Cate Guilfoyle, a senior at Allderdice High School, learned of Pittsburgh Public Schools’ gifted program when she was in second grade at Colfax K-8. Many of her peers attended the district’s Gifted Center at Greenway, once a week, to participate in accelerated hands-on courses. 

Uneven Scales
As PPS contends with a difficult budget season, PublicSource explores the balance of resources and its effects on students’ futures.

“There was a huge stigma around, like, everyone that went there was super smart,” she said. 

Guilfoyle was evaluated and identified as a gifted student a few years later. Like others, she attended the Gifted Center, which she believes offered more resources than Colfax. With that, Guilfoyle said, she also saw immediate disparities in her classroom. 

On the days when she and her classmates bussed off to the Gifted Center, she said, “Greenway would look like all white kids and then all of Colfax would have only African American kids.” 

The district’s Gifted and Talented program offers unique opportunities for students who are identified as “high-achieving.” However, students of color are highly underrepresented among students who are identified for the program. 

As the district works through a strategic planning process with a focus on equity, at least some board members say the time is right to rethink approaches to gifted education. 

Of the 18,650 students enrolled in the district, 1,315 were identified as gifted in 2022-23, according to the district’s enrollment dashboard. Of the students identified as gifted, 16% were Black and 66% were white. Black students make up 51% of the district’s student population. 

Schools with a higher share of economically disadvantaged students also had a lower percentage of students identified as gifted. Of all students with a Gifted Individualized Education Plan [GIEP], only 23% were economically disadvantaged, while districtwide, 70% of students are economically disadvantaged.

Statewide, 3.3% of all students were identified as gifted, according to the 2017-18 data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Less than 1% of Black students were identified. Studies have shown that gifted programs do not necessarily improve student reading and math scores. 

PPS spokesperson Ebony Pugh said the district follows state guidelines when evaluating students for gifted education, but did not substantively address questions about racial disparities in the program.

State laws contribute to disparities

State regulations define gifted education as individualized and specially designed instruction, delivered under a GIEP. 

Per state law, a “mentally gifted” student must demonstrate an IQ of 130 or more or

• Test at a year or more above achievement level 
• Show a high rate of retention in learning new skills 
• Demonstrate early skill development 
• Show expertise in one or more academic areas.

Advocates say, the definition of “gifted” may be a key driver of the inequitable access to the district’s gifted program.

James Fogarty, executive director of A+ Schools, a nonprofit supporting PPS in addressing equity issues, said key measures such as IQ, which is impacted by socioeconomic factors such as poverty and structural racism, skew the pool of gifted students. 

“It seems as if the current system … developed at the state policy level, lends itself towards identifying students as gifted as those who are also not economically disadvantaged,” he said.

Many students from low-income families are underrepresented and excluded from gifted programs because they do not have opportunities for enrichment and learning experiences outside school in early childhood, said Kristen Seward, associate director of Gifted Education Resource Institute [GERI] at Purdue University.

She said if students don’t have access to enrichment opportunities in early childhood, then they will not test high by the time they get to third grade, when kids are usually tested for gifted education.

Accelerated learning for the ‘gifted,’ free day for others

All gifted students in PPS – apart from those at Dilworth and Grandview where gifted instruction is offered on-site – go to the Gifted Center at Greenway every week, where they participate in project-based, accelerated courses. 

Beatrice Kuhn was in fourth grade at Colfax when she was identified as a gifted student. Once every week, she would go to the Gifted Center, where she took classes ranging from forensic science to ceramics.

“I took various art classes and those were really fun,” she said. “It was a very different environment.”

Kuhn’s friend, Alina Weise, also got evaluated in fifth grade but was not identified as gifted. She and others stayed at Colfax while their peers went to the Gifted Center. 

“I just felt down about myself. I started to feel like I wasn’t smart enough or wasn’t as high of a level as my peers were, especially my close friends,” she said. 

On days her classmates went to the Gifted Center, those remaining at Colfax were usually given a “free day,” where they could catch up on any previously assigned work, Weise said. 

PPS did not respond to inquiries about assignments for students not identified as gifted on days their peers are at the Gifted Center.

Kipp Dawson, a retired teacher from Colfax, taught at the school from 2005 to 2018. She said delivery of instruction for students who stayed behind on gifted days varied at every school and with every principal. 

For a part of her tenure at Colfax, those students were provided an enrichment day where they brought in artists to teach classes such as poetry, writing or painting T-shirts. However, most time was dedicated for students to prepare for standardized tests. 

“That was a day in many cases of dull, rote, uninspiring work,” said Dawson. 

Allyce Pinchback-Johnson, a founding member of Black Women for a Better Education, said apart from overidentifying white students as gifted, the district also misidentifies students because of inherent biases and standardized testing. 

“It’s just a very narrow and limited definition of giftedness,” she said. “We already know what the outcomes are going to be, based on just the racial distribution of how students fare on those tests that we know that it’s not a reflection of them as students as much as it’s a reflection of the bias that exists.”

Gene Walker, district board president, said the Gifted Center creates barriers for students by sending some kids there and leaving others behind. “I think we sometimes do ourselves a disservice by creating opportunities to segregate.”

The Gifted-to-AP pipeline

At Allderdice, Guilfoyle noticed the same disparities in her honors and Advanced Placement [AP] classes that she saw between Colfax and the Greenway Center. 

“I feel like Allderdice is very segregated in many ways,” she said. “I walked in my first AP class, and there were no African American students.”

Similar to gifted education, Black students are underrepresented in AP courses. A total of 1,660 students in PPS enrolled in at least one AP class in 2023. Of those, 29% were Black and 54% were white. 

Pinchback-Johnson said the overidentification of white students as gifted sets them up for automatic consideration in high school AP and Centers for Advanced Study classes.

“I view it as just a form of segregation,” she said. 

She added that white families use their social capital to get access to the district’s magnet programs.

The district’s arts magnet, CAPA 6-12, has one of the highest rates of students identified as gifted. This year, 31.5% of the student population at CAPA was identified as gifted. Neighborhood schools, such as UPrep Milliones and Westinghouse, have less than 4% of their students identified as gifted.

Advocates seek systemic changes

Nielsen Pereira, director of the Gifted Education Resource Institute [GERI] at Purdue University, said the district could implement models like total school cluster grouping to reduce inequities that might be caused by sending students to a gifted center. The model involves training teachers to identify students and implement gifted education strategies with all students in a school. 

Under the model, every teacher would be able to provide gifted education, and gifted students would be placed alongside other students instead of visiting a separate classroom or a gifted center. 

Fogarty said the district needs to think about fostering inclusivity and creating in-house gifted education supports, such as those at Dilworth and Grandview. 

“Setting kids aside and not providing support services that allow them to be fully inclusive, is problematic, whether it’s for a student with disabilities or a student with academic gifts,” he said.  

Walker said instead of referrals from parents or teachers, the district should implement universal testing to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to be identified as gifted and eliminate any personal and systemic bias. 

The district rolled out a pilot program in 2018 to screen all second-grade students in six PPS schools for gifted identification. It’s unclear what, if anything, came of that.

Walker said he’s keen to keep the dialogue moving. 

“I think it’s going to take more than policy change,” he said. “It’s going to take attitude change, it’s going to take priority change.”

Lajja Mistry is the K-12 education reporter at PublicSource. She can be reached at lajja@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Delaney Adams.

The post Inequitable enrichment: How Black and low-income students are largely left out of Pittsburgh’s gifted program  appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

This story was originally published by Kidsburgh.org, a media partner of PublicSource. Kidsburgh is an online resource for families that highlights stories about the people, organizations and events making Pittsburgh a better place to raise all kids. Sign up for Kidsburgh’s free e-newsletter.

At Belle Vernon Area School District, students in Daneen Watson’s Spanish 1 class use the words and phrases they’re learning to correct paragraphs written in the language they’re trying to master. Working in groups, they comb through Spanish sentences and find errors, discussing what they find and how best to rewrite it.

Students have used this method to learn a foreign language for generations. But something decidedly 21st-century is happening in Watson’s classroom: These paragraphs were written not by a human, but by the artificial intelligence system ChatGPT.

At New Kensington-Arnold School District, administrators and teachers observed a second grade lesson in reading comprehension in which teachers helped the class input their own text and artwork using ChatGPT and starryai. The ideas they developed, channeled through the quickly evolving tools of AI, allowed the students to produce a book they titled, “Miss Fabulous Loves Her Coffee,” about the day in the life of their teacher.

