PublicSource has compiled an easy-to-use guide of the county's brick-and-mortar charter schools. Within, you can find out basic facts about each school and how well they're performing academically (the state considers 70 to be a 'passing grade' on the School Performance Profiles). We've also included the home districts the charter schools are drawing from and how much tuition the traditional public school districts are sending their way.
Click on a school below to learn more.
Executive Director: Bill Styche
Principal: Amy Abraham
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 24.7
Total annual tuition payments: $2.36 million
Grades: 8-12
Enrollment: 237
Top three sending districts: Pittsburgh, 141 students; Woodland Hills, 17 students; Wilkinsburg, 16 students.
Neighborhood: Hays
Opened: 2005
About: The Academy enrolls court-adjudicated students in grades 8-12. The school focuses on giving students structure. Students wear uniforms. Students graduate in January and June. Summer school opportunities are available for students. The school offers elective courses that include Pittsburgh history, child development, cooking and sewing, life experiences, writing and drawing and greenhouse. Faculty advisors meet with students to encourage positive performance and behavior.
(Front photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)
CEO/Principal: Ron Sofo
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 89.8. The highest score among the brick-and-mortar charters and the highest score of schools located in the city of Pittsburgh.
Total annual tuition payments: $9.6 million
Enrollment: 574
Top three sending districts: Pittsburgh Public Schools, 490 students; Wilkinsburg School District, 21 students; Sto-Rox School District, 31 students.
Neighborhood: Downtown
Opened: 2002
About: City Charter High School is the highest-achieving charter school in Allegheny County and the highest-achieving school in the city of Pittsburgh. The school is often described as “technology infused” and since its founding year has given each student a laptop that they keep upon graduation. The school has a non-traditional school year with 13-week trimesters and the months of December, April and August off. Its focus is on preparing students for the workplace or college by teaching personal skills such as punctuality and compliance with a business casual dress code. School days are longer than typical, running from 7:45 a.m. to 4 p.m. Starting in 10th grade, students can take honors courses in math, English, history and science. Students also graduate with skills in word processing, spreadsheets, digital video production and PowerPoint presentations. During senior year, students work independently in order to learn time management skills they can use in higher education or the workplace.
Front photo: Ron Sofo is CEO and principal of City Charter High School. (Photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)
CEO: Jon McCann
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 61.1
Total annual tuition payments: $10 million
Enrollment: 630
Grades: K-8 in two buildings
Top three sending districts: Pittsburgh Public Schools, 530 students; Woodland Hills, 64 students; Wilkinsburg, 11 students.
Neighborhood: Grades K-3 in Point Breeze; Grades 4-8 in Regent Square.
Opened: 2008
About: As evidenced by its name, the Environmental Charter School has a curriculum that is based on ecological literacy along with critical thinking. Students are frequently outside of the classroom, sometimes in Frick Park, which lies adjacent to the Upper School with grades 4-8. Students also visit other areas of the city to work on projects. The curriculum is interdisciplinary and project-based. That means students work for a length of time on projects that involve critical thinking, such as one they participated in this spring exploring whether the lunar landing was a hoax. There is an emphasis on sustainability at the school. Students compost, and the school has been on the forefront of testing its water supplies for lead and replacing fixtures even in areas where lead fell into acceptable levels. Unlike the other charter schools in Allegheny County, which serve student populations that are majority black and economically disadvantaged, Environmental Charter School’s student body is 69 percent white and 30 percent economically disadvantaged. In 2018, the school plans to add a second K-8 school and a 9-12 school. Pittsburgh Public Schools had fought the charter for the new schools, but dropped the opposition earlier this year when school officials promised to diversify the student body.
Front photo: Environmental Charter School sixth grader Ava Van Meter, 12, plays guitar during an outdoor music class on May 23, 2017. (Photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)
Principal: Jeffrey Jackson
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 36.8
Total annual tuition payments: Not provided
Enrollment: 225
Grades: 9-12
Top three sending districts: Pittsburgh Public Schools, 159 students; Wilkinsburg, 27 students; Woodland Hills, eight students.
