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Shaler Area faculty, staff, and administration have been busy this summer making preparations for this upcoming school year and are excited to welcome everyone back for the start the 2019-20 school year. The first day of school for all students is Wednesday, August 28, 2018. Some of the changes and highlights for this school year include:

Administrative Changes
Shaler Area Elementary School Assistant Principal: Heather Berney has more than 19 years of experience in education including 13 years at Shaler Area as an English teacher and most recently as an assistant principal at Shaler Area High School. She will fill the vacant assistant principal position resulting from Lori Robinet-Mish returning to the classroom as a teacher. 

Curriculum Changes
We are moving forward and strengthening our English Language Arts (ELA) program with a new ELA series for students in Kindergarten through sixth-grade. A team of teachers and administrators spent the entirety of last school year researching and testing two different series in order to choose the best program for our students. The team selected Pearson, Ready Gen for grades K-5 and Pearson, My Perspectives for grade 6. The new series will provide content-rich text that will build students’ knowledge, academic vocabulary, and writing skills. 

Capital Improvement Projects
In an effort to continue our commitment to maintaining and upgrading our facilities to create a safe and effective learning environment for all students, several capital improvement projects occurred throughout the district over the summer. We had a new turf installed at Biles Field, paved Paul Schweiger Way at the High School, replaced a cooling tower at the High School, and completed phase 1 of 2 to replace the roof at Shaler Area Elementary School. Each of these projects was identified as a priority project to maintain our facilities and marks the beginning of a three-year effort to make significant upgrades across our district facilities.

Safety
We are continuously evaluating our procedures to ensure a safe environment for everyone. In recent years, we have actively increased our district safety through facility improvements, additional safety personnel, and safety and response training. This summer, we continued those efforts by approving a contract to add a second School Resource Officer to the district for the start of the 2019-20 school year, updating and increasing the security cameras at the Elementary School and High School, and updating our Emergency Operations Plan with the support of local first responders. This school year, we are continuing our ongoing project to update the interior and exterior doors in all buildings, providing further training for staff in emergency operations, and increasing the accessibility of our Emergency Operations Plan to staff and first responders. 

School Breakfast & Lunch Menus
Shaler Area received a $8,102-grant from the state Department of Education to support its middle and high school breakfast program in the 2019-20 school year. Students will see increased options that especially are designed to appeal to older students. Menus can be found on Nutrislice, an interactive menu website and free smartphone app, which provides pictures, descriptions, nutritional information, special diet filters, and carb counts for each day’s menu. Nutrislice is available at sasd.nutrislice.com or through a free mobile app available on the iTunes App Store for iPhone users or on Google Play for Android-powered smartphones. Free and reduced-price breakfast and lunch meals are available to any Shaler Area family that qualifies. Applications are available on the district website. Students who were previously enrolled in the program must reapply each year.

Student meal prices for the upcoming school year:

 

Important orientation & preview dates:
Orientation day for students in K, 4, 7, 9 is Tuesday, Aug. 27. For students in grades 4, 7 and 9, this is a required ½ day program and attendance will be taken.