As OpenAI’s ChatGPT (which stands for Chat Generative Pretrained Transformer), Google’s Bard and other educational AI platforms become mainstream student tools, local educators navigate the waters of rapidly changing technologies each day.

Are there worries about students outsourcing their thinking and creating to a synthetic brain? Or does AI open new doors to student-driven creativity? How do school districts and individual teachers decide which tools to use and how their students are allowed to use them?

“It’s huge, and it’s very hard to wrap the mind around how many different ways this finds a place within our school environment,” says Tim Hammill, director of curriculum services for the Westmoreland County Intermediate Unit [WIU].

Through shared information and seminars from local experts, district leaders in Hammill’s network are working to understand and learn more about the pros, cons and appropriateness of educational AI.

Staying a step ahead – AI teacher training

Schools can’t simply opt out of interaction with AI, because the kids they teach have already begun accessing it. For example, Hammill says, students have figured out that they can use AI to do the standard homework assignment.

“That’s what drives the need for teachers to understand how their instruction needs to change and their assignments need to change,” he says. “We don’t have the option to turn it off and make it go away.”

At WIU training sessions, teachers and administrators learn how to create assignments that leverage AI’s capabilities in ways that teach. This might mean checking the accuracy of a ChatGPT-produced essay on Abraham Lincoln based on what a student has already learned about his life. Or it might mean giving a prewritten passage about Lincoln to students and asking them to rewrite it in the first person, as though they were Lincoln.

“We still need to put those critical skills and concepts that the kids need to learn in front of them; the system is only a part of the equation,” said Rebecca Henderson, curriculum services supervisor of the WIU.

At a recent district training event at New Kensington-Arnold School District, approximately 100 teachers were introduced to lesson-producing generative AI tools. They learned to use ChatGPT to create assessments. And using text-to-voice generating platform Uberduck and other history-focused programs, they discovered how to apply the sound of famous voices to quotes and even hold conversations — complete with AI-emulated responses — with virtual versions of historical leaders.

New Ken-Arnold’s superintendent Dr. Chris Sefcheck knows there are those who may feel students should only learn by taking pen to paper or using computers in the ways that we have for a generation. But he sees opportunity for students to build critical thinking and problem solving skills through these new tools.

“The biggest piece is that artificial intelligence has to be paired with human intellect,” Sefcheck says. “You have to be able to not only know how to use AI, but know how to use your brain for the critical thinking and problem solving that AI doesn’t do for you.”

At Burrell School District, middle school learning coach Courtney Barbiaux enthusiastically pursues AI training — then passes her knowledge on to teachers. She recently gave a presentation on educational platforms including MagicSchool, a free resource that creates lessons, generates questions, produces classroom stations and more on just about any topic.

Supporting classroom lessons in creative ways 

Although AI isn’t written into daily lessons, there are teachers in the WIU using AI to help with tutoring or offer guidance to improve students’ writing and math skills — all under teacher supervision.

In Burrell’s eighth grade classrooms, Barbiaux has introduced the concept of machine learning and how to appropriately use AI in ways similar to how students already use Google to do research.

“We talked about how you could use ChatGPT to search more information, but you’re not copying and pasting,” she says.

Meanwhile, in Burrell’s sixth grade reading classes, students summarize passages generated by ChatGPT at various skill levels. And though it’s not part of daily instruction, Burrell’s technology integration coach Melinda Kulick says the district is exploring AI as a personalized learning tool to increase student engagement.

One possible example, she says: “Taking things that are of interest to students, putting them into ChatGPT and asking for a lesson on fractions for a student who loves soccer.”

Watson, of Belle Vernon, learned about ChatGPT at a conference last summer and continues to increase her proficiency in other platforms like MagicSchool and Canva Magic Design. Once other teachers in her department are on board, she hopes to introduce her students to AI concepts in addition to the AI-generated lessons she currently uses.

“I have seen an increase in scores, and the students do love using AI,” she says, “even though I haven’t explicitly told them what it is.”

At Franklin Regional, students use the math platform ALEKS, which now includes an AI component that assigns assessments and evaluates next levels of instruction by tracking student learning and performance patterns.

Superintendent Gennaro Piraino says he’s mindful of kids – including his own, who are in the district – spending “hours in front of the computer.” But he sees value of programs like ALEKS.

“It has individual prescriptive instruction or remediation when you need it,” Piraino says. “It gets as challenging as the student can handle based upon the response.”

Groundbreaking tool or temptation to cheat?

Rules and policies regarding AI fall under the umbrella of academic integrity. But this is all so new and rapidly evolving. So, Piraino says, “I think people have different perspectives on it.”

He believes educators have the responsibility to understand their students’ needs while teaching ethical uses of AI. At Franklin Regional, some teachers are putting assignments through GPT Zero, a detector that can tell the likelihood or the percentage of a document produced through AI.

Teachers need to be in the business of verifying information, Henderson says. And if a student’s response is broader than what the assignment asks, that has to trigger a warning bell: Did the student really go above and beyond because they are that passionate about this topic? Or because the system went above and beyond?

Cheating is always a risk. But students need to understand the tools of the era in which they live and will one day work.

Students are “going to go out into the world and compete against people who are using it effectively and using it well — and sometimes, using it unethically,” Piraino says. “If we don’t utilize this opportunity in an environment where we know it’s safe, then we put them at a disadvantage.”

The post AI in Pittsburgh-area schools: How are districts handling this powerful new tool? appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Updated (1/25/24): The Pittsburgh Public Schools board on Wednesday passed a motion to table a resolution for appointing student board representatives, shelving it indefinitely.

Board member Jamie Piotrowski said she supports amplifying student voices and the board should create a consistent program through the policy committee instead of passing a resolution. She added that passing a resolution to appoint two students would not represent the whole student body, including many English language learners or students with disabilities. 

“This is a resolution that then becomes very difficult to find in Board Docs and then as the board changes, this program could essentially disappear,” she said.

Board member Sala Udin, who introduced the initial resolution and voted against tabling, said he made many changes to the resolution based on recommendations from board members, adding that the board would be “sending a very negative message to the students” if they tabled the resolution. 

“We need to be lifting them up, not muzzling them,” he said. 

The board plans to have conversations in the upcoming policy committee meetings to decide a plan forward.

Reported (1/23/24):

Pittsburgh school board considers adding student seats

Pittsburgh Public Schools is expected to vote tomorrow on a proposal to add two high school student representatives to its board. 

Those in support of the resolution, proposed by board member Sala Udin, include students who say they lack input in decisions about their education.

“We must ensure that the voices of students not only have room in the superintendent’s vocal point but also the actual policymaking body of this system,” said Allderdice High School senior Pavel Marin, during a public hearing on Monday night.

The resolution, if passed, would add two students from 11th and 12th grade to serve as liaisons between the board and the student body, and they will be required to submit a monthly report. 

Students would be selected by a committee of high school principals and the superintendent would make a suggestion to the board before the start of the next school year. The students would not be given voting power or access to executive sessions in which privileged information is discussed. 

During a public board meeting last week when the resolution was introduced, board member Devon Taliaferro urged the board to examine their governing process before adding student voices. She said the board should explore other options that involve more students such as the Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council [SSAC], a student-led panel that discusses school-related issues with the administration. 

School officials, while saying they support more student input, appear undecided on the proposal.

Board member Dwayne Barker said while he wants to prioritize student voices, he does not want to rush the process of adding student representatives to the board. The board could hold multiple listening sessions at schools, led by students, to increase student voice in the district, he added. 

“We know it’s long overdue,” said Barker. “Student voice is certainly important.” 

Board President Gene Walker said he supported the idea of student board members but the board should work to clearly define the students’ role to create a positive experience. 

“There’s some work that we need to do internally, from a governance standpoint, to put us in the right position to be able to do that effectively,” he said. 

In a written statement, former board member Pam Harbin said the resolution confines the district to a single method and the board should consider other ways, such as electing student representatives. She added that the board should take feedback from students to make the process meaningful and equitable. 

Last year, the PPS board gave itself a failing grade in a self-evaluation, as reported by WESA.

Za’Morrie Reeves, a junior at Allderdice, intends to apply to be a student board representative if the resolution is passed. 

Reeves, who is also part of the SSAC, said he believes student board members would involve students at policy-making and districtwide levels as opposed to SSAC’s work in individual schools. 

“I can help by just being a voice for those students who either don’t feel comfortable using their voice or don’t know where to use your voice,” he said.

