Fort Cherry, Burgettstown get grants for college-ready centers

Fort Cherry and Burgettstown Area school districts were each awarded a $93,250 grant to create college-ready centers at their high schools.
The two-year grant worth a total of $186,500 is a collaboration among the schools, the Benedum Foundation and the Community College of Allegheny County. School officials met Tuesday to discuss how the grant will be implemented. Both districts hope to have the centers up and running in the spring.
The money will be used for computers, software licenses, salaries and benefits for tutors, supplies and travel expenses for the coordinator.
The purpose of the centers is to decrease the number of students who require remediation when entering college, said Fort Cherry director of curriculum Trish Craig. Burgettstown also will use the grant to help students perform better in math, reading and writing, said Assistant Superintendent Amy Rush.
Both districts will use the PLATO Learning Systems software. The program exempts students from lessons about information they already know and reinforces areas where they need help, Rush said. PLATO Learning constructs an educational program that is unique to each student. Each student completes a pre-test that assesses the student’s current knowledge. The system then creates a learning program based on those results.
Burgettstown plans to set up one center at the high school and have a number of classes using it, Rush said. Who uses the software will be decided based on individual student data, Rush said.
Fort Cherry is creating a mobile center so it can be used by more students, given the limitations of space within the high school building, Craig said.
For the 2010-11 school year, the tutoring will be incorporated into the current tutoring program at the high school, Craig said. The program will be evaluated in the spring for implementation during the 2011-12 school year.