MERCER AND LAWRENCE COUNTIES 3 school districts join effort to boost math and science education

Farrell also got a $40,000 grant to improve school security and safety.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
FARRELL, Pa. -- Three Mercer and Lawrence County school districts are members of a consortium of 44 southwestern Pennsylvania public schools targeting improvements in math and science education.
Farrell Area, Sharon City and Mohawk Area schools are all taking part in the Math Science Partnership, being spearheaded by the Allegheny County Intermediate Unit, which has secured an $18 million National Science Foundation grant to underwrite the effort.
It's an exciting prospect, said Richard Rubano, Farrell superintendent, explaining that the program will look at how children learn and solve problems in mathematics and science and then examine individual school programs to find ways to improve the learning process.
Rubano announced the project at a school board meeting earlier this week.
Four colleges, the Carnegie Science Center and the RAND Corp. are also members of the partnership.
Project's focus
The focus of the five-year project is on strengthening student achievement by improving the quality of teaching math and science for 143,000 students in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Educators in each school district will form partnerships with faculty from the institutions of higher education to work on improving the quality of their teaching.
Academic teams will analyze relevant achievement data to develop and implement comprehensive action plans, and efforts will be made to refine higher education courses to provide that higher quality of teaching.
School district personnel will be trained to examine their math and science programs, looking for the best practices that produce the best results, said Edward Sharbaugh, Farrell Middle School principal and a member of Farrell's team.
The partnership will then set up a leadership committee to teach teachers and administrators those best practices to take back to their own math and science departments, Sharbaugh said.
Safe school grant
Rubano also announced that Farrell has been awarded a $40,000 state Safe School Initiative grant for the current school year.
Lynn Powell, Farrell's community outreach specialist and grant writer, said the money will be used for three purposes: To place repeat disruptive students in an alternative education setting both in school and off site, to provide ongoing training for teachers and staff on early detection of student drug or alcohol use and conflict resolution and to update building security measures.
The latter will involve some door hardware as well as installation of some security cameras, a project that the district hopes to supplement in an application for a second state grant to install a computerized security camera system, Powell said.
gwin@vindy.com