Announcements

No Lunch Served – 10/4/24

All students must bring a bagged lunch to school on Friday, October 4th.

Picture Day – September 30th

Monday, September 30, is School Picture Day. There is NO makeup day available so please make every effort for students not to be absent or tardy. All staff should come to the gym before 9:45; don't wait to be called. Students in 7th-12th grade are to arrive at the school (by bus or other transportation) and go directly to the gym BEFORE going to homeroom. Students in K-6th grade are to arrive and go directly to class. They will be called and photographed together after the 7th-12th graders.

Flag Football players in 7th-12th grade will also be photographed. Please bring your uniform for the team photo.

Please cooperate! We have to be done by 9:45. If you have any questions, please contact Mrs. Russell at 724 274 4846 or by email to office@cheswickchristian.com. Thanks for your support.

PSAT 2024

The calendar on this website has been updated to include the PSAT date for 2024. It is Saturday, October 12th. See Mr. Todd Rosio for details on taking the PSAT here at the school.

Sun Bucks Update

DHS SUN Bucks Resources:

1.      DHS SUN Bucks website: https://www.pa.gov/en/agencies/dhs/resources/summer-ebt.html

2.      Eligibility Navigator – a tool on the DHS SUN
Bucks website that allows families to determine if their child is automatically
eligible for SUN Bucks and whether they need to apply. Online: SUN Bucks Eligibility Navigator (pa.gov).

3.      SUN Bucks application – a fillable online
form on the DHS SUN Bucks website or a paper form obtained at the family’s
County Assistance Office (CAO).

·      SUN Bucks applications are due by 8/31/2024 to be considered for the 2024 benefit. Applications received by DHS after 8/31 will be considered during the 2025 summer application period.

4.      Family FAQs – printed on the DHS SUN
Bucks website

5.      Recorded Family FAQs - 1-877-762-1575

6.      SUN Bucks questions via
phone beginning 8/19/2024:  1-877-395-8930, or 1-215-560-7226 in
Philadelphia

Summer EBT – “Sun Bucks” Food program

Summer EBT/SUN Bucks
Benefit

Family Letter

What is Summer EBT/SUN Bucks:

A new program called Summer EBT, or “SUN Bucks,” has been authorized by a bipartisan U.S. Congress to
provide food dollars to low-income families with school-aged children over the
summer months. The program is proven to reduce food insecurity and improve
children’s nutrition during summer break. Governor Shapiro’s administration
announced that the Commonwealth would participate in this program beginning in
the summer of 2024. The

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) oversees the
program, and the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (DHS) coordinates
the benefit issuance in Pennsylvania.

Who is Eligible:

A student is
automatically eligible for 2024 Summer EBT/SUN Bucks if they are enrolled
at a school that participates in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) or
School Breakfast Program (SBP), AND they qualify for free or reduced-price
school meals for any of these reasons:

1. Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP), or

2. Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families (TANF), or

3. Medical Assistance with income
that qualifies them for the NSLP/SBP, or

4. Household meal application with
income that qualifies, or

5. Are homeless, runaway, migrant,
foster, or in Head Start

If your child is automatically eligible for Summer EBT/SUN
Bucks, you do not need to do anything else to receive the benefit.

If you believe your income qualifies (185% or less of the
federal poverty level), you can still apply for free or reduced meals through
the school (unless your child attends a Community Eligibility Provision* (CEP)
school) or apply for the Summer EBT/SUN Bucks through DHS. See “Summer EBT/SUN
Bucks Application” below for details.

Students who are homeschooled or are taught virtually for
100% of the school year are ineligible for Summer EBT/SUN Bucks. The only
exception is if the child also attends a school building regularly that offers
them NSLP/SBP school meals.

*IMPORTANT: Community
Eligibility Provision (CEP) is a special program that allows NSLP/SBP
schools in low-income areas to feed all students for free during the school
year, regardless of each student’s economic level. However, Summer EBT/SUN
Bucks is based on each student’s situation. Students at CEP schools are not automatically eligible for Summer
EBT/SUN Bucks unless they receive SNAP, TANF, or Medical Assistance
with income that qualifies them for free/reduced meals or are homeless,
runaway, migrant, foster, or in Head

Start.

Summer EBT/SUN Bucks Application:

Families should only submit a Summer EBT/SUN Bucks
application if their child attended an NSLP/SBP-participating school in the
2023-2024 school year and was not found automatically eligible for Summer
EBT/SUN Bucks.

