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Outdoors with Tom Venesky: Time to put a halt on drones

2 dead, 5 injured in Los Angeles County hit-and-run crash

<p>One youngster sat mesmerized by a video of the &#8220;Top 10 craziest bridges in the world,&#8221; gawking at the sight of China&#8217;s wavy &#8220;Dragon King Kong&#8221; pedestrian span. Another stumbled onto a clip about epic failure. &#8220;Can I watch a bridge collapse?&#8221; she asked.</p><p>Well, that could be a lesson in how not to build <em>her</em> bridge, so teacher Rachel Mancuso gave the OK.</p><p>These were web videos the children almost certainly would not have looked up on their own. Why would they surf for an explanation of how to build a bridge in water and stumble across footage of the infamous Tacoma Narrows bridge billowing in the wind like a flag before crashing to pieces?</p><p>The middle-school participants in the SHINE after school program at Wilkes-Barre Area Career and Technical Center also got to figure out how to open a theoretical pizza shop (and served real pizza to their parents), make a birdhouse using expensive computer-aided design software and build solar-powered cars from kits.</p><p>This is the face of SHINE as it nears the end of its first year in Luzerne County:</p><p>&#8226; It has raised more than $2 million in a mix of public and private money.</p><p>&#8226; It has expanded once and is poised to expand again Tuesday as two Hazleton Area programs open and a home visitor effort launches. It also is hoping to extend from 32 weeks a year to 36, and add summer programs.</p><p>&#8226; It is already looking for a third director, with the first, Jeanne Miller, meant to be temporary and the second, Mary Kolessar, leaving after six months. Miller has been filling in while a replacement is found.</p><p>&#8226; It has helped feed, educate and stimulate more than 200 youngsters so far. By May 1, SHINE hopes to reach about 200 more after school, and an additional 100 through weekly home visits.</p><p>&#8226; It has three full-time employees, is looking to take on a fourth and expects to have 52 part-time teachers by the end of this year.</p><p>What is it? Where is it? Who&#8217;s paying for it? And who keeps tabs on that spending?</p><p><strong>Program growth</strong></p><p>Short for School and Homes in Education, SHINE operated for a decade in Schuylkill and Carbon counties before state Sen. John Yudichak, D-Plymouth Township, teamed with U.S. Rep Lou Barletta, R-Hazleton, in December 2014 to announce its arrival in Luzerne County.</p><p>Yudichak rattled off data from the Carbon County SHINE program: &#8220;A 96 percent promotion rate, 92 percent increase in school attendance, 86 percent increase in family participation in a child&#8217;s education.&#8221;</p><p>He calculated the Luzerne County program could launch with as little as $75,000 and survive on about $1 million to $1.7 million a year, depending on growth. Of that, about 90 percent would be state and federal money, with the other 10 percent coming from private contributions &#8212; though he predicted Luzerne County donors would be ample and generous beyond that 10 percent.</p><p>In September 2015, the program launched at Wyoming Valley West&#8217;s State Street Elementary School in Larksville and West Side Career and Technical Center in Pringle. It quickly expanded to Wilkes-Barre Area&#8217;s Heights-Murray Elementary, Greater Nanticoke Elementary and Wilkes-Barre Area CTC. Plans call for two more programs as of March 29, at Hazleton Area&#8217;s Maple Manor and the district&#8217;s CTC.</p><p><strong>STEM sense</strong></p><p>The program focuses on &#8220;STEM&#8221; subjects: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.</p><p>Being STEM-centric almost certainly improved the odds of winning grants. With warnings that the country is falling behind global competitors in those subjects and predictions of huge shortages of needed workers in the fields, STEM has become a top target for grant programs.</p><p>Which is why you&#8217;ll get an earful, and a handful, of STEM in every class. It&#8217;s more obvious in the middle school events at the CTCs, but it seeps into the simplest lessons at the elementary centers.</p><p>During a recent session at the State Street school, students began arriving around 3:30 p.m, did some physical activity before doing homework, got a meal and then launched into various programs. For first and second grade, it was Popsicle sticks.</p><p>They measured two sticks (9 inches), were asked how to make three sticks into an 11-inch bridge and paused before teacher Denise Ash handed out the glue bottles.</p><p>&#8220;We gotta use glue?&#8221; Elizabeth Ganz moaned. &#8220;Come on! Glue makes me sticky!&#8221;</p><p>Elizabeth and her cohorts didn&#8217;t know it, but the simple bridge lesson paralleled the project their middle-school counterparts were doing at the Wilkes-Barre Area CTC. The younger students wouldn&#8217;t be trying to figure out how to sink a caisson into a river bed so workers could build the foot of a pier, but both age groups puzzled out aspects of spanning water.