After A Year Of Challenges, Pittsburgh Public Schools Sees Return To Normal On The Horizon

PITTSBURGH, PA (KDKA) - The year was filled with ups and downs, especially for school districts with teachers and students balancing the constant changes from online learning to in-person.

"Of course, there was no playbook on a pandemic, at least in the United States," said PPS Superintendent Dr. Anthony Hamlet.

But Hamlet told KDKA the district did learn a lot from this pandemic.

"We learned our community, our organization, Pittsburgh Public Schools, our students, our staff, our faculty, our staff, our personnel are highly resilient. We were truly in unchartered waters, and everyone gave their best and all and we appreciate that," Hamlet said.

Moving forward, Hamlet said the district is set up to provide more opportunities.

"We are finding ways that now we can provide additional professional development to a large number of staff based on what we had to do on Zoom so bringing Zoom in as a regular tool in the workplace helps us in professional development and communicating," Hamlet said.

The biggest win took time, but eventually the district became one-to-one with Chromebooks.

"Really bridging that digital divide and making sure our staff and students are trained to keep using this technology we provided," Hamlet said.

The year was complete with transportation challenges, changing start dates and adaptations to new technology. So, this administration is looking forward to the fall and returning to in-person learning full time.