Dr. Tia Wanzo is the First Black Superintendent at McKeesport Area School District

It only took 138 a long time, but McKeesport Space School District finally has a Black Superintendent.

Dr. Tia Wanzo was sworn in yesterday at a properly attended specific meeting of the board.

Dr. Wanzo experienced been Assistant Superintendent beneath outgoing Superintendent Dr. Mark Holtzman who left the district for a corresponding situation at Beaver Area College District at the conclusion of June.

The McKeesport district, founded in 1884 and found just southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has experienced a sizable Black populace for decades. According to the National Middle of Schooling Figures, the district is 71 percent white and 23 per cent Black. It serves the Town of McKeesport, and boroughs of Versailles, Dravosburg and White Oak as nicely as a compact part of South Versailles Township.

“It’s an honor to sit on the board at this time as background was made,” Board Member LaToya Wright Brown wrote on a Facebook put up.

“Dr. Wanzo is the 1st African American to be appointed in the position of superintendent at MASD. I glimpse ahead to doing work in collaboration with our central administration groups, MASD employees and communities to give our pupils what they ought to have.”

Dr. Wanzo will be compensated $165,000 for every year – $25,000 more than Dr. Holtzman had been compensated in his original contract from March 29, 2017.

The board voted unanimously to use Dr. Wanzo as Superintendent even though College Director Matt Holtzman – the previous Superintendent’s brother – was absent.

In the course of the prior administration, Dr. Wanzo was normally place in complicated positions.

In 2019 when the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a federal civil rights lawsuit from the district on behalf of 11 district college students, she experienced the hard position of defending her manager, Dr. Holtzman, while nonetheless advocating for the learners.

Dr. Holtzman, who was named in the fit, refused to enable the pupils create a Black University student Union. He claimed his objection wasn’t owing to the organization’s content material but the participation of just one of the student’s mothers – Fawn Montgomery Walker who was operating for McKeesport Mayor at the time and who is guide organizer of Choose Action Mon Valley, a local community action group.

Dr. Wanzo was quoted in the Pittsburgh Tribune Assessment on the subject as follows:

“The aggravating element is the students clearly did not recognize that they are in the center of this. And also, it is disheartening that they truly feel that we are telling them they can’t do that, you are not permitted to have this club, since that was under no circumstances ever said by any of us.”

The district sooner or later reached a settlement agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union and the pupils.

The learners were being allowed to generate the club as very long as no “non-university individuals or entities” are named as advisors or members of the club.

Dr. Wanzo was also place in a tricky placement additional recently when the earlier university board voted to prolong Dr. Holtzman’s agreement two many years before it expired – a prospective violation of condition law.

Dr. Holtzman resigned and was rehired at the similar board conference. When this proved contentious, the former board did the same matter a thirty day period later on for Dr. Wanzo and then claimed any criticism of what they did for Holtzman was possibly unfair for not like Wanzo or racially motivated for the reason that Dr. Wanzo is a human being of color.

The make a difference concluded with Dr. Holtzman leaving the district.

As opposed to her predecessor, Dr. Wanzo put in her entire job at MASD. She was a fifth grade instructor at Francis McClure Middle School, a next grade teacher at White Oak Elementary School, a fourth grade teacher at Cornell Intermediate College, Assistant Principal at Founders’ Corridor Center School, and ninth grade principal at the superior college.

She graduated from the district and nevertheless lives in its borders. As a university student, she attended Centennial Elementary, Cornell Middle University, and graduated from McKeesport Significant School in 1997. 

She has a BA in Elementary Instruction from Clarion College, a degree in Academic Management from Carlow University, and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Duquesne College.

With any luck , she will be in a position to lead the district to a brighter potential.

To numerous college students she could appear a beacon of representation as properly as evidence that a college student from McKeesport can rise to the prime.

Enjoy DR. WANZO Getting SWORN IN:

Like this post?  You may well want to contemplate getting to be a Patreon subscriber. This helps me proceed to maintain the site going and get on with this hard and tough operate.

Plus you get subscriber only extras!

Just Click on In this article.

I’ve also composed a reserve, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Community University Trainer Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now accessible from Garn Push. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Academics Association. Look at it out!