</p><p>Continuity is important; the hope is to have the same students move through the SHINE program each year, Miller said. When middle school work echoes earlier lessons, the complex components of a STEM education are reinforced.</p><p><strong>Showing the money</strong></p><p>Each elementary school program can handle up to 35 students in grades one through four, Miller said. The CTCs take up to 60 students in grades five through eight, though at that age they often have other commitments and rarely all show up each day.</p><p>The number served is limited by the money brought in, Miller added. The key factor is teacher-to-student ratio. Ideally, for the lower grades, it&#8217;s 1 to 8 and at the CTCs, it&#8217;s 1 to 10.</p><p>When the program was introduced, a media release from Wilkes University &#8212; the &#8220;educational partner&#8221; that provides a tax-exempt umbrella, office space and overall management as needed &#8212; predicted the program would grow to serve 800 students in the second year and 1,000 the third.</p><p>It has hit some bumps. Along with Kolessar&#8217;s resignation, the expected funding had been snagged by the state budget impasse. Much of the promised money flowed from or through Harrisburg.</p><p>Wilkes and Yudichak&#8217;s office provided information on grants and contributions.</p><p>The biggest single-year funds came from the Local Share Account, money raised through legalized gambling and doled out to area communities through a competitive process. The grant applications must come from a municipality, so SHINE teamed with Wilkes-Barre City to nab $831,454.</p><p>The biggest overall source was a three-year grant totaling almost $1.2 million &#8212; $399,633 per year &#8212; from 21st Century Community Learning Centers, the only federal program explicitly targeting after school programs. Barletta fought a move last year to roll the money into larger, more flexible block grants.</p><p>The third biggest chunk: United Way of Wyoming Valley agreed to give $80,000 this year and another potential $80,000 in 2015-16. Executive Director Bill Jones said SHINE fits nicely with the agency&#8217;s emphasis on long-term efforts to decrease poverty through early education and other programs shown to improve academic success among low-income children.</p><p>The second-year grant is contingent on whether the money is available and how well SHINE does, he added.</p><p>&#8220;The ramp up has not been as smooth as they would have hoped. Nobody would have anticipated the long delay caused by the state budget impasse,&#8221; Jones said. But the success of the program in neighboring counties remains a strong draw. &#8220;We would love to be able to help a program like that have that kind of success here.&#8221;</p><p>Wilkes spokeswoman Vicki Mayk confirmed the budget impasse tied up 21st Century grant money, stalling the opening of some centers, particularly the ones in the Hazleton Area School District.</p><p>Another $24,945 came this first year from the Luzerne/Schuylkill Workforce Investment Board, a private, non-profit corporation created to help implement programs established through the state Workforce Investment Act.</p><p>Other SHINE money comes from a $50,000 grant from the William G. McGowan Charitable Fund for the 2016-17 year, $10,000 split equally in the first and second years from the Greater Hazleton United Way and a $10,000 donation from Verizon through the state&#8217;s Educational Improvement Tax Credit program, which gives businesses tax credits toward contributions to an EITC entity.</p><p>SHINE benefits under the Wilkes EITC umbrella.</p><p>According to Wilkes, SHINE drew in a total of $1.35 million this year, and is expected to spend $978,979 of that, leaving $370,053 to carry over into next year&#8217;s budget. Assuming all the money already promised comes through, that would mean SHINE starts its second year with $900,000 in the bank.</p><p><strong>A maze of accountability</strong></p><p>Accountability of all that money can be hard to come by, at least in detail. Asked about it, Yudichak expressed staunch confidence that SHINE would abide by all the terms of the applications that won the dollars, and that each organization will make sure SHINE complies with all grant criteria.</p><p>For example, Local Share Account (gambling) money requires the recipient to submit records to the state, and gives the state potential control over the spending if something seems amiss.</p><p>But it is a patchwork of sources putting money into an entity that works under the auspices of a private university. Getting details can require filing Right To Know requests to the multiple agencies making the grants.