Neighborhood: Hill District
Opened: 2014
About: While Hill House Passport Academy is open to all students, the program is designed for students from ninth grade up to age 21 who have dropped out, been expelled or for other reasons have not been able to complete a high school education. Students attend class on-site for three hours and are required to work another three hours online five days a week. They also perform 20 hours of community service per school year. School officials take attendance daily and monitor the students’ online hours as well. Students are grouped into advisories, where a group of eight students are assigned to one teacher. The goal of the program is to move students into employment, trade school or other post-secondary education.
Front photo: Passport Academy Principal Jeff Jackson stands outside the school, which rents space from the Hill House. (Photo by John Hamilton/PublicSource)
CEO/Principal: Vasilios Scoumis
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 60.1, but high marks for closing the achievement gap in English and science.
Total annual tuition payments: $5 million
Enrollment: 340
Grades: K-8 in two buildings
Top three sending districts: Pittsburgh Public Schools, 286 students; Sto-Rox School District, 28 students; Woodland Hills, eight students.
Neighborhood: Manchester section of the North Side
Opened: 1998
About: Manchester Academic is one of the three original charter schools in Allegheny County. Its charter called for a K-8, which was a different model for the city at the time, said CEO/Principal Vasilios Scoumis. It draws about 90 percent of its students from the North Side neighborhoods. Of its students, 96 percent are black and 100 percent are economically disadvantaged. It is located in space it leases from the Manchester Youth Development Center, which has an after-school program that most of the students attend. Each student has an “individual education profile,” with a plan that “meets them where they need to be met,” Scoumis said. The school won a U.S. Department of Education No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon in 2008 for growth in academic achievement. In recent years, Scoumis said test scores have declined because of the switch to the Pennsylvania Core Curriculum and the alignment of state tests to that curriculum. Instead of suspensions, the school uses restorative justice practices through which students go in front of a panel of their peers. In 2018, middle school students will move to the renovated second floor of the former Allegheny branch of the Carnegie Library, where students will be immersed in the expanded Children’s Museum’s Makeshop lab. In the lab, students will be able to create such items as voice-activated robots and fiber-optic clothing.
Front photo: Second grader Braiya Bowie, 8, follows along in class at Manchester Academic Charter School on April 24, 2017. (Photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)
CEO/Principal: Tamara Allen
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 61.5
Total annual tuition payments: $5.2 million
Enrollment: 344
Grades: K-7
Top three sending districts: Penn Hills, 245 students; Pittsburgh Public Schools, 32 students; Wilkinsburg, 23 students.
Neighborhood: Penn Hills
Opened: 2011
About: The school runs under the motto: “We CARE,” which stands for its core values of character, academics, relationships and teaching entrepreneurship to foster leadership, Allen said. Penn Hills Charter is a four-star MicroSociety school, where students in kindergarten through fifth grade run their own democratic republic society. Each year, the students elect a government to run the school. After being sworn in, the students create laws for the school and, for one period a day, they run their own society, where they have businesses and get paid in school dollars. In the middle school, the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship curriculum is used. In sixth grade, students learn career and job readiness, how to search for a job and determine what they’re good at. By seventh grade, students start looking at colleges and try to figure out how much money they would need to make if they want to be successful in a given career. In eighth grade, students write a business plan. Class sizes are capped at 24 students. Each grade level, which includes two classrooms, has an instructional support teacher who assists with small group instruction and enrichment.In 2017-18, the school will go one-to-one for grades 2 to 8, where each student will have a Chromebook assigned to them.
The school moved from the old William Penn Elementary building to the former Washington Elementary school in 2016-17. The school plans to expand to eighth grade in 2017-18 for its final level of expansion.
(Front photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)
Propel CEO: Tina Chekan
Principal Lauren Reiber
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 55.4*
Total annual tuition payments: $2.68 million
Enrollment: 172
Grades: 9-12
Top three sending districts: McKeesport Area, 35 students; Pittsburgh Public Schools, 32 students; Steel Valley, 28 students.
