Students at Ingomar Middle School are learning how to connect to different communities and have healthy habits, thanks to Margo Hinton.
Hinton, a physical education teacher at Ingomar, has organized and helped lead several programs at the middle school, including the Student Ambassador Program, which she started in 2019.
“The mission was to bring students from different communities together to build bridges across cultural, racial and geographical barriers,” said Hinton, who is retiring at the end of the school year.
The Student Ambassador Program was awarded a $964 grant by the North Allegheny Foundation in the fall to expand and grow the program.
Hinton works with educators of other school districts to connect the students.
Earlier this year, 25 Ingomar student ambassadors spent the day at the middle school with 23 students from Manchester Academic Charter School in Pittsburgh after Hinton connected with its curriculum director, Phylissa Thomas.
“Through discussion, T-shirt printing, art activities, physical activity, a poetry workshop and the culminating activity of a schoolwide Black History Poetry Slam, the ambassadors had a day of unity and enthusiasm,” said Hinton of Pittsburgh’s Troy Hill neighborhood.
Ingomar’s ambassadors must apply in order to be selected for the program. They need references and must be able to verbalize why they want to be a part of the program, Hinton said.
“After watching our students and the Manchester students together last year, I knew in five minutes that it may be my greatest contribution in regard to educational leadership,” she said.
Ingomar’s student ambassadors were scheduled to spend a day at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh on April 9, hearing about their programs, taking a tour and working together on a university-led service project.
Since starting at Ingomar Middle School in 1993, Hinton also has been holding a Black history event every year at the school, featuring poetry slams, dances, plays, marches and musical tributes.
“I’m a poet, and I understand that poetry has a way of bringing people together as well,” she said.
In 2007, she started Ingomar’s schoolwide anti-vaping and tobacco prevention event, Kick Butts Day, which was held this year on March 21.
“With Kick Butts Day, students choose to be tobacco and vape-free, and they advocate for themselves and educate their loved ones on the dangers of tobacco products,” she said.
The day features doctors, speakers from Tobacco Free Allegheny and a celebrity basketball game.
This year’s event featured Bill Neal of Achieving Greatness Inc. returning as the main emcee. Scoot Warrick, who plays for the Harlem Wizards, performed for the students and staff.
Darrin McMillon, a North Allegheny teacher, shared a heartfelt story about his coach unexpectedly passing from lung cancer, having never used tobacco but being exposed to it, she said. Also, attending was Myron Brown, who played for the Minnesota Timberwolves, and his son.
The program also offers smoking cessation resources to parents, she said.
Hinton helps to coordinate the IMS Benefit Run, which was started by the school in 1993 and has raised more than $150,000 for local and national charities over the years.
They donate toward Stephen’s Hulksters, started in honor of the son of Ingomar teacher Steve Buches, and his wife, Amy, who passed away last year from severe epilepsy at the age of 8, she said. The foundation is an angel fund for other families in similar situations.
Hinton said the benefit run also goes toward the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in recognition of an Ingomar teacher who has two sons with cystic fibrosis.
She doesn’t do this all by herself. She has a student committee for every event that she sponsors. And the other physical education teachers, Ashley Rusnic and Matt Robertson, help to organize the events at Ingomar.
“In the past, Matt Olson, who retired two years ago, and Dave Winkworth, who passed away in 2017, were my support systems at IMS. Over the years, all of my principals have been supportive as well,” she said.
Jacqueline Bishop, a North Allegheny school social worker and co-sponsor of the Student Ambassador Program, said Hinton has been an “innovative change agent” in the district for more than 30 years.
She said the IMS Student Ambassador Program is one example of Hinton’s mission to build bridges and foster connection and community.
“Margo Hinton is an exemplary, passionate educator who will be greatly missed in retirement. Her work as an innovative change agent will be a major void in the NA community,” Bishop said.
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Ingomar Assistant Principal Jason Harding agrees.
“Ms. Hinton has been a steadfast advocate for children, providing not only guidance, but also a compassionate mentorship that empowers the next generation of leaders. Through her work with the IMS Ambassador Program, she continues to inspire, uplift and shape young minds with a vision for a brighter, more inclusive future,” Harding said.
Though Hinton retires at the end of this school year, she isn’t finished. She is pursuing a doctorate of philosophy in educational leadership from Duquesne University.
Hinton grew up in the Beltzhoover and Bon Air neighborhoods of Pittsburgh and attended South Hills High School. She played basketball at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania and was inducted into its Sports Hall of Fame in 2002, as well as the Pittsburgh Public Schools All Sports Hall of Fame in 2018 and the South Hills High School Hall of Fame in 2018.
“My grandmother, mother and aunts have been my biggest role models for helping others, giving your time and standing up for the things you believe in. I will miss my days at Ingomar Middle School. After all, my first name is in the word Ingomar, but certainly, Ingomar has been in me,” she said.