Trauma care, middle school costing out approved in U.D.

UPPER DARBY » A program that will focus on caring for students who have been exposed to trauma was approved Tuesday night by the Upper Darby School Board.

NeuroLOGIC, a trauma-informed care professional development plan, will be implemented for the next school year at a cost of $197,000. The cost will provide four hours of professional development to district staff to bring new insight on how to focus on the caring of a child and provide two specialists who will work with 30 students at the high school.

NeuroLOGIC is an initiative by North Wales-based corporation Lakeside, a specialized organization that focused on “brain-based, trauma-informed approach to serving young people.”

The board all voted for the program, save for Lee Jordan and an absent Ken Rucci.

“Where we I cannot vote said.

The NeuroLOGIC expense to the district in the 2018-19 budget is one contributing factor that will add to an already looming $9.55 million deficit in a yet to be determined proposed final budget.

The board at its April 24 committee meetings was presented with $3.7 million in additional expenditure requests to include in the budget, including NeuroLOGIC are in the budget, on this now,” Jordan and $3.5 million in staffing requests. These two areas would bring the total deficit to $13.27 million against a $209 million budget.

A proposed final budget will be presented to the board and public at a special meeting on May 14. Comments on the budget will be taken on May 22 before a vote is made to adopt the proposed final budget. The final budget can be worked on up until it’s slated date of adoption on June 19.

In the same report that included the NeuroLOGIC contract, the board unanimously approved to cost out building a new middle school on recommendation by the facilities committee. This will provide the board and administrators the cost to build a new facility to hold about 500 students in grades sixth through eighth. A location to potentially build has not yet been determined.

There was no word on who will be performing the costing out analysis.