Page 30 - 2020 Chester County Chamber Guide & Mebership Directory

EDUCATION Q & A
The Future of Education
CCIU’s leader sees new value in organization’s role post-COVID
George F. Fiore became Executive Director of the Chester County Intermediate Unit (CCIU) in the summer of 2019, replacing the long-tenured Dr. Joseph O’Brien. Here, Fiore reflects on the CCIU’s importance to Chester County education and his vision for the future, especially in light of the impact of COVID-19 on classrooms.
Q. What is the relationship between the CCIU and the individual school districts?
A. The relationship is two-fold: First, we serve as an intermediary between the districts and the Pennsylvania Department of Education, providing guidance on statewide initiatives and providing services that are state-mandated or federally funded, such as preschool, special education, Head Start, migrant education and nonpublic school services.
Second, we provide services directly to school districts that they have the option to operate themselves, purchase from the CCIU or purchase from another educational provider. These services may include educational services such as speech therapy, occupational and physical therapy, job-training programs for students with disabilities, online learning programs, just to name a few. We provide more than 200 services to our districts and operate six schools and 38 virtual academies.
Q. What are the advantages of the intermediate unit compared to each district providing its own services?
A. The advantage is being able to fund services jointly and thereby reduce the costs to the districts. For example, all 12 districts send students to the IU-operated Technical College High School. This allows districts to offer high-quality career and technical programs for all their students and share the operating costs among 12 school districts.
Q. What new programs/services are you planning for the 2020-2021 school year?
A. For the 2020-21 school year, we are planning to offer new career and technical education programs for adult residents of Chester County looking to upgrade and refresh their job skills. Also, we are planning to offer a new set of online career and technical education programs and to expand our STEM and online learning programs.
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28 Chester County Chamber of Business & Industry 28 Chester County Chamber of Business & Industry