WHAT’ S NEWS IN MONROEVILLE
2017 MONROEVILLE JAZZ FESTIVAL
The 2017 Monroeville Jazz Festival will held be on Saturday Aug. 19 at the Tall Trees Amphitheater in Monroeville Community Park West, off of Tillbrook Road.
The festival is growing! This year there will be three acts, opening at 4:30 p. m. with the Funky Fly Project, made up of four high school students that are rapidly gaining attention for their great musical talents. At
6 p. m., a popular local talent, Etta Cox, will take the stage. At 7:30 p. m. Grammy Award nominee Tony DeSare and his quartet will return to the Monroeville Jazz Festival.
Plenty of free parking, including handicapped parking, will be available, and good food and beverages will be available for purchase from several food trucks on site.
This year’ s partner, the Epilepsy Foundation of Western / Central Pennsylvania, will be collecting donations and providing information. For more information, visit monroevillejazz. org or search @ MonroevilleJazz on Facebook.
MURRYSVILLE GARDEN CLUB ANNUAL PLANT SALE
The Murrysville Garden Club’ s annual fundraising plant sale will be held May 11 through 13 at the Murrysville Fire Department’ s pavilion, located at 3235 Sardis Road. The club’ s beautiful plants make wonderful Mother’ s Day gifts! The event will last from 11 a. m. to 7 p. m. on Thursday, May 11, 8 a. m. to 7 p. m. on Friday, May 12 and 8 a. m. to noon on Saturday, May 13. For more information, contact Nina Damato at damato419 @ comcast. net.
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FORBES ROAD CAREER & TECHNOLOGY PROVIDES EDUCATION TO HOMEBOUND STUDENT
Not even a second kidney transplant will stop the education process for Jarrod Danka, a first year student and 10th grader in Mr. George Karnbauer’ s Computer Networking & Security( CNS) program at Forbes Road Career & Technology Center( FRCTC).
Danka, who resides in the Highlands School District, is continuing his CNS coursework through an online, face-to-face platform with Karnbauer as he is currently classified as a‘ homebound’ student and is recovering from his surgery. So he is not missing critical competency hours, Karnbauer sets aside a portion of his prep and class time to continue Danka’ s instruction through the use of video chat. Assignments are uploaded for Danka to download and complete. Upon completion, Danka does the same to upload his work for Karnbauer to look over and grade.
Karnbauer explains,“ Basically, I give Jarrod a task list with deadlines for the assignments and he returns them to me electronically. I will offer him further explanation when we are on our video chat sessions and Jarrod asks me questions in return. Though we typically speak privately, Jarrod enjoys the chat sessions during class times when he can also speak to his peers.”
How did this come about? It was Danka’ s parents that were concerned with his
education and him falling behind. Thanks to technology, continuing Danka’ s education is much easier when he has his books to work from, but he can also maintain a dialogue with his instructor as well. Karnbauer works around Danka’ s scheduled medical appointments, which could be at any time and on any day, but for the most part, he and Danka will video chat two to three times per week, for about 30 minutes a day. Karnbauer says that it works since FRCTC offers a‘ competency based’ education. They can work at Danka’ s pace without the work being too overwhelming.
Danka’ s father reported that his son had his first transplant in 2009. Danka received his second kidney on Feb. 15 of this year at Children’ s Hospital. Danka and his family are careful to not expose him to viruses and sickness from the outside, but his father is hopeful that he gets to return to school full time in a couple of weeks.
Danka says confidently,“ I get a lot of support from my family and my schools. In addition to‘ Mr. K’ teaching me, I have a tutor that comes to the house four days a week to help me with my core classes at Highlands. However, right now for CNS, I have to make a flowchart on the preventative maintenance practices of a computer.”
“ I will do everything I can to help a student and would never get in the way of a student who wants to learn. Jarrod wants to learn and I want to see him succeed,” says Karnbauer.
More information available at gofundme. com / a-kidney-for-jarrod. n