Artists Volunteer

Time and Talent

Hempfield Area High School’s Chapter of the National Art Honor Society (NAHS) and other art students were extremely active in the 2022-2023 school year. At the start of this year, student members created a student-run store featuring student-made art. To kickstart the market, students, along with art teachers Emily Daignault and Tom Billeck, held a Grand Opening Coffeehouse event. With the profits from the store, they were able to purchase new art materials and fund a field trip to the Carnegie Museum of Art.

NAHS members volunteered at the high school’s Rain Rally and helped young artists during the elementary schools’ March Arts Events. They photographed multiple school and community events as well as painting and building the high spring musical set. Along with helping around the District, members also participated in numerous community-service projects including ceiling tile painting for the Westmoreland/ Fayette County Private Industry Council’s new STEM Lab. Students in the NAHS, art studio portfolio, photography portfolio and independent study classes visited the Westmoreland Museum of American Art to view its collections and create art of their own. The trip helped students plan and execute their own exhibition in the school as well as in the Student Art Exhibition at Westmoreland Museum of American Art in April. At the end of the year, students in portfolio courses helped organize the annual Hempfield Area High School Student Art Exhibition to celebrate several student artists with videos, animations, ceramics, sculptures, drawings and more. Visitors were encouraged to experience the two interactive art installations and listen to live musical performances by high school students.

Hempfield Area Welcomes Two New Middle School Assistant Principals

SARAH HARTZELL, a Hempfield Area School District graduate, will join Wendover Middle School as an assistant principal. She comes to the new position with 15 years of experience in the education field. Ms. Hartzell obtained her bachelor’s degrees in accounting, business and family consumer sciences: childcare administrator from Seton Hill University. She received her master’s degree with a focus in principal administration from California University of Pennsylvania. Her lengthy list of certifications includes Superintendent Letter of Eligibility, Supervisor of Special Education, Administrative Program for Principals PreK12, Elementary K-6, Special Education N-12, Early Childhood N-3, and Family and Consumer Sciences K-12. Ms. Hartzell comes to Hempfield Area from River Valley School School District in Indiana County where she served as a middle school principal. She also has previous experience including director of special education and elementary principal at Harmony Area School District; and program director/coordinator of program services, family/community liaison specialist and special education teacher at Pressley Ridge Day School. Ms. Hartzell began her career as a special education teacher at Clelian Heights School for Exceptional Children in Greensburg, PA.

Ms. Hartzell currently resides in Indiana, PA with her daughter Lacey and her dogs Fitz and Millie. Welcome Ms. Hartzell!

MS. JENNIFER PURKISS will serve as the new assistant principal at West Hempfield Middle School. Ms. Purkiss isn’t new to the Hempfield Area as she previously worked as the dean of students at the high school, was a special education and regular education teacher and served her principal internship at Harrold Middle School. Ms. Purkiss obtained her bachelor’s degree in elementary and special education from Duquesne University. She received her master’s degree in general special education and her principal’s certification from the University of Pittsburgh. Her certifications include Behavioral Specialist License and Principal Certification Pre K-12. In addition to her experience at Hempfield Area, Ms. Purkiss completed additional principal internships at Franklin Regional School District high school and Penn Trafford School District elementary school. She began her teaching career as a special education teacher at Auberle Alternative Education Center in Homestead, PA and Pace School in the Pittsburgh area.

Ms. Purkiss resides in North Huntingdon, PA and enjoys baking, running and playing with her four dogs. She is excited to build family-school partnerships and support a positive school environment.

Summer Camps Support Summer Learning

Over the summer, the Hempfield Area School District offered eight summer enrichment camps free of charge to any student. These camps were supported by the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds to respond to students’ academic, social and emotional needs while addressing the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on underrepresented student subgroups. The District applied for and was awarded $57,245 which can only be used as summer school grant funding. Some of the camps offered include Camp Spartan, Summer Band Camp, Performing Arts Camp, Kinder Camp, Math Applications Sports & Games, STEAM Landmarks & Culture Around the World, A Colorful Adventure with Amber Brown and Young Writers Workshop. Each camp had a focus and an identified age group of participants.

Camp Spartan was offered to kindergarten and first-grade students to help them prepare for the next school year with engaging review games, activities and crafts. The camp included both ELA and math tools to prevent learning loss over the summer.

