Latest news with #PittsburghPublicSchools
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Students at Pittsburgh Dilworth PreK-5 found with heroin stamp bags
Pittsburgh Public Schools is asking parents to check their children's belongings after they learned about several students being in possession of stamp bags of heroin. The bags are stamped with the words 'Take Off' and were found in the possession of several Pittsburgh Dilworth PreK-5 students. PPS said Pittsburgh Police are trying to find out where the heroin came from and how students ended up with it. Pittsburgh Dilworth families are asked to check their children's belongings and to contact 911 if they find the illegal substance in their items. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Pittsburgh Carmalt students to learn remotely Tuesday due to water main break in school
Some Pittsburgh Public School students will learn remotely on Tuesday. Pittsburgh Carmalt PreK-8 students will transition to remote synchronous learning for the day because of a water main break inside the building, a district spokesperson said. Information on any damage to the building or how long repairs may take wasn't immediately available. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW
CBS News
22-05-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Families and staff react to scaled down Pittsburgh Public School closure plan: "It's a generational opportunity to do what's right."
Pittsburgh Public Schools leadership is now looking to close 12 schools instead of 14 as part of a revised proposal for the future of the district. It's giving some families some relief learning they their schools may no longer be on the chopping block. Last July, Mary Leroy moved with her grandson from Georgia to Carrick. She said he's autistic and that Roosevelt K-5 has a great special needs program. "He loves it here. He's doing really well," Leroy said. When she learned the school may close, Leroy was concerned. "Not knowing where he would go, how I would get him there, not knowing the different programs that the schools have," Leroy said. The same goes for Will Irvin, whose son and niece go to Roosevelt. "It would have been a big change for all of us, kids and parents alone," Irvin said. Now, they may not have to worry. Pittsburgh Public Schools presents updated plan On Wednesday night, Pittsburgh Public Schools leaders presented an updated feasibility report on the future of the district. Under the new proposal, Roosevelt and Schiller would remain open, but Schiller would relocate to the Allegheny building. The Manchester building, which was originally going to be converted for another school, will now close along with the school. Special needs training at the Conroy Education Center would stay open. Also, Allegheny would move, saving the King building. Overall, the district would close nine facilities instead of 10. Besides the school and facility changes, Superintendent Dr. Wayne Walters also provided additional information on the financial impact, transportation, and feeder patterns, as requested by the board and the public, postponing a vote in late March. "It is a generational opportunity to do what is right," Walters said. In the new report, the district claims the plan would save it more than $100 million in the coming years. The majority of the changes would start after school ends in spring 2026, with the final transitions to take place in 2028. "These conversations about implementation are not something that we are exclusively waiting for a board decision, but we do need a smoke signal for us to kind of put things in gear," Walters said. The process goes back more than a year as the district looks to save money and make better use of resources with declining enrollment. At this point, Walters said they're ready for the green light, as Leroy crosses her fingers for Roosevelt's future. "They're going to stay open. We're going to send it upstairs and keep it open," Leroy said. Sources told me that while some board members haven't liked how this process has been handled, they believe they'll have enough votes to move forward with the public comment period. The board will take up that vote next month.
