Cheers & Jeers
Courtesy of Joy Tillman-DeFerrari
Cheers: Cheers to Dustin Shoaf for beginning his high school football head coaching career by guiding Southmoreland to a perfect 4-0 start this season. It wasn’t that long ago when Shoaf, one of the youngest coaches in the WPIAL at 24 years old, graced the cover of the 蘑菇视频 Football Preview (2018) as a senior at Yough. He went on to become the Cougars’ career rushing leader with 5,053 yards and was the WPIAL’s regular-season leader in rushing yards twice. Ironically, one of Shoaf’s biggest games as a high school player came against Southmoreland in 2017 when he ran for a school-record 428 yards and five touchdowns and also threw a TD pass in Yough’s 49-38 victory over the Scotties. Now he’s on the other side of the field trying to help his former rival succeed.
Cheers: Southwestern Pennsylvania will be well-represented in next year’s National Memorial Day Parade in Washington, D.C., where the country will celebrate its 250th birthday. The Mon Valley Academy for the Arts’ Regimental Fife and Drum Unit, composed of musicians from across Western Pennsylvania, has been selected to perform. Organized in 2022, the unit currently includes 20 participants of varying ages, with the hope to grow the group for the May 25 parade. Said academy CEO Mark Smith, “This is our 10th anniversary, and we got selected to represent little old Charleroi, Brownsville and Western Pennsylvania. This puts us on the national stage.” The fife and drum unit, outfitted in traditional Civil War era uniforms, will join groups from each of the 50 states in the parade and is looking for more members. “We’ve opened it up to all ages. We need flagbearers. We need reenactors. We’re on the recruitment side of this thing. … “We’re the only Civil War unit in this parade, which is surprising and exciting to me.”
Jeers: Local school administrators are among 215 Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools (PARSS) member districts urging the state’s lawmakers to include “meaningful cyber charter school funding reform” in this year’s budget. The school leaders have signed on to a letter that highlights the escalating financial burden placed on traditional public schools by the current charter school funding formula, which requires districts to transfer millions of dollars to cyber charter schools at rates exceeding the actual cost of online education. “This is a non-negotiable priority for the financial sustainability of our public school systems and the educational future of our 1.7 million students,” association members wrote in their letter. “This outdated funding system is bleeding our rural and small school districts dry,” said Ed Albert, Executive Director of PARSS. “Our member districts are being forced to make impossible choices between raising local property taxes on already-struggling communities or cutting essential educational programs for students.” Bentworth School District Superintendent Scott Martin, noting the disparity between what school districts pay for students to attend cyberschools, said, “Our cost is about $18,000 per student, and another school district could have a child go to the exact same cyber school and they’re paying $40,000 per student. There’s no consistency in the cost of sending a child to cyberschool. Someone needs to take a serious look at this and say what does it cost to educate a child there.”
Cheers: A warm welcome is extended to Washington School District’s newest administrator, Alisa King, who was hired as superintendent at a special school board meeting at the beginning of the month. King, who most recently served as assistant superintendent at the Belle Vernon Area School District, brings years of experience – she’s in her 33rd year of education – with her to Washington. She is no stranger to the Prexie family. Her eldest stepdaughter was the valedictorian of the Washington High School Class of 2010, and a son graduated in 2015. “I could not be happier to be with the Washington School District,” she told the newspaper last week. “I’m extremely proud to be back in a school district I’m familiar with.” King replaced George Lammay, who retired from the position in August. King and her husband, Ryan, live in Jefferson Hills, and have four children.