Neighborhood: Munhall
Opened: 2008
About: Propel Schools did not provide information for this portion of the profiles. Propel Andrew Street was the first high school in the Propel system. According to its website, the school provides a small learning community and project-based programming. Graduation requirements include 100 hours of community service, autoethnographies in which they relate their biographies to cultural, political and social issues and participation in Propel Pathways (off-site learning experiences, including dual enrollment, internships and apprenticeships). The school has PIAA girls and boys varsity basketball teams.
*Propel Homestead and Propel Andrew Street High School share the same School Performance Profile score because they were approved under the same charter.
(Front photo courtesy of Propel Schools)
Propel CEO: Tina Chekan
Principal: Jocelyn Artinger
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 62.4*
Total annual tuition payments: $6.17 million
Enrollment: 375
Grades: K-5
Top three sending districts: Woodland Hills, 212 students; Pittsburgh Public Schools, 42 students; Wilkinsburg, 40 students.
Neighborhood: Braddock Hills
Opened: 2010
About: Propel Schools did not provide information for this portion of the profiles.
*Propel Braddock Hills Elementary, Middle School and High School share the same School Performance Profile score because they were approved under the same charter.
Front photo: Student art projects hang in Propel Braddock Hills Elementary School. (Photo by John Hamilton/PublicSource)
Propel CEO: Tina Chekan
Principal: Leah Haile
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 62.4*
Total annual tuition payments: $2 million
Enrollment: 144
Grades: 6-8
Top three sending districts: Woodland Hills, 69 students; Penn Hills, 19 students; Pittsburgh Public Schools, 19 students.
Neighborhood: Braddock Hills
Opened: 2016
About: Students at Braddock Hills Middle School start their weeks with “Motivation Mondays” where they gather in a central area and review positive things that are happening with the school and its students . According to its website, the school provides a project-based learning experience. There is also a daily block of time dedicated to student-selected exploration of STEAM electives.
*Propel Braddock Hills Elementary, Middle School and High School share the same School Performance Profile score because they were approved under the same charter.
Front photo: Benjamin Mayhew (left), 11, of Wilkinsburg, and Chaz Cobbs, 12, of Turtle Creek, are both sixth-grade students at Propel Braddock Hills Middle School. (Photo by John Hamilton/PublicSource)
Propel CEO: Tina Chekan
Principal: Robert Bischoff
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 62.4*
Total annual tuition payments: $5.62 million
Enrollment: 330
Grades: 9-12
Top three sending districts: Woodland Hills, 89 students; Penn Hills, 57 students; Pittsburgh Public Schools, 56 students.
Neighborhood: Braddock Hills
Opened: 2010
About: According to its website, the school gears its students toward college and career exploration. Through the Global Scholars Program, groups of student travel through Europe during the summer. Students can also enroll in classes at the Community College of Allegheny County center located nearby and earn college credits while in high school. The school has an Ultimate Frisbee team and varsity PIAA basketball, volleyball and track teams for boys and girls.
*Propel Braddock Hills Elementary, Middle School and High School share the same School Performance Profile score because they were approved under the same charter.
Front photo: Laney Keys (left), 17, of Turtle Creek, and Darnell Caldwell, 18, of Braddock, work on their senior exposition project at Propel Braddock Hills High School. Keys' project is on campus rape and Caldwell's is about police brutality. (Photo by John Hamilton/PublicSource)
Propel CEO: Tina Chekan
Principal: Bethany Thomas
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 79.7
Total annual tuition payments: $5.11 million
Enrollment: 379
Grades: K-8
Top three sending districts: Woodland Hills, 229 students; Penn Hills, 90 students; Pittsburgh Public Schools and Gateway, 13 students each.
Neighborhood: Turtle Creek
Opened: 2005
About: Propel Schools did not provide information for this portion of the profiles. According to its website, Propel East hosts an arts festival and STEM Olympiad. It claims to provide a ‘holistic education’ bolstered by partnerships with community organizations.
