{"id":39155,"date":"2018-04-16T08:54:27","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T12:54:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=39155"},"modified":"2018-04-16T08:54:30","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T12:54:30","slug":"the-chester-county-intermediate-unit-supporting-education-across-the-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=39155","title":{"rendered":"The Chester County Intermediate Unit: Supporting education across the county"},"content":{"rendered":"

By JP Phillips<\/strong>, Staff Writer, The Times<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019ve driven by the Chester County Intermediate Unit (CCIU) Boot Road campus dozens of times.\u00a0 Except for attending a Forensics (Speech and Debate) competition there once and knowing my neighbor provided CCIU-contracted early intervention services in area homes, I knew nothing else.<\/p>\n

Apparently, I am not alone in my ignorance.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why the Unionville Chadds-Ford School Board invited the CCIU to make an informational presentation during their April 9th<\/sup> work session.<\/p>\n

Executive Director Joe O\u2019Brien explained that the 500 school districts in Pennsylvania are serviced by 29 Intermediate Units.\u00a0 The CCIU works with the 12 school districts in mostly Chester County to provide regional services and programs more cost-effectively than if each district provided the services themselves.<\/p>\n

The CCIU board of directors meets monthly and is composed of twelve members\u2014one each from each Chester County school district board.\u00a0 Their $243 million budget is paid for through government sources and the schools, based mostly on the specific programs and services each district contracts (to compare, Unionville and Kennett district budgets are around $86-87 million).<\/p>\n

Student services, including special education, provide the bulk of the CCIU\u2019s programing.<\/p>\n

Special education services<\/a> include many areas, including occupational and physical therapy programs, autistic, behavioral and learning supports, life-skills services, job transitioning\u201483 programs in all for students 3 to 21 years of age.\u00a0 Some schools keep programs in house with their own or CCIU-contracted staff.\u00a0 Many classes are also held at the CCIU.\u00a0 Pediatricians and hospitals routinely refer cases to the IU.<\/p>\n

Other educational services offered by the CCIU include county-wide enrichment opportunities like science fairs, spelling bees, forensics and other academic competitions.\u00a0 They also offer a schedule of \u00a0teacher professional development seminars<\/a>, and multi-course teacher certification programs<\/a> endorsed by the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE).<\/p>\n

CCIU maintains and operates three Technical College High School campuses\u2014Pickering<\/a> in Pheonixville, Brandywine<\/a> in Downingtown, and Pennock\u2019s Bridge<\/a> in West Grove.\u00a0 Students can attend part or full-time (with tuition paid by their school district) and get industry certificates or college\/high school dual credits, depending on the program (the CCIU has dual enrollment arrangements with 6 colleges).\u00a0\u00a0 Students can train for many different careers, including nursing, teaching, robotics, marketing, cosmetology, and the culinary arts.<\/p>\n

Also run by the CCIU, Brandywine Virtual Academy<\/a> gives students an on-line learning option allowing them to earn high school credits going towards their home brick-and-mortar school diploma.<\/p>\n

Unionville High School Principal Jimmy Conley confirmed that the Technical College staffs a booth at UHS\u2019 course selection night, and brochures are always available in the Guidance office.<\/p>\n

By using the districts\u2019 combined purchasing power, the CCIU negotiates for consumables such as electricity, oil and gasoline, getting the districts a significantly better price than if each one had to bargain separately.\u00a0 According to the CCIU presentation, approximately $8 million has been saved due to this joint purchasing arrangement.<\/p>\n

They also assist with the member districts\u2019 hiring needs.\u00a0 They just held a job interview fair for newly graduated teaching professionals, sharing recommended resumes with the districts.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien is proud of the fact that the CCIU treats the school districts as their customers and will do whatever it takes to develop customized program to meet their needs.<\/p>\n

He ended the presentation with a wonderful story about his first experience with the CCIU.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was the assistant principal at the high school level, and a very difficult student, who had been extremely disruptive and my (school) board needed him to go elsewhere, so we were basically expelling him from our schools. \u00a0But they also felt that the young man had the potential to be saved\u2026They would pay whatever it would take to find a place for him, but it would have to be outside of Springfield Delaware County High School.\u00a0 I called our local IU–and they said no.\u00a0 The kid had quite a reputation.\u00a0 I called Philadelphia who said no, and then my local IU called back and said, \u2018why don\u2019t you try Chester County IU?\u00a0 They don\u2019t say no.\u2019<\/p>\n

They accommodated that young man\u2026That young man graduated with his GED program, went into the United States Navy, served for 20 years.\u00a0 And I remain in contact with him today.\u00a0 He\u2019s the proud father of two daughters\u2026he\u2019s a productive citizen today\u2026It was CCIU who did that.\u00a0 It was the program out here (Chester County).\u00a0 All I did was get lucky enough to make that that one phone call to a group of good people that would go out of their way to accommodate that young man.\u00a0 I think honestly he was probably headed to jail, if there hadn\u2019t been an intervention by the CCIU.\u201d<\/p>\n

UCFSD Superintendent John Sanville added.\u00a0 \u201cWe have never called the IU and gotten \u2018no\u2019 for an answer.\u00a0 We always get \u2018yes.\u2019\u00a0 No matter what the request is, you always find a way\u2026and we appreciate that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By JP Phillips, Staff Writer, The Times I\u2019ve driven by the Chester County Intermediate Unit (CCIU) Boot Road campus dozens of times.\u00a0 Except for attending a Forensics (Speech and Debate) competition there once and knowing my neighbor provided CCIU-contracted early intervention services in area homes, I knew nothing else. Apparently, I am not alone in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[458,495,7426,43,633,11097],"class_list":["post-39155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-assistance","tag-chester-county-intermediate-unit","tag-featured","tag-schools-2","tag-students","tag-technical-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39156,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39155\/revisions\/39156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}