Student recognized for musical prowess
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LEWISTOWN -- Tenth-grader Mary Kanagy performed for the Mifflin County School Board of Directors and the public during the Committee-of-the-Whole meeting Thursday evening.
Kanagy received recognition from her Honors 10 English Teacher, Mrs. Seitz for her original composition. After Kanagy read the international best selling novel 'In The Time of the Butterflies' in her English class, her song captured people's attention nationwide.
'In the Time of the Butterflies' is a fictionalized story of the Mirabal sisters during the time of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic.
Mrs. Seitz gave her students an assignment to show what they find the most important about the book and to express their findings in their own way. Kanagy chose to showcase her musical talent by creating a piece of music that tells the story of how the sisters may have felt during the dictatorship.
"When Mary presented her song to the class I was so moved I felt called to reach out to Julia Alvarez, who has won international awards and within days she responded to me directly as well as reshared the video Mary had posted on her social media," said Seitz.
During this meeting Cindi Marsh, director of student services presented her annual Special Education report to the Board of Directors.
The special education department is now able to provide the students at the middle school with a scheduled small group instruction in reading.
"Data shows that our students' reading skills are improving," said Marsh.
The program has student led IEP meetings at the secondary level. Organizers like
Marsh work alongside Penn State to implement a reading curriculum in autistic and life skills support classrooms. Those involved with the program partner up with PaTTAN and TIU at all of the elementary, intermediate, and middle schools. Elementary and intermediate schools have their own Technical Assistant Plan that focuses on either reading or math.
The Special Education department's Mywork Program allows students to work with the municipality to do various projects in the community like cleaning parks and painting tables. The department currently has partnerships with Geisinger, Goodwill and New Vision; they are looking to partner with CVS and Weis Market in the future to provide community based work instruction, pre-employment transition activities and volunteer opportunities to students.
Junior High students also have a Youth Advocate Program students can attend that offers pre-employment services.
Superintendent Vance Varner reminded Directors that the next two budget meetings will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 7, 2024 and at 6 p.m. Monday, May 20, 2024.
"On April 12, 2024, representatives from David Maines Associates, Inc. presented a check to the Mifflin County School District for $10,520 to purchase the Epilog Fusion 12 Laser Engraver for the Mifflin County Middle School," said Varner.
The Epilog Fusion 12 Laser Engraver will provide a valuable piece of equipment for the revitalization of the STEM Lab at Mifflin County Middle School. The STEM Lab will be utilized by students and classroom teachers to engage in lessons focused on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.
Varner shared that secretary Becky Fultz updated BoardDocs to include board minutes back to January 1999. The district now has 25 years of school board meeting minutes listed in BoardDocs. BoardDocs is available to anyone through the MCSD Website.
During their next voting meeting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 25, Directors will take the following action...
• Approve of the Treasures Reports for the month of March 2024.
• Approve of the Cafeteria Financial Report for the month of March 2024.
• Approve of drivers and other personnel items.
• Approve of the active STS Guest Teacher list.
• Approve of adopting a resolution authorizing the issuance of general obligation bonds in the maximum amount of $39,500,000.
• Approve the renewal of the food service management agreement with Metz Culinary Management from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025.