Citizens for Carlisle Schools
Jon Tarrant | The Sentinel
Nov 4, 2023
"...with nonpartisan leadership focused on strong academic standards, smart budgets, good teachers and engaging parents, we will continue to strive for excellence."
Carlisle public schools are remarkably successful. In an economically and culturally diverse community, dramatically underfunded by the state, we manage to serve our students and community quite well.
How, you might ask? First, there is a cooperative relationship between the board, administration, faculty and community. This matters. In other districts with dysfunctional and contentious school boards, administrators and teachers often look elsewhere for employment.
What Carlisle has is a strong, diverse district striving to serve all our students. Be they college-bound or career- and vocationally oriented, students are encouraged, engaged and motivated to succeed. This is why our district tanks in the top 10 of all schools in our region, and we score higher than the statewide averages in math, science and reading.
In recent years, to address student performance gaps, support services have expanded with the addition of professional staff. Curriculum in all areas is constantly developed and refined to meet student needs; support for students with IEP’s or English Language Learners has expanded. Efforts to improve graduation rates by identifying at-risk students earlier are currently in place and regularly re-evaluated.
Could our schools become even stronger? Of course! All schools suffered learning losses during the pandemic, but already observable signs of progress and recovery are underway in Carlisle. To turn our school board over to inexperienced candidates endorsed and supported by outside extremist groups would be an unfortunate error that would be catastrophic for our schools and risk the recovery and progress we have made.
CASD is not perfect, but with nonpartisan leadership focused on strong academic standards, smart budgets, good teachers and engaging parents, we will continue to strive for excellence.
In the Nov. 7 school board election, please vote for the team of Bussard, Clash, Shane, Stroud and
Tarrant.
Jon W. Tarrant
Candidate for Carlisle Area School Board
Read Jon's letter