Fayette - Education For Live

March 6, 2022

Fayette alumnus named director of local nonprofit

LEMONT FURNACE, Pa. — Penn Point out Fayette alumnus Steve Bizarre has been named the executive director of the East Conclusion United Neighborhood Center (EEUCC) in Uniontown.

Unusual grew up in Hopwood, Pennsylvania and attended Laurel Highlands Higher School. He graduated from Penn State in 2006 with a bachelor of science degree in sports journalism following completing the initially two many years of his degree at the Fayette campus.

“I advise Penn State’s 2+2 approach to anyone,” claimed Unusual. “The Fayette campus is a perfect bridge from large college to the larger university working experience. Without having Fayette, the transition would have been tricky for me.”

Peculiar labored at Nemacolin Resort right before relocating to Florida, where, he reported, he found a passion for teaching.

“When I taught actual physical instruction in elementary university, I figured out how to talk to small children, how to type a bond and communicate the language of an 8-year-previous,” said Strange.

Lacking close friends and family, he returned to Pennsylvania in 2012 and spent 4 several years performing in the coal mines, like his father.

“I became mentally and bodily burnt out, so I experienced to swallow my pleasure and start contemporary in my mid-30s to test and carve out a route in training once more,” he stated. “Penn Condition taught me resilience — to make again much better.”

In 2019, he was functioning as a substitute instructor when he identified an opening at East Conclude United Neighborhood Heart for an after-college teacher. He would be promptly promoted to director of the right after-school software, which serves Margaret Bell Miller, Albert Gallatin North, and Albert Gallatin South middle educational facilities.

The East End United Local community Centre serves the East Close neighborhoods of Uniontown, where 45{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of people are people today of coloration and nearly 40{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} dwell very well below federal poverty tips. The center provides following-college programming, childcare and loved ones solutions, truancy prevention, nutrition programming, diaper and clothes banking companies and a lot more.

Peculiar served as interim government director prior to accepting the function completely in September of 2021. Underneath his course, EEUCC started out a partnership with Fayette County Behavioral Health to give mental wellbeing companies to neighborhood customers. Furthermore, Bizarre secured funding to give continuity for following-university programming. He stated he hopes to go on to broaden providers and amenities in the potential.

“The mission of EEUCC is to provide the neighborhood,” he reported. “There are so lots of in our neighborhood who need enable in tangible strategies — like with housing, foodstuff, transportation — as nicely as with mental overall health, or even techniques to socialize. The most susceptible populations among us are no diverse from anyone else.”

Odd lives in Hopwood with his wife, Katie stepson, Jackson and son, Stevie. For additional info on the East Stop United Community Centre, take a look at EEUCC.org or call 724-437-1660.

December 4, 2021

Management review found weaknesses in Fayette schools

From academics to organization, Fayette County Public Schools have multiple weaknesses, a management review released Thursday found.

School district officials will address the findings through a new strategic plan developed by a community advisory group and a staff working group.

The district is paying $87,200 for a follow up review of organizational alignment, communications, human resources, equity office, financial services, operations, teaching and learning and family and community engagement. An initial review from the same consultants occurred in 2016.

Scott Joftus, president of the Maryland-based educational consulting firm Four Point Education Partners, gave school board members several findings at a Thursday meeting that included:

▪ School improvements are not implemented evenly or as effectively as possible.

▪ The Central Office’s organizational structure is not optimized to meet the needs of schools. Data should be more accessible and usable.

▪ Job responsibilities and authorities are frequently not understood.

▪ Several barriers are preventing schools from implementing the curriculum effectively and ensuring educational excellence and equity for all students.

▪ Greater attention needs to be paid to students who are struggling academically, with tutoring, smaller classes and other support.

▪ Professional development is not a strength of the district, with only four days officially set aside.

▪ The need for equity work is great. Achievement rates among Black and Hispanic students attending schools with high concentrations of minority students are lower than those attending schools with lower concentrations of minority students.

