Latest news with #Zerbe
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Pottsville teacher named educator of the year
POTTSVILLE — The Scouting America Hawk Mountain Council on Thursday named a Pottsville middle school language arts teacher Educator of the Year. Leah Zerbe accepted the 2025 Elbert K. Fretwell Outstanding Educator award at a ceremony at D.H.H. Lengel Middle School. Hudson Clews, a Pottsville freshman and Scout, speaks during the Outstanding Educator Award ceremony honoring Leah Zerbe at D.H.H. Lengel Middle School in Pottsville, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (MATTHEW PERSCHALL/MULTIMEDIA EDITOR) 'Leah Zerbe is a great 21st Century educator,' former Republican Herald managing editor Andy Heintzelman said in his introduction. 'In addition to her classroom work, she leads after-school programs throughout Schuylkill County that focus on environmental literacy, sustainability and outdoor learning.' Zerbe led an effort to obtain a Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Farm-To-School grant that supports a native pollinator habitat grant on the school grounds, Heintzelman said. Under her guidance, students participate in trips to farms, food tastings and cooking classes that focus on healthy locally grown food. In accepting the award, presented by Black Rock District Executive David McKeown, Zerbe said she was humbled to receive such an important honor. Her goal in teaching, Zerbe said, is to create change makers of her students. David McKeown, Black Rock District Executive for the Scouts, right, and Andy Heintzelman, left, present Leah Zerbe the Elbert K. Fretwell Outstanding Educator Award during a ceremony at D.H.H. Lengel Middle School in Pottsville, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (MATTHEW PERSCHALL/MULTIMEDIA EDITOR) 'It has been such a rewarding experience for me to see that kids are interested and want to do things,' she said. 'We just have to build the programs that allow them to do it.' Zerbe credited Pottsville Superintendent Sarah E. Yoder and other administrators for being receptive to out-of-the-box programs. 'Leah is extremely dedicated,' Yoder said. 'The programs she designs will affect her students for a lifetime.' In the pollinator garden, students planted milkweed, which plays an integral role in the survival of Monarch butterflies. An after-school program, it was funded in part by a federal 21st Century Community Learning Center grant that underwrites before and after-school programs. In two years at D.H.H. Lengel, Zerbe has secured an Outdoor Riding For Focus grant that funded a fleet of specialized mountain bikes for student exercise programs. An environmental journalist, her weekly column appears in the Schuylkill Living section of the Republican Herald Sunday edition. Her writing has been published in Rodale Press' Prevention and Organic Gardening and other magazines. Jamie Gunoskey, Scoutmaster for Troop 615, speaks about scouting during the Elbert K. Fretwell Outstanding Educator Award ceremony honoring Leah Zerbe at D.H.H. Lengel Middle School in Pottsville, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (MATTHEW PERSCHALL/MULTIMEDIA EDITOR) Zerbe is the recipient of a Women of Conservation Award and the Schuylkill Conservation District's Media Conservation Award. State Rep. Tim Twardzik, R-123, Butler Twp; the Schuylkill County commissioners and a representative of State Sen. David G. Argall presented commendations. 'You do make a difference,' said Twardzik, a member of the House Environmental Committee. 'Thanks for what you do.' County Commissioner Gary J. Hess commended Zerbe for her work with students. 'Young people are our greatest asset,' he said. 'You are molding them into citizens of the future.' Commissioner Barron L. 'Boots' Hetherington commended Zerbe and her students on their work with pollinators and farm-to-table initiatives. 'Pollinators are dear to my heart,' said Hetherington, who grows strawberries and raspberries on his Union Twp. farm. Seth Hubler, Argall's outreach director and an Eagle scout, recalled visiting the farm-to-table lunch program last fall. 'You just don't see this kind of commitment from a teacher outside the classroom,' said Hubler. 'I really appreciate what you do.' Named for Dr. Elbert K. Fretwell, a Columbia University professor and youth development pioneer, the award celebrates educators who build the next generation through integrity, responsibility and community service. Hudson Clews, a member of Troop 615 in Pottsville, talked about the advantages of Scouting. Now a freshman at Pottsville High School, he has been in Scouting for 10 years. During summer camp at Hawk Mountain Scout Reservation, he earned a merit badge in life-saving skills. 'Through troop activities, volunteering in our community and building friendships,' he said, 'I am proud of my accomplishments in Scouting.' Jamie Gunoskey, Troop 615 Scoutmaster, called attention to Zerbe's teaching methods. 'It was your passion and drive that inspired them to research current scientific evidence on the impact of pollinators on the environment,' he said. 'As fine of an award as this is, there can be no doubt that this is just a small symbol of the far-reaching impact of your efforts.' Gunoskey stressed the need for adult volunteers in Troop 615, which is chartered by St. Patrick Catholic Church, Pottsville. For more information about volunteering, call Dave McKeown, District Executive for Black Rock District, at 570-789-9538.