Summer EBT/SUN Bucks applications will be available on July
1, 2024, on the DHS SUN Bucks webpage as a fillable PDF form in English and
Spanish. DHS will review the family’s application to confirm that the child
attended an NSLP/SBP school, and that the family income qualifies for the
benefit (185% or less of the federal poverty level). To qualify for SUN Bucks for
2024, an application must be submitted by August 31, 2024. Any applications

submitted on or after September 1, 2024, will be held and
considered only for SUN Bucks for the summer of 2025.

Benefit Issuance:

For the summer of 2024, a household will receive a $120
Summer EBT/SUN Bucks benefit (which equals $40 for each summer month) for every
eligible child in the household.

The benefit will be issued at the household level, meaning
if multiple eligible students are in a household, the benefit will be combined
into one issuance amount. The benefit will be issued to the family’s existing
state EBT card (for SNAP or TANF) or on a new SUN Bucks card that is mailed, in
most cases, to the household contact and address DHS has on file for that
household. Schools are not able to
change this information. If your SNAP, TANF, or Medical Assistance
information needs to be updated, contact your County Assistance Office. If the
household does not have a SNAP, TANF, or Medical Assistance case with DHS, the
address that the school has on file will be used.

DHS will issue the 2024 Summer EBT/SUN Bucks benefits from
late August to September 2024. All benefits should be issued by the end of
October 2024. This may seem late for a benefit intended to assist eligible
children and families over the summer months. DHS is building new processes and
systems to meet USDA guidelines for this new program. Families are asked to be
patient and understanding during this implementation year. The intent is for
the benefit to be issued earlier in the summer break in future years.

Schools cannot assist
families with Summer EBT/SUN Bucks benefit questions. Schools cannot access the
state’s Summer EBT/SUN Bucks system or records.

Summer EBT/SUN Bucks Resources for Families:

DHS and their County Assistance Offices offer family support
for Summer EBT/SUN Bucks.

The DHS Summer EBT/SUN Bucks webpage for families can be
found here:

http://www.dhs.pa.gov/SunBucks. This webpage provides
information about the benefit, Frequently Asked Questions, the SUN Bucks family
application, and an eligibility navigator tool to help families determine if
they need to apply.

County Assistance Offices can provide family support for all
Summer EBT/SUN Bucks questions. A CAO locator tool is found here:
https://www.dhs.pa.gov/services/assistance/pages/cao-contact.aspx

The Statewide Customer Service Center can be reached by
phone at 1-877-395-8930, or 1-215-560-7226 in Philadelphia.

Note:  DHS asks families not to call the County
Assistance Offices or Statewide Customer Service lines regarding not receiving
Summer EBT/SUN Bucks before the end of August 2024, when almost all the Summer
EBT/SUN Bucks benefits for automatically eligible children have been issued.

SNAP, TANF, and
Medical Assistance households that need to update their address with DHS should
do so as soon as possible.

Policy on Tuition and Fees

The Policy on Tuition and Fees has been updated on our website for 2024-2025. There is a 6% increase in tuition for 2024-2025.

2024-25 Calendar

The 2024-25 School Calendar is now posted on this website. Go to DOWNLOADS, and you will see that both calendars (the current year's and next year's) are posted together in the same slot. Just scroll down to see next year's.

FACULTY PARKING LOT

The faculty parking lot is for faculty only! We have a limited amount of parking spaces and too many faculty members to fill them unless used wisely. It is not to be used for student pickups and drop offs between 8:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Parents are not to use the lot during business hours unless approved for delivering or picking up a child on crutches, for instance.

Parents paying tuition at the high school business office should park in the front of the building on Pittsburgh Street, not in the faculty lot. Also, when making a tuition payment, if the steps are too difficult to navigate, just call the high school office and someone will come down to receive your payment.

In Case of Emergency

In case of emergency where we would have to evacuate the buildings, we have made arrangements with Jarvie Funeral Home while Harmar House is being repaired from a recent fire. All cell phones would be turned on and accessible for parent communications.

CCA 23/24 Food Services Info

The free / reduced, breakfast / lunch app for 2023-24 is now on this website under DOWNLOADS. In addition, there is a letter regarding our program and the directions for filling out the application.

Lunch Payments

This is a reminder that all lunch payments must be made separately from tuition & enrollment payments. They are two separate accounts. Thank you! For both, though, write checks to CCA.

Important Information Regarding Direct Certification Expansion to Include Medicaid Reduced Households for School Year 23-24

The
Pennsylvania Department of Education, Division of Food and Nutrition
(PDE, DFN) is excited to announce that beginning School Year 2023-2034,
the USDA has selected Pennsylvania to expand the Direct Certification
for Demonstration project for Households receiving Medicaid, to include
students in household where the household income meets the guidelines
for reduced price meals. With this change, students will automatically
show on the Direct Certification List as directly certified for reduced-price meals via Medicaid (DCMA-R). 