Kinder Camp focused on helping rising first graders prepare for their next school year with activities in music, art, math and more. Summer Band Camp provided an opportunity for middle grade students who are interested in band to join together to work on skills, tone production, technique and ensemble work. Similarly, elementary and middle school students with an interest in performing arts were encouraged to participate in Performing Arts Camp, where they worked on music, dance, acting, basic stage technique and more.

Fourth and fifth graders were offered the Math Applications Sports & Games camp where they learned how to reinforce math concepts while using sports and activities. Students learned to keep score in bowling, learned shooting percentages and how angles can help athletic success. STEAM Landmarks & Culture Around the World students were able to connect STEAM, ELA History and Geography by traveling around the world and learning about famous landmarks and cultures through hands-on manipulatives and cultural celebrations. A Colorful Adventure with Amber Brown was a camp based loosely on the book “Amber Brown is Not a Crayon” and challenged students to participate in reading, math, writing and more activities that mirrored the story. Finally, Young Writers Workshop was a middle-school camp for young writers to explore their own voices.

In addition to enrichment camps, the District offered Learning with a Purpose, a program to remediate math, English, science and social studies skills for credit recovery. In collaboration with the Central Westmoreland Career and Technical Center (CWCTC), the program offered authentic, real-world learning experiences for Hempfield Area students in grades 6-12. Last year’s Learning with a Purpose students found the program to be very beneficial in both the academic and real world. “I learned several skills over the course of summer school because the instructions were clear cut and easy to follow, as well as the shorter days making it easier for me to find determination to work compared to the longer school day,” said Richie Domingos, a former Learning with a Purpose student. Each of these programs provides our students with the opportunity to address summer learning loss and ensure they are prepared for next school year.

Hempfield Area School District Adjusts Curriculum and Adds New Courses

The Hempfield Area School District takes pride in delivering an excellent academic environment that caters to the overall student. To uphold this commitment, the District implements a curriculum cycle review to update resources that aligns with current standards. This year’s recommended updates include science curriculum for all grades and world language (Spanish & French) curriculum for grades 6-12. For the updated science curriculum, each grade level will adopt STEAM-based learning, collaborative learning, hands-on activities and more. Vertical alignment will be implemented from school to school as there will be a better transition in learning between each grade level. The future curriculum for world language focuses on getting more students involved and engaged in language courses. At the high-school level, different world language classes will be scheduled and offered to give all students more options to include in their schedules. High school students will be encouraged to enroll in language classes, to involve themselves in the Global Scholars Program and more. At the middle-school level, exploratory classes will be offered in 6th and 7th grades, with Spanish 1 and French 1 available as a core class in 8th grade. In addition to new curriculum updates, each high school department carefully considered new electives to fulfill graduation requirements that engage students where their interests lie. Fifteen new courses were offered for the 2023-2024 school year and will be held based on student interest. Zoology and two new physics courses will be offered as new science courses. Zoology will focus on the diversity of the animal kingdom to fulfill the learning gap in current Biology curriculum due to the Keystone Exams. Honors Physics will ultimately bridge the gap between our current Physics 1 course and AP Physics 1 courses. AP Physics C: Mechanics gives students yet another opportunity to receive college credits as this course is equivalent to a first year higher education physics course. The Mathematics, Sports, Gaming and Social Stats class is designed to increase student understanding of statistical real-world data and situations. This can include examples of professional sport leagues, video games, marketing, social media, political data and more. College Literature, Sitcom Analysis, and Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction are three classes offered in the English department. College Literature is a dual-enrollment course that will allow students to read varying genres with a deep analytical approach to prepare for higher education courses while earning college credits through Seton

Hill University. Both Sitcom Analysis and Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction will be just as engaging as they sound. The Sitcom Analysis course will critically analyze sitcoms to better understand the changing norms in American society. The Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction course will use critical lens analysis to engage with texts from the various genres of fiction. For social studies, students are now offered Study of Personality II and World War II and The Holocaust as courses. Study of Personality has long been a popular elective course with topics important to students’ understanding themselves and others. Because of the popularity, we are now adding a class to expand on this interest. World War II and The Holocaust course is an intricate deep dive into that part of our history and will focus on the causes, process and legacy of this troubling time period. Three technology classes introduced include Bots IQ, Graphics 4 and Power & Energy II. Bots IQ was previously a club activity that has grown and now demands a dedicated class time for students that are interested in engineering and manufacturing robots. Graphics 4 students will have the opportunity to perfect their skills through real-world, hands-on tasks by completing graphic design needs for the District. Power & Energy II will build off of Power & Energy I and create more advanced skills and activities.