The staff at Cornell wears many hats.
Cristy Meinert’s classroom is a testament to this multitasking ethos. Half of the classroom is typically occupied by small groups of students who work with her one-on-one on their literacy and math skills for about half an hour daily. The other half houses a large table with robotic cars and towers made of Legos.
Meinert, a reading specialist in elementary school, also mentors students for the FIRST Lego League Challenge, a global competition in which students build robots out of Legos to complete different missions. She teaches them basic codes to control the robots.
“It kind of makes teaching exciting — you having the opportunity to do different things,” she said. “I think if you were required to do it, that would be a barrier. But I think that the way that our school approaches it, we are asked, ‘Would you like to do this?’”
Most staff members at Cornell routinely choose to perform tasks and duties outside of their job descriptions, often because of the district’s small student population.
Serving students from Coraopolis and Neville Township — a slender river island dotted with manufacturers and small neighborhoods — Cornell is the smallest school district in Allegheny County. The district enrolls about 560 students, and 65% of its student population is considered economically disadvantaged. Because of its small student population relative to fixed expenses like buildings, staff and other resources, Cornell spends $30,520 per student, one of the highest rates in the County.
In comparison, neighboring school districts such as the Montour and Moon Area systems boast enrollments of about 3,075 and 4,035 students respectively. Only around one-fourth of the student population is economically disadvantaged in those districts.
Despite Cornell’s modest population, the district has managed to stand out in academic offerings, creating opportunities and fostering a culture of inclusivity, staff say. In the last few years, the district has also adapted to decreasing enrollment and changing student demographics with the use of technology and innovation in teaching practices.
A community hub
Neveah Rice, 18, returned to the Cornell School District in 11th grade last year. She went to Cornell Elementary until third grade, before moving to the nearby Montour School District.
Returning to Cornell was like returning home.
“I think the community of Coraopolis is really involved with the community of Cornell,” said Rice.
At Cornell, Rice is involved in various community service activities. She volunteers at many sports and backpack-and-supplies giveaway events for students in need. The community involvement and individual attention from her teachers make it more nurturing compared to Montour, she said.
Cornell is deeply embedded within the fabric of Coraopolis, residents say. The district partners extensively with local organizations such as Coraopolis Youth Creations and the Coraopolis Memorial Library. Parents and community members are highly engaged in district activities.
“It doesn’t have barriers in terms of ages or grade levels here in our building,” said Jeffrey Carter, elementary school principal. “Second graders will stop and give their 16-year-old cousin, or an aunt or an uncle, a hug or a high five.”
Many students have had generations of their families attend Cornell.
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Dick Wolfe, owner of the Coraopolis Bike Shop, has had children, grandchildren and now a great-grandson attend Cornell in the 48 years he has lived in the town. Over the years, much of the town has changed — old businesses shut down, new stores opened up. But Cornell has always remained an integral part of the community, he said.
Despite a gentle economic resurgence lifting Coraopolis, many families at Cornell struggle to afford everyday food and clothing.
Much of the district’s commitment is toward fulfilling students’ basic needs. All students are eligible for free and reduced-price lunch and breakfast. The district also has a dinner program and offers weekend meal assistance to eligible students.
Carla Antoniades, director of pupil services, said the district is focused on all social services such as immunizations, mental health services and physical evaluations. This year, Cornell is building a closet to provide clothes and basic necessities like detergent and tampons to students who might need them.
“We offer them so that the kids can just focus on school because if your mind is thinking about other things — ‘If I don’t have clothes to wear, I don’t have food to eat, if my basic needs aren’t being met under whatever circumstance, I’m not going to learn,’” she said.
A changing student body
When Antoniades began her tenure at Cornell 16 years ago, the district had one English Language Learner [ELL] student, defined as students not yet able to learn effectively in English, often from homes or backgrounds in which another language is primary. Today, ELL students make up about 15% of the district’s population.
Much of the district’s surge in ELL students stems from the burgeoning Latino population in Coraopolis. The district has had to adapt to better serve them.
Antoniades said Cornell receives support from the Allegheny Intermediate Unit which provided a discount on translation tools. The district also hired part-time contractors and ELL teachers through partnerships with organizations such as Literacy Pittsburgh and Casa San Jose. This year, Cornell has partnered with the Latino Community Center for additional resources.
Grant Nicholson, one of Cornell’s two full-time ELL teachers, said since he started teaching last year, his class size has doubled to 30 high school students. His classes are not separated by grade levels but by levels of English proficiency.
Nicholson starts his day at the library, teaching students with the least proficiency in English. New students undertake the WIDA test, an English proficiency assessment.
To better accommodate ELL students, Cornell has experimented with various translation tools and technology aids. Each student in the district is given a Chromebook and apps like Duolingo that they can use to translate instruction in other classes.
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This year, the district hired Andrés Oliveros, a bilingual aide, to help students in various ELL and regular education classes. Having Oliveros has been a huge help to students with relatively low proficiency in English because he is able to accompany them in other classes, Nicholson said.
