EDUCATION
Educators networking at a Remake Learning event in 2014. Photo by Ben Filio for Remake Learning.

Remake Learning collaborates with leaders around the world during Learning Planet Festival

By |

In India, children as young as four are beginning to learn about sustainability and climate change through play. In Nigeria, early-career teachers are being mentored to bring innovative techniques to classrooms and learn to change the world. And in the Pittsburgh region, a series of “moonshot grants,” inspired by last year’s Tomorrow Grants, will soon offer $1.1 million to fund experimental ideas for the future of learning. These learning initiatives, and many more, were on display earlier this week during the international Learning Planet festival, which convened — virtually, for the Covid era — a global community of education thinkers and innovators. Their goal?

EDUCATION

Pittsburgh Public board again delays student return to in-school learning, calls on district to survey needs

By |

Pittsburgh Public students won’t return to brick-and-mortar school buildings until April 6 at the earliest, following a decision by the school board Wednesday evening and a two-day, 127-speaker public hearing in the days leading up to the decision. 

The board approved a resolution in a 7-2 vote, following amendments, to keep students at home in remote learning through the beginning of the school year’s fourth quarter. Board members Sala Udin and Devon Taliaferro voted against the amended resolution, signaling a desire to bring students and teachers back sooner than April. Board members Pam Harbin and Terry Kennedy presented an amended version of the original resolution at Wednesday’s meeting, which had more than 1,000 stream viewers, with additions to address transportation challenges and growing student needs. Among the changes to the resolution:

The district is expected to conduct a current survey of student needs for support, transportation availability, staffing levels and building health and safety protocols. A parent/guardian survey will be circulated on or before Feb.

EDUCATION

Voice your struggles: Pittsburgh university students create spaces to talk about mental health during the pandemic

By |

Facing a deepening pandemic, another stretch of mostly online classes and a national backdrop of political turmoil, Pittsburgh-area students are turning to their colleges — and to each other — to meet growing mental health needs. Kayla Koch, a senior at the University of Pittsburgh, said students were already struggling with the transition that college life brings, but the pandemic has made everything harder. “The entire pandemic is a time of trauma," Koch said. "We are all living through a trauma and expected to produce and exist as if we are not.”

She's working to create a space for students to talk honestly about mental health. “Our goal is to come into these meetings and say, ‘This is normal.

EDUCATION

Five ways COVID-19 will continue to change Pittsburgh college life this spring

By |

With COVID-19 cases rising following the holidays and an expected lengthy vaccine rollout, Pittsburgh-area colleges and universities are bracing for another difficult semester. How things will look for students and faculty this spring will be informed by lessons from the fall. “The whole thing has been a real challenge for everybody, but I believe that the response from the students and the faculty and the administration has really made the best of this particular time,” said Susan O’Rourke, faculty senate chair at Carlow University. Colleges are readjusting schedules to start the spring semester later, expanding COVID-19 testing, asking for student input on the fall semester and creating connections with classmates and professors — both online and in-person. Meanwhile, they face challenges like tighter budgets and deflated enrollment. 

The University of Pittsburgh, for instance, has been monitoring case metrics and advice from health officials in deciding when to bring thousands of students back to campus.

EDUCATION

Endless buffering: Local schools try to solve students’ internet access issues on their own

By |

Carla Rathway could hear her youngest son's frustration from the other room. She knew the clamor meant the internet was acting up again and keeping 12-year-old Preston from his school work. It happened all the time. "He's like, 'Oh my gosh,' when it's buffering or locking him out,” Rathway said, adding she also overhears him saying, "'I hate this internet.'"

Like scores of Pennsylvania students, Preston, a seventh grader at Belle Vernon Area School District in Westmoreland County, and his brother, 15-year-old tenth-grader Dylan, were in their second month of online learning this October. But the brothers were doing it all without a reliable high-speed internet connection at home, where they live across the county line in Fayette County.

EDUCATION

December ‘By The Book’: PGH K-12 Bulletins

By |

Welcome to "By The Book: PGH K-12 Bulletins," which provides updates on emerging and ever changing news in the Pittsburgh K-12 education landscape. With more than 40 school districts across Allegheny County, the Bulletins will update you on the region's latest education news, including close coverage of the Pittsburgh Public Schools, other Allegheny County school districts, the Pennsylvania Department of Education and other important agencies, which serve thousands of Pittsburgh families. Please check back frequently and email tylisa@publicsource.org with questions, tips or Bulletin ideas. Follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #PGHed for news updates on Pittsburgh education. 12/16/20: Pittsburgh Public passes 2021 budget without a tax increase.

EDUCATION

Pittsburgh Public passes 2021 budget without a tax increase. Here are 3 key takeaways.

By |

With the weight of an unprecedented year on their shoulders amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, members of the Pittsburgh Public Schools board decided against a proposed property tax increase and adopted a $673.84 million school budget for 2021 on Wednesday. The district will keep its millage rate at 9.95 in the upcoming year. However, with that vote, the budget deficit is expected to grow by about $4 million, Chief Financial Officer Ronald Joseph said at the meeting. In remarks to the board at the top of the budget discussion, Superintendent Anthony Hamlet asked the group to consider the tax increase to 10.21 mills and said that it was just one strategy of a multi-pronged approach by the administration to address a $34.8 million deficit — now increased by $4 million without the tax increase. The plan includes reducing expenditures. 

Much was at stake in the 2021 budget.

EDUCATION
Stacked one dollar bills.

Pittsburgh, what’s YOUR college debt story?

By |

PublicSource wants to report on how college debt has impacted the lives of Pittsburgh residents and we need your help. How has college loans factored into your financial decision-making? Do you believe $10,000 is enough or too little relief? How has college debt impacted your life overall?