Education category, Page 62

The first day of elementary school for the Diocese of Pittsburgh will be Tuesday, Sept. 8, school administrators announced . The diocese said the change is in response to some elementary school teachers requesting more time to implement new health and safety protocols. High schools in the diocese will reopen...

Penn Hills School District officials unanimously approved their reopening plan Wednesday night and pushed back the start of the upcoming school year. The reopening plan includes hybrid learning as well as an online option for families not confident just yet with sending their children back into the buildings during the...

Almost every child wants to look cool when they go back to school. In Mt. Pleasant Area School District, parent-teacher organization members want children to feel cool as well. The group hopes district officials will allow them to buy about $40,000 worth of portable air-conditioning units for its elementary schools,...

Weeks before students are expected to return to school, some districts are scrapping reopening plans in an effort to match state guidance and to account for spikes in coronavirus cases. At least two area districts, Franklin Regional and Bethel Park, drastically altered health and safety plans school leaders worked on...

As families weigh the rapidly evolving landscape at colleges across the state, officials at Pennsylvania’s 14 community colleges say they are ready to accommodate students faced with last-minute decisions about the fall semester. “We estimate a student could save as much as $20,000 on the cost of an education if...

Seven local colleges and trade schools were awarded more than $900,000 in federal grants to help underwrite public health and safety plans for reopening shuttered campuses. The grants that flowed through the state are part of a $28 million pool of federal CARES Act money state officials set aside to...

As schools prepare to resume teaching, the leaders of Pennsylvania’s health and education departments on Monday said districts should be consistent in approach but flexible in how they educate students. A spike in covid-19 cases in a county may require districts to change how they plan to teach students, said...

Reopening schools is easy. Keeping them open will be the hard part. As educators prepare to welcome students back to class for the first time in months, schools’ ability to quickly identify and contain coronavirus outbreaks before they get out of hand will be put to the test in thousands...

When Ethan Wyman graduated from Fox Chapel Area High School a semester early last winter, his plans were pretty much set. The O’Hara Township teen would keep working at Giant Eagle and then head to the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg campus this fall. He and his family liked the...

Reports of suicidal or self-harming thoughts by Pennsylvania students reported to the state’s Safe2Say Something tip line increased after schools shut down in March because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to an analysis by Attorney General Josh Shapiro. Between July 2019 and March 13, 17% of all tips received by...

The Westmoreland Christian Academy, a private interdenominational Christian school in Hempfield, is enrolling students and plans to reopen on Aug. 24, said the school’s administrator. The school, which features a Bible-based curriculum, had about 30 students in kindergarten through 12th grade last year, said Justin Tomson, middle school and high...

The Pittsburgh Promise will offer a gap year for recipients affected by the covid-19 pandemic, the organization announced Thursday. Pittsburgh Public Schools students who graduated high school from 2017 through 2020 will have five years — rather than the usual four — to utilize their scholarship award. “We know that...

Finding a way to use medical marijuana to treat sickle cell anemia will be the focus of a $3 million research program at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. It is part of a 10-year agreement with Goodblend Pennsylvania LLC, Pitt’s new affiliate in medical marijuana research. State officials...

Hempfield Area School District has a new assistant superintendent for the 2020-21 school year. Kimberlie Rieffannacht was approved unanimously by the school board this week for the assistant superintendent of elementary education position. The job was previously held by Matthew Conner who was named assistant superintendent for secondary education last...

In March, school districts across the state were ordered closed by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf to help curb the spread of coronavirus. Now, they are now developing new health and safety protocols in an effort to restart instruction in the coming weeks. Some will begin with online instruction, some will...

Thousands of students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania who thought they would head back to campus this fall learned Monday that will not be the case. IUP will be offering both in-person and online learning when classes resume Aug. 24. But only incoming freshmen, international students, graduate students and those...

Pittsburgh Public Schools will officially use remote instruction for the first quarter of the school year, the board of directors voted Friday afternoon in a virtual meeting. The vote came in response to a resolution made last week by Board Member Kevin Carter, who proposed the district stay online for...

Westmoreland County Community College will offer its 5,000 students a mix of in-person classes, remote classes and online classes when it reopens Aug. 17, the school announced Friday. The plan developed by college administrators is subject to change, depending on mandates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and...

Indiana University of Pennsylvania announced Friday that an in-person commencement for the class of 2020 has been canceled and replaced with a virtual ceremony. The school had planned an in-person ceremony on Sept. 12 to honor May and August graduates. Citing more restrictive guidelines for indoor gatherings and increased concern...

With families concerned about the safety of students returning to schools amid the covid-19 pandemic, cyber charter schools and the online academies run by school districts are seeing an increase in demand, officials of the schools said. “Pennsylvania’s public cyber charter schools have been inundated with inquiries about their schools...

The Wilkinsburg School Board voted unanimously to begin the new school year with a full distance, online learning curriculum on August 31. The vote was 9-0. The decision was made based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data regarding the coronavirus pandemic, guidance from the Pennsylvania Department of Health...

Two of the region’s universities have partnered to form a path for students to receive a master’s degree in human resources — a business specialization that focuses on the administrative duties and policies in an organization. Point Park University students who receive a bachelor’s degree in Human Resources Management can...