Technical.ly
22-05-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
Pittsburgh Public Schools seeks $2M software deal with FSH Tech to rethink cafeteria logistics
A Philly-based startup is reaching across the state with a proposed $2 million software deal to modernize operations at Pittsburgh Public Schools. The potential 10-year contract with Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) food services would provide custom-built software for the department, helping it bring five million meals to students annually. FSH Technologies would turn the complex, paperwork-based process of food distribution into a more modern endeavor, putting all the logistics onto one platform. 'The public sector has long been underserved, especially in technology,' Lilly Chen, founder and CEO of FSH Technologies, told 'They deserve access to modern technology with modern [user experience] and [user interface] that actually work for their process, because every single town, city, school district has their own unique way of operating.' PPS food services' current system involves using multiple software programs and manual methods like Excel spreadsheets and PDFs for various tasks, according to the director of the department, Malik Hamilton. With about 22,000 meals to serve daily, along with after-school snacks, school dinners and catering contracts with local private schools or daycares, the food services department needed a system that could integrate all its needs, Hamilton said, including regulatory compliance, production records, menu planning and forecasting. 'We have a lot of paperwork, a lot of things that we have to keep track of,' Hamilton said. 'We were looking for [a software program] that is more robust than what we're currently using and that could help us grow into some of the things that we want to do moving forward.' The new platform that FSH Tech is building has a unified database, so the department can share data about menus, ingredients, vendors and more, Chen said. When schools place food orders with the district's central kitchen, the platform allows them to select the menu item, how many need to be made, when it's being served and if the item is a main dish, side or dessert. The system automatically figures out what ingredients and how much of each are needed, placing the order with third-party vendors when the menu is made. Although the food services budget is not part of PPS's recent deficit issues — because the department funds its operations through meal sales — the cost of the platform was still a key factor in choosing FSH, Hamilton said. FSH 'did not come in as the lowest bidder,' Hamilton said. But he was optimistic the program would ultimately help the department save money because, as food costs rise, it would allow them to 'closely monitor financial decisions that are being made in each building.' The PPS board will vote on the proposed contract on May 28. Chen and Hamilton both said they are confident it would be approved. Software 'assembled to order' for public-sector needs FSH's goal was to create a system that used food efficiently and was easy to use for the district's employees because it impacts students' ability to access food, Chen said. 'There's a realness to what software does,' she said. 'It serves real people who have lives.' The wider problem of outdated workflows or software platforms that don't totally align with an organization's operations isn't unique to the Pittsburgh school district, Chen said. It's a common issue often caused by budget constraints — especially in the public sector. A former machine learning infrastructure engineer at Meta, Chen's interest in public sector technology sparked while she was volunteering for Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker's Open for Business initiative. She was helping to build a tool that would be a one-stop shop for Philadelphia businesses to access resources and grant information. That experience showed her how long and inefficient the process can be for developing government technology tools. 'It kind of shocked me,' she said. 'Everyone is so well-intentioned, so motivated to help, and yet we aren't getting solutions delivered to the people that we promise that we're going to deliver them to.' Most software is 'opinionated software,' she said, meaning that it's built to work a certain way using a specific method, but every unique city and agency has its own way of doing things. Instead, FSH focuses on composable software, pieces with specific functions that can be 'assembled to order,' with a specific focus on municipalities, she said. The private sector doesn't offer enough products for the public sector, she said. It builds tools that work for them and government agencies have to try to make them work, despite having different processes and serving unique groups of people. With the PPS contract, FSH learned what the needs of the school system are, the roles that employees play and designed the platform to check those boxes. 'We always say,' Chen said, 'that we build technology for people first that works for your process.'
CBS News
22-05-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Pittsburgh Public Schools lowers recommendation to closing 12 schools under newly revised plan
Pittsburgh Public Schools leaders have lowered the number of schools they recommend closing as part of the district's plans for the future. Superintendent Dr. Wayne Walters presented an updated feasibility report on the future of the district on Wednesday night, now saying that they're looking to close only 12 schools instead of 14. Roosevelt and Schiller would remain open under the new proposal. The Manchester building, which was originally going to be converted for another school, would now close entirely -- and special needs training would stay in Manchester. Allegheny would move, saving the King building. Overall, the board will now consider closing nine facilities instead of 12 and the recommended grade configurations will remain unchanged for 10 schools. This comes after the district postponed a vote in late March after the board and public wanted more details on finances, transportation, the way students are assigned to different school buildings, and what the district needs for spending. The district says the closing of nine buildings would result in a total cost avoidance of nearly $103 million over the next seven years. It also says the new plan allows for $8 million in annual savings and avoids $68 million in capital expenditures. As for the next steps, the board will vote on opening a public comment period next month.