For Nicholson, the goal is to get students culturally acclimatized in a new school, so he tries to incorporate cultural learning in his classes. This can mean discussions on American movies, books and a current favorite topic of debate among students: which is the better Brazilian soccer team — Palmeiras or Flamengo?
“We talk about really everything — their families, we talk about their languages a lot, too,” he said. “They are very opinionated and they love comparing and contrasting.”
Most challenges for ELL students lie outside of the classroom, said Antoniades. Each new student is paired with another ELL student for the first week to help them navigate around the school.
“The supports that they need are not academic, they’re not the English language,” Antoniades said. “They’re more, ‘What is the school about? What do I need to get through my day? How do I know where the bathroom is? How do I know how to get lunch?’”
Senior students like Rice and her classmates Luis Romero Ojeda and Marissa Crowe are organizing a welcoming event by preparing snacks, bilingual flyers about the school, and Cornell merchandise to make new students feel less isolated.
At left, student work hangs in the elementary school hallway. In the other photos, details from the Cornell School District’s wellness rooms, where sensory bubble lights, spaces to color or lounge, and a professional to talk to are all on hand. The district has a partnership with Wesley Family Services for individual and small group support after they noticed an uptick in mental health issues. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/PublicSource)
The district translates its communication into several languages and provides interpreters for community events.
Cornell’s close-knit community has encouraged students and staff to nurture an environment of acceptance for its changing population, staff members said.
“This community is very diverse and very accepting,” said Carter. “The students don’t care what race you are. They don’t care what culture you come from.”
‘A team approach’
Paradoxically, Cornell’s low student population means staff is sometimes stretched to its limit, Superintendent Aaron Thomas said. The district does not have an assistant superintendent, curriculum writer, grant writer or a communications director. Until last year, Cornell did not have any assistant principals.
Despite the lack of additional support staff, Thomas said the district has one of the lowest teacher turnover rates in the region.
“It really is kind of a team approach and I think that’s kind of what makes us special,” he said.
For much of her career, Meinert had never pictured herself working with computers. The opportunity to work as the FIRST Lego League coach opened up a new avenue for her.
“I always enjoy that aspect of sharing new technology and new robots or apps or anything new with the kids,” she said. “I like them to jump into it and explore it and see what they can do on it.”
Patricia Dahmen teaches three English classes in high school and works with students participating in the journalism class where they prepare morning announcements and publish articles on the district website.
“It’s a lot to juggle on any given day,” she said, adding that the administration helps teachers who are experiencing burnout voice their frustrations and access the resources they need.
The district has raised funds to invest in teacher wellness, and provides online mental health services. It holds events like ‘Souper Bowl Sunday’ in which each teacher brought and shared a soup for lunch, and has scheduled a luncheon at which everyone is supposed to bring food of different colors.
“We do that just to make things a little bit different, a little bit more interesting in our school day — something different to look forward to,” Meinert said.
Oftentimes, parents in the community step in to help ease the burden on teachers. Kelly Willard, a parent with three kids in the district, said the Cornell Parent-Teacher Council organizes events during teacher appreciation week and takes over recesses to give teachers a moment to recharge.
Even so, the district is struggling to hire substitute teachers and paraprofessionals.
Carter said there have been times when a few teachers were absent and the school had to combine classes.
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The path forward
Not having more students in the district is both a boon and a bane.
On one hand, the district struggles to assemble a full soccer and volleyball team or form a school band. Events occasionally get canceled due to a lack of student participation. On the other hand, students are able to have personal relationships with teachers that larger schools may fail to provide.
Intimacy hasn’t yet translated into proficiency. The district has failed to meet the state target for proficient levels in English, math and science in the last few years.
Thomas said apart from analyzing strategies for curriculum and instruction, the district is focused on after-school tutoring programs and intervention strategies for grade-level reading to improve overall test scores.
The district has tried to run Advanced Placement [AP] courses even if few students opt to take the class, and expanded its dual enrollment courses with local universities such as Robert Morris, the University of Pittsburgh and Point Park.
To cope with the lack of enrollment-based funding, the district has relied heavily on grants. The district – which operates on a $16 million annual budget – has received grants amounting to $2.8 million over the last 10 years.
In the last few years, Cornell has secured grants to fund various technological and mental health initiatives. Today, the small district boasts a fully operational television studio, multiple 3D printing rooms, the largest auditorium stage in the county, a robotics maker space and a STEAM room. The district has also used federal grants for after-school programs.
“We’ve dedicated the time to go after some of these grants because, I think, it helps obviously [to] offset money we need from our general fund, but ultimately those provide opportunities for kids,” said Thomas.
Going forward, Thomas wants to stem further enrollment losses and chart a fiscally responsible course for the district to provide more opportunities to students.
“We have pretty much every research-based obstacle in front of us but we just keep climbing over them and keep chugging along,” he said.
Lajja Mistry is the K-12 education reporter at PublicSource. She can be reached at lajja@publicsource.org.
This story was fact-checked by Miranda Jeyaretnam.
