Student news from the Fox Chapel area

Two Fox Chapel Area High School and A.W. Beattie Career Center students recently placed in the SkillsUSA Pennsylvania District 8 competition.

Senior Casey Forst won a gold medal in the medical math competition. Casey is a student in Beattie’s Introduction to Pharmacy program and has now qualified for the SkillsUSA state competition April 12-14, 2023, in Hershey.

Fox Chapel Area High School and A.W. Beattie Career Center senior Madisyn Elwood received a silver medal in the medical assistant competition. Madisyn is a student in Beattie’s Health and Nursing Sciences program.

The SkillsUSA District 8 competition was held in January at Pittsburgh Technical College. The competition was open to students from 10 career and technical education centers from across the greater Pittsburgh area.

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Two FCAHS and Beattie Career Center students will be inducted into the National Technical Honor Society this year. Senior Casey Forst participates in the Introduction to Pharmacy program, and junior Christina Panza is in the Health and Nursing Sciences program. The students will be inducted during a ceremony in late March at the Beattie Career Center.

To be considered for the honor, students must maintain a grade point average of 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale, have a grade of at least 95% in their career training program, and miss no more than five days of school. Candidates also must have a clear disciplinary record and belong to a service organization or participate in an extracurricular activity.

Students and families interested in learning more about the center’s programs can attend an open house from 5:15-8 p.m. on March 2. The school is located at 9600 Babcock Boulevard in McCandless.

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Six Fox Chapel Area School District students recently placed in the individual portion of the 2023 regional CalcuSolve competition. Dorseyville Middle School seventh grader Maddox Chiu tied for first place and achieved a perfect score in the seventh- and eighth-grade competition.

Sixth-grader Rishi Krishnamurthy tied for first in the fifth- and sixth-grade portion of the contest and achieved a perfect score, and sixth-graders Celestial Hou and Delaney Liu tied for third place. Fairview Elementary School fifth grader Shengfeng Fei and O’Hara Elementary School fifth-grader Brian Xu tied for third in the fifth- and sixth-grade contest.

A total of 212 students participated in the seventh- and eighth-grade competition, and 344 students participated in the fifth- and sixth-grade contest. The competitions, sponsored by the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, were held Feb. 2-3 at Duquesne University and included students from Allegheny and surrounding counties.

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Three Fox Chapel Area High School students placed in a Black History Month essay contest sponsored by Stop the Violence Pittsburgh.

Junior Isabella White received first place, junior Safiyyah Muhina won second place, and senior Nathaniel Green was awarded third place in the grades 11 and 12 category.

The essay topics were “What is Juneteenth?” and “Why should Juneteenth be celebrated in America?” Eighty-three students in grades 9-12 from Western Pennsylvania school districts participated.

The contest was held in conjunction with the fifth annual Student Black History Month Summit, a free educational program for high school and college students held Feb. 15, at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall in Oakland. Twenty-Six FCAHS students from the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council and the Black Student Union participated.

Stop the Violence Pittsburgh is a grass-roots community organization designed to curb youth violence, culturally educate members of the community, and promote inclusion and diversity.

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In recognition of American Heart Month and Damar Hamlin’s CPR Challenge, Shady Side Academy Middle School trained every student in grades 6-8 in hands-only cardiopulmonary resusciation and use of automatic external defribullators during Valentine’s Day week from Feb. 13-17. The new program aims to teach more students lifesaving skills at a younger age.

The program was being spearheaded by Middle School Fitness and Wellness Teacher Betsy Gorse. It is inspired by the cardiac arrest suffered on the field by Hamlin, a Buffalo Bills player and North Catholic High School graduate, during a Jan. 2 game with the Cincinnati Bengals.