Bentworth Middle recognized during assembly
Gideon Bradshaw/Observer-Reporter
Bentworth Middle School Principal David Schreiber addresses students as he prepares to sing during an assembly Thursday.
Gideon Bradshaw/Observer-Reporter
Bentworth Middle School eighth-grader Jayden Harper, who is president of the student council, addresses classmates during an assembly Thursday.
Gideon Bradshaw/Observer-Reporter
Student government members hold a banner as staff gather around them during an assembly Thursday at Bentworth Middle School.
BENTLEYVILLE – Bentworth Middle School Principal David Schreiber told his students during an assembly Thursday his wish had been to have popular Steelers player JuJu Smith-Schuster visit the school.
That didn’t pan out, so he went to plan B. In the school’s gymnasium, he stripped to his shirtsleeves and, reading from a sheet of paper, sang the bleachers of excited children a rendition of Don McLean’s “American Pie” – a performance that ended in raucous cheers.
The occasion that prompted this unusual display was the Somerset Township school’s redesignation as a state and national “School to Watch” by the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform, an educational nonprofit active in Pennsylvania and 16 other states.
Bentworth is one of 40 schools in the state and two in Washington County to hold the distinction. Canonsburg Middle is the other. Bentworth, which has about 380 students in the fifth through eighth grades, first received the three-year designation in 2016.
Bruce Vosburgh, Pennsylvania director and president of the National Forum, said the program is meant as a way of evaluating schools beyond standardized test scores but instead through a range of other criteria like leadership, the culture of the school, communication and community involvement.
“The teachers, the central office staff, the school administrators, the students, your school board members, your community members, your parents,” Vosburgh said. “Everyone needs to be part of this process, because Schools to Watch measures so much more” than what the state tests do.
Student council President Jayden Harper, an eighth-grader, said schools receiving the designation also have to show improvement from year to year.
“We worked so hard to get it,” she said.
Among the things she said students did was the creation of a new slogan – “Be respectful, be accountable, be safe and always be great” – that has been displayed throughout the building.
Sherri Crockett, a teacher at the school and president of Bentworth Education Association, the district teachers union, said the school’s small size made the award even more exciting.
“It shows that even though our district is small, we can accomplish great things,” she said.