Educational improvement program to get another $60,000
Fayette County’s educational improvement program will get another $60,000 to support its functions. U.S. Rep. John Murtha has announced the approval of a $60,000 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission to Fay-Penn Economic Development Council in Uniontown to more closely align the school curriculum with both state standards and industry needs.
The money will be used by the Reaching Educational Achievement with Community Help (REACH) strategic plan.
“This is a federal program,’ Barb Gibel, Fay-Penn’s education/workforce development manager, said, of the ARC money, “that is available to Fayette County since it, like other counties, qualify for the ARC program.’
Gibel recently announced REACH has received donations totaling $60,000. She said some of that money will be used to put together the $15,000 match needed to secure the ARC funding.
The goal of the project is to enable 600 students – or 40 percent of them – to graduate at proficient of above levels and thereby qualify to receive the Pennsylvania Seal of Proficiency, a new state designation.
“REACH applauds Congressman Murtha and ARC for their support in securing the grant award. This is a true example of a public/private partnership,’ Gibel said.
“It is through the generous contributions of the business leaders in Fayette County that REACH is able to join with ARC to implement these two very important educational enhancement projects in the schools.”
Specifically, the grant will be to implement two tasks of the REACH strategic plant:
– Redesign the technical curricula of school systems in Fayette County to more closely align with the needs of area businesses.
– Develop a student database to track individual performance.
Fay-Penn will contract with the International Center for Leadership Education to survey the area businesses to identify the skills and reading levels needed, recommend curricular enhancements, facilitate planning sessions, and conduct public education forums. A second contract will be initiated with the Allegheny Intermediate Unit 3, which has developed a Comprehensive Data Analysis system as a tool to analyze and develop educational improvement in the district.
Approximately 7,500 student records will be input and specific queries generated, allowing the county program to track individual student performance as well as district-wide education system effectiveness.