Lajja Mistry is the K-12 education reporter at PublicSource. She can be reached at lajja@publicsource.org.

The post Updated: PPS shelves proposal for student board appointments appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

The Community College of Allegheny County has lost more than a third of its student body since the pandemic derailed the lives and aspirations of current and prospective students. But this fall, enrollment at the college stabilized.

Pencils Down
How plummeting enrollment and low success rates at the Community College of Allegheny County harm students and the Pittsburgh region

Just over 10,500 students enrolled at the college, known as CCAC, according to data from the institution. That’s about a 0.4% increase from last year. Nationwide, community colleges reported a 4.4% increase from the previous year, preliminary data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center shows. 

“We’re out of the pandemic, people are getting better equipped to take in-person classes now. They feel like things are coming back to normal,” said Dorothy Collins, vice president for enrollment services at CCAC. “I think we’re trending upward. I’m happy.” 

While a silver lining, this small bump in enrollment still reflects a 34% drop from fall 2019 – and roughly a 50% drop from fall 2010, around the time community college enrollments peaked nationwide. 

Renewed declines could have significant implications. The college relies on tuition for a sizable share of revenue, and regional employers count on CCAC graduates to fill vital jobs in industries such as health care. On top of that, people without degrees often earn less over their lifetimes than those with them. 

Bringing students back is a priority for CCAC. The college has created a Strategic Enrollment and Retention Management Plan, and the cross-departmental team overseeing the plan will soon set goals around enrollment, retention and affordability, said Collins, who took over this summer. 

The college has not yet set specific numerical goals for boosting enrollment.  

What’s driving the growth?

Tom Brock, director of the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, said the nationwide upswing in community college enrollments is encouraging. He said the boost, though, is largely because they “fell so far during the pandemic that you could say, ‘They could only go back up.’”

Collins attributed CCAC’s recent uptick to the region’s post-pandemic recovery, which may also be reflected in the diversity of the student body. Community colleges often serve communities of color that were disproportionately impacted by the crisis, and this fall, the share of students of color at CCAC exceeded pre-pandemic levels in some areas.

Black students made up about 17% of the student body, up from about 14% in fall 2021. The share of Hispanic and Latino students steadily increased throughout the pandemic, growing from roughly 3% in fall 2019 to 4% in fall 2023. The share of white students declined slightly during that time, from about 61% to 60%, with roughly 1 in 5 students falling into other categories.

But there are other factors driving the boost nationally, experts told PublicSource, and some could bode well for CCAC. Community colleges that focus on hands-on learning and short-term credentials have benefited from the public’s growing concern about student debt and declining confidence in the value of a four-year degree. 

“Families are seeing it as a better value,” Brock said. The tuition rate at CCAC for county residents taking classes full-time is $1,890 a semester, while the figure is at least $10,077 for in-state students at the University of Pittsburgh’s main campus.

Collins has observed that more students are coming to the college looking for credentials that will quickly lead to well-paying jobs. The college has invested in this area, recently opening its $43 million Center for Education, Innovation and Training to house programs in the skilled trades and other high-demand fields. 

And since the pandemic, high schoolers have become a substantial boost to enrollment at community colleges nationwide, experts said. High schoolers can pay to take community college courses; the practice, known as dual enrollment, aims to reduce the time and cost associated with a four-year degree. 

CCAC wants to enroll “every type of student that wants to come here,” Collins said — and recruiting high schoolers is part of its strategy. So far, though, the college has not seen a substantial return from dual enrollment. High schoolers made up 16% of the country’s community college students in 2019 but just below 8% at CCAC that fall, according to data from the college. Since then, their share of CCAC’s student body has fallen to about 5%. 

“I think that you’ll see that our dual enrollment is going to increase after this semester,” Collins said. “We’re meeting, we’re going out, we send email blasts. We’ve sent a lot of information to let the high schools know that we’re here.” 

There are plenty of benefits for the high schoolers taking these classes, but their enrollment in a few courses may not bring CCAC the same revenue as a full-time student. 

“By and large, community colleges do worse financially by enrolling a dual-enrolled student,” said Joshua Wyner, founder and executive director of the College Excellence Program at the Aspen Institute, noting lower tuition and subsidies for the high school students. 

But these students can come back after graduation, Wyner said, especially if the colleges provided them with meaningful advising and helped them take courses that match their career interests. At Florida’s Valencia College, for example, about half its dual-enrollment students return. Most community colleges see about 20%, Wyner said.

Collins said CCAC is looking at ways to reduce or cover the cost of dual enrollment, from securing grant funding for some students to “trying to entice the state” to pay for these programs. Ohio, for example, covers the tuition and textbook fees of public high school students through its College Credit Plus program. 

Beyond these areas, she said CCAC is working to bring students back by hosting walk-ins to help students complete federal financial aid applications; marketing open houses months in advance; and informing prospective students of the college’s support services. 

Enrolling students is half the battle

A shrinking student population isn’t the only challenge CCAC faces; many students struggle to reach graduation after they sign up for classes. 

Community college students often face more challenges than students at four-year universities, as they are more likely to be low-income. At CCAC, almost 40% struggle to consistently access basic needs like food, shelter or child care, according to minutes of meetings of the college’s Board of Trustees. 

Still, the college’s graduation rate falls short of accreditation standards. Only 20% of full-time freshmen who enroll for the first time graduate three years later — one year beyond what an associate’s degree typically requires — according to a college spokesperson. The Middle States Commission on Higher Education says the rate should be at least 23% and has required the college to detail its plan for improvement. The commission will decide whether to renew CCAC’s accreditation in 2026. 

CCAC is working to meet the commissions’ standard, Collins said. The college has purchased software that alerts the institution when students are missing or failing classes, she said, and the enrollment planning committee will prioritize reaching the requirement.

“We’re going to be intrusive. We’re going to be deliberate. We’re reaching out, ‘Hey, you’re not doing what you said you were going to do when you decided to come to this institution. Now, we want to get you back on track. We want to help you succeed,’” she said.

Experts pointed to a variety of reforms that could help students enroll and graduate. Colleges should be more flexible with when, and how, courses are offered, and potentially expand online and weekend options. They should improve partnerships with four-year universities to help students transfer seamlessly. And they need greater financial support from state or local governments to help low-income students finance college. 

Take Virginia’s “Get a Skill. Get a Job. Get Ahead,” or “G3,” program, which the state officially launched in 2021. Initially funded at $69 million over two years, the program provides tuition assistance to students with annual household incomes below a certain level pursuing degrees in “high-demand” fields. Enrollment in eligible academic programs grew by 9% from fall 2020 to fall 2021, according to reporting by Virginia’s public media outlet.

A few community colleges nationwide have staved off enrollment declines by sharpening their focus on student success, according to the Aspen Institute. The Alamo Colleges District, a system of five in Texas, improved their graduation and transfer rates after hiring more advisers and ensuring all students received guidance earlier, among other improvements. Over the last decade, enrollment grew by 24%.

Lake Area Technical College, a small community college in South Dakota, saw enrollment grow by 61% in the last decade, partly because it tailored its academic offerings to the workforce needs of the region. More than three-quarters of students graduate in three years, and nearly all are employed one year after graduation. 

Above all, community colleges need to ensure their students get bachelor’s degrees or well-paying jobs, Wyner said. “Colleges that deliver value — meaning strong graduation rates and degrees that have value to students after they graduate, either in transfer or in the workforce — have gained enrollment. … 

“I think that too many colleges believe that they can market their way out of the current challenge or recruit their way out,” Wyner added. “I just don’t think we’re at a moment where that’s likely to work.”

Emma Folts covers higher education at PublicSource, in partnership with Open Campus. She can be reached at emma@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Pamela Smith.

The post After pandemic disruption, enrollment at CCAC stabilizes appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Every Friday, at 1:53 p.m., Sha’Ron Kennedy helps his classmates at Pittsburgh Public Schools’ Langley K-8 prepare bags filled with food. First, he slips in some instant noodles, and then he adds green beans, corn and tomato sauce. Sometimes he also adds breakfast oatmeal and fruit. 

Once all bags are prepared, Kennedy leads the students to different classrooms. 

At each class, they knock on the door saying, “Blessings in a backpack!” then deliver the bags to other students. 

Kennedy is a seventh-grader in Langley’s autistic support class where he volunteers to work in the school’s Blessings in a Backpack program. The program is part of Langley’s community school model, providing food for students experiencing food insecurity. 

