Education category, Page 41

This story was produced by the State College regional bureau of Spotlight PA, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom dedicated to investigative and public-service journalism for Pennsylvania. Sign up for our regional newsletter, Talk of the Town. The Penn State Transparency Tracker is an ongoing effort by Spotlight PA to document and...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Everywhere, it seems, back-to-school has been shadowed by worries of a teacher shortage. The U.S. education secretary has called for investment to keep teachers from quitting. A teachers union leader has described it as a five-alarm emergency. News coverage has warned of a crisis in teaching. In...

Since Frock Childcare Learning Center began offering a free pre-K program, the center has served a “broader range” of local children and families, Frock teacher Lauren Markiewicz said. Two years ago, the Mt. Pleasant center partnered with the Private Industry Council of Westmoreland/Fayette to offer Pre-K Counts, a division of...

Pennsylvania parents will soon be able to check making breakfast off their list of things to do in the morning rush to get their children ready for school. Starting Oct. 1 and running through the remainder of the 2022-23 school year, that morning meal will be provided in schools. Gov....

Students participating in the Career and Technical Education program at Pittsburgh Public Schools will have increased access to job shadowing, paid internships and jobs, city and school officials announced Friday. A partnership between the city, the school district and local corporate partners aims to prepare students for the workforce and...

Saint Vincent College is set to break ground Friday for its new Dunlap Family Recreation and Athletic Center. The new 72,000-square-foot building will be located near the Fred Rogers Center on the college’s campus in Unity. It will include facilities for recreation and exercise, intramural athletic competition and varsity athletic...

Seton Hill University is partnering with digital platform The Zone to help student-athletes connect to mental health services. Supported by a $25,000 grant from the Staunton Farm Foundation of Pittsburgh, the university will offer a mobile app to Seton Hill athletes, allowing them to request tele-help for mental health issues...

The latest round of grant funding by the nonprofit Franklin Regional Panther Foundation will help fund a portable podcast studio, a mariachi festival and much more. Franklin Regional Senior High School teacher Jim Passarelli secured a $9,900 grant that will allow the district to take advantage of a long-abandoned area....

People are talking about the Biden administration’s student loan relief plan “as if these loans will magically disappear,” according to Antony Davies, economics professor at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. The problem is, they won’t. On Aug. 24, the administration announced its plans to cancel up to $10,000 of student debt...

A member of the Seton Hill University faculty has been recognized by the Pittsburgh-based State of Black Learning organization for her career achievements. Tricia Shelton, an assistant professor of education at Seton Hill, recently received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the organization’s Black Educators’ Excellence Awards. The ceremony was held...

Do you have a vegetarian living in your home? Even a little one? There are many kinds of vegetarianism, but many folks are reducing the amount of meat in their diets, or cutting it out altogether. And these choices are being made by kids, too. So with the new school...

ATLANTA — Five of the 19 students in teacher Chelsea Grant’s third grade classroom are reading below grade level. When it’s time to read aloud on a recent Friday, the students show vastly different levels of skill and confidence. “Remember you read with expression, feeling and fluency,” Grant told her...

Greensburg Salem School District is looking to get students more engaged in learning as they returned to the classroom Tuesday for the fall semester. District Superintendent Ken Bissell said in a letter posted on the Greensburg Salem website that staff have been “busy all summer preparing for engagement in teaching...

Residents of Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia and 10 other states could end up with a surprise tax hit of hundreds of dollars next year on forgiven student loans. President Joe Biden’s announcement that the government would forgive some student debt for individuals earning less than $125,000 was welcome news to...

Over the course of Craig Johns­ton’s 20-year engineering career, the thought of becoming a teacher often crossed his mind. But it wasn’t until 2020 — months before the covid-19 pandemic would shut down most aspects of day-to-day life — that Johnston took the leap. In January of that year, Johnston...

Following the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., Pennsylvania lawmakers approved a grant program with the goal of getting $300 million to state school districts for security upgrades. Four years after the killing of 17 people, schools in Western Pennsylvania are continuing to make...

Upperclassmen, alumni, faculty members and family pitched in Wednesday to help first-year students settle into campus residence halls at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg. Final enrollment figures weren’t available for the fall semester, but university President Robert Gregerson said, “Enrollment is up from last year. We had a really...

Virginia native Grace Merrbach was all smiles Wednesday when she learned of the student loan forgiveness program announced the same day by President Joe Biden. “I’m very excited,” said the 21-year-old senior biology major at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg. “That gets rid of all of my student debt...

Wake up. Check your phone. Go to class. Check your phone. Start homework. Check your phone. Go to bed. Check your phone. For some high schoolers, cellphone use is almost on par with blinking, with the average teenager raking in up to nine hours of screen time each day, according...

The Greensburg Salem School District is inviting the community to celebrate local school pride at a Back to School Bash Wednesday at Greensburg’s Offutt Field. Admission is free for the event, which is slated for 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Urania Avenue and Laird Street. It will take place...

Move-in day at the University of Pittsburgh will mean wearing masks for the estimated 8,000 students lugging their belongings into campus housing starting Saturday. With covid-19 transmission still in the high level in Allegheny County, the university requires masks to be worn indoors, as per CDC guidelines. Face coverings are...

There’s nothing quite like new school year excitement — unless you’re overwhelmed by all of the back-to-school prepping and hype. Whether it’s being on time, dealing with first-day nerves or making sure your student has a happy return to class, area educators, parents and school officials share their tried-and-true back-to-school...

Hope Albert had a bad habit of using run-on sentences in the papers she turned in for her college courses. But that problem, and others that hampered the Washington Township senior’s written compositions at Seton Hill University, are in the past tense, thanks to help she received through one of...

Franklin Regional school board members filled a couple of the positions left open after the departure of several administrators in the past few months. School directors approved a new assistant superintendent and assistant high school principal, following the resignations of Robin Pynos and Ted Benning, respectively. Matthew Delp joins the...