Educators to attend Mon Valley Learns
Nearly 1,800 people who make the public schools work in the Mon Valley will hit the road on Friday for Mon Valley Learns 2006, the eighth annual regional professional education experience organized by the Mon Valley Education Consortium. Local school districts participating are Belle Vernon Area and Brownsville Area. Other participating districts include Charleroi Area, Clairton, Duquesne, East Allegheny, McKeesport Area, Monessen, South Allegheny, Steel Valley and Yough.
Mon Valley Learns is an activity that’s been designed by public school employees for public school employees at a series of planning meetings at the end of the last school term.
“We have an abundant array of talent in our schools,” said Dr. Linda L. Croushore, consortium executive director. “They’re committed and dedicated. Mon Valley Learns will give them a chance to share their best practices and programs with their colleagues up and down the Valley.”
The schedule for the day calls for participants to fan out to 41 schools to attend one of the sessions and workshops from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. After the program and a break for lunch, all “travelers” will make their way back to their home school districts for a debriefing session and/or other in-service activities.
Mon Valley Learns is an interactive experience that calls on all participants to arrive at their sessions prepared to contribute. Registration for most sessions has been kept small to encourage more give and take. There are 104 offerings on the program this year.
While some sessions have specific topics, others are more general, organized around such common educational concerns as disruptive behavior, PSSA math and writing assessment, conflict resolution and classroom management and special education inclusion. There also are sessions for those seeking a better understanding of technology and its use in the classroom.
Among the more unusual subjects are a repeat of last year’s very popular “inside look” at USX Corp.’s Clairton Works; a session on preventing “Senioritis;” a program on using newspapers in the elementary classroom; copyright laws as they apply to the classroom in this age of Google and Yahoo; and a support group for newly hired teachers to share their concerns.
Croushore said planning for Friday’s program was done by a steering committee drawn from the participating districts and consortium staff members. District and building coordinators recruited the program presenters who then contributed topics for the sessions.
Mon Valley Learns is open to all public school employees, both professional and support staff, although not every district is participating at those levels. This year, 40 staff members from Trinity School District in Washington County are attending as observers.
“For years,” said Croushore, “the need we’ve heard articulated most often and most consistently has been, ‘We don’t have time to talk or share with our colleagues’. People feel isolated within their own school systems, sometimes within their own buildings. The goal of the consortium always has been to break down those barriers, both within schools and between schools and their many communities. Mon Valley Learns is one way to accomplish this.
“We view this activity not as an end in itself but as part of an ongoing process to identify what is working best for our children. We hope that participants will take back to their own schools some new ideas or strategies that will allow all kids to succeed,” she added.
Mon Valley Learns is one of two annual regional activities of the Mon Valley Education Consortium. Each April, it also organizes and coordinates Mon Valley Reads/Power Reading on the River, a program which involved about 27,500 students in 55 schools in 21 consortium school districts last year. The consortium office is in McKeesport.