(Front photo courtesy Propel Schools)
Propel CEO: Tina Chekan
Principal: LaKiesha George
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 44
Total annual tuition payments: $4.23 million
Enrollment: 270
Grades: K-7
Top three sending districts: Pittsburgh Public Schools, 204 students; Duquesne, 18 students; Woodland Hills, 15 students.
Neighborhood: Hazelwood
Opened: 2014
About: Propel Schools did not provide information for this portion of the profiles. According to its website, the school’s mission is to inspire achievement through critical thinking, evidence-based understanding and innovation and it emphasizes college and career readiness.
Front photo: In a first-grade class at Propel Hazelwood, Taymara Willingham (left) and Rae-Auna Craig, both 7, work on a Pittsburgh clouds art project. (Photo by John Hamilton/PublicSource)
Propel CEO: Tina Chekan
Principal: Kimberly Jackson
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 55.4*
Total annual tuition payments: $6.89 million
Enrollment: 375
Grades: K-8
Top three sending districts: Steel Valley, 136 students; Pittsburgh Public Schools, 71 students; Woodland Hills, 46 students.
Neighborhood: Homestead
Opened: 2003
About: Propel Homestead was the first Propel school to open, originally located in the basement of a former hospital building. Propel Schools did not provide information for this portion of the profiles. According to its website, they start each day with the following core values: “Homestead CARES (Cooperation, Assertion, Responsibility, Empathy, Self Control)." The school also has an outdoor courtyard, where it teaches gardening and the students learn about harvesting plants and the plant life-cycle.
*Propel Homestead and Propel Andrew Street High School share the same School Performance Profile score because they were approved under the same charter.
(Front photo courtesy of Propel Schools)
Propel CEO: Tina Chekan
Principal: Tyler Roberto
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 77
Total annual tuition payments: $4.96 million
Enrollment: 391
Grades: K-8
Top three sending districts: McKeesport Area, 234 students; Duquesne, 48 students; Clairton, 38 students.
Neighborhood: McKeesport
Opened: 2005
About: Propel Schools did not provide information for this portion of the profiles. According to its website, the school operates around six team foundations. They are: helping others; being a positive change agent; anti-bullying; being a leader; being resilient; and problem solving. Students in grades 5-6 apply for “jobs” and complete tasks around the classroom. Electives for middle schoolers include sudoku, yoga, sports and service learning.
(Front photo courtesy of Propel Schools)
Propel CEO: Tina Chekan
Principal: Michael Evans
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 71.6*
Total annual tuition billed: $3.8 million**
Enrollment: 270
Grades: K-5
Top three sending districts: Pittsburgh Public Schools, 131 students; Sto-Rox School District, 114; Cornell School District, 9.
Neighborhood: Kennedy Township
Opened: 2007
About: Propel Schools did not provide information for this portion of the profiles. According to the school website, students are involved in STEM learning, the arts and community service.
*Propel Montour Elementary and Middle School share the same School Performance Profile score because they were approved under the same charter.
**Propel Schools provided the dollar amount that they billed school districts for tuition in 2015-16 but did not provide the figure for actual payments.
(Front photo courtesy of Propel Schools)
Propel CEO: Tina Chekan
Principal: Christina Frazier
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 71.6*
Total annual tuition billed: $2.1 million**
Enrollment: 144
Grades: 6-8
Top three sending districts: Pittsburgh Public Schools, 70 students; Sto-Rox School District, 55; Carlynton, 7.
Neighborhood: Kennedy Township
Opened: 2007
About: Propel Schools did not provide information for this portion of the profiles. According to its website, the school focuses on STEAM, social justice and identity issues. The STEAM lab has 3D and laser printers, a media production studio, an outdoor creative green space and Studio 4C to help develop communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity.
*Propel Montour Elementary and Middle School share the same School Performance Profile score because they were approved under the same charter.
**Propel Schools provided the dollar amount that they billed school districts for tuition in 2015-16 but did not provide the figure for actual payments.
