Jenny Lent

• Department of Education AI Toolkit:  Empowering Education Leaders: A Toolkit for Safe, Ethical, and Equitable AI Integration 

• Streamable Learning (👈info video) - offering no-cost pilots to as many PA schools/districts as possible. Please contact Tim Powers, tim.powers@clickvieweducation.com.

IU1 Curriculum Department

• Menu of services

• Professional Development List

Discussion topics

• ESL Instructional Coaching needs

AI Updates

• Google Notebook LM

Online Assessments

• PA Assessments Updates

• The PSSA Science field test can be administered online. The enrollment system will default to online enrollment for 2025 Science. ELA and Mathematics enrollments will be based on 2024 tested counts.

• Online Assessments training Site

ACT 45 Updates

• FAQ Page

• PA Inspired Leadership (PIL) Program 

• Face to Face in the summer.  PA Principal Association will be joining us on December 19th during our principal meeting.

• Talk to your PIMS coordinator to run a report on titles.

• Only the following certs need ACT 45:

Leadership (PIL) classes are designed for school leaders in one of the following positions:

• Assistant Executive Director

• Assistant Principal

• Assistant Superintendent

• Executive Director

• Principal

• Superintendent

• Vocational Technical School Director

• 0-5 Early Childhood Administrator*

Personal Finance/Career

• • Brian Gasper stated that students need to be engaged in curriculum and assessment, but passing the class is district decision.

  • SAS Toolkit

  • Career Awareness

  • Standards

    • Final-form Academic Standards for Personal Finance (Appendix F) (PDF)

    • Final-form Academic Standards for Career Education and Work (Appendix E-1) (PDF)

    • Final-form Academic Standards for Economics (Appendix C-1) (PDF)

    • Final-form Academic Standards for Family and Consumer Sciences (Appendix D-1)​​ (PDF)

Assessment Reporting

• Keystone and PSSA State Data

New ACTS

• SB 801 Evidence-based Reading Instruction – Act 135 of 2024 Requires instructors for educator preparation programs who teach reading and literacy education to prospective educators to be trained in foundational skills and instructional interventions based on structured literacy. By June 1, 2025, PDE must develop and maintain a list of evidence-based reading instruction curricula that meet the outlined requirements and establish a process for vendors to submit curricula or programs for review. PDE must establish a reading leadership council to advise them on reading instruction curricula

  • Prior version was amended in House to remove some concerning provisions

  • No longer mandates LEAs to adopt curriculum or interventions

• For most of these bills, there are not currently enough session days in the 2023-24 legislative session to pass the bills finally and send to the Governor.
  
  

• HB 755 Portable Airway Clearance Devices (Bonner)

• HB 2203 School Bus Driver Qualifications (Benninghoff)

• HB 2638 Head Start Salary Supplement  (Shusterman)

• SB 1100 Holocaust Education Mandate (Mastriano)

• SB 1176 Admission Fees for School Sponsored Activities (Dush)

• CR-SE has been rescinded by the state.  They are now sending information on the Common Ground Framework.  We will get more information at our state update meeting in December.

PVAAS Updates

• Updates

• Phase 1 of PVAAS reporting based on the 23-24 school year has been released. Major updates include: school and teacher value-added reports, student projections, diagnostic categories reports, Act 13 data in PEERS, and teacher-student linkage reports

• 3 Year Rolling Average

• % Achievement

  • PVAAS

• CSR's for Teachers

ACT 13 Updates

• Building level scores have been released. 

• Here are the conversions: https://pdesas.org/Page/Viewer/ViewPage/75?SectionPageItemId=3618 

• Here are the percentages:  https://pdesas.org/Page/Viewer/ViewPage/75?SectionPageItemId=3562

• PVAAS Demo

• Request 1 to 1 consultations

• Breakout Discussion

CDT Updates

• Updates

• Upcoming IU1 Trainings on CDT's:

  • Determining Growth and Ongoing Actions (9 - 11:30)

    • 1/28/25 and 2/20/25

• Chemistry CDT's are going away.

