Education category, Page 59
Point Park threatens discipline against students who misgender others
Point Park University has issued a policy that threatens disciplinary action for students who misgender other students. In an email dated Sept. 13, university officials warned that misgendering students could result in a violation of the Policy on Discrimination and Harassment for gender-based discrimination. According to the email, “action could...
Duquesne University extends contract for President Ken Gormley
Ken Gormley will continue for an additional five years as president at Duquesne University, school officials announced Saturday. Duquesne’s board of directors recently voted to extend Gormley’s contract through the 2026-27 academic year. Board chair John C. McGinley made the announcement in video remarks at the school’s annual President’s Dinner....
Carnegie Mellon University robotics team earns 4th place in search-and-rescue competition
Carnegie Mellon University’s team of students, faculty, staff and robots placed fourth in a major competition testing how well their robots could navigate an underground course simulating a search-and-rescue mission. Called Team Explorer, the university’s team traveled this week to the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) challenge in Louisville,...
Covid-19 creates dire U.S. shortage of teachers, school staff
SAN FRANCISCO — One desperate California school district is sending flyers home in students’ lunchboxes, telling parents it’s “now hiring.” Elsewhere, principals are filling in as crossing guards, teachers are being offered signing bonuses and schools are moving back to online learning. Now that schools have welcomed students back to...
Steelers’ JuJu Smith-Schuster learns to sign during school for deaf visitVideo
Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster learned something at The Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf in Edgewood on Tuesday. Students in one of the classrooms showed him how to sign the words “defense,” “special teams” and, of course, “offense.” During his surprise visit to the school, he interacted with elementary,...
Pittsburgh schools superintendent Hamlet’s resignation is official with $400K payout
The Pittsburgh Public Schools board on Tuesday formally accepted Superintendent Anthony Hamlet’s resignation, effective Oct. 1. The board approved measures to accept the resignation and Hamlet’s severance package of nearly $400,000 which includes one year’s salary plus the value of his benefits. Hamlet tendered his resignation Sept. 8 after the...
TikTok challenge has students destroying Pa. school bathrooms
Because of a TikTok challenge, school bathrooms are being destroyed at an alarming rate nationwide, and Pennsylvania has not been spared. Boyertown Area School District Superintendent Marybeth Torchia told her school board in Berks County on Monday that is exactly what is happening there — vandalism is on the rise...
Team of Carnegie Mellon students, robots to compete in search-and-rescue missionVideo
Carnegie Mellon University is sending a team of about a dozen robots to a competition testing their navigation of an unknown underground course, meant to simulate search-and-rescue scenarios. The university’s 20-person team of faculty, students and staff — along with their league of robots — will compete in a Defense...
Gov. Wolf, teachers say kids are cool with masks: ‘It feels like an adult problem’Video
PHILADELPHIA — Wearing masks all day isn’t a big deal for Brooke Vaught’s 375 students. They compliment each other on their cool choices — bright colors, Batman, funky designs — they put them on, and get down to the business of learning. “We haven’t had any issues,” said Vaught, principal...
Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Anthony Hamlet resigns
Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Anthony Hamlet is resigning, effective Oct. 1, district officials said Wednesday. The move comes after the Pennsylvania Ethics Commission found Hamlet violated the state’s Ethics Act with regard to travel expenses, accepting cash for speeches and failing to make required disclosures of financial interests between 2016...
Jill Biden heads back to classroom as a working first lady
WASHINGTON — Jill Biden is going back to her whiteboard. After months of teaching writing and English to community college students in boxes on a computer screen, the first lady resumes teaching in person Tuesday from a classroom at Northern Virginia Community College, where she has worked since 2009. She...
Greater Latrobe, Derry Area students plan walkouts to protest mask mandate
Some students at Greater Latrobe and Derry Area high schools are planning walkouts Tuesday morning to protest the statewide mandate requiring students, staff and teachers in K-12 schools to wear masks. Greater Latrobe organizer Spencer Bowman, a 17-year-old senior, said he hopes the school board will vote to buck the...
