On March 3, the PA Secretary of Education, Noe Ortega, visited Pleasant Valley Elementary and the high school.

Ortega went to Pleasant Valley to check out their new literacy initiatives for Read Across America.

“You know, reading is one of the things that I think really opens up a world of knowledge and thinking for you, and I think for young kids that the sooner we sort of gravitate to enjoying reading, the sooner that I think we can be transported to things that are important, right?” Ortega said.

Ortega interacted with the students in Pleasant Valley.

“I read a book to the young kids today, and it’s an exciting opportunity to go out and promote literacy,” Ortega said.

Ortega commented that he believes reading early on is important.

“It’s a really important habit to develop at a young age,” Ortega said. “I know that some of the best memories I have of things are with spending time with my parents, even with my grandparents and around books, and if you can develop that habit early on it really is going to benefit your future.”

He mentioned in a meeting with school officials that if there was anything that needed to be improved or worked on  it could be brought to his attention.

“We do think it’s a lot of missed opportunities,” Ortega said. “I invite anyone for any sort of feedback, comments, things that you’d like to bring to our attention.”

Ortega will continue to visit other schools in the state to see what’s happening in them.

“We’ve been to a number of places, and we will continue to go to a number of other schools,” Ortega said. “It’s important for us to see what’s happening in the classroom. As someone who sits at the head of education in PA, to make decisions without actually seeing what’s playing out on the ground and what other concerns students have? What other things do they want to celebrate? What are the stories they want to share about their experiences? I think we need to listen to those things because that informs us on how we have to think about the future of education but also the decisions that we’re making now.”

Ortega encourages students to approach him with how they feel about the school.

“I really appreciate when I’m approached by young people when we go to schools and they want to share with us their experiences or let me know what they appreciate or don’t appreciate,” Ortega said. “All those things really matter, so this is why I will continue on this tour of visiting schools across the Commonwealth.”

Ortega is visiting schools in the state for another reason.

“The administration has really made efforts, historic efforts in fact, to fund basic education and this year we propose an additional 1.3 billion dollars to go into basic education,” Ortega said.

This proposal could affect schools.

“It’s going to help our schools in regards to making sure that kids make up from some of the missed learning of the past two years, and it’s going to help promote things like improved literacy and improving success for young people,” Ortega said. “As we tour around Altoona, we can see that there’s a lot of other contributions that have been made and that need to be made in this area. We think that education reform will promote that as well.”

Ortega commented that the school made an investment in its students and their futures.

“You know one of the really impressive things that we have been able to observe and that we are going to get to is the investment that has been made by the school district, and I think that the funding we propose for education will allow for that to happen,” Ortega said. “Things like promoting the applied outcomes of learning, what happens when you do have a successful STEM program like to promote interest in the engineering and mechanics fields as well. Also a lot of opportunities like dual enrollment which is accelerating the path for young folks so that they graduate from school to be equipped to go to college.”

While at the high school, Ortega got to witness the physics students working.

“The visit from the Pennsylvania Secretary of Education was a very unique opportunity for the Altoona Area School District. I was very proud to be able to showcase not only our new science commons, but also the amazing abilities of our physics students and the resources that we can provide to further their education,” physics teacher Deidra Dumm said.