PPS Langley is one of nine schools in the district that are designated as community schools. Unlike traditional neighborhood public schools, the community public school model focuses on providing services that support the neighborhood’s needs by involving parents and other community members. They often partner with local businesses and organizations and have an integrated focus on learning opportunities, health and fulfilling basic needs. 

The pandemic reinforced the importance of community schools, when schools needed to meet a range of needs outside the classroom. The Coalition for Community Schools estimates there are about 5,000 community schools in the country. 

Outside the city, Communities in Schools of Pittsburgh-Allegheny County [CISPAC] is helping districts build community schools across the region. Last year, they began implementing the full-service community school model across eight school districts in Allegheny County. 

Community schools across Pittsburgh serve as hubs of the neighborhoods in which they operate. Many go far beyond delivering instruction and offer resources such as food, clothing and after-school programs with a focus on mental health and reducing violence in the community. 

A spreading model with federal friends

Although the model is relatively new for Pittsburgh-area schools, community schools have, over the past two decades, reported successes in states including Texas, Florida, Ohio, California, Maryland and Minnesota.

In Cincinnati for example, all schools became community schools following a policy passed in 2001. From 2006 to 2015, research showed that the achievement gap between Black and white students in the Cincinnati school district decreased from 14.5% to 4.5%. In the Minneapolis area, the Brooklyn Center Community Schools saw district-wide behavioral references cut in half in the first five years as a community school system.

On Nov. 28, the Biden-Harris Administration announced almost $74 million in grants for full-service community schools in Idaho, Missouri, New Hampshire and Ohio. The next day, senators from Ohio, Maryland, New York and New Mexico introduced The Full Service Community School Expansion Act of 2023, which is a comprehensive bill aimed at helping more public schools implement the wrap-around services of a full-service community school model. 

The long-term success of community schools depends on consistent funding, according to Jennifer Kotting, communications strategist for The Partnership for the Future of Learning, a national network dedicated to supporting public education.

“It’s really ongoing [funding] that is needed to maintain a really strong set of possibilities in each community school,” Kotting said. 

Duquesne: Reducing violence through conflict resolution

CISPAC’s full-service community school approach stands on four pillars: integrated student support, expanded and enriched learning opportunities, active family and community engagement and collaborative leadership.

School districts such as Sto-Rox, Duquesne and Pittsburgh are hoping the community schools model will help students deal with trauma stemming from violence in their neighborhoods.

Duquesne has partnered with the University of Pittsburgh’s Just Discipline Project [JDP] to reduce exclusionary discipline practices in schools. Instead of resorting to suspensions, which have been linked to the school-to-prison pipeline, the project aims to offer more holistic solutions.

For a school to be selected for the Just Discipline Project, it must show high disciplinary action numbers. 

Currently, JDP is partnered with 20 schools around the Pittsburgh area, including Sto-Rox and PPS Langley. At most schools, they employ a full-time restorative practice coordinator who is available all day, much like a traditional teacher. 

At Duquesne, Molly Means, a restorative practice coordinator, leads a classroom group of middle schoolers to become leaders in training. The students learn restorative justice ideas and lead healing circles in younger classrooms. 

She said Duquesne’s desire to increase restorative practices makes it a good fit for the project. 

“It’s a unique opportunity for kids in the school districts that we’re in to get to be part of a leadership program, to get to learn about mediations, to get to learn about community building from such a young age,” said Means. 

Dae-Mere Johnson, an eighth grader at Duquesne and part of Means’ group of Leaders in Training [LIT], said the violence and shootings around the community impact his mental health and that of his peers. 

Johnson said he feels he and his fellow LITs are helping other — especially younger — students by sharing the conflict resolution skills they’ve learned.

“Sometimes they need help,” Johnson said. “I feel like when we come into the classroom, it’s helpful. It calms them down.”

Whether through leading healing circles for younger classrooms or helping students resolve conflict at lunchtime, Duquesne Superintendent Sue Mariani said, the leaders in training are helping to shift the school’s culture from a punitive approach to a restorative one. 

Bridget Clement, executive director of CISPAC, said often there is tension in schools where there is a majority of economically disadvantaged, Black and brown students and mostly white administrators.

“We have teachers that are afraid of the students and administrators that are afraid, and this comes out a lot because they don’t understand how to best engage students that are traumatized,” she said.

To avoid overidentifying Black and brown students for discipline, Duquesne teachers present data on students displaying at-risk behaviors, such as attendance or discipline issues, to a team of school counselors, teachers and administrators who work together to determine the best course of action for a student, said middle school Principal George Little.

Duquesne’s community school model emphasizes student mental health supports, through an approach known as social and emotional learning. 

“We have students who experience significant trauma,” Mariani said. To address that, educators focus on “making sure a kid feels safe, whether it’s emotionally or physically before they can even learn.” 

Duquesne has a full-time therapist from Auberle, a social service agency, available to students during the day. 

Langley: Meeting community needs, addressing burnout

Other than a Family Dollar that sells eggs, milk and some dried goods, Sheraden, where Langley is located, does not have a grocery store. 

“It’s a food desert,” said Keysha Gomez, founder of H.O.P.E. for Tomorrow, a community partner at Langley. In addition to in-house programs such as Blessings in a Backpack, community partners including H.O.P.E. and 412 Food Rescue work together to send kids home with food every day after school. 

Gomez said because public schools lack resources, it falls on standalone organizations such as H.O.P.E. to raise money through grants and fund-raising.

“Finances are a big problem,” she said. 

Mike Dean, Langley’s community school site manager, said they try to provide basic necessities not only for students but for the community outside of the school. 

“If someone wanted to come out and needed something at that moment, it is the understanding that Langley is the hub for this community,” he said. 

Outside of the food pantry and a free clothing store, Langley also offers a boxing program, a dental cleaning and hygiene camp each fall and summer, and lifestyle classes. The school has also worked with the city to install a stop light on Sheraden Boulevard. 

Nationwide, teachers have left the teaching profession and experienced higher levels of stress and lower morale after the pandemic, as reported by Chalkbeat. Former PPS teachers have said that burnout preceded the pandemic. 

Kathy Monti-Trievel, a Langley alumnus and now a teacher at the school, thinks that the shift to a community school model in 2017 has eased some of the burden. Having community partners bring in extra resources such as food and clothing — things teachers previously had to provide alone — has helped, she said. 

“I think community schools allow there to be healthy boundaries for teachers and staff to do their craft, which is to teach, deliver instruction,” said Sarah Armenti, a social worker and Langley’s family and community engagement coordinator. 

Sto-Rox: Expanding community, reducing absenteeism

Sto-Rox Superintendent Megan Marie Van Fossan said she would like to see more providers in their school buildings. She said the district is facing staffing challenges in teaching and health care services. Not having full-time nurses in the buildings also contributes to truancy issues in the schools, she said.

Fully 72.3% of students were chronically absent, missing more than two days of school a month for any reason, in the Sto-Rox Junior Senior High School in 2021-22. 

Van Fossan said the district is working on social-emotional skills and conflict resolution to solve violence issues that contribute to truancy and drop-out.

Duquesne’s Mariani said she believes the community school model has played a major role in supporting the return of eighth graders, who came back to the Mon Valley city in 2022 after almost a decade of being educated in neighboring districts. When it comes to the district’s goal to reopen the high school — closed in 2007— Mariani said she hopes to use a similar model. 

Sonya Gooden, a school board director for Duquesne and a family advocate at Duqusene’s Head Start program, said she feels the lack of a high school disrupts community bonds for older children.

“With the closing of the high school, bringing it back will again make a wholeness of the community because currently we’re split up between different cities,” Gooden said. “Once you get to 13, 14, you’re away from your friends and it takes away from the center of the community which the district represents.”

La’tresha Dean, the director of the Boys and Girls club at Duquesne and a parent in the district, said that while she believes the community school model at Duquesne is making a positive impact, its leadership and goals need to be consistent for community members to put their full trust into the school.

Building trust in the community

Many of Duquesne’s school staff are community members and alumni. Little said that established interpersonal relationships between staff and students give the district leaders a better understanding of students’ needs and help parents and families feel more comfortable confiding in staff and seeking out help.

“By having so many people from the community in the building it helps us understand what’s going on in the community … around guns, drugs, domestic issues — we hear about it,” Little said.

Clement said sometimes parents who have had bad experiences in school do not want to engage with their children’s school. CISPAC accordingly works to engage parents through their community school model. 

