• Skip to main content
District Home

4-Day Cycle Friday Day 1

eagle head logo

Jacksonwald Elementary

Grades K-4 | 610-779-1820

Search
Close
  • Schools
    • Exeter Township Senior High
    • Exeter Township Junior High
    • Reiffton School
    • Jacksonwald Elementary
    • Lorane Elementary
    • Owatin Creek Elementary
    • Exeter Cyber Academy
  • About Us
    • Principal’s Welcome
  • Academics
    • Curriculum Overview
    • Kindergarten
    • 1st Grade
    • 2nd Grade
    • 3rd Grade
    • 4th Grade
    • Specials
    • Student Support & Special Education
    • PSSA Testing
    • Title I
  • Students & Parents
    • Attendance
    • APT
    • Bell Schedule
    • Bullying Policy
    • Commuter & Busing Information
    • Flexible Instruction Day (FID)
    • Food Services
    • Forms
    • Health Services
    • Kindergarten Registration
    • Music
    • ParentSquare
    • Safe2Say Tipline
    • Schoology
    • Skyward
    • Student & Family Resources
    • Student Handbook
  • Counseling
    • Counseling
    • Student Assistance Program (SAP)
  • News & Calendars
    • News
    • Calendars & Events
Directory

JACKSONWALD ELEMENTARY

100 Church Lane Road | Reading, PA 19606
(610) 779-1820

Click Here For A Searchable Directory
  • Office

    x5103 Matt Hathaway, Principal
    x5101 Dani Merkel, Secretary
    x5102 Marybeth Eckenroth, Attendance Secretary

  • Counselor & Psychologist

    x5210 Kate Atkinson, School Counselor
    x5712 Jodi Landis, Psychologist

  • Nurse

    x5104 Nicole Strauss

  • Technology Support

    x5136 Kristin Kenagy

Note: Faculty phone numbers go to voice mail during school hours

  • Kindergarten

    x5427 Christine Druzba
    x5425 Lori Simmons
    x5426 Ashley Weaver

  • Grade 1

    x5119 Christina Ibanez
    X5121 Becky Krommes
    x5120 Kristine Schmidt

  • Grade 2

    x5124 Val Bloch
    x5123 Cyndi Lorady 
    x5126 Christine Motley

  • Grade 3

    x5219 Jenna Conrow
    x5221 Kaitlyn Lohr
    x5217 Stacia Miller
    x5220 Karlee Perilli

  • Grade 4

    X5226 Melissa Adams
    x5224 Brianna Amanto
    x5227 Elizabeth Caruso
    x5225 Todd Papich 

  • Reading & Intervention Specialists

    x5211 Hillary Arndt, Intervention Specialist
    x5422 Rachel Gierlich, English as a Second Language
    x5212 Nancy Salvatore, Reading Specialist
    x5207 Allison Shuman, Reading/Intervention Specialist

  • Special Education

    x5419 Karyn Algeo, Autistic Support
    x5117 Jennifer Elliott, Learning Support
    x5127 Heather Gromlich, Autistic Support
    x5223 Trisha Maguire, Learning Support
    x5218 Saranne Reisig, Learning Support
    x5423 Robyn Shaffer, Autistic Support
    x5125 Kathleen Walker, Gifted

  • Specials

    x5150 Matt Hadley, Physical Education
    x5417 Heather Hafer, Music
    x5208 Amy Parsons, Art
    x5418 Emily Reppert, Instrumental Music
    x5138 Wendy Wegman, Library

  • Therapist

    x5420 Daria Robinson, Speech Therapist

Home » Exeter Schools & Police to Hold Parent Presentation

Tuesday, December 12th at 6PM in the LGI in Exeter Township Senior High School
PRESENTED BY:
Mrs. Alycia Lenart, Exeter Township School District K-12 Student Support Coordinator
Sergeant Detective Rocco DeCamillo, Exeter Township Police Department

Please RSVP in ParentSquare

“Make no mistake, this is an eye-opening, worldwide problem affecting our students here in Exeter,” said Sergeant Detective Rocco DeCamillo to the faculty of the Exeter Township School District during a professional development session held at the Senior High last Tuesday. “To make things worse, we know there are a lot of cases here that are not being reported because it takes a lot of courage to go to a parent, a friend or to the police. This is why I think it’s important for you to be aware of this issue in case you have a student who considers you a role model and decides to confide in you.”

