The Woodland Hills School District on Wednesday hosted superintendents from neighboring school districts, as well as multiple community partners, for a discussion about strengthening regional partnerships to address shared challenges. The primary discussion was about ways to continue to address gun violence in their respective districts, but the discussion also included potential partnerships and shared resources involving STEM education, career opportunities for students, and more.
Woodland Hills School District Superintendent Dr. Daniel Castagna welcomed superintendents and administrators from Gateway Area School District, Penn Hills School District, Steel Valley School District, and Wilkinsburg School District, as well as board members and administrators from Woodland Hills.
Community organizations were also on hand, including the Center for Victims, the Hughes Initiative, HOOP, the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office, the Allegheny County Office of Violence Prevention, Greater Valley Community Services, Cure Violence, 412 Justice, and Allies for Children.
The goal of the gathering was to establish some connections and partnerships in the hopes of addressing shared challenges. Woodland Hills School District director of STEAM and innovation Tina Dietrich spoke about the possibility of using the Rankin Community Center as a hub for multi-district after-school STEM education programs modeled after the district’s new mother-daughter robotics club. R.C. Hughes from the Hughes Initiative spoke of the need and value of police interaction education for students. Ashley Blakeman from the Allegheny County Office of Violence Prevention and Cathy Jo Welsh from HOOP spoke about gun violence intervention, shared information about the Woodland Hills Peace Panel, and detailed plans for this year’s Wear Orange anti-gun violence campaign.
Lee Davis from Cure Violence and Greater Valley Community Services spoke about the contributing factors surrounding recent episodes of gun violence in communities in multiple districts throughout the Mon Valley. The group also discussed the possibility of developing shared bus routes for charter school students through a plan being workshopped by Allies for Children in an effort to reduce costs, the number of buses going to the same charter schools from multiple neighboring districts, and address driver shortages throughout the region.
The administrators and community representatives plan to meet regularly to develop collaborative ways to address these shared issues as well as others.
