News

A longstanding partner of the Consortium, The Mentoring Partnership of Southwestern PA, is widely recognized for The Magic of Mentoring – an event held every other year to celebrate the power of mentoring that honors people, organizations, and programs that power those influential relationships.  Among other amazing organizations, the Consortium was recognized as the Program [...]

With a room filled with over 700 school educators from six school districts, PA Secretary of Education Dr. Khalid Mumin took the stage to offer his encouraging and fortifying keynote address. The high-impact, multi-district professional development day focused on Building a Positive School Culture. With a palpable sense of camaraderie, educators heard takeaways from Secretary [...]

They’re just beginning school and they seem so little it’s difficult to imagine that elementary students already need help becoming future ready. But research suggests they’re at the perfect age to begin.  With a greater focus on elementary future readiness, the Consortium recently gave a webinar for members of the Pennsylvania School Counselors Association (PSCA) on […]

With their passion for supporting students who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community, Dr. Christy Kuehn and Sarah Brooks were invited to give a presentation at Intermediate Unit 1’s common professional development day. Their goal was to provide educators with additional resources for serving this population of students, ranging from specific strategies to broad […]

The Consortium is thrilled to welcome Candice Murrell as a returning member of the Consortium staff. She officially joined us again in September 2023 as a Director of Professional and Student Learning and is excited to embrace this new role. Candice is eager to reconnect with educators and school leaders throughout our region to advance […]

The Consortium is offering Thriving Futures for school counselors this fall in response to feedback gathered at a preliminary meeting in March. Registrations for the program, which will focus on future readiness, must be made by Sept. 15, and the first of three in-person sessions takes place Oct. 24. Among possible topics on upcoming agendas […]

Registration is open for introductory courses in Project-Based Learning (PBL) and Human-Centered Design (HCD) that we’ll be offering in September. The PBL training consists of two sessions, Sept. 19 and Sept. 26, from 8:30 am to 2:30 pm at the Consortium’s offices. The HCD training takes place Sept. 21 and Sept. 28, also from 8:30 […]

Educators participating in the Industry 4.0 Teacher Academy seemed surprised and reassured that even the advanced manufacturing sector—with high-tech environments that depend on coding, robots, and the like—offers employment opportunities for students without 4-year degrees. “The trend is toward skills-based hiring,” Catalyst Connection’s Director of Workforce Initiatives, Scott Dietz, interjected as attendees peppered business representatives […]

Companies and community organizations interested in participating in the Student Sustainability Design Challenge we’re offering this year in partnership with the Energy Innovation Center will find information about the program in a video from an August webinar as well as in our Program Description and Timetable. As part of the program, student teams will learn […]

The Consortium’s Professional Development team hosted a webinar earlier this month to unveil our planned Student Sustainability Design Challenge, a multi-district initiative the Consortium will launch in 2023-2024 in partnership with the Energy Innovation Center (EIC), to help educators engage their students in Project-Based Learning experiences focused on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). […]