PITTSTON — The latest SHINE of Luzerne County after-school center opened at Pittston Area’s Intermediate Center on New Street Tuesday afternoon with a program and a ribbon-cutting ceremony, making it the ninth such center in the county.
The Schools and Homes In Education (SHINE) program was formed in fall 2015 by State Sen. John Yudichak and former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta. Wilkes University is SHINE’s higher education partner and serves as its home base.
The SHINE Center at the Pittston Intermediate Center will serve elementary school students in first through fourth grades and have a home visiting program, encompassing a four-day-a-week after-school program for students recommended by teachers or guidance counselors.
Students in the Pittston Area School District in grades five through eight attend SHINE at the Wilkes-Barre Career and Technical Center.
“This is the addition of a new SHINE center,” said Carol Nicholas, SHINE director at Wilkes University. “For us, that is really, really exciting and we’re here to welcome Pittston Area to the SHINE family.”
Students will benefit from SHINE’s project-based STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) curriculum to encourage excitement about learning.
“What we do at SHINE is hope to stimulate students’ interest in education, prepare them for careers in the 21st century and teach them valuable skills, all while keeping them safe in a school environment,” Nicholas said.
According to Nicholas, students will have access to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) based learning tools such as 3D printing, zSpace virtual reality training, FOSS educational kits, LEGO brick labs, math enforcement, robotics, dash and dot computer coding, computer building, as well as reading, math, art and history.
“When we started this educational odyssey few years ago, we had pretty big ambitions,” Yudichak said. “We wanted to be in as many school districts as we possibly could in Luzerne County and we wanted to be in all four cities (Pittston, Hazelton, Nanticoke, Wilkes-Barre) in Luzerne County.”
Yudichak thanked Pittston Area Superintendent Kevin Booth, the school district’s school board and Dr. Anthony Grieco, Luzerne County Intermediate Unit 18’s executive director, for bringing SHINE to Pittston Area.
The SHINE program was expanded from Carbon and Schuylkill Counties into Luzerne County because of a growing trend of school dropouts, according to Yudichak.
“With the SHINE program in Luzerne County, we now have a 96% promotion rate, over 90% attendance rate; we’re not going to lose any one of these children,” Yudichak said. “They’re going to have opportunities like they could never dream of because of this wonderful SHINE program. The results have been phenomenal.”
“We’re thrilled to have SHINE at our Intermediate Center,” Booth said. “I was envious and jealous of the other districts that had SHINE, so when the opportunity came about to have SHINE at Pittston Area, it took me half a second to say, ‘Absolutely. We will be more than happy to have SHINE.’”
Wilkes University Interim President Dr. Paul Adams said, “At Wilkes, the core of our being is about bringing educational opportunity to younger people. That’s clearly what this program is all about.”
In addition to Pittston Area, SHINE is at Wyoming Valley West, Hanover Area, Wilkes-Barre Area and Hazleton Area, servicing over 500 students in nine locations.
