Home Care In Fox Chapel, PA

The halls of Fox Chapel Area School District schools soon will echo with young voices and the tread of new shoes as students and staff begin the new school year on Aug 29.

And for those wondering, the last day of school for students is June 6, 2024.

The district’s projected enrollment this year is 4,146 with 350 teachers. No course or staff cuts were made as part of the 2023-2024 budget.

“We are very excited to welcome our students, staff, and families to the 2023-2024 school year and look forward to a productive and fulfilling year of learning and growing in this wonderful school community,” said Superintendent Dr. Mary Catherine Reljac.

Student lunch prices will be $2.95 daily for secondary students and $2.65 daily for elementary students. The price of milk will be 75 cents.

Breakfast once again will be free for all Fox Chapel Area students. The state will pay for a free lunch for all students eligible for a reduced-priced lunch.

The school board on Aug. 14 approved a strategic vision for the district after gathering input for nearly a year from school and community stakeholders. The district’s strategic vision is to provide each student with a well-rounded education that focuses on academic, physical, mental, social and emotional well-being in a learning community that values diversity and utilizes purpose, passion, care, and community as pillars of success.

It is a framework to guide the district over the next several years in decisions to benefit students and community.

A new principal will soon make her Fox Chapel Area High School debut. The school board hired Dr. Michelle Young on Aug. 14 to serve as a high school program principal. Her starting salary is $132,000; her start date will be determined. She will fill a vacancy left by the fall retirement of Dr. Daniel Lentz.

Young served as the principal of the Lakeview Middle-High School in Stoneboro and was the principal at Commodore Perry High School located in Hadley. Both are in Mercer County.

Young has a bachelor’s degree from John Carroll University, a master’s in education in Gannon University and doctorate from Robert Morris University.

“The district screened and interviewed a number of candidates, and Dr. Young’s experience, knowledge, and student-centered approach will be an asset to the district’s students, staff, and families,” Reljac said.

The high school’s student government will become the Fox Leadership Council. The change is the result of recommendations from students, administrators and club/activity sponsors, district officials said.

The FLC will incorporate the high school’s diversity council, community outreach, a new wellness council and a new student engagement team. It will be overseen by four student officers voted on by the student body. It will also have a special project area for new ideas. All of these groups are student led.

Turf on the high school baseball, softball, and multipurpose fields was replaced over the summer.

The high school main gym floor also was refurbished and features an athletic fox logo on the gym floor.

The district’s website, fcasd.edu, went through an upgrade to improve performance. A new, online payment system was implemented over the summer and is accessible under the “Quick Links” tab on the website’s main page.

This system allows individuals to pay for various fees and programs such as parking, technology fees, STEAM Camp, facility usage and more. Fees associated with this online platform are the same as the fees used in previous platforms.

Only a few payment options are currently available. The district expects to add more as the school year progresses.

Michael DiVittorio is a TribLive reporter covering general news in Western Pennsylvania, with a penchant for festivals and food. He can be reached at [email protected].

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Categories: Fox Chapel Herald | Valley News Dispatch

“Pittsburgh was a bad idea.”

It’s one of the glaring neon sentences in Werner Herzog’s memoir piece “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” published this week in The New Yorker.

Out of context, it appears as though the 80-year-old German film legend is echoing that famous line from the Atlantic Monthly describing the city as “hell with the lid off.”

Instead, Herzog was referring to Pittsburgh as a bad idea for him.

Having made two short films, the director came to the United States on a scholarship in 1965 as a 23-year-old and, on the recommendation of a friend, studied film at Duquesne University, thinking it would be suitable to his upbringing.

“I chose Pittsburgh,” he writes, “because I had the sentimental notion that I wouldn’t be tied up with academic nonsense; I’d be in a city with real, down-to-earth people. Pittsburgh was the Steel City, and I had worked in a steel factory myself.”

Instead, he found the steel industry “rusting” and Duquesne to be an “intellectually impoverished place,” with an inadequate studio set up for more of a news broadcast. During his year in Pittsburgh, he worked on a NASA documentary with WQED until it was discovered that his visa had expired, at which point he went to Mexico before he could be deported.

The sentimental focus of his piece is the Franklin family of Fox Chapel who saw him walking in the rain to the home of his host, whom he did not care for, and ended up taking him in as another member of the family.

Evelyn Franklin was a widowed secretary with six children, ages 17 to 27, including twin teenage daughters and a “failed rock musician” named Billy. There’s also a dog, Benjamin. Benjamin Franklin.

“I straightaway became part of the daily madness,” Herzog writes, later adding, “I loved the Franklins. With them, I got to know some of the best and deepest things about America.”

As the years went on, they exchanged visits between Munich and Pittsburgh. When Herzog returned to Pittsburgh to play a villain in the 2012 film “Jack Reacher,” with Tom Cruise, he looked for the Franklins but could find no trace of them. Evelyn and Billy had both passed away.

One of his best recollections about his time with the Franklins was tagging along with the twins to see The Rolling Stones at the Civic Arena. The twins brought along a cardboard sign that said “BRIAN” because they infatuated with bandleader Brian Jones, who would die several years later.

“So far, all these groups — and pop culture as a whole — had passed me by, with the exception of Elvis, whose first film I had seen in Munich…,” he writes. “ I still recall my astonishment at the commotion and the girls’ screams.”