(Front photo courtesy of Propel Schools)
Propel CEO: Tina Chekan
Principal: Mark McClinchie
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: N/A
Total annual tuition payments: N/A
Enrollment: Projected 100
Grades: 9-10 (for now)
Top three sending districts: Not provided
Neighborhood: Kennedy Township
Opened: Fall 2017
About: Propel Schools did not provide information for this portion of the profiles. According to its website, students will meet daily with 10-15 other students and a staff leader to advise and guide them. There will be an emphasis on arts, tech and media. Elective choices will include musical theater and engineering design.
(Front photo courtesy of Propel Schools)
Propel CEO: Tina Chekan
Principal: Angela Anglin-Taylor
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 46.8
Total annual tuition payments: $6.84 million
Enrollment: 393
Grades: K-8
Top three sending districts: Pittsburgh Public Schools, 346 students; Sto-Rox School District, 45 students; Gateway and Shaler Area, one student each.
Neighborhood: North Side
Opened: 2011
About: Propel Schools did not provide information for this portion of the profiles. According to its website, Propel Northside is the first Propel school located in Pittsburgh. It initiated Project Team as a partnership with Penn State Greater Allegheny, which encourages good behavior through teamwork. The school provides a differentiated instruction classroom experience, which allows students to choose where to sit and what to learn (for example, to sit at a computer, on the carpet or at his or her own desk space).
Front photo: Jayvel Thompson, Jr., 11, is a rising sixth grader at Propel Northside. Here, he listens during a veterans oral history event at Propel Northside on July 20, 2017. (Photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)
Propel CEO: Tina Chekan
Principal: Ariane Watson
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 59
Total annual tuition payments: $5.28 million
Enrollment: 338
Grades: K-8
Top three sending districts: Woodland Hills, 93 students; Gateway, 84 students; East Allegheny, 41 students.
Neighborhood: Pitcairn
Opened: 2012
About: Propel Schools did not provide information for this portion of the profiles. According to its website, this school provides personalized targeted learning. The school’s culture is built around “One team, one goal, NO limits.”
(Front photo courtesy of Propel Schools)
Principal/CEO: Brett Marcoux
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: N/A
Total annual tuition payments: $1.7 million
Enrollment: 86
Grades: 3-5
Top three sending districts: Pittsburgh Public Schools, 43 students; Steel Valley, four students; Woodland Hills, four students.
Neighborhood: Troy Hill
Opened: 2016
About: Provident Charter School opened in fall 2016 at the site of the former North Catholic High School, which Provident bought for $2 million. It is designed to serve students with dyslexia and other reading struggles, though it accepts all students. Provident’s School Performance Profile score for its first year in operation, 2016-17, should be released in the fall. The battle to start the school took six years, with its first charter application denied by the North Hills school board in 2012 and a second charter application denied by the Pittsburgh school board in 2014. But Board President Curtis Kossman, a real estate developer, appealed and won approval for the school from Commonwealth Court in February 2016. Kossman and his two children have dyslexia.
The school opened with third and fourth grades. Marcoux said those grades are when students’ reading disabilities surface. Fifth grade will be added this year and, by 2021, the school hopes to have grades 2-8. Marcoux said all students get reading remediation every day and that there is one teacher for every six students.
(Front photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)
CEO: Michelle Johnson
Principal: Jennifer Schurr
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: N/A
Total annual tuition payments: $989,469
Enrollment: 37
Grades: 7-12
Top three sending districts: Pittsburgh Public Schools, 10 students; Gateway School District, five students; Woodland Hills, five students.
Neighborhood: Monroeville
Opened: 2000
About: Spectrum Charter School did not allow a visit or provide information about its program. But based on information from its website, its mission is to provide a school-to-work transition for students ages 13 to 21 with autism or other cognitive difficulties. Classes have one special education teacher and one paraprofessional for every eight students. The school does not get a School Performance Profile score because, as a school for students with special needs, it does not earn enough possible points to be assigned a score. From 2012 to 2016, 24 students graduated. Half of the graduates went on to workshops or habilitation services where they learn or improve skills for daily living. A quarter of the graduates are employed and 8.5 percent are in post-secondary education. In 2015, the school received the Green Flag Award from the National Wildlife Federation for the school’s efforts in educating students to care for the environment.
