South Fayette’s
6th Annual
STEAM Innovation
Summer Institute
Expands Its Reach
When a school district is listed among the top school districts
in the state and ranked number one in the region, there is a
significant responsibility for the staff to provide the students and
staff an exceptional educational experience.
While the South Fayette Township School District is extremely
honored with these rankings, it also embraces its social
responsibility to reach out to other districts through academic
project-based learning partnerships and collaborations. Each
year the District hosts briefings and tours of K-12 classrooms for
regional and national teachers and administrators to provide an
extensive overview of the successful integration of its vertically
aligned innovation strategies. Although these events were
effective in introducing the SF model, the District realized that
to make a significant impact with these visiting schools, we
needed to offer classes focusing on the implementation of these
strategies.
In 2012, South Fayette Township School District’s
administration initiated a STEAM Innovation Summer Institute
open to all regional districts to provide professional development
for educators. The success of this model was brought to the
attention of Gregg Behr, Executive Director of the Grable
Foundation. Beginning in 2014, the Grable Foundation has
generously supported the summer institute to increase the
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SOUTH FAYETTE
opportunity for regional, diverse districts to provide STEAM
programs and collaborations to impact thousands of students.
Behr and Aileen Owens, South Fayette’s STEAM Summer
Institute program manager realized that to increase the impact
for students there was a need for districts to send groups of
teachers to learn how to effectively implement co-teaching
approaches across academic disciplines for innovative outcomes.