With some graphic detail, Herzog writes that the plastic seats were steaming because the girls at the show were a wee bit incontinent at the sight of the British heartthrobs.

The Stones, who first played here in June 1964 at West View Park (ahead of the Beatles’ landing in Pittsburgh), played two shows at the Arena in the ‘60s: In November 1965, they headlined with The Byrds, Simon and Garfunkel, We Five, Bo Diddley, The Vibrations, Paul Revere and the Raiders and more. In June 1966, they were with Tommy James & The Shondells, and The McCoys.

Most likely, Herzog was at that 1965 show.

Years later, the director cast Mick Jagger in his 1982 film “Fitzcarraldo” to play alongside Jason Robards. Unfortunately, Robards took ill, and when the production was suspended halfway through, he lost the availability of the Stones singer and wrote that character out of the script.

Jagger was bound for the “Tattoo You” tour. Fitzcarraldo won the German Film Prize and earned Herzog Best Director at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival.

In a 1980 interview with the PG, Herzog also showed some love for the home team, “I used to watch them in the stadium when I first came here. I am very proud that the Steelers have won the Super Bowl.”

First Published August 22, 2023, 10:23am

The most recent data on moving trends from United Van Lines shows more people are moving out of Pennsylvania than the number moving there. Outbound movers cite retirement and the desire to be closer to family as the most common reasons for leaving.

Still, when it comes to those who choose to make their home in the Keystone State, there are several suburbs in particular that are simply unmatched.

That’s according to Moving Feedback, which recently included five Pennsylvania places among its list of the 175 “most envied” suburbs in the nation.

To put together its list, the moving services company surveyed 3,000 U.S. adults for their preferences. Here’s a look at the five most enviable suburbs in Pennsylvania, which include several affluent communities across the commonwealth where homes regularly sell for millions of dollars.

Located in Allegheny County about a dozen miles northwest of Pittsburgh is the borough of Sewickley, a community with a history dating back to the mid-1700s.

Early on in its history, Sewickley was a site involved in several momentous historical events, from the French and Indian Wars to the American Revolutionary War.

Today, Sewickley is home to roughly 4,000 residents. The Sewickley Bridge, a steel truss structure completed in 1911, spans the Ohio River and is the standout element in the borough’s skyline.

In 2020, the median property value in Sewickley stood at $396,000. The median age there is 43, with a typical household income well north of $78,000, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures compiled by Data USA. For comparison, the median household income in Pennsylvania is $67,587, Census data show.

A search of homes for sale in Sewickley, listed on the popular real estate website Zillow, show they range widely in price from $275,000 on the low end up to $4.7 million.

Sewickley ranked 152nd on Moving Feedback’s list.

Next on Moving Feedback’s list, ranking at No. 131, is Manheim Township in Lancaster County.

The county is likely best known for its Amish community, which is the largest in the country. Here you’ll find romantic covered bridges, Amish crafts and the local Antique District, all of which are a draw for tourists.

Originally populated by immigrant farmers hailing from England, Scotland, Ireland and Germany, the town itself takes its name from Mannheim, Germany.

Today, Manheim Township is home to some 43,000 residents. In 2020, the median property value there was $173,000 with a median household income of $61,318. The median age was 35.

Chestnut Hill, a photogenic Philadelphia neighborhood defined by its leafy streets and Victorian-era homes, comes in at No. 107 on Moving Feedback’s list.

For tourists to Philadelphia, Chestnut Hill is a destination for its Morris Arboretum tree canopy walk among other attractions. Chestnut Hill is also known for nearby Germantown Avenue, which serves as the main thoroughfare between it and Mount Airy. The neighborhood is one of the oldest in Philadelphia and is a draw for its charming streetside shops and cafes.

Chestnut Hill’s population is small at about 6,600 residents. Of the five homes up for sale in the area, according to Zillow listings, prices range from $629,000 to $3.2 million.

Most known for the Hershey’s chocolate founder it’s named after, Hershey ranks 72nd among America’s most enviable suburbs.

Just 15 miles east of Harrisburg, the community of Hershey got its start as a company town for Milton Hershey’s chocolate factory and its workers. Today, you can learn about the town’s history by exploring the Hershey Story Museum and its exhibits or just enjoy the rides and amusements at Hersheypark.

Hershey’s population is about 15,000, with a median household income of $61,948 as of 2020. The median property value in the area that same year were $248,000 and the homeownership rate at roughly 55%.

Returning to the Pittsburgh area, the borough of Fox Chapel was the highest rated Pennsylvania suburb on Moving Feedback’s list, coming in at No. 62.

Situated in the wooded hills north of Pittsburgh, the borough itself owns more than 300 acres of parkland, which has made Fox Chapel entirely residential apart from a few churches, private clubs and schools.

Here, you’ll find the lofty Shady Side Academy, a kindergarten through 12th grade prep school with the option of a boarding school experience in high school. Its alumni include Pulitzer Prize winning authors, NFL players, a Grammy-nominated musician, the current U.S. agriculture secretary and an actress on “The Big Bang Theory,” among other graduates.

With about 5,200 residents, the median property value in Fox Chapel in 2020 stood at $701,600. The median household income that same year was $233,776.

The half a dozen homes on the market in Fox Chapel range in price from $995,000 to $8.2 million.