“We need to have more of that family infusion so that the teachers and the administrators who maybe aren’t on the ground have a better understanding of what the community is dealing with on a day-to-day basis,” she said. 

Another way Duquesne is keeping parents in the loop is through its Parents As Allies organization that focuses on supporting parent needs and engagement — both for their children and for themselves. Last year, Duquesne held a career and resource fair where parents could find mental health resources and professional development opportunities.

Through community and parent engagement, LaQuandra Bennet, Duquesne’s CISPAC site manager, says the long-term goal of the full-service community school model is to equip parents and the community with the resources to help their children on their own.

“We want to empower families when it comes to their student’s education,” Bennet said. “We want to make sure that … the things we’re bringing in are able to continue and that is going to be with the help of the families.” 

Lajja Mistry is the K-12 education reporter at PublicSource. She can be reached at lajja@publicsource.org.

Tanya Babbar was an editorial intern at PublicSource and is a junior at the University of Pittsburgh.

This story was fact-checked by Erin Yudt. 

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HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania will need to spend at least $5.4 billion to close the gap between rich and poor school districts, according to a long-awaited report approved by a divided panel of policymakers Thursday.

The report was backed by Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration and won near-unanimous support from legislative Democrats who served on the Basic Education Funding Commission.

It recommended changing the formula Pennsylvania uses to fund public schools to reduce year-over-year fluctuations in poorer districts’ state funding, while also calling for increased investments in school construction and an expansion of the education workforce.

It passed the commission 8-7.

“I think we’ve at least laid out a blueprint now, where within five years … we’ll be able to say we have or have not made progress, and here’s what we need to continue to do,” said state Rep. Mike Sturla, D-Lancaster, who co-chaired the commission.

The Basic Education Funding Commission — which consisted of six Democratic legislators, six Republican legislators, and three members of the Shapiro administration — was reconvened last spring to address a landmark state court ruling that found Pennsylvania is unconstitutionally underfunding poor school districts.

Any change to the way the commonwealth funds education will need to win support from the Democrat-controlled state House, Republican-controlled state Senate, and Shapiro, a Democrat.

Alongside the Democratic-authored report that passed the commission, Republicans authored their own. It failed to pass in a 6-6-3 vote, with Shapiro’s representatives abstaining.

Common ground exists. Both major parties agree the state must rewrite its education formula to stabilize poorer districts’ annual funding. Policymakers in both parties also agreed that all 500 districts should receive at least as much state funding as they did in the 2023-24 fiscal year, which would prevent deep funding cuts in districts currently losing population.

Both reports also highlight school construction, teacher recruitment, and reforms to charter school payments as areas of agreement.

But in a divided General Assembly, the increased spending favored by Democrats who control the state House will likely require policy concessions to appease the state Senate. The Republicans who control that chamber support alternatives to public schools, including a taxpayer-funded voucher program.

Threading the needle between the two stances will require compromise, which has been elusive in the past year.

Adequate funding, or student choice?

In the Democratic-authored report that ultimately passed, lawmakers based their $5.4 billion goal for new spending on “adequacy targets” — the bar at which they believe districts are serving students at an acceptable level.

This measure sets a baseline amount of per-student spending, then adds in additional spending based on a district’s student body and factors like poverty and level of English proficiency. If a district spends less than the resulting number, it is missing its adequacy target, the report said.

Commission members wrote in the Democratic report that this measure was drafted in response to feedback during hearings across the commonwealth.

“Many criticisms of the current formula centered around the idea that it allocates what is available instead of determining what is needed to meet the needs of districts,” the authors wrote.

They added, “Out of PA’s 500 school districts, 387, or 77%, have an adequacy gap.”

In addition to the proposed $5.4 billion infusion — which would be doled out to districts over seven years — the report says the state should implement a mandatory, annual $200 million increase in school funding to account for cost increases. While education funding has routinely increased in recent budget deals, the exact number has been the subject of backroom haggling between top policymakers, which creates more uncertainty for districts.

Where to find the money to fund increased state spending remains an open question — and a top GOP concern.

Some public education advocates, including leaders of a major state union, want to tap the state’s now-flush rainy day fund, sitting at about $6 billion.

“We have the means and responsibility to give our students and educators the world class education system they deserve right now,” Arthur Steinberg, president of the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement Thursday. The union represents educators and other support staff in urban districts.

Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg — an attorney with the Public Interest Law Center, which represented plaintiffs in the initial school funding case — said the fact that the Democratic proposal includes a concrete funding target is a big deal.

“The timeline is very long and the number is lower than we proposed,” he said. “We’ll try to convince the governor to get that number up, but we also know this is a really serious, meaningful first step.”

Republicans’ plan mirrored Democrats’ in that it adjusted the funding formula to protect shrinking and poor districts from big funding shifts.

However, legislative Republicans said they did not want to suggest a dollar amount, arguing instead that the number should be decided during budget negotiations later this year.

“Never have you seen this commission — or for that fact, really any other commission — offer that specific dollar recommendation,” said state Sen. Kristin Phillips-Hill, R-York, the Republican co-chair of the commission, after Thursday’s meeting. “We respect the General Assembly, the governor, and the process and believe that we will see this come to fruition in the next budget process.”

The Republican-introduced report that failed to pass the commission called for lowering pension costs, consolidating districts to reduce duplicative costs, and creating a taxpayer-funded voucher program to cover private school tuition for students in public districts with low test scores.

“Comprehensive solutions, not funding alone, are required to ensure all school districts have the resources necessary to supply students with comprehensive learning opportunities that meet 21st century academic, civic, and social demands,” the GOP report stated.

The more GOP recommendations that are adopted in a final deal, “the easier some of the other conversations around the dollars will become,” said state Rep. Jesse Topper, R-Bedford, the ranking Republican on the state House Education Committee.

The next steps are in the hands of Shapiro, who will deliver his annual budget address in a little less than a month.

Members of the administration are “the ones that are going to be making a budget proposal here soon,” Sturla said. “They’re the ones who are going to be pushing part of this. They’re one of the biggest seats at the table.”

In a statement Thursday, Shapiro said he looked forward to his speech as a starting point, noting the report included a number of his priorities, such as increased spending on mental health and school construction.

“We must approach this responsibility with hope and ambition — because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us to do right by our kids, to fund our schools, and to empower parents to put their kids in the best position for them to succeed,” he said.

‘Thorough and efficient’

The Pennsylvania Constitution requires the General Assembly to “provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth.”

In a lawsuit filed by the Philadelphia-based Education Law Center and Public Interest Law Center almost a decade ago, six districts argued the state’s formula for funding schools failed to meet that standard and discriminated against students based on their location.

Pennsylvania uses two formulas to decide how much state money to send to each school district, one of which is generally seen as outdated and inequitable. The other, which accounts for poverty and the number of students learning English, was designed in 2016 in light of the lawsuit.

Only new money appropriated by the legislature moves through the so-called “fair funding formula.” At the moment, that represents roughly a quarter of the $7.8 billion the state sends directly to school districts to support K-12 education.

After receiving state funding, districts are left to pad out much of their budgets through property taxes, which vary widely and tend to disproportionately burden poor areas.

Lawyers for the General Assembly, which until last year was completely controlled by Republicans, spent years trying to have the case thrown out, arguing that the issue was not within the court’s jurisdiction and that the new funding formula had rendered the case moot.

That effort failed, and Commonwealth Court heard oral arguments in the case for 13 weeks between November 2021 and February 2022. Judge Renee Cohn Jubilier, who was elected as a Republican, delivered an 800-page decision a year later siding with the schools.

She stopped short of identifying any one solution, instead writing that changes do not need to be “entirely financial. The options for reform are virtually limitless.”

“All witnesses agree that every child can learn,” wrote Jubelirer. “It is now the obligation of the Legislature, Executive Branch, and educators, to make the constitutional promise a reality in this Commonwealth.”

Last fall, the commission held 11 hearings across the commonwealth, from Pittsburgh to Hazleton to Hanover, collecting testimony on Pennsylvania’s education system. But as policymakers listened in to craft the final report, debates over education policy drove the Capitol’s contentious year.

Legislative Republicans, who control the state Senate, have focused on structural changes to public education, such as expanding vocational education, while offering alternatives through private schools. For instance, the state Senate passed a budget bill last June that included $100 million in public money for private school vouchers.

Shapiro has shown support both for public and private education.

As attorney general, his office filed a 2022 brief in favor of the districts’ arguments for more state funding. His first budget spent more than $10 billion on K-12 education, a new record, and included funding for special education, school meals, student-teacher stipends and vocational education.