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
IEPs 'changed education for the better'
Mar. 18—SPENCERVILLE — Julie Woods crafts personalized lessons for each of her 13 students at Spencerville Middle School. The intervention specialist works with a dozen fifth and sixth grade students who rely on individualized education plans, commonly known as IEPs, to close gaps in their reading, writing or arithmetic skills. The legal documents outline how public schools intend to improve educational outcomes for children with physical, intellectual or learning disabilities. Interventions are developed with input from the child's parents, teachers, counselors and principals, and may follow a child through college if needed. The proliferation of education plans compelled public schools to integrate disabled students in regular classrooms, rather than segregate them for the duration of the school day. "There's less stigma," Woods said. "They're part of everything." In any given week a student who struggles with oral reading comprehension may come to Woods's classroom to practice reading passages out loud. Another may need Woods to read their test questions aloud, while yet another may need permission to use a calculator on an exam. Woods co-teaches with two English teachers too, which allows her to observe her students in their regular classrooms and to work alongside students who don't qualify for an IEP, but who still benefit from extra attention. "She has to individualize every single thing for every single activity for every single student," said John Zerbe, principal of Spencerville Middle School, who estimated his school has at least 35 students on IEPs this year. "It's a challenge for our special education department, because they have to differentiate everything they're doing," Zerbe said. But students are "being pushed, even though they have those accommodations," he said. Spencerville schools employs seven intervention specialists across its three schools to work with students on education plans. The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce estimates 16% of Ohio preschool and school-aged children have a disability and are eligible for special education services. Learning disabilities are the most common disability reported by Ohio students, the majority of whom spend most of their school day in regular classrooms thanks to IEPs. Students who report to multiple-handicap classrooms because of a physical or developmental disability are included as often as possible too, even in gym class or the cafeteria, Zerbe said. "That changed education for the better," Zerbe said. Featured Local Savings
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
From Blackhawks to time-sensitive, life-saving missions, central Pennsylvania lessons from last week's crashes
HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — Col. Timothy Zerbe, the Pennsylvania Army National Guard's state aviation officer, understands why he's getting a lot more questions than usual about the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters based at Fort Indiantown Gap. After all, almost no one — other than the close family and friends of the 67 people who died last week after a Black Hawk collided with a commercial flight operated for American Airlines — feels the tragedy as deeply as the people at the Gap, which Zerbe said is America's second-largest Black Hawk base. 'We're all reeling,' Zerbe said. 'They say it's a 'small Army,' and we have friends and family scattered throughout.' What to know about military helicopter involved in crash near DC But alongside their shock and grief, people involved in the Black Hawk program have to make room for unemotional lessons, including ways to even more safely share airspace with commercial flights. 'The worst thing we want to do is make a controller frustrated where they're turning us away, and that's their right to turn us away within their controlled airspace' at places like Harrisburg International Airport, said Zerbe, who also demonstrated the altimeters that should — for example — keep the helicopters below the maximum altitudes at which they're allowed to fly near busy airports. Zerbe has flown Black Hawks near New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, parts of whose airspace have a 200-foot above-ground-level altitude limit similar to the one that exists in parts of the airspace near Reagan National Airport in Washington. Some early information has indicated the helicopter that collided with the CRJ-700 jet — operated for American Airlines by its subsidiary, PSA — might have been flying too high when the collision occurred. National Transportation Safety Board investigators are looking at everything, from what happened in the cockpits of both aircraft to air traffic control tower staffing levels and the communication between controllers and the pilots. At Capital City Airport in Fairview Township, York County, Jim Isaacs — the director of operations for Eagle Air Aviation — recalled hearing the news about the medical transport jet that crashed in Philadelphia last Friday, killing six people on board and one on the ground. 'Any time there's an an accident, obviously it hits close to home,' Isaacs said. Unlike the Learjet that crashed in Philadelphia, Eagle's Cessna Citation jets — including one in the hangar Isaacs showed that is so new it's not even yet in service — don't transport patients. But they do transport donated organs. Time is of the essence to get an organ from a deceased donor to a recipient while the organ is still healthy. Still, Isaacs said pilots — backed by company leaders — will sooner cancel a flight than rush to operate in unsafe conditions. 'We operate with the mindset here that we're comfortable flying our family members in it,' Isaacs said, adding the company studies the outcomes of all investigation — and will do so with the Philadelphia one — to continue to refine its safety practices. Similarly, back at Fort Indiantown Gap, Zerbe invoked his own family. Last week's accident 'hits them, too,' Zerbe said. 'Like, 'are you – 'Dad, are you really going to go flying tonight?' And it's, 'Yes, I am going to go flying tonight.'' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