(Front photo by Jamie Taylor/Unsplash)
Interim CEO: K. Chase Patterson
Principal/Chief Academic Officer: Angelique Drakeford
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 48.3
Total annual tuition payments: $3.5 million
Enrollment: 221
Grades: K-5
Top three sending districts: Pittsburgh Public Schools, 131 students; Penn Hills School District, 41 students; Woodland Hills School District, 23 students.
Neighborhood: Larimer
Opened: 1998
About: Urban Academy is one of the three original charter schools in the county. It was founded by African-American leaders and educators to provide quality education to black students using an Afrocentric curriculum. It started with the backing of the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh located in a former East Liberty synagogue. Founded as the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh Charter School, it broke away from the Urban League and changed its name in August 2015. The school moved to new leased location in Larimer in fall 2016, where there is space for state-of-the-art programs in science, music, drama and art. Its student body is 97 percent black and 77 percent economically disadvantaged.
In December 2015, former Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Linda Lane commended the Urban Academy on its academic achievement and its third-grade reading proficiency scores. The comments came after the A+ Schools advocacy group released a report that showed Urban Academy’s academic outcomes were above the district’s average. But the overall SPP score at Urban Academy has tumbled from 85.5 in 2012-13 to 48.3 in 2015-16. Patterson blames the decline on inadequate preparation for the switch to the Pennsylvania Core curriculum and the state tests aligned to the curriculum.
Front photo: First grader Sky Shay, 7, (left) flexes and smiles next to Yasir Stribling, 7, in the cafeteria of Urban Academy of Greater Pittsburgh Charter School on April 25, 2017. (Photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)
Principal/Chief Academic Officer: Kimberly Fitzgerald
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 55.5
Total annual tuition payments: $4.18 million
Enrollment: 280
Grades: K-5
Top three sending districts: Pittsburgh Public Schools, 189 students; Sto-Rox School District, 41 students; Wilkinsburg, 16 students.
Neighborhood: Downtown
Opened: 2011
About: Urban Pathways K-5 College Charter School encourages students to think about college from their first days in classes. Each year, students are assigned an Historically Black College and University school to research, and the school holds an annual college fair with representatives from a variety of institutions of higher education. Classes are small with one teacher for every 10 students. The school is located on Penn Avenue in the Downtown theater district and students visit the art galleries, theaters and parks. In June, the school graduated its first class of students who attended from kindergarten through fifth grade. Enrollment is 97 percent black and 94 percent economically disadvantaged. Fitzgerald said about 10 percent of the students are homeless.
Front photo: Henea Bracey watches a slideshow of photos from the past year at Urban Pathways' fifth grade moving up ceremony at the Westin hotel on June 1. (Photo by John Hamilton/PublicSource)
Principal/Chief Academic Officer: Kathleen Garland
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 50.9
Total annual tuition payments: $4.9 million
Enrollment: 325
Grades: 6-12
Top three sending districts: Pittsburgh Public Schools, 237 students; Sto-Rox School District, 28 students; Wilkinsburg School District, 21 students.
Neighborhood: Downtown
Opened: 1998
About: Urban Pathways was one of the three original charter schools in Allegheny County. It started as Northside Urban Pathways and was different for its 6-12 model — a model created to eliminate the transition from middle school to high school. Its student enrollment is 99 percent black and 65 percent economically disadvantaged. The school fosters partnerships with community organizations and businesses and uses them for shadowing and internship opportunities for students. It features small classes with a student-to-teacher ratio of 12:1. Former CEO Linda Clautti resigned in March 2014, several months after a KDKA-TV investigation showed that tens of thousands of school dollars were used to pay for meals at expensive restaurants, board retreats at exclusive resorts, cell phones for board members and their spouses and to develop a second school in Ohio. The board later enacted checks-and-balances procedures to prevent future misuse of school funds.