• • • Fully aligned to the STEELS starting in August 2025

PDE Updates

• Health/PE Updates

• Health and PE and Arts Standards will likely be revised pending PDE Board approval.

Comp Planning/FRCPP

• Comp Plan/FRCPP 

• CP Tip Jar - Moving to PDESAS

• Comp Plan Google Site will be updated in FRCPP (Demo)

Esports

• Waynesburg will be hosting a Christmas Classic tournament on December 17th at our Esports Arena on our campus.  This tournament will feature Rocket League AND Super Smash Bros.  We are looking for high schools to participate in this in-person tournament for one or both of the games.  I know that this is two months out, but I also know that many times you need admin or board approval for travel.  So, I want to give you plenty of time.

• The tournament format will feature four players for Rocket League (3 starters, 1 sub) and five players for Smash (4 starters, 1 sub).  The Rocket League tournament will be a double elimination tournament featuring BO5 matches and the finals being BO7.  The Smash tournament will be crews format, double elimination with BO3 matches. 

• More information will be coming and a registration page will be sent out shortly.  In the meantime, if your team or teams are interested in coming, please email me ASAP as we only have a limited number of team slots available.  The tournament is being co-sponsored by The Esport Company and IU1.  

• Updated IU1 Esports Coaches Directory

• Registration

CPE

• CPE Fall 24

Act 45 Registration

Click any part of the newsletter below to view the interactive newsletter.

 Click here to sign up.

BotsIQ Educator's Workshop--Professional Development Session

Join BotsIQ for an exciting day of learning and innovation at our McMurray campus on Wednesday, January 15, 2025 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.  Lunch will be provided, and the session is FREE! The workshop is open to 30 educators--all grade levels and subject areas are welcome to attend. 

Explore new programs that offer free, hands-on activities in manufacturing and robotics that are designed to enrich any classroom. Age-appropriate interdisciplinary lesson plans for elementary, middle, and high school classrooms will be included, as well as, support materials, including worksheets, presentations, and guides--all from BotsIQ. 

The day aims to inspire, equip, and empower every educator with practical tools and strategies to engage students in dynamic, real-world learning.

To register: BotsIQ Workshop Registration Form January 15 

The deadline to register is Wednesday, January 8, 2025.

For more information: BotsIQ Educator's Workshop Information 

Questions? Please email BotsIQ at: botsiq@botsiqpa.com.  

STEM Academy in Cybersecurity Launching at CCBC Washington County College Center, McMurray--Fall 2025

CCBC STEM Academy offers three dynamic pathways in Engineering, Computer Science, and Cybersecurity.

CCBC STEM Academy Information (Scan the QR code at the bottom of the PDF for more details and a video)

If you have any questions, please reach out to Lia Hazelwood at lia.hazelwood@ccbc.edu  

Calling All High School Students! PennDOT Announces Eighth Annual Innovations Challenge!

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) announced its eighth annual Innovations Challenge, which encourages students to use their problem-solving, creative and strategic-thinking abilities to solve real-world transportation challenges in a competition among their peers. The Innovations Challenge is open to all students in grades 9-12, regardless of their school’s learning model.

To see the guidelines for the Innovations Challenge, please visit the highlighted links. 

For this year’s challenge, students are asked to develop a cost-effective, innovative solution that can help PennDOT more effectively increase awareness of seat belt safety and change behavior to improve roadway safety.

For complete Innovations Challenge details, visit www.penndot.pa.gov/innovation and scroll down to select the blue Innovations Challenge tile box. 

The submission deadline is Jan. 31, 2025.

For questions or more information, email PennDOT’s Bureau of Innovations at:  DOTInnovations@pa.gov.

WQED Film Academy

Join WQED Film Academy—in-person or virtually—to learn how to become a digital storyteller.

WQED Film Academy draws on its partnership with teaching artists and professional mentors to teach a curriculum of the basics of digital media arts – what we call SCALE: storytelling, camera, audio, lighting, and editing. The curriculum is more than 100 hours of hands-on and collaborative learning and uses the latest digital media technology.

