• Jeff Bonifate, a computer resource teacher at Hartwood Elementary School in the Fox Chapel Area School District, has been named a winner of the 2008 Innovative Educator Award.

The award is given by Tech4Learning and is designed to recognize the work of exceptional classroom teachers, trainers, aides, community organizations, principals and others using Tech4Learning professional development products.

Mr. Bonifate is one of eight educators from across the nation, and the only one in Pennsylvania, to receive the 2008 award. His pupils have used Tech4Learning products in the creation of graphics for the school's podcasts.

• Quaker Valley school board presented kindergarten teacher Betsey Wilson with its Award for Excellence last month.

The board established this award seven years ago to recognize staff for distinguished performance.

Mrs. Wilson, school officials said, has made it her mission to provide opportunities for every district child to access preschool education and enrichment so they can arrive in kindergarten ready to learn.

Among other things, Mrs. Wilson helped secure funding this year for the Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts program at Osborne Elementary School, recruited participants and collaborated with the Allegheny Intermediate Unit to meet the ongoing state requirements for the program.

She also has worked with the Sewickley YMCA to identify pupils who have not participated in local private preschool programs so they may benefit from having the same preschool experiences to draw from as do their peers when they enter kindergarten. Many of those she has identified have become scholarship students at the YMCA Center for Creative Learning.

Since 2006, Mrs. Wilson has worked with Operation Kid-to-Kid Preschool and the students who run the preschool classes as part of the high school entrepreneurship program. As head of the Quaker Valley Early Childhood Initiative, Mrs. Wilson has developed and coordinates a communitywide literacy enrichment series for all local children 3 to 8 years old. These two-hour Saturday programs, Storywalks, pair books and stories with activities; they average more than 150 participants each time they are offered.

Mrs. Wilson received her bachelor's degree and teacher certification from University of Pittsburgh. She has been teaching at Quaker Valley since 1986 and lives in Edgeworth with her husband, Jim.

• Aaron Shafer and Jason Woolslare, Seneca Valley Intermediate High School art teachers, have completed a two-person, two-month art show at the Rex Theater on the South Side of Pittsburgh.

The theater is an historic building that hosts national and international bands and musicians, artists and independent films.