At ages 7 or 8, a group of Chartiers Valley Primary School students can lay claim to being authors.

Just before the end of the school year, members of Shelley Territ’s second-grade class celebrated the release of “Chartiers Valley History for Kids,” a book toward which they contributed heavily with research that included visiting relevant sites and talking with people in the know.

The 176-page volume is loaded with anecdotes, fun facts and hundreds of photographs and illustrations, presented in an “A is for”-type format that’s familiar to younger readers.

Older folks apparently can enjoy the contents, as well.

“I want you to know that I’ve shown my edit copy to several people out here in Seattle who know absolutely nothing about you or about the Pittsburgh area, and they wanted to read the whole thing,” Rand Gee, who joined with Territ to compile the book, said. “They thought your stories and your pictures and the history was just fascinating.”

He spoke with the students by videoconference from Washington state during a May 25 book-launch event at the primary school. Among those attending in person were Jerome Koziak, the principal of the school when it opened in 1996, and retired faculty members Mary Coperich and Susan Pacilio.

Festivities started with students, many of them wearing plastic hats in honor of the area’s mining history, reading aloud the history of Chartiers Valley School District and its educational antecedents, dating back to the 1860s.

The students then presented laminated pages as mementos to some of those present, including CV Superintendent Johannah Vanatta and primary school Principal Deidra Stepko. Then came the distribution of books, allowing students to see the culmination of their work for the first time.

Gee has written books about the history of Collier — where Chartiers Valley’s high school, middle school and primary school are located — and collaborated with Territ on her project to “show students what a long and rich history we have,” as she wrote in the preface.

While today’s technology allows researchers to delve into a multitude of online resources, much of what constitutes “Chartiers Valley History for Kids” derives from ages-old ways of gathering information.

“I have learned a lot from talking to people and looking at letters,” Territ, a teacher at the primary school since its opening, said. “So I couldn’t do everything on my phone.”

She acknowledged the efforts of students Garrett Lucsko, Liam Ferguson, Violet Ferguson and Brady Frank in exploring the former Woodville State Hospital property, near the Chartiers Valley complex, and finding artifacts including tiles from the 1950s.

“When Garrett and Lim went, it was still pretty rugged. They climbed over some things,” their teacher said. Construction of homes continues to change the character of the site.

As far as the value of oral history, Gee cited the section of the book “U is for Upside Down Flag,” an account of how having it fly that way on Rennerdale School’s flagpole caused quite a ruckus one day in 1964.

“A person who was in that class told me that story,” he said: Raven Tomey, who provides a first-person account in print.

“The Army takes that very seriously, and they happened to spot the flag being upside-down at the school building. And they assembled immediately and drove there with their trucks with many men, and they were ready to take on a problem,” Gee said. “What happened was that the teacher forgot to tell them there was a right side and a wrong side.”

With regard to writing, he told students about the importance of having other people review works in progress.

“It’s very difficult to edit, because our mind is so active and so good at what it does, it fills in where letters are missing or letters are mixed up. And all of a sudden, there’s an error,” he said.

“One of the things I like to remember is, we don’t get stronger when we just make things right. We get stronger when we have to realize that we made a mistake, and we have to figure out how to fix it. So making mistakes is a very important part of learning, and I make lots of mistakes when I type. My fingers just don’t always go to the right place on the keyboard.”

He wrapped up with compliments for the students.

“You actually know more about the history of that area than most of the people who are your parents’ age,” Gee said. “So congratulations on a great work, a great effort, and I love your exploring and looking for history. Keep up that good work.”

“Chartiers Valley History for Kids” can be purchased online by clicking here.

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