Latest news with #CrawfordCentralSchoolDistrict
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Mentoring program celebrates at time of transition
When the federal funding that supported it was yanked earlier this year, an after-school mentoring program at Meadville Area Middle School (MAMS) faced a daunting predicament. Surrounded by about 40 family members and community mentors at an end-of-the-year celebration Wednesday, the program's eight student leaders showed that they were up to the task and by the end of the event it was clear their efforts had paid off in a concrete way. 'We viewed the loss of the Department of Environmental Protection grant as an opportunity to assess how our instruction in budgeting, problem solving, communication skills, time management, teamwork, dependability and creativity in the use of our local resources has influenced our students,' MAMS social studies teacher and MLK Mentoring Program teacher Harrison Dixon told the crowd assembled in the school library. 'They have overcome challenges and made, in fact, quite a recovery.' Now in its 14th year, the mentoring program received a $50,000 grant last fall that was expected to fund the program through next year. Administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the actual funds came from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental and Climate Justice Program, a program that was quickly targeted for cuts when the Trump administration came into office in January. Mentoring program officials learned in April that the funding had been frozen. With support from Crawford Central School District, Allegheny College and numerous other businesses, organizations and individuals, the program carried on this semester, allowing students to continue work on RecyclKings, the business they had conceived and developed during the two-hour sessions they attended four times each week. 'This year has given us the opportunity to grow in many ways and respond to challenges we once thought we couldn't survive — but we did!' eighth grader Jocelyn Hart, the company president, told the audience. Plans are in the works to shift control of the program from the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Fund to Crawford Central School District. Details of that transition are still being determined, according to Ken Wolfarth, the district's curriculum director, but the program's three-week summer camp is set to kick off next Wednesday. Some students might not immediately see the appeal of a program that keeps them in school an extra two hours each day — or that gets them up early for a full day of activities in the summer — but for students like seventh grader Izzabella Lutton, the RecyclKings production manager, the opportunity was too good to resist. 'I like that it was a hands-on learning-based thing where you could work with people who were older or younger than you,' she said in an interview after the ceremony concluded. 'It something that brings people together. It inspires them to become more than what they already can be. Being in it for a whole year, it was definitely tough to stay at sometimes, but I pushed forward because I knew I could do it and I knew that whatever tried to stop me, I would push that aside.' The program received rave reviews from Izzabella's mother, Natalie Mullenax, as well. 'It really keeps them busy and learning as they're having a good time too,' she said. The program typically includes a diverse mix of skill development activities. The past semester included trips for swimming and skating at Meadville Area Recreation Complex; watershed science work in Mill Run; enough practice in American Sign Language to carry on basic conversations; mock job interviews at Acutec Precision Aerospace Inc.; and much more. One new focus was the RecyclKings business that saw students working to raise awareness and collect cans and other items. In his annual report, RecyclKings Treasurer Gavin Kerr, an eighth grader, reported that through a dumpster in the school parking lot, a 'Pod War' school spirit event in which groups of students competed to bring in the most cans for recycling, sales of T-shirts, donations and other activities, the business had generated more than $2,600 in revenue. The students donated $1,000 to the MAMS annual drive in recognition of the students who supported their efforts. After other expenses, nearly $850 remained for a profit-sharing program benefiting the eight students that formed the company. The precise amount each student received was calculated using a formula that factored in criteria such as attendance, respect, problem solving and teamwork. In the end, each of the eight students left the ceremony with sums ranging between $100 and $122. With the program's impending transition to Crawford Central, the ceremony also marked the departure of Armendia Dixon, a champion of education in Meadville and northwestern Pennsylvania for more than 50 years. As the last remaining students and their families left the library, Dixon reflected on the program she helped launch 14 years ago and that has now helped more than 550 students in their journey to high school and beyond. 'My goodness, I am so proud of the many graduates,' Dixon said. 'They are doing things and it is remarkable.'
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Confidential settlement revealed in response to Right-to-Know request
VERNON TOWNSHIP — A confidential settlement disbursement approved late last month by Crawford Central School Board with no discussion from board members and no explanation from district officials involved a payment of $652.04 resulting from a class action lawsuit over vaping. The amount was revealed when the district provided a copy of the settlement disbursement statement last week in response to a Right-to-Know request from The Meadville Tribune. Superintendent Jenn Galdon had declined to comment when asked about the nature of the payment when it was unanimously approved by board members at their Jan. 27 meeting. The only information provided about the settlement at the meeting as a reference on the agenda to a 'confidential JUUL Marketing Labs Inc. Settlement Disbursement Statement.' After the meeting, board President Kevin Merritt declined to address the specific details regarding the payment, but said, 'I can tell you this, it wasn't very much money — it was almost like why would you even approve it?' In fact, Merritt continued, when he learned details of the disbursement from Galdon, he 'practically tried not to laugh.' Of the $652.04 disbursement, 33 percent went to three law firms involved in the case, including Knox Law Firm of Erie, which represents Crawford Central, as well as a common benefit pool for attorneys' fees related to the case. Another 2 percent went to a court-ordered pool for expenses related to the litigation. Knox received $54.77, approximately 8.4 percent of the total payment. The net proceeds to the district amounted to $423.83. The two-page disbursement statement identifies the money as the first bonus payment from the JUUL Marketing Labs Inc. settlement, a case involving nearly 10,000 plaintiffs nationwide that accused the vape maker of unlawfully marketing its products to minors and misleading the public about the safety of those products. In March 2021, board members unanimously approved the appointment of Knox Law Firm of Erie and two other firms to represent it in joining the lawsuit against the San Francisco-based maker of the Juul vaping device. A settlement offer from Juul two years later meant that the district stood to receive $63,649 in initial proceeds. The total award in the case was more than $1.7 billion. Included in the statement, which was signed by Galdon, is an agreement acknowledging that the release 'requires Crawford Central School District to keep this statement confidential and Crawford Central School District agrees to abide by those terms.' Despite that agreement, the disbursement statement is a public record, according to Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association. The reason such records remain public was made clear by the board's vote last month. 'If the public had no idea what was being voted on,' Melewsky told the Tribune following the meeting, 'they could not have given meaningful public comment, and that's a Sunshine Act problem.'