Legal experts say Wolf administration has authority to issue mask mandate
Republican leaders in Pennsylvania said Tuesday that in issuing a school mask mandate, Gov. Tom Wolf and his administration are trying to circumvent the will of the people expressed through the passage in May of a constitutional amendment. Legal experts said that the emergency powers amendment approved by voters in...
Wisconsin school board reverses on opting out of free meals
WAUKESHA, Wis. — A Wisconsin school district has reversed a decision to leave a federal free meals program following widespread criticism and loud protests from parents and others. Waukesha school board members said they received threats in the wake of national attention after voting to opt out of the program...
Commission: Pittsburgh schools Superintendent Hamlet violated Ethics Act
Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Anthony Hamlet violated the state’s Ethics Act with regard to travel expenses, accepting cash for speeches and failing to make required disclosures of financial interests between 2016 and 2018, the Pennsylvania Ethics Commission said in a report issued Thursday. At a news conference Thursday morning, Hamlet...
Half of Pa. school districts with mask mandates are in Allegheny County, officials say
There are 59 school districts in Pennsylvania with mask mandates, officials said Wednesday. About half of those districts exist in Allegheny County. Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald praised those 30 Allegheny County school districts and their school boards for instituting the mask mandates, a move meant to protect, among the...
Pittsburgh’s Environmental Charter School mandates covid vaccinations for employees
The Environmental Charter School’s mission is to grow citizens. It is along that vein, its chief operating officer said, that they have become one of the first in the area to mandate covid-19 vaccinations for their staff. “We need to operate as global citizens — we’ve got to model that...
Franklin Regional, Hempfield and Norwin schools team up for K-5 online academy
Three area school districts are banding together to create an online academy for students in kindergarten through fifth grade during the upcoming school year. Franklin Regional, Hempfield Area and Norwin formed the consortium Westmoreland Online Academy. A total of six teachers — two from each district — will be assigned...
North Allegheny teacher honored for spearheading student jump rope fundraiser
Like any good teacher, Dean Boronyak knows that making things fun can often be a great way to motivate kids. So when the North Allegheny physical education teacher was looking for ways his students could raise money for charity, he came up with a solution that channeled their boundless energy...
Franklin Regional prepares to open doors to new primary, intermediate elementary schoolsVideo
Teacher, administrator and staff comments about Franklin Regional’s new elementary campus largely center around a similar theme: possibilities. From new large-group instruction areas to creative media centers to little “pocket” areas where small groups can meet, collaborate or receive additional learning support, new educational opportunities are scattered throughout both the...
Pittsburgh Public Schools board OKs Sept. 3 start date
Students in the Pittsburgh Public Schools have a new date for the first day of school. The school board Wednesday voted to revise the calendar so that the first day of school will be Sept. 3, rather than Sept. 8. The district had initially planned to start classes on Aug....
Pennsylvania teachers union: Schools should require masks
Pennsylvania’s largest teachers union on Wednesday urged K-12 schools to require masks in school buildings, a measure that state officials are encouraging but not mandating. The Pennsylvania State Education Association cited the threat of the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus, which is spiking infections and hospitalizations across the...
Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh to require masks in school
Masks will be required for the start of the school year at all schools within the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. The mask mandate applies to all students, faculty and staff, regardless of vaccination status — unless a medical or developmental condition prevents an individual from wearing a mask, the diocese...
Slippery Rock launches new College of Health Professions
Citing growing workforce needs and the popularity of a series of graduate health care and health information programs, the Slippery Rock University council of trustees approved the creation of a new College of Health Professions. The academic unit that will officially begin operating next fall will provide a central home...
Penn State’s faculty senate passes ‘vote of no confidence’ on university’s fall covid-19 plan
Penn State’s faculty senate formally passed a vote of no confidence Friday on the university’s fall covid-19 plan, slamming the administration for what it perceives as an inadequate response while again reiterating its desire for a vaccine mandate. The resolution stopped short of directly expressing no confidence in the Penn...