The issue is called sexting, and it can often lead to an even more serious issue called sextortion. “One can lead to the other one, but they are two very different things,” said DeCamillo, who was joined during the presentation by his colleague, Exeter Township Police Detective Anthony Pendell.

In short, DeCamillo explained that sexting is sending sexually-explicit messages, images or videos to another person. Sextortion, however, is a form of cyber blackmail where a perpetrator often demands money to refrain from publicly releasing sexually-explicit messages, images or videos of the victim. These issues, said DeCamillo, are ones that affect adults–as well as minors, too. “You might think of this as a high school problem, but we’re seeing sexting more frequently at the junior high level,” he said. “But what’s even scarier is that we’re starting to see it more frequently in preteens, too, which is scary. The victims–and their offenders–are becoming younger.”

To complicate matters, minors are very savvy with finding ways to hide explicit content and conversations from their parents–and perpetrators are just as savvy at finding their victims. Rather than using traditional texting methods, DeCamillo said that minors and offenders alike use social media, texting or gaming platforms to send or receive content, such as WhatsApp, XBox, Instagram, Playstation, Roblox and Snapchat. On these platforms, adults often pose as minors, cultivating trust and a following by requesting mutual friends. Once a relationship and trust has been established, DeCamillo said that perpetrators will often start by requesting selfies of the minor victim. “Younger kids–those who are 11 or 12–almost can’t help but send these selfies of themselves out naked. They think they’re talking to a 15 year old, but it’s really a 43 year old who is harvesting child pornography.”

Currently, the most frequently used platform is Snapchat. “Snap is the devil,” DeCamillo said as he discussed the app’s encrypted feature called “My Eyes Only,” which is a hidden vault that erases all content as soon as a user asks for a password reset. This, he said, even prevents law enforcement from finding and recovering those photos once a report’s been filed, giving kids a false sense of security about hiding–or sending–naked selfies on the platform. “Kids often don’t think of the ramifications of when they hit that send button there’s a whole lot of things that can come out of it,” he said.

Minors who send sexually-explicit photographs lack the understanding that this is a crime under PA law; however, DeCamillo stressed that the focus of Exeter PD is more on education rather than on the arrests of minors. “This is not a situation where we can arrest our way out of it. It’s not that simple, and arrest isn’t always the answer.” Instead, he said that the department works to educate minors about the pitfalls of sending sexts and how repeated or more serious offenses can get them in serious trouble. Beyond criminal or legal issues, he also warned that sexting can lead to other problems, such as, grooming, destroying a person’s reputation, sextortion or mental health problems. The latter, he said, is unfortunately common, and is something that profoundly worries him and his department. “If the messages wind up in the wrong hands, it can be so mentally damaging to an adolescent teen.” Reflecting on cases outside of Exeter, he said solemnly, “Sometimes, it’s so extreme that children have taken their lives over it,” he said. “Sometimes therapy doesn’t quite work out, their reputation is destroyed and they feel they have no other option other than suicide,” he said with a pause, “It’s heartbreaking.”

Superintendent Dr. Christy Haller and Assistant Superintendent Mrs. Dawn Harris organized the session with Detective Sergeant DeCamillo and Detective Pendell to bring a greater awareness to teachers of this issue, which is only growing, according to the figures the detectives presented. Between 2019 and 2021, the number of reports involving sextortion doubled, according to their report, wth 45% of sextortion perpetrators actually carrying out threats, and 25% of victims seeking mental health help following an incident.

Like last year’s edibles presentation, the professional development session proved to be so popular with educators that Detective Sergeant DeCamillo and Detective Pendell, along with the district’s K-12 Student Supports Coordinator, Mrs. Alycia Lenart, have decided to offer a similar session to parents and families so that they, too, could learn what police are seeing in the local community, as well as how to talk to their kids about sexting and sextortion. The parent and family session will be held on Tuesday, December 12, 2023 at 6PM in Exeter Township Senior High School’s Large Group Instruction (LGI) room.

Jacksonwald Elementary School

jacksonwald

Address & Contact Info

  • 100 Church Lane Road
    Reading, PA 19606

  • Phone:
    610-779-1820

  • Fax:
    610-779-8844

Follow us on social media

Our Schools

Exeter Township Senior High

Exeter Township Junior High

Reiffton School

Jacksonwald Elementary

Lorane Elementary

Owatin Creek Elementary