South Fayette receives international award for excellence
The South Fayette School District received the Habits of Mind International Learning Community of Excellence Award and Certification at Tuesday night’s school board meeting, making it one of only 18 schools worldwide to receive the honor.
Bena Kallick, director of the Institute of Habits of Mind, presented the award, which qualifies the district as a Habits of Mind certified school for the next three years.
Habits of Mind encourages students to engage thoughtfully with their work and their environment through creative and critical thinking. Innovation and Technology Coordinator Stephanie DeLuca presented videos created by students that demonstrate some of the pillars of Habits of Mind, like persistence, listening with understanding, thinking interdependently and striving for accuracy.
“I would say certainly at this time in our lives, in our country, we need to make this world a more thoughtful place,” Kallick said. “And nothing will ever be more important than bringing our children to learn how to communicate with one another, how to dialogue, how to have differences and to also understand that we can really talk about those differences and come to better understanding about them.”
Before the award presentation, the school board voted to proceed with the 2017 bond issuance presented by Anthony Ditka of the law group Dinsmore & Shohl. The issuance is the part of the third phase of financing for the high school renovation project. Ditka told the board that the bonds will be set not to exceed $12 million, a number set intentionally large to insure the that board will end up gaining roughly $9.5 million in bond profits.
The board also made the decision to postpone a meeting intended to review and discuss district finance with the South Fayette senior community proposed for Nov. 16. After deliberation about the aggressive timeline to prepare for the meeting, the board decided to push it back to a later date.
The board also voted to accept the retirement of longtime district employee Gene Manzini, effective March 1 Manzini has worked for the South Fayette School District for 40 years, first as a bus driver and then as a custodian before his current role as network systems administrator.
Manzini has been instrumental in the coordination of the high school construction project, working with contractors and architects to make sure they’re on schedule and that the new additions meet the specifications of the district and the needs of the students.
“I can’t tell you how much he’s done on the construction projects,” Superintendent Bille Rondinelli. “He watches everything that goes into these buildings as if it were going into his own home.”
Board member Len Fornella also thanked Manzini for his service.
“Gene, you’ve been valuable in so many different areas,” he said, “and it’s going to be some big boots – I would say shoes, but you always wear boots – to fill.”