Front photo: Students work on a final exam in a science classroom on June 8 at Urban Pathways 6-12. (Photo by John Hamilton/PublicSource)
Principal/CEO: N/A
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: N/A because school was not in operation
Total annual tuition payments: N/A
Enrollment: N/A
Grades: 9-12
Top three sending districts: N/A
Neighborhood: Wilmerding
Opened: Fall 2017
About: According to the school website, Westinghouse Arts Academy will be a creative and performing arts school with classes in dance, digital arts, literary arts, music, studio arts and theater in addition to required academic classes. Students will be able to focus on one area or can choose an interdisciplinary curriculum.
(Front photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)
Principal/CEO: Halil Demir
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 34.9
Total annual tuition payments: $1.96 million
Enrollment: 142
Grades: K-5
Top three sending districts: McKeesport Area, 61 students; Duquesne, 39 students; Clairton, 18 students.
Neighborhood: McKeesport
Opened: 2015
About: Young Scholars of McKeesport Charter School opened in 2015 as a sister school to Young Scholars of Western Pennsylvania Charter School in Baldwin Township, which has been around for six years. The goal was to offer a similar multilingual, multicultural experience to students in McKeesport and its surrounding neighborhoods, Demir said. The school focuses on teaching foreign language, with all students learning Turkish and Spanish, and training them to become global citizens, he said. This summer, the school received a $50,000 STARTALK grant that allowed it to host summer school to teach Turkish to students from the area. The summer sessions were held at the Baldwin Township school. Young Scholars of McKeesport also focuses on offering a safe educational environment to its students who sometimes come from troubled neighborhoods, Demir said. In 2017-18, a teacher’s aide will be added to each classroom. The school will have a 1:9 ratio of certified teachers to students. The school also has a one-to-one technology program, where each student is assigned their own Chromebook computer during the day. However, the students do not take the computers home at night. The school, located in a rented building from the St. Nicholas Byzantine Church, in 2016-17 began using Reading Mastery, an intense phonics program for grades K-2 in an effort to help improve student reading.
In the 2017-18 school year, the school will add a sixth grade. The plan is for the school to expand to a K-8 school in three years.
(Front photo by Stephanie Hacke/PublicSource)
Principal/CEO: Kasim Biyikli
2015-16 School Performance Profile score: 69.6
Total annual tuition payments: $4.77 millon
Enrollment: 300
Grades: K-8
Top three sending districts: Pittsburgh Public Schools, 168 students; Baldwin-Whitehall, 46 students; South Park, 17 students.
Neighborhood: Baldwin Township
Opened: 2011
About: At the multilingual, multicultural charter school, students in grades kindergarten through eighth grade take Turkish and Spanish classes once a day. “The main mission is the foreign languages,” Biyikli said. Flags from across the world hang in the school’s gymnasium/cafeteria, and students often participate in multicultural events. Each classroom is assigned a country and studies it for a month. Students learn songs and dances from countries around the world and perform them for their peers. The program culminates in an international celebration. With students learning Turkish and Spanish, parents now are attempting to learn them, too, school leaders said. In 2016-17, the school held a six-week Turkish cooking class — taught by its Turkish teacher — for parents. The school also focuses on an individual approach to learning, Board President Melih Demirkan said. Class sizes are capped at 22. The school offers a free extended day program Monday through Thursday with clubs and tutoring for students, along with a 16-week academic support program held on Saturdays. The school has a one-to-one program for its middle school, where each student is assigned a Chromebook to use during the day. In grades K-5, Chromebook carts are available for teachers to use, along with a computer lab. Smartboards are in almost every classroom.
The school is set to expand by 20 students in 2017-18 and 20 in 2018-19.
The school faced scrutiny when it opened in 2011 for some of its practices. Residents at the time raised concerns, citing news reports, that the school’s “sister school” in State College was under investigation for its ties to Turkish leaders. Demirkan said the concerns haven’t come up since. “No one is asking about it anymore,” he said. “It has been a long time. No one ever says anything.”
Front photo: Kindergartener Gianna Gamble, 6, works on sight words with learning support teacher Natalie Bissey at Young Scholars of Western PA Charter School on June 28, 2017. (Photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)