experience offered tips for financial
literacy, goods and services, and global
markets. Using a series of age-
appropriate activities, students learned
a practical approach to starting a
business and making smart decisions.
Younger students explored the
concepts of needs versus wants and
the benefits of starting a savings
account, while those in the upper
grades investigated the demands of
the 21st century job market by gaining
an understanding of the skills
necessary for jobs in the science,
technology, and engineering fields.
The materials provided by Junior
Achievement are guided by a goal of
promoting a brighter future for young
students by giving them the tools to
succeed.
2019 SHASDA RECIPIENTS
Kindergarten students James Griffin and
Finnian McLean work alongside a volunteer
from Hefren-Tillotson. The learning activity
gave students the chance to play a game
while pretending to deposit money into
a piggy bank by coloring sections of the
paper bank.
The beautiful flowers planted on
a strip of land near the Fort Pitt
Tunnels of the Parkway West are the result
of the hard work of nearly 80 members of
the National Honor and National Junior
Honor Societies. The pupils collaborated
with the Western PA Conservancy to plant
hundreds of brightly-colored annuals in
the community flower garden. With traffic
whizzing by, the teens worked with care
for hours, preparing the soil, sowing the
seedlings, and adding fertilizer, and
ultimately bringing beauty and character
to the greenspace.
Fourth graders Rayanne Bigos, Justice Ogar,
and Saniyah Scott worked with MaryAnn
Devlin from Hefren-Tillotson to create and
operate a hypothetical hot dog stand. The
activity was designed to help students
understand the fundamental tasks performed
by a business owner and to track the revenue
and expenses of a business.
Working in teams and wearing safety vests,
members of the honor societies carried
buckets of soil and fertilizer to those
planting flowers in the community garden
near the Fort Pitt Tunnels.
First graders received an autographed copy
of the book titled Penny Penguin Finds Her
Way Home written by children’s author Philip
J. Damiani as part of the Junior Achievement
Day experience. The author discussed the
process of writing and marketing the book,
and students discovered that all royalties
from the sale of the book are directed to the
Mario Lemieux Foundation.
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CARLYNTON
When the work was done, the students
gathered on the green space for a group
photo. Teachers/national honor society
sponsors Marissa Rusinko and Jamie Sonnie
chaperoned students to the service activity.
Seniors Matthew
Hilarzewski and Brianna
Cyphert were named the recipients
of the 2019 SHASDA Award
presented by the South Hills Area
School Districts Association at a
spring conference held in
Southpointe. SHASDA is a
consortium of superintendents of
school districts located in the South
Hills who meet almost monthly to
discuss relevant educational issues.
In the spring, a symposium is held to
recognize two students from each
school district who have made
remarkable strides during their high
school career. Parents attended the
conference with their children as well
as Principal Michael Loughren,
School Director Jude Frank, and
Acting Superintendent Joseph
Dimperio.
A career day held in the junior-
senior high school gym in late
May gave students the chance to explore
a wide selection of occupations within
sixteen career clusters, namely,
agriculture, business management and
finance, health services, human services,
An engineer from the locally-based company
Civil and Environmental Consultants spoke
with then-sophomores Andrew Engleka, Eric
Burcham, and Santos Pastor-Gonzalez about
the field of environmental engineering.