Dear Families:
Welcome to the 2022-2023 school year! I hope you had an opportunity to relax, recharge, and enjoy the summer break with your loved ones. I’m extremely excited for this school year for many reasons, and I thank you for your dedication and support for the programs in this District.
All signs point to a very productive school year. Our skilled and dedicated staff have been planning and preparing for the first day of school. Our office teams are registering students, ordering needed materials and updating student files. The maintenance and custodial staff have been thoroughly cleaning the facilities and making repairs where needed. Our administrators have been staying on top of the latest best practices and have participated in many professional development opportunities over the summer
such as beginning the process to update the district comprehensive plan, working on Portrait of a
Graduate, representing DLSD in the Learning 2025 Project and enhancing ways that we can provide
parents with opportunities to meet with staff before the school year begins. Please stay tuned for
information regarding our first ever “Meet the Teacher” virtual event on August 23rd.
Our buses have been inspected by the PA State Police and received a perfect rating. Thank you to the
wonderful mechanics! The transportation department has reviewed and arranged the bus stops for this
year and you will be happy to know that all of our buses will be geared with new cameras. The District
will be partnering with Bus Patrol to not only retrofit the fleet with internal cameras, but also to provide
stop arm cameras to help stop individuals from running the red lights of a school bus when they are
preparing to stop. Deer Lakes is one of the first districts in Western Pennsylvania to add the Bus Patrol
stop arm cameras to their fleet. Installation of these cameras will be finished by mid September.
The District has always focused on safety and has made enhancements to the ways that we protect our
staff and students. We will continue to have West Deer police officers at each of our school buildings. In
addition, all classroom doors have been outfitted with Nightlock Lockdown 2s, which are small metal door
barricade devices that lock and secure doors from being opened from the outside. We are also working
toward a number of additional security measures to make our school campuses safer than they have ever
been through a PCCD grant, and we look forward to sharing those details with you in the future.
Mental Health and Wellness has also been a focus in our district and we continue to provide programs
and resources to our students such as having school counselors in every building, Student Assistance
Teams, Threat Assessment Teams, a School Psychologist, a Mental Health Liaison, a Social Worker,
School Based Therapy Services, and the DLSD/Wesley Family Services Partial Hospital Program.
Students also have access to research based prevention programs such as: Stand Together, Hope
Squad, Renew Room, Olweus Bully Prevention, PBIS Support K-12, and Second Steps K-8.
Our middle and high school staff and administration have been trained this summer in Positive Behavioral
Interventions and Supports. PBIS continuously teaches and models expected behaviors. PBIS also
incentivizes and rewards positive student behavior, which has greatly benefited students and staff in our
Curtisville Primary and East Union buildings in recent years by encouraging and empowering students to
be kind and supportive of their peers.
We are excited to see all of you soon, and we hope you enjoy the next several weeks before school
starts.
Sincerely,
Dr. Janell Logue-Belden
Superintendent of Schools