Nov. 2021 Est. 1985
The Northside Chronicle
Volume 37 Issue 11 - FREE -
The Community Newspaper of Pittsburgh’s Historic Northside
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Strategies in place at Perry to tackle COVID-19 ‘learning loss'
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Bill Schlageter of Children’s Museum retiring after over 20 years By Sonu Babu
Photo: Lauren Stauffer
Following the damage done from the initial COVID-19 pandemic surge, A+ Schools is trying to turn operations around at Perry. Only time will tell, though, if their efforts will be enough to balance out the harm that’s already taken place at the high school—not to mention the problems that existed there all along. Full story below. By Ashlee Green
Bill Schlageter is a Rochester, New York native, but has spent most of his professional life in Pittsburgh’s Northside. Before his notable role as Director of Marketing and Spokesperson for the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, he led the marketing and communications for the River City Brass (RCB) Band. RCB was founded in 1981 with the mission to revive traditional American brass band music. The band held seven concerts a year, and Schlageter managed their regional See Schlageter, Page 17
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Nichole Sims recalled the nightmare that was the 2019-2020 school year: On top of the, well, worldwide pandemic, Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) had a shortage of tech devices for remote learning, and on top of that, some PPS students’ families didn’t even have internet access. They might’ve found a laptop, for example, but Sims knows of some students who had to sit outside of coffee shops or go to the library to actually connect to WiFi and receive their instruction. Sims, who is the Parent Lead for A+ Schools and works with schools through-
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out the Northside, called the whole situation a “fiasco.” In sum, she said the first pandemic year “really just amplified and increased all of the issues that already existed in education, specifically in Pittsburgh and in the Pittsburgh Public School District. “[It] really illuminated the inequity in education, even locally,” she said. Unmet needs There were other aspects too. The need for childcare, for example, was a big one: Parents often couldn’t go to work when their children were home, and students who were normally off at school were relied on, time and again, to look out for their younger siblings. Food insecurity became
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more obvious as well: Many students, Sims explained, counted on attending school for their meals. “That stuff went away,” she said. Furthermore, benefits from the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program, originally developed as a short-term solution for food-insecure households last spring, have only recently begun to be distributed to families in need. All of this led to students missing more days of school than normal, which in turn, played a part in them failing more courses. According to a report last year by See Perry, Page 9
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