Schools Presented with Keystone Awards

Administrators, teachers, students and parents represented their schools when presented with Keystone Awards at a recent School Board meeting. The Pennsylvania Department of Education presents the Keystone Achievement Award each year to schools for reaching or exceeding federal benchmarks set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act for two consecutive years. This is the fourth consecutive year that five of our six schools have received this prestigious award. “I do thank very much the principals, curriculum coordinators, certainly the teachers and the parents for their tremendous support of our children,” stated Acting Superintendent Dr. Robert Mesaros.

Assistant Superintendent Mrs. Alexis McGloin also noted that Northley Middle School was to be recognized for achieving some of their highest test scores this past year. One sub-group prevented Northley from also receiving the award. “They did just as much, if not more than every other school in our District,” stated Mrs. McGloin, having, “worked very hard to get where they are.”

Penn-Delco Fourth Grade Class Assignment Promotes Putting Others First, Raising Thousands for Charity

When Mrs. Reed’s mother recently passed away, she decided that instead of making a charitable contribution herself, she would honor her mother’s memory by encouraging her students to put the needs of others before their own. Mrs. Reed offered to any student interested in participating $10 with the understanding that they would develop a way to grow that money and make a donation to a charity of their choosing.

Numerous fund-raising methods were developed by the students, including pretzel and bake sales, used clothing drives, raffles, games of chance and letter writing campaigns to name a few. The sixteen students who participated have donated over $2700 to date to organizations they identified themselves.

Representatives from City Team, the SPCA and the Seeing Eye Association attended a special assembly on Friday, March 14th to accept the donations. Other charities receiving donations that were unable to attend were the American Cancer Society, the Delaware County Pregnancy Center and Alex’s Lemonade Stand. Students presented to the guests on hand the fund-raisers they had participated in and the organizations selected to benefit from their charity.

“The kids were incredible,” stated Mrs. Reed. “The goal of this challenge was to teach the students to put others first and I am very pleased with their results.”

When asked what she had learned from the Putting Others First Campaign, one student replied that, “even 9 and 10 year olds can make a difference.”