</p><p>Wilkes readily provided a large-scale breakdown of expected spending this first year: $213,019 for management (full-time staff), $538,647 for part-time employees, $57,801 for student transportation, $33,128 for food, $32,630 for supplies, $40,200 for data collection and assessment and $63,554 under &#8220;miscellaneous.&#8221;</p><p>But fine-grain data was not available. The salary provided for the SHINE director was a range, $50,000 to $70,000, &#8220;because we don&#8217;t know the degree of experience or qualifications the new director who is being hired will bring with him/her,&#8221; Mayk noted in an email.</p><p>Hourly rates for the part-time people were also provided as a range, from $9 to $25 per hour. &#8220;This wide range is due to the fact that the qualifications and education of our part-time staff range from students to certified teachers with master&#8217;s degrees,&#8221; Mayk wrote.</p><p>The University administers the SHINE budget, tracking expenditures and &#8220;working with the University grant office to ensure compliance with grant requirements,&#8221; Mayk wrote. Wilkes also intends &#8220;to issue an annual report at the end of the academic year to share some of the broad outcomes of the program, our future plans and the uses of the grant funds.&#8221;</p><p><strong>From a child&#8217;s eyes</strong></p><p>None of which matters to the youngsters. At the Wilkes-Barre Area CTC, where previous lessons involved learning electronic circuitry with Snap Circuit cars and the future promises construction of a ride-worthy downhill derby vehicle, students were outside figuring out how to make motors powered by photo-voltaic cells spin in the right direction.</p><p>The teacher walked them over to a much larger solar panel outside the school and asked what they thought would happen if the cars in their hands were hooked up to it.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;ll explode!&#8221; one of the students predicted.</p><p>And lest you think Elizabeth Ganz&#8217;s disdain for the &#8220;eww!&#8221; of glue prevented her from finishing her Popsicle stick bridge back at State Street, fear not. By the end of the session, she and her teammates had glued more than a dozen sticks into three layers stretching the required 11 inches.</p><p>&#8220;I love glue,&#8221; Elizabeth said, amending her earlier critique. &#8220;Except when it&#8217;s messy.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Iniya Whitmore, 7, listens to the &#8216;Three Billy Goats Gruff&#8217; read by Denise Ash at the State Street Elementary school SHINE program. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_TTL030916SHINE1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Iniya Whitmore, 7, listens to the &#8216;Three Billy Goats Gruff&#8217; read by Denise Ash at the State Street Elementary school SHINE program. </caption0><photoCredit0>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_TTL030916SHINE2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Elise Jones, 7, and Yamillete Rivera, 8, measure sticks to build a bridge at the SHINE program. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_TTL030916SHINE2.jpg</photo1><caption1>Elise Jones, 7, and Yamillete Rivera, 8, measure sticks to build a bridge at the SHINE program. </caption1><photoCredit1>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_TTL030916SHINE3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Stanley Punko, 7, Joshua Etzle, 7, Mark Hartman, 8, Denise Ash and Morgan Daniels, 7, work on building a bridge with sticks at the SHINE program. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_TTL030916SHINE3.jpg</photo2><caption2>Stanley Punko, 7, Joshua Etzle, 7, Mark Hartman, 8, Denise Ash and Morgan Daniels, 7, work on building a bridge with sticks at the SHINE program. </caption2><photoCredit2>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_TTL030916SHINE5.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Hailey Schmidt, 12, and Cassie Kalinowski, 10, work to assemble a solar powered car at the SHINE program. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_TTL030916SHINE5.jpg</photo3><caption3>Hailey Schmidt, 12, and Cassie Kalinowski, 10, work to assemble a solar powered car at the SHINE program. </caption3><photoCredit3>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit3></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_TTL030916SHINE4.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Kevin Thwaites, 12, Jimmy Ardito, 11, and La&#8217; Shana Murphy, 14, assemble a solar car at the SHINE program. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo4>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_TTL030916SHINE4.jpg</photo4><caption4>Kevin Thwaites, 12, Jimmy Ardito, 11, and La&#8217; Shana Murphy, 14, assemble a solar car at the SHINE program. </caption4><photoCredit4>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit4></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>SHINE to expand to Hazleton Area</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

SHINE after school program is a success, will expand to Hazleton area