At the opening day programming of the Towanda Area School District, the Towanda Area School District Educational Foundation announced the teacher Venture Grant Recipients for the 2009-2010 school year and also announced the project that would be identified as the Grant Recipient of the Year for 2010. Sarah Adams and Jamie Wecker served as the liaison persons for the past two years. One of the teachers served as a contact person for the elementary level and the other at the junior senior high school level. Sarah and Jamie were instrumental in launching the successful alumni weekend which is a series of annual events hosted by the Foundation. The Alumni Weekend now includes the homecoming football game, the golf tournament (which is also a major fundraiser for the Foundation) and the Alumni Dance. They were involved in helping to promote the venture grant application process for teachers also. Their responsibilities included compiling two newsletters per year and starting the process of building an alumni database. Deneen Lantz and Kristine Watkins were selected to replace Jamie and Sarah when they stepped down from the position of liaison persons. Deneen Lantz and Kristine Watkins both teach at the Towanda Area Elementary School. They spoke to employees on opening day about how they expect to carry on with the goals that have been established by the Foundation Board for the current 2010-2011 school year. The goal of the Foundation is to raise at least $ 30,000.

The Towanda Area School District opened its school year on August 24th and August 25th with in-service programming for faculty and support staff employed by the District. All District employees and the faculty and administration of the Sayre Area School District met for a professional development program which was presented at the high school auditorium. The presenter for the program was Dr. Max Thompson, nationally recognized speaker and educator who developed the school reform framework entitled, Learning Focused Schools. Dr. Thompson informed the audience about research regarding education and about changing regulations which will be imposed on school districts in future years. The primary focus of his presentation was to share with the audience the importance of delivering a standards-based curriculum which is delivered using evidence-based strategies that are known to positively affect student learning and achievement. He talked to the faculty in the second session about the Connecting Extending Thinking Strategies that have shown in his research and that of others to affect learning in typical and exemplary schools.

On Wednesday, August 25th all employees of TASD were invited back to the District for opening day activities and additional in-service training. As part of the opening day program 16 full-time employees were recognized for perfect attendance in the 2009-2010 school year. They are pictured as follows, Kelly Vargason, Mike McGuire, Dale Hitchcock, Anthony Ward, Valerie Miller, Eric Knolles, Greg Neyer, Tim Farley, Dayna Dawsey, Deb Ferguson, Emily Hockenberry, Kylene Mullen, Joel Spinney. Missing from the photo is Doreen Secor.