But Shapiro, to the consternation of public school advocates, has also repeatedly said he backs using tax dollars to fund private school vouchers.

Should the legislature and Shapiro fail to find common ground, the state could end up back in court.

At a news conference in early January, PA School Works, a coalition that includes the Education Law Center and other public education advocates, argued that addressing the ruling will cost at least $6.2 billion.

They called for a $2 billion down payment within the coming fiscal year, with the rest spent over the following four years. That number, advocates noted, doesn’t include needed spending on school building repairs or pre-K.

“We are prepared to go back to court to defend the rights of those families,” Deborah Gordan Klehr, executive director of the Education Law Center, said at the news conference.

Spotlight PA’s Katie Meyer contributed reporting.

BEFORE YOU GO… If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org/donate. Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.

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Sara Innamorato laid out a new administration priority yesterday, allocating $500,000 to a pilot program for subsidizing child care in one of her first big moves since taking office.

The new Allegheny County executive said the region faces an “urgent crisis” in child care while announcing the funds during a tour of the Shady Lane School daycare center in Point Breeze North.

Innamorato said thousands of local families may be unable to afford care for their children in the absence of government help, which could pull parents out of the workforce and hamper economic growth.

“Child care is such a priority of my administration,” Innamorato said. “…The work will not stop today.”

The $500,000 boosts an existing county program that subsidizes child care for families making twice to three times the federal poverty level who also meet work or education eligibility requirements. The program – Allegheny County Child Care Matters – began in April 2022 using $5 million in American Rescue Plan Act [ARPA] funds allocated by the federal government to prop up day care services. 

So far, the program has subsidized care costs for 356 children. This week’s top-up will usher in 28 more who make up the current wait list, leaving some leftover funds for an unspecified number of additional children. The administration believes as many as 15,000 children may fall within the eligibility bracket.

Experts say high operational costs and staffing shortages prompted by low pay and high stress have strained the child care sector since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Pennsylvania now has nearly 600 fewer facilities than in 2020, with a net loss of 18 in Allegheny County.

The county established the Department of Children Initiatives [DCI] in 2021 to shore up an industry reeling from the pandemic and got to work distributing relief funds directly to care providers. Out of that later flowed the Child Care Matters program in conjunction with the Early Learning Resource Center.

While some child care professionals, such as Shady Lane Executive Director Lindsey Ramsey, say DCI has helped day care centers stay afloat, others in the industry are concerned the gaps remain wide and fear what may await when federal funds dry up.

DCI had spent less than a third of its $20 million ARPA-funded startup budget as of December, and must divvy out the remainder by the end of 2024 or return it to the federal government. 

Innamorato yesterday emphasized she appreciates the scale of the challenge and is committed to applying county resources to solutions.

“We are going to be meeting with businesses, nonprofits, our state and federal government and the foundation community to discuss a more unified and holistic approach to subsidized childcare for working families in Allegheny County and support the provider workforce,” she said.

“It is not just an issue for young families. It’s an economic issue for our whole county.” 

Correction: A previous version of this story mischaracterized the income qualifications for the Child Care Matters program.

Jamie Wiggan is Deputy Editor at Public Source. He can be reached at Jamie@publicsource.org.

The post Innamorato pledges $500k to alleviate child care ‘crisis’ appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Student enrollment in Pittsburgh Public Schools [PPS] dipped by 270 during 2023  – a slower rate than previous years. And some schools clocked unexpected growth.

Despite this year’s slower decline, though, the district of 18,380 is projected to lose an additional 5,000 students by 2031. 

Resources are split unevenly in the district, leading to some schools with higher concentrations of economically disadvantaged students receiving less money per pupil, disparate student outcomes, uneven academic offerings in high schools, a lack of experienced staff in schools with a majority of Black and low-income students – and magnet schools that may accelerate some of those inequities. 

The latest data suggest, though, that some struggling schools are making progress that’s attracting new students. Of the district’s 54 schools, 18 saw increased student enrollment last year. 

Among those are Perry High and Milliones 6-12, known as UPrep — two schools characterized as under-resourced. 

Ted Dwyer, district chief of data, research, evaluation and assessments, said this is the first time since 2013 that PPS has seen any enrollment increases in K-5 schools.

James Fogarty, executive director of advocacy group A+ Schools, attributed the individual upticks – and the slower overall rate of decline – to expanded programming, community partnerships and building leadership. 

“We're seeing where schools are being responsive to community desires and needs where we're increasing opportunities and access to resources,” Fogarty said. 

Jayla Manison’s daughter, a senior, has been at UPrep since sixth grade. Manison opted to continue her daughter’s high school education at UPrep because of its diverse program offerings, resources and opportunities. Her daughter is now the class president, has completed enriching internships and has a college offer. 

“I would have never been able to find those connections had I not kept [my daughter] at Prep,” Manison said. “And I have friends with children in different schools at PPS and to me, I feel like it's the best as far as opportunities goes because they have so many programs.” 

Fogarty said schools like Perry and UPrep are slowly changing their perceptions as under-resourced schools because teachers and staff are present in the community and not just talking about programs, but delivering. 

Changing the narrative in two under-resourced schools

Perry and UPrep offer the fewest AP courses in the district. Perry enrolls 428 students, with 88% economically disadvantaged. UPrep is the smallest high school in the district, enrolling 315 students, with 87% economically disadvantaged. 

So why are they growing?

At Perry, Forgarty said, partnerships like the University of Pittsburgh’s Justice Scholars Institute [JSI] have attracted families and students to enroll. Through JSI, students can enroll in seven college and university-level preparatory courses in high school aimed at enhancing college readiness and graduation rates. 

Perry, which added about 75 students this year, also has a strong and stable staff that is engaged with the community, he added. 

Molly O’Malley-Argueta, principal at Perry, said the school has focused on creating positive experiences in the classrooms through community partners like the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and the Carnegie Science Center. 

The school has also changed its approach toward parent engagement by holding in-person back-to-school and curriculum nights where parents informally meet staff members. The staff does separate outreach for ninth graders by going door-to-door and delivering school supplies. 

Student enrollment at UPrep increased by about 25 students this year. Fogarty said The Pittsburgh Promise coaches are heavily invested in offering academic support at UPrep. The school also has invested in counseling staff to support student academic advancement. 

Eric Graf, principal at UPrep, believes his four-year tenure at the helm has helped him develop strong ties to the community. In the coming years, Graf wants to continue investing in the school’s magnet programs, bring in more STEM and arts programming and set higher academic expectations for students in hopes of further increasing enrollment.

Inequities between schools might be contributing to enrollment dip

Jimena Salas had two children in PPS Montessori K-5. This year, as her daughter, Ada, started sixth grade, she decided to enroll her at the Environmental Charter School [ECS] instead of returning to the district. 

However, ECS was not their first choice. Salas wanted Ada to enroll at PPS arts magnet CAPA, which requires an audition, or STEM magnet Sci-Tech, which involves a lottery. Ada couldn’t get in. Their remaining options were PPS Obama (another magnet), Arsenal 6-8 (their neighborhood school), or ECS. Of the three, Salas believed ECS was a better fit for Ada as she transitioned into middle school. 

CAPA’s and Sci-Tech’s high test scores made Salas want to enroll her daughter in those schools. She said if Obama or Arsenal offered the type of programming and had high student achievement, she would have considered staying in the district. 

Obama and Arsenal were termed low-achieving schools in 2023 by the state Department of Education and did not meet its standards for proficiency levels in standardized tests. CAPA and Sci-Tech, on the other hand, had some of the highest proficiency rates in math, English and science. 

Magnet school enrollment has remained steady over the last five years but the proportion of white students admitted has increased.

In the last two years, Salas said, she knew at least 15 students who moved out of Montessori to go to private schools or ECS. Charter school enrollment has increased by 24% in the last five years. 

“It seems like the students that have the best grades, they all go to a certain school and then the other schools are kind of left at a lower level,” said Jimena. 

Housing and resource gaps are contributing factors

At other high schools, enrollment has dipped despite them offering more programming and community involvement. Westinghouse, Allderdice and Brashear saw enrollment dips of around 70 students this year. 

Westinghouse, one of three schools participating in the JSI program, has seen a high turnover in leadership, with four principals leaving in the last five years, including one at the beginning of this school year.

Dwyer said the number of students in kindergarten and first grade has increased after the dip during COVID-19. Around half of children born in the city end up starting kindergarten in the district. 

