Dawn Webb-Turner is back where she started, and is loving it

Westinghouse graduate returns
to school to teach sixth grade

by Rob Taylor Jr.
Courier Staff Writer

Dawn R. Webb-Turner is returning to a familiar place.

The former third-grade teacher at Pittsburgh Faison is now teaching sixth grade History and Science at Pittsburgh Westinghouse Academy 6-12, the New Pittsburgh Courier has learned.

With the coronavirus pandemic, all students are currently learning remotely, but Pittsburgh Public Schools announced recently that in-person instruction could return in early November.

DAWN R. WEBB-TURNER, with her father, coaching legend George A. Webb Sr.

Webb-Turner should know the hallways pretty well at Westinghouse—she graduated from there in 1985, and her father, the legendary coach and teacher George A. Webb Sr., is a Westinghouse and City League institution.

Webb-Turner most recently taught at Pittsburgh Allegheny, where she had been stationed for the last 10 years.

Richard Morris, with the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh and another Westinghouse institution, asked Webb-Turner to come and teach at Westinghouse. “It was a very hard decision at first, but then the more I thought about it, I knew it was only destiny to return home to a place I had been around since I was 2 years old, and later graduated from,” Webb-Turner told the New Pittsburgh Courier exclusively.

Webb-Turner plans to finish her teaching career at Westinghouse.

Webb-Turner’s daughter, Sahaar Turner Lyles, graduated from Westinghouse in 2011 in the Business and Finance, and Scholar programs. She’s now the communications coordinator for Remake Learning, and owner of her own online magazine business, Nubian Impulse.

Webb-Turner has been the president of Our House Development Real Estate Services, LLC, for 15 years. She is very involved with organizing the North Upland Street Block Club and Let’s Clean Up Our House Committee, where youth are taught the importance of picking up trash off the street and maintaining a clean environment.

Webb-Turner told the Courier she plans to integrate her entrepreneurial spirit and financial literacy knowledge in her Social Studies classes at Westinghouse. She can teach the students financial literacy, as Webb-Turner was a bank manager for Three Rivers Bank and later, a business banker for PNC. She also plans to create a curriculum around the Westinghouse Wall of Fame. “It is very important for our youth to really understand the great stories that our beloved school holds beyond sports. If it wasn’t for me becoming a member of the Westinghouse Commission of Recognition, I wouldn’t have known many of the untold stories. Our stories enable us to see ourselves through our own eyes, narratives, and possibilities,” she said. “I feel that once we take control of our narratives, we will take back the perception of Westinghouse.”

Webb-Turner holds a bachelor’s in Science and a master’s degree in Teaching, both from the University of Pittsburgh.

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Rob Taylor Jr. - Courier Staff Writer

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