Boating safety added to B-C curriculum
DEEMSTON – Bethlehem-Center Middle School added boating safety to its physical education classes as a way to “add some flavor” to the curriculum, the district’s superintendent said.
Physical education teachers underwent training this week by the state Fish & Boat Commission to become certified to teach the classes, which may take students on boating excursions on local waterways.
“We are plugging away to just keep the kids engaged,” Beth-Center Superintendent Linda Marcolini said. Teachers Larissa Rathway and Mike Bassioum and two members of the Marianna Outdoorsmen Association were certified as boating safety instructors.
“You need to be alert all of the time,” Fish & Boat educator Jim Delesandro said during one of the classes Thursday. “Stay focused, otherwise you’re going to get in trouble.”
The classes make sense because the district is close to the Monongahela River and one of its major tributaries, Ten Mile Creek, and students need to know the safety rules and have more recreational choices, Marcolini said.
The classes are also an opportunity for the students in the rural district to engage in something that might keep them out of trouble.
“We want to change the culture to give the kids something to do rather than turn to drugs,” said Travis Weaver, an MOA director.
The collaboration between his organization and the district also will involve training students on how to fish, and that will be incorporated into the seventh-grade environmental sciences classes.