“We are a microcosm of what's going on in the city and what's going on in the county. So we're very concerned about it,” Dwyer said.

Fogarty said housing affordability is another major factor that pushes families out of the district. 

“We're not building a lot of new family housing,” he said. “It's just not happening at the pace where a family is looking at, ‘Do I stay here or do I move into Wilkinsburg where there's bigger housing for less money that I can rent or Penn Hills?’”

Dwyer agreed, saying housing is an issue because PPS serves a largely low-income population. 

“If a family doesn't have a stable income, or if someone who's renting a house increases the rent by some astronomical amount, families aren't gonna be able to afford that,” he said.

For families like Salas’, that choose to move out of the district during the transitioning years of sixth or ninth grades, the district needs to change the perception around schools and engage them to retain those students, Fogarty said. 

Fogarty said outside of districtwide marketing and communications, PPS should focus on community presence and experiences within the schools. 

District spokesperson Ebony Pugh said PPS is working to change the negative narratives around certain schools by investing in marketing and telling positive stories. The district has hired a new director charged, in part, with “narrative transformation,” and is working on empowering schools to tell their stories and share strategies for increasing enrollment.

A need for socioeconomic integration

The district is developing a strategic plan to address inequities in different schools and may consider school closures to improve student outcomes and reduce costs. 

PPS is operating at 54% of its building capacity and has an excess of 17,000 classroom seats. Only two schools in PPS, Colfax and Allderdice, are entirely full. Dwyer said this has led to some extremely small schools with less flexibility and higher costs.

“We're going to have to have a conversation about what exactly it is that we need, what the design principles are and design the district around that, based on community input and the board,” he said. 

Fogarty said PPS needs to have bigger and socioeconomically integrated schools instead of smaller, neighborhood schools with high concentrations of Black and economically disadvantaged students and students with disabilities. He added PPS should consider creating schools that, like magnets, can attract families across neighborhood lines. 

“If we keep the current footprint and current funding structure of the system, we know that this system is fundamentally racist at its core,” said Fogarty. “We know that the system is fundamentally broken and the status quo creates disparate outcomes for kids, predominantly based on their socioeconomic status but also based on race.”

Lajja Mistry is the K-12 education reporter at PublicSource. She can be reached at lajja@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Elizabeth Szeto.

The Fund for Investigative Journalism helped to fund this project.

The post While Pittsburgh’s district bleeds students, a few schools grow appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

At Carlow University, administrators, faculty and staff no longer get raises at the start of the fiscal year. The university waits until enrollment numbers are finalized for the academic year, and if enough students showed up, doles them out. 

“Our raises come because the students are successful,” President Kathy Humphrey said in an interview. “Everybody waits with bated breath – ‘Did we make our number?’ When you’ve got everybody pulling in that direction, it makes a dramatic difference.” 

The university added this incentive after Humphrey took over more than two years ago. Since then, Carlow appears to have stemmed its declining enrollment. The university saw a meaningful increase from fall 2021 to fall 2023, according to officials. But for years, employees at Carlow likely wouldn’t have earned raises under this model – and if other small, private universities in Allegheny County took the same approach, theirs wouldn’t have, either.

The majority of these institutions have seen significant enrollment declines in roughly the last decade, and they depend on tuition revenue to balance their budget. 

Between fall 2011 and fall 2021, enrollment fell by about 17% at Carlow, 16% at Duquesne University and 9% at Point Park University, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Education. But Carlow and Point Park, using internal numbers, calculate declines of about 15% and 11%, respectively.

Robert Morris University, in Moon Township, saw about a 24% drop during this time. La Roche University, in McCandless, saw about a 12% decline. 

Chatham University bucked the trend over that decade, increasing enrollment by about 7% — driven in part by admitting undergraduate men for the first time. But the university faces a multimillion-dollar budget deficit that one official told faculty was partly attributable to a yearslong drop in graduate student enrollment. 

PublicSource included only students seeking degrees or certificates in its analysis. The federal government has not yet made this data available for fall 2022 and 2023. La Roche and Point Park provided data that shows a continued decline during those semesters, while data from Carlow shows that enrollment this fall almost matched that of fall 2011. Chatham, Duquesne and Robert Morris did not provide this data for recent semesters.

While enrollment at smaller universities like these across the U.S. largely held steady over the last decade, the Pittsburgh universities aren’t the only private institutions grappling with shrinking student bodies.

Persistent declines could bring cuts to academic programs, layoffs or, in rare cases, closures, as the fates of other universities in the country show. The local declines could soon worsen as a reduction in births during and after the Great Recession of 2008 is projected to play out more acutely in Pennsylvania, setting up a steep drop in the traditional college-going population by the end of the decade. 

On top of that, the universities must contend with an American public that’s losing confidence in the value of a degree. And they must also face a disproportionate number of competitors – Pennsylvania has one of the highest ratios of higher education institutions to students in the country, according to Inside Higher Ed. 

Against this backdrop, small, private universities in Pittsburgh are facing “an uphill battle” in attracting students, said Robert Kelchen, head of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

“They have to really get a niche and protect it,” Kelchen said. “They have to look carefully at who they are, who they want to be, and look at every dollar that they’re spending. Because the competition is fierce, and it’s likely not getting any easier.”

What’s causing the declines?

From 2012 to 2029, the population of 18-year-olds in the U.S. is projected to decline by about 10%, according to an analysis from economics professor Nathan Grawe. The drop is far more severe in Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh, where the population in both cases is projected to fall by nearly 20%. 

The demographic decline in Pennsylvania is likely one factor driving the enrollment woes at small, private universities, but their limited national or global reputation could be another, said Barrett Taylor, a professor at the University of North Texas who specializes in higher education policy, governance and finance.  

For example, while out-of-state and international students made up about 90% of degree-seeking students at high-profile Carnegie Mellon University in fall 2022, they accounted for just 30% at Chatham.

Some local schools are shifting their recruitment focus accordingly.

Marlin Collingwood, vice president of enrollment at Point Park, arrived at the university in April. At the time, he found that the university had focused on recruiting high school graduates who lived, at most, about three hours from Pittsburgh. Now, the university’s marketing efforts extend to Columbus, Ohio; Buffalo, New York; Philadelphia and Maryland. 

Collingwood believes that students are more likely to enroll if they’ve toured campus. To that end, the university is providing eligible high school juniors and seniors with $4,000 scholarships if they visit campus by mid-February and enroll.

“There are 18-year-olds living in small towns in Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and West Virginia, New York, whose only goal in life when they graduate is to go to a city,” Collingwood said. “We are an urban experience that Mom and Dad will probably say, ‘OK, I can live with that. I can’t live with you going to New York, or Chicago, or Philly. But Pittsburgh is doable.'”

Growing skepticism in the value of higher education may also be playing a part in lower enrollment trends, according to researchers, who also point to weaknesses in enrolling older undergraduates and universities’ potentially limited resources for serving diverse students, such as veterans. 

Enrolling more “nontraditional” students – including older adults – could reduce or offset declines. In Allegheny County alone, around half of residents ages 25 and older lack a college degree.

Nontraditional students are important to Carlow, which has prepared for the “enrollment cliff” by serving students who may otherwise find college inaccessible, said President Humphrey. The university recently launched a certificate program for practical nurses; the current cohort includes older adults and single mothers, she said. 

Left: Carlow University’s campus in Oakland. (Photo by Lilly Kubit/PublicSource). Right: Kathy Humphrey, president of Carlow, speaks to PublicSource during an interview in October 2022. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/PublicSource)

“We have always sought to provide opportunities to students who ordinarily wouldn’t get the opportunity,” Humphrey said. “When you do that work, what happens is the cliff doesn’t scare you. Because, in actuality, we’re grabbing those individuals that others are not looking at.”

“I’m a little concerned about you telling my story because they might start taking my people, right,” Humphrey said, laughing.

Point Park wants to boost its enrollment of nontraditional students, but Collingwood said the university’s main competitor is not other local institutions – it’s the option of entering the workforce and foregoing college. Point Park is tackling this, officials said, by promoting its focus on career readiness to prospective students.

“I don’t think that the university really did its best to promote itself and promote its value to the community. We’ve kind of been our own best-kept secret,” said President Chris Brussalis, who officially took over in July following the abrupt departure of his predecessor in January.

“Our differentiator here is really all about experiential learning,” Brussalis said. “We really want and desire for all of our freshmen to have job-shadowing experiences and internships right out of the gate.”