▪ The district is “not getting it quite right” in the Department of Equity, which has been in flux for a number of years. The department should be restructured and data used to hold Central Office accountable for lowering the achievement gap of minority and disabled students, the review found.

▪ Family and community engagement is not well coordinated.

▪ Communication has not been prioritized by district leadership.

▪ The district struggles to hire staff of color.

▪ The Department of Human Resources is not set up correctly and is likely understaffed.

▪ There should be more standard operating procedures in areas such as maintenance.

▪ Student enrollment and staffing projections are not handled effectively.

▪ A comprehensive review of the district’s informational and instructional technology is needed. That is especially important because adequate staff was not added after students were assigned laptops to help with virtual learning.

On a positive note, the review found the school district is in sound financial condition.

Also, the review found the school district had introduced several systems — including preschool — to improve teaching and learning and educational equity. And the review found the district has a strong student behavior management system.

Central Office staff will be asked to improve support for schools, improve communication, promote equity and use data to improve performance.

Staff writer Valarie Honeycutt Spears covers K-12 education, social issues and other topics. She is a Lexington native with southeastern Kentucky roots.

November 5, 2021

Fayette board votes to close Gauley Bridge Elementary School | State & Region

The Fayette County Board of Education voted 5- on Thursday to close Gauley Bridge Elementary College at the stop of the existing faculty calendar year.

Closure hearings ended up held earlier in the week at each influenced schools — Gauley Bridge Elementary and Valley PK-8. There had been two speakers from the public at the GBES hearing on Tuesday and none at the Valley PK-8 hearing the future night.

The closure now ought to go right before the West Virginia Board of Education in December, said Fayette County Educational facilities Superintendent Gary Hough.

Previously this calendar year, the regional board approved closure documents which outlined shuttering the Gauley Bridge building and consolidating the college with Valley PK-8 in Smithers at the get started of the 2022-23 faculty phrase.

The main causes cited for recommending the closure have been declining enrollment and price of repairs needed at the Gauley Bridge structure, which was developed in 1976.

Universities in the county saw a 17.1 per cent decline in enrollment from 2010-11 to 2020-21. In that cycle, Gauley Bridge enrollment peaked at 207 in 2014-15 and 2015-16. Second-thirty day period GBES enrollment in October 2020 tumbled to 77, and the enrollment when the closure document was prepared had fallen to 52. It dropped to 48 when formal 2nd-month figures were unveiled very last thirty day period.

Appraisals of both the Gauley Bridge and Valley structures in 2019 in depth HVAC difficulties, amid other issues. Numerous updates have been built at Valley since then. Renovation costs to bring GBES up to code would be $1,422,896, the document pointed out.

Downsizing will let the college procedure to “continue excellent academic packages for the college students of Fayette County and to continue to be in compliance with point out and federal laws and laws,” the document’s reasons and supporting info phase browse in element.

Hough, a previous principal at GBES, mentioned the university was an “enjoyable faculty” at which to work and that he “liked operating with the local community.” Around the decades, he reported, “The academics and the staff members have worked really difficult.”

That mentioned, enrollment figures “had these kinds of a decline” that “sustainability was a little something we could not continue there.”

Board member Steve Slockett, the Valley District representative, praised Gauley Bridge faculty teachers, workers and administrators for “giving a caring educational ecosystem for the learners.” The details in the closure document “remaining us no preference” but to vote as they did, he reported.

Starting off subsequent fall, Valley PK-8 will be the lone public college remaining in the Valley District of the county.

In a connected note, the Fayette board voted in Could 2021 to close each Divide and Ansted elementary faculties. Those students and staffs are anticipated to occur together in the proposed Midland Trail Elementary School, a PK-5 college eyed further down the line on the campus of Midland Trail High in Hico. A FCS delegation appeared right before the point out Faculty Developing Authority on Nov. 2 to request $9.4 million in SBA funding to go toward developing the new elementary faculty. Monies from a FCS money advancement fund totaling $6 million will be added to the combine if the SBA at some point approves that request.

Electronic mail: [email protected] or comply with on Twitter @gb_scribe