Each class produces their own short film by the end of the session.

There are three sessions per year: Summer, Fall and Spring. Scholarships are available.

Upon successful completion of WQED Film Academy, students can apply to the Teen Film Crew. The Teen Film Crew gets paid while they continue to build their skills creating promotional videos for clients. The teaching artists work with the students as a team – just as they would in a professional agency.

More information on the WQED Film Academy is available at this link.

Amazon Future Engineer

Virtual field trips to explore careers of the future are free, interactive, and inspire students to explore Amazon’s technologies. A teacher’s toolkit with activities is included.  Teachers can receive a $5 Amazon gift card by completing a survey after each virtual field trip. Tour whenever, wherever by playing the tour on Kahoot! There are four tour options available on Kahoot!

Explore Amazon Future Engineer at this link.

Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Sciences- Applications Open!  Deadline to apply: January 31, 2025

The Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Sciences is a 5-week academic residency program for rising high school seniors in Pennsylvania. Students live on campus at Carnegie Mellon University while taking courses in math, physical and natural sciences, and computer science from university professors. Students are challenged in lectures, labs, and research projects. The program is funded through charitable donations, grants, and sponsorships. It completely free for the students – there is no tuition, and room and board are provided. For many, PGSS is a life-changing experience where they form lifelong friendships and lay the foundation for their future careers. The 2025 Program will run from June 22 – July 26.

Flyer for Details 

North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) Conference Take Aways

• Resources

  • The Energy Detectives - A FREE Book for every K-4 student-  Go to their website to order FREE copies of The Energy Detectives for all of your students and access the free standards-aligned curriculum

  • Shared Waters- A free, open-source curriculum out of Millersville University and Virginia Wesleyan University.  It comprises a 10-lesson unit that includes a culminating action project, and the investigation of the driving question, “How can we make a positive impact on our watershed?” 

  • Fieldscope and Invitations to Inquiry-  A great resource with short instructional activities to support middle and high school students with looking at Big Data. Resources include lessons with teacher guides, slides, student handouts, answer keys and more.

  • NAAEE Guidelines for Excellence- Freely available PDF downloads- A series of guidelines that set the standards for high-quality environmental education.

The Southwest PA Environmental Literacy Hub is currently planning an Outdoor Learning and Environmental Education Summit for June 2025!  Stay tuned for details coming soon!

NOVEMBER Webinars - REGISTER HERE

Zoom rooms will be shared the day of the webinar if you've completed registration.

OpenSciEd High School Chemistry Unit 1 Launch Webinar - Thermodynamics in Earth's Systems - November 21, 2024, 3:00-4:00 PM ET

Hosts: Corinne Murawski, Allegheny Intermediate Unit 3, corinne.murawski@aiu3.net; Alyssa Moore, Intermediate Unit 1, alyssa.moore@iu1.org; Monica Pangaio, Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit, pangaiom@cliu.org   

Re-join the network!  

https://remakelearning.org/join-in/

If you or your district was once on the member directory, you will need to re-join to continue to get the newsletters and resources that the network has to offer!

Rural Schools Collaborative- 

Teacher Highlight

• Do you have a teacher who deserves recognition for exciting work or programs that they facilitate?  I would love to highlight them.  Please email me at alyssa.moore@iu1.org or alyssa@remakelearning.org to connect around this teacher. 

Rural Lunch & Learn/Meet-Up Request- Do you or networks that you lead or work on want to convene around a topic of interest with Remake Learning?  Fill out the form and we can collaborate to make it happen!

Upcoming Event:

• TRETC Conference- Hosted by the Pittsburgh Technology Council, the Three Rivers Educational Technology Conference (TRETC) is an exciting professional development opportunity to advance the integration of educational technology for teachers, K-12 administrators, industry experts, and higher education decision-makers in South Western PA.  When: January 20, 2025 Where: Sewickley Academy

Remake Learning Days!- Soutwestern PA May 1-May 23, 2025

Remake Learning Days is celebrating 10 years in 2025! The website for this year's festival is live and you can submit events now.