The pitfalls of tuition dependence

The price of attendance, coupled with the competition for students in Pennsylvania, could be contributing to the loss of students at local institutions. 

The state’s many public universities largely offer local families a lower price. After receiving financial aid, the average in-state family paid roughly $16,000 more to attend Duquesne than the public Slippery Rock University during the 2021-22 academic year; about $10,450 more to attend Chatham and nearly $7,000 more to attend Point Park.

Carlow was an outlier that academic year, as the average student paid the lowest price of the local small, private universities and most state publics. The university provided financial aid to the vast majority of traditional students last academic year, according to institutional data. 

Tuition and fees, however, are crucial to the bottom lines of most private universities. They accounted for about 80% of revenue at Chatham in the fiscal year ending June 2022 and about 60% at Carlow, according to their Form 990s filed with the IRS. The most selective private colleges, with much larger endowments, work differently. At Carnegie Mellon, for instance, tuition was about 45% of total revenue.

The financial situations at the local privates are varied. Carlow, Point Park and Chatham reported deficits at the end of their fiscal years ending in 2022, while Duquesne, La Roche and Robert Morris reported surpluses. 

Persistent enrollment declines, though, likely will not bode well. While schools with strong endowments may be able to fill some gaps in revenue, it’s not a permanent solution to fewer students showing up, said Walter Brown, a professor at Jackson State University who specializes in higher education finance. 

He said that institutions with shrinking enrollments may need to streamline their operating costs – which could include reducing their number of adjunct faculty or delaying the rollout of planned academic programs – or consider merging with other universities. 

Chatham has already cut faculty compensation, among other austerity measures, to reduce its budget deficit. And this fall, WESA reported that Point Park, Chatham, Carlow and Robert Morris, as well as Washington & Jefferson College, were considering combining and outsourcing their back office work. Some said after the story ran that they were backing away from the proposed agreement.

“You have to look at it as if it is a small business, and you have to be competitive in what you do. … You have to think strategically,” Brown said. “That’s not something that you do when you’re having serious problems, or when you’re almost closing. That has to be thought of when times are good.”

Brussalis, the Point Park president, said that the university’s finances are well-managed, despite the deficit. He expects that the institution’s new strategic plan, which charts Point Park’s future through 2030, will increase revenue. The university wants to grow enrollment by 30% and launch a capital campaign, among the plan’s plethora of goals.

The plan also states that, upon annual review, Point Park will phase out programs “that are no longer relevant.” Brussalis has denied that this will imminently lead to faculty layoffs. “I’ve always been a believer, throughout my entire career, that it is difficult to impossible to cut your way to prosperity,” he said.

What might the future hold?

Some researchers are unsure whether small, private universities will weather the storm they face. These universities can be, “depending on who you talk to, either really stubborn or really resilient,” said Kelchen, at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

“Even among those that all the numbers say they should close, most of them, somehow, some way, make it through,” he said. “But it’s a challenging environment. And then it’s a question of, ‘What type of education can they offer students when their main goal is just surviving financially?’”

Since 2016, 91 private universities in the U.S. have announced closures, mergers or plans to do either, according to CNBC. That’s a small number, given that there were nearly 4,000 degree-granting institutions in the country during the 2020-21 academic year. 

Still, Ozan Jaquette, an associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, is pessimistic. While some small, private institutions may survive by finding a niche in the market, he expects most to close within the next decade. “The economics are just very much against these institutions,” said Jaquette, whose research has focused on higher education enrollment management.

Local universities point to some bright spots, however. Gabriel Welsch, a spokesperson for Duquesne, said in a statement that this fall’s incoming freshman class was 24% larger than that of fall 2020. He attributed the growth partly to the creation of new academic programs and the planned 2024 opening of the College of Osteopathic Medicine. 

Even with that growth, though, institutional data from Duquesne shows that total enrollment decreased by about 8% between fall 2020 and fall 2023. 

Humphrey, at Carlow, is confident her university will survive. She partly attributed Carlow’s recent growth to the university aligning its academic offerings with community needs and partnering with local institutions, such as UPMC, to inform that work.

“We’re trying to meet the next great need. That’s what’s driving our enrollment in the right direction. And that’s why I can say to you, ‘We’re not concerned about the cliff.’ We’re going to make it over the cliff with no problem because we’re going to be intensely who we are.”

Emma Folts covers higher education at PublicSource, in partnership with Open Campus. She can be reached at emma@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Sophia Levin.

The post Pittsburgh’s smaller colleges teeter on edge of ‘enrollment cliff’ and tuition drought appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

During this holiday season, around 900 people are known to be sleeping outside or in shelters in Allegheny County.

Housing and homelessness were ever-present concerns in the Pittsburgh region this year. But even as tents went up and shelters swung shut, new leadership came knocking on the doors of power with pledges of responsiveness and equity.

With COVID-driven funding expiring fast, though, the long-haul effects of the pandemic may be just beginning for the city, the Pittsburgh Public Schools and other local institutions.

In so many areas of life in our region — education, environment, equity, public health and safety — the gears of history continued to turn, and sometimes to grind, in 2023. PublicSource highlighted emerging trends and dug deep into the data, documentation and human-level impact.

Here are some of the stories we reported, many of which will echo into 2024 and beyond.

What happens after a camp is cleared?

The year 2022 closed with the City of Pittsburgh removing an encampment along Stockton Avenue on East Allegheny’s edge and sweeping aside with it a longstanding agreement.

The tents went down just as Allegheny County’s new Second Avenue Commons shelter prepared to accept displaced people while the Smithfield United Church of Christ’s basement doors creaked open.

If anybody thought those developments would noticeably blunt the effects of the housing crisis, they were quickly disabused of that notion.

The early days of Second Avenue Commons were marked by staffing problems and safety questions, while this autumn saw ramped-up evictions from its single room occupancy units. The Smithfield shelter, meanwhile, became a haven for hundreds but a bugaboo for Downtown businesses, until its June closure demonstrated just how tattered America’s safety net has become.

“I understand that it can’t exist indefinitely, but this haphazard closure is going to cause death and we need to hold people accountable for that.”

Aubrey Plesh, founder of Team PSBG, which operateD the shelter at the Smithfield United Church of Christ, Downtown

With cold weather’s return came a slow-motion rollout of the county’s and city’s plan for emergency shelter. The persistent presence of at least 200 people on the street, though, left leaders looking for… 

A path to long-term affordable housing

The affordable housing shortage has been well documented for at least a decade, though never so viscerally evident as it was in 2023. Yet one of the most versatile tools for addressing housing needs — the Housing Choice (Section 8) Voucher — had become rusty and blunt by the time PublicSource documented concerns of landlords, tenants and former Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh [HACP] insiders. That reporting spurred pledges of prompt improvements in customer service in the program, but the year ended with curbs on the portability of vouchers.

City development officials, meanwhile, scrambled to preserve affordable units that might otherwise fall into disrepair or convert to market-rate status. A $50 million federal grant raised hopes for more and better Hill District homes.

County-level interests sought to bring to the boroughs some of the models that have taken root in the city. And after nearly a decade of inactivity, the Pittsburgh Land Bank slowly began the process of reclaiming abandoned city property, sidestepping legal obstacles that held up progress. 

While fears of gentrification have been most pronounced in Pittsburgh, housing market forces don’t stop at the city line. That’s why Sara Innamorato was quizzed about the issue during her successful run for county executive, which has everybody asking …

Will a fresh approach on Grant Street really change things?

In what will be the last Allegheny County election season to feature direct six-figure contributions to candidates, Democrat Innamorato barely overcame Republican Joe Rockey’s large fundraising edge. (Conversely, District Attorney Stephen Zappala ran as a Republican, and bested billionaire-backed Democrat Matt Dugan.)

Innamorato’s pledge to focus on the “struggle of everyday people” has a different feel from outgoing County Executive Rich Fitzgerald’s recent emphases, which have tended toward consensus building with business, labor and multiple levels of government, plus stable property taxes.

Innamorato has said she’d like to address increasingly skewed assessments, but also wants to reduce a reassessment’s impact on those least able to afford tax hikes.

Innamorato also heard “alarm bells” in the county’s selection of nonprofit contractor Adelphoi to take over the Shuman Juvenile Detention Center. But she will become executive amid heightened attention to violent crime, which the county has sought to address with a $50 million effort to beef up prevention efforts.

That’s a lot on the plate of the likely most prominent member of what we’ll call