk to the LGBTQ community...you will hear a whole lot of heartbreaking versions of what they consider to be “lucky”. Their parents didn’t disown them. They are lucky. They haven’t been physically assaulted. Lucky. They survived a terrorist attack. Lucky...

I guess you could call me intolerant. Smack that sticker on my forehead, I don’t care. For years, I have tolerated far too much from the bigoted backrow Baptists. But the paradox of tolerance states that if a society's practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant…in the end, intolerance will win the day.

And that’s exactly how people die dancing." (At Pulse nightclub)

https://marykatherinebackstrom.substack.com/p/wishing-all-the-homophobes-a-super?r=2482ib&utm_medium=ios&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR055b2m2RVSI4L73syfYQ401Ea8cJhWdhuBt-I50R37ghUZKzXi-eFdDV8_aem_ZmFrZWR1bW15MTZieXRlcw&triedRedirect=true

Wishing All the Homophobes a Super Uncomfortable Month ...and no, I won't tolerate our differences.

This is a lovely way to say that every issue and every person is deeply nuanced. It's hard but important to see our friends as more than one thing.

The war going on in Gaza is a perfect example and while incredibly complicated, we can be Jewish and stand with our Muslim brothers and sisters, and vice versa. We can disagree with an action taken by a country or administration and still support their right to exist.

Whether discussing reproductive rights, Israeli/Jewish/Muslim rights, trans rights, or women's rights, every child and person deserves to be seen and respected as a human being.

Some of our kids are about to graduate from high school and commencement speeches are happening all over the country. This one is from last year but has a message that needs to be repeated over and over.

https://youtu.be/ihpF0Z71CGE?si=HpHCWzHJ4atgrx-V

Please consider helping to make post prom happen at DHS East! They are critically low on volunteers and this is one event that our high schoolers look forward to for years!

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/KxCnY18UDjNKGNn5/?mibextid=qi2Omg