Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

School districts across the region continue to grapple with ongoing staffing shortages as they gear up for the start of school, many reporting lower numbers of teachers, bus drivers and support staff. The problem has been persistent since the start of the pandemic, leading to canceled bus routes and teachers taking on extra classrooms when a substitute is not available. This year, 48% of 276 superintendents from across the state interviewed for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association’s State of Education report identified staffing shortages as a top issue. And of those interviewed, nearly 88% were experiencing shortages of substitute teachers, almost 70% were struggling to find instructional aides, nearly 67% said special education teachers and staff were difficult to find, 62% reported challenges in hiring transportation staff and almost 41% had challenges hiring regular education teachers. #backtoschool #staffshortage #teacher #vacancies

Supermarket retailer Giant Eagle Inc. announced Monday that it has agreed to sell all of its GetGo convenience stores to a Canadian outfit, which operates more than 16,700 similar stores globally.

Pittsburgh Public School officials on Tuesday got their first look at several different scenarios that could drastically change the district’s footprint in coming years. The scenarios, presented by Massachusetts-based education consulting firm Education Resource Strategies during the district’s education committee meeting, are the next steps in Pittsburgh Public’s facilities utilization plan, a blueprint that could lead to the closure and consolidation of some school buildings as PPS faces declining enrollments and a growing budget deficit. Under the proposal, 16 existing schools would close, 14 would change their grade reconfiguration, six magnet schools would phase out and become neighborhood schools and five new programs would open in existing buildings

Downtown’s historic Frick Building is undergoing a resurgence as its owner empties out the Gulf Tower just blocks away in anticipation of converting that structure to apartments and a luxury hotel. Pittsburgh law firm Robert Peirce & Associates will be relocating to the Frick Building at 437 Grant St. from the Gulf Tower early next year. Rugby Realty, the owner of both, is repositioning the latter structure for the proposed conversion. The new 10-year deal is one of five recent leases that Rugby has signed with tenants to relocate to the 122-year-old Frick Building, which was built by industrialist Henry Clay Frick. Together, the leases total about 35,000 square feet, boosting the historic building’s occupancy to about 85%.

Gray Swan AI, a new startup founded by Pittsburgh programmers, is hoping to save AI developers from themselves. “Other companies are very much focused on increasing capabilities because there's a lot of competitive pressure,” said co-founder Matt Frederickson. “But if we can really just focus on solving safety and security issues ... I think we can actually be ahead of the game and push the research frontier of this field."

“Let me start by saying I think we didn't have the most smooth startup,” Emma Lewis, Shell's senior vice president of U.S. chemicals and products, said during a recent visit. “There has been more disruption to the community than I think you would typically expect during normal operations.

With Downtown reeling from high office vacancies and plunging real estate values, draft legislation before the state Legislature would allow the city to impose new taxes or fees or divert revenue from existing taxes to help with revitalization efforts. Under the bill, money raised through the taxes or fees could be used to help fund the conversion of faltering office buildings to residential or to fill ground-floor or lower-level commercial spaces. Funds also could be earmarked to advance “critical infrastructure and amenity projects within the public realm that improve the overall quality of life necessary for attracting and retaining residents, businesses and visitors to downtown areas.”

Maybe the third time will be the charm for the owner of Station Square. New York-based Brookfield Properties has put the South Side restaurant, entertainment, and office complex up for sale, the third time in the last 12 years it has hit the market. The listing comes at a time when the sprawling real estate on the Monongahela riverfront next to the Smithfield Street Bridge has struggled to regain its mojo coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had a devastating impact on retail and office properties alike.

Maybe Pittsburghers are just homebodies. On average, office attendance nationwide hit 70.6% of pre-COVID-19 levels in June, the highest rate since the pandemic started in March 2020, according to a study by the Jones Lang LaSalle real estate firm. But in Downtown Pittsburgh, more employees are still staying away from the office. Officials at the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership estimated that the office workforce in June returned to 60% of pre-pandemic 2019. That’s lower than it was in July 2023 when it reached 63%, the highest level since the pandemic. #workfromhome #downtown #office #pittsburgh

As West Virginia University students begin packing their belongings for the start of the fall semester, pistols and revolvers could be boxed up alongside backpacks, bed sheets and winter coats. That’s because of the state’s new Campus Self-Defense Act, which requires West Virginia’s higher education institutions to allow licensed concealed carry on their campuses, with some exceptions. The law, which went into effect July 1, makes West Virginia the 13th state to require its colleges to allow concealed carry on campus. Here’s what to know about the Campus Self-Defense Act and how it will impact West Virginia colleges.