PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

Samantha Shinsky
Director of Technology & Innovation, Trinity Area School District

When Samantha Shinsky was a senior in high school, she started to question whether waking up every day to go to school was really for her, despite her lifelong goal of becoming a teacher. She ended up studying criminology and worked for a bank for a while, but she didn’t feel she was making a difference, so she gravitated back toward her first love.

“Education really is the great equalizer,” she says. “It can get you out of poverty. It can change lives.”

At Trinity Area School District in Washington County, her role is all about equity — making sure technology is available to all of the students and teachers and that they know how to use it. She’s secured hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants for her district to do so, and in 2024, Trinity was named a “Distinguished District” by the International Society for Technology in Education.

“I want to make sure [our students are] ready for the real world when they leave school,” she says.