This
change supports access to school meals by helping to ensure that
students eligible for reduced-price meals take advantage of the benefit.
Families in this category will no longer need to submit a household
application for school meals. This change will also reduce the
administrative burden on schools, as fewer household applications will
need to be processed and verified.

To
implement the DCMA-R function, all online application approval systems
and point-of-service systems will require updates to include a
feature/category that identifies students who qualify for reduced-price
meals via DCMA. All School Food Authorities (SFAs) must
communicate this change with their point of service and/or online
application approval system vendors as soon as possible to ensure that
all changes are implemented to begin with the start of the 2023-2024
School Year (July 1, 2023).  Additional details for SFAs to provide to
vendors will be provided in the upcoming weeks, however, in the
meantime, SFAs are strongly encouraged to make their vendor(s) aware of
the upcoming changes.

Lunch Assistance Program Expands

Effective October 1, 2022, PA will increase the income threshold for all applicants from 160 percent to 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Income Guidelines. With this change, it is anticipated that approximately 174,000 households will be newly eligible for SNAP.

Read the full press release here: https://www.media.pa.gov/pages/DHS_details.aspx?newsid=857#:~:text=Effective%20October%201%2C%20Pennsylvania%20will,on%20average%2C%20%2463%20a%20month.

Food Assistance Programs

Foodfinder.us is a nonprofit website that offers the location and contact information of more than 40,000 food pantries and similar food programs across the country.  Other food assistance sites include:  fns.usda.gov and pittsburghfoodbank.org.

Amazon Smile

When doing your online shopping at Amazon, choose Amazon Smile (https://smile.amazon.com) instead of Amazon.com.  Then, select CCF (Cheswick Christian Fellowship) as your charitable organization!  Every eligible purchase will count towards $ for us.  The shopping is exactly the same with the same products and prices.  The only difference is Amazon sends us a portion of your purchase in the form of a check because we are a 501(c)(3) organization!  Many people are already doing this, so we are getting frequent checks from Amazon.  It is a great deal for us!

Remote Learning Days (Formerly Snow Days)

The document discussing remote learning days for 2021-22 has been posted under DOWNLOADS on this website.

Free/Reduced Price Meals Eligibility – memo from DOE

• The following is an announcement from a 1/19/21 DOE memo:

Covid-19 relief packages recently passed
by the United States Congress contain numerous benefits for families
financially impacted by the pandemic.  Some
of these benefits are available to students who are eligible for free or
reduced-priced school meals.

If you believe your school-aged
child(ren) may qualify for free or reduced-price meals this school year and
have not yet submitted the application for free or reduced-price meals to the
school, we encourage you to do so as soon as possible.  The application is listed in downloads on the
Cheswick Christian Academy website, entitled Free/Reduced Lunch Application.

The application then will be used to
determine which benefits your child(ren) and/or household may be eligible to
receive.  Please be aware that applying
for free or reduced-price meals will not impact meals that your child(ren)
currently receives through the school.

Tuition

Tuition must be paid by midnight on the last day of the month it is due or a $20 late fee will automatically be assessed. If payment is late 2x, the academy reserves the right to REQUIRE payment for enrollment to continue. Paying tuition on time is the responsibility of the parent, not the student.

If you know you will be late with a tuition payment, you may call the main office at (724) 274-4846 BEFORE the payment due date, telling us when to expect payment and the late fee may be waived, but you must call BEFORE the payment is due.

Parking and Checks

Regarding Parking:

The faculty parking lot is NOT to be used for student dropoffs or pickups during the school day from 8:00 to 3:30.  Do not pick up your child at the end of the day in the faculty lot unless your child has a doctor's medical excuse.  Avoid parking in bus zone areas, in Cheswick Fire Department zones (marked red on Spruce Street), in the elementary school turnaround or blocking anyone's driveway.  Short stay dropoffs and pickups can happen on Pittsburgh Street, Highland Avenue, and the opposite side of Spruce Street.

Checks:

Checks for lunch are to be made separate from tuition checks.  If combined, they will be returned to you.  The lunch account and the school account are two different accounts.

Unexcused Absences & Tardies

As stated in our rules, when a student is absent (either for a whole day or half day) or tardy, an excuse from the parent or doctor is required within 3 days.  If an excuse is not received, the absence or tardy becomes unexcused.  We have been informed of a new PA law, effective immediately, which states that as a non-public school we are not required to take action on unexcused absences or tardies, but we are to report them to the student's home school district once the number of unexcused absences or tardies passes three.