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Fairmont State robotics competition to blend STEM with day-to-day applications for the non-scientific out there

Gimbals, gear ratios, torques, coding and the like, will again rule at Fairmont State on Saturday, when the school hosts the West Virginia FIRST LEGO League championships for students ages 9-14 just getting into the pursuit. It’s a pursuit, as Todd Ensign said, that just might mean a good paycheck for them once they’re out of school and into the workforce. “We’re excited for them and for us, too,” the chief coordinator of the championship said. Ensign is a Fairmont State faculty member and education resource manager at NASA’s Katherine Johnson Independent ...

Preston BOE to cut positions

KINGWOOD — The Preston County School system could be looking at cuts in service and professional personnel, according to Superintendent of Schools Brad Martin. He said that would be 21 professional positions and 26 service positions lost next year. Martin said the cuts would be due to financial losses, including a loss of students, the loss of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) money, the levy-based positions for next year and the uncertainty of the next bond passing. The decrease in enrollment compared to last year’s is 138,725 students. The ...

The selling of The Renaissance Academy begins: The planned structure would be Mon’s first standalone STEM school

Sweeping vistas. Dramatic, glass-fronted workstations and learning labs brimming with on-the-edge technology. And architecture that conforms to its environs, opposed to the other way around. Monongalia County Board of Education members got a look Tuesday night like never before – at just what might be. It came by way of computer animation presented during its meeting by the DLR Group, the firm designing The Renaissance Academy. The planned complex would be the district’s first standalone high school devoted solely to STEM (science, technology, engineering and ...

Mon’s students have real-world worries

You’re late again on the mortgage. Too many bills. Not enough paycheck. Extras? Forget extras. You’re just trying to get by. What happens if you lose the house? If the think the above litany of stresses is coming from say, an adult hunkered down at the kitchen table at the end of the month, think again. Those are some of the stressors reported by Monongalia County elementary school students seated at their classroom desks this fall. Michael Ryan, who directs diversity and inclusion services for the local public school district, did a bit of a sonar sweep of the ...

PRT open again after Saturday closure

West Virginia University officials confirmed the PRT was closed Saturday, Nov. 11 because of a power rail failure at the Walnut Street station. Rumors of a fire on the tracks circulated after a video was posted to social media, but officials say it was an electric arc caused by the power ...