MOUNT UNION, Pa. (WTAJ) — Across our region, Remarkable Women are shaping and influencing countless lives. Kristen Streightiff is an educator turned school administrator working to influence the lives of students going through hardships.

Streightiff is the Director of Student Services and Special Education at the Mount Union Area School District. Her office sits in between the junior and senior high hallways, keeping herself busy in meetings to serve the entire district.

“This current job that I have is K to 12, so I am responsible for all the students of the district, as well as all the special ed students in the district. So it is very large and all encompassing, but I love it,” Streightiff said. “It gives me a chance to still work with little people, as I always called my elementary students, and enjoy the bigger students, the high school students, that are much taller than me. So it’s wonderful to be around kids of all ages these days.”

Her husband, Charles Streightiff, is the Huntingdon Borough Police Chief. WTAJ caught up with the chief during the Pennsylvania Association of Student Assistance Professionals conference in State College, where the Streightiffs gave a presentation.

“We carry the same philosophy that we want to make our community successful, and that starts with our youth,” Charles said.

Together, the couple created the H.E.A.R.T. program, standing for Handle With Care Endangered and At-Risk Youth Response Team. The name is fitting in how educators, administrators, law enforcement, and social services all work together, creating connections to resources and special planning for each student.

“When a law enforcement or CYS, these sort of child youth groups, goes out into a home for a concern, it is then reported back to that school district or that school district’s liaison, which for Mount Union, that would be me,” Kristen said. “They’ll let me know a traumatic event occurred. I don’t get any details, any specifics, but I know that child or children, in a lot of cases, it’s families that have multiple children. These are often kids that are missed or overlooked, labeled as problem children.

“Really, it’s just their way of acting out. They have that experience, that traumatic experience, and they don’t know what to do and how to release that energy. I mean, for those poor little kids that are falling asleep in class, you don’t know if the police or someone was at their house till 4 a.m.,” Kristen said.

“What we’re doing is providing school districts with information that they never would have had to begin with, giving them extra tools for their toolbox to better help and assist their kids, who may have sustained a traumatic event,” Charles said. “A lot of people ask how we do what we do as far as the heart program. This is done without any funding. This is done because both her and I care about our youth and that they succeed and they’re productive and successful in life. So I couldn’t ask for a better partner in that.”

The program started only for Huntingdon County, but now they say more districts across the Commonwealth are interested in learning about the approach.

When she was a teacher, Kristen said she assisted a student facing trauma who later passed away. She said she uses that story as a motivator.

“I saw the importance of, we can’t let this happen. I know we can’t save everyone, but when I, as a teacher, can recognize potential and see the difference that we could make, I feel that, in that case, we missed an opportunity,” Kristen said. “We’re just recognizing the trauma that some of our students, these barriers that children are facing every day outside of school, that we want to try and help guide them immediately into a counselor, therapy, something that’s going to help them.

“There’s a lot on education and schools these days, and we can’t catch everything. So we have to build the programs and the systems that can help everybody, because you don’t want to see anybody slide through the cracks,” Kristen said.

Kristen has recently been named as one of four winners in the state for PA Family Support Alliance’s Blue Ribbon Champions for Safe Kids. She’ll be honored in Harrisburg on April 1. Her husband got the same honor in 2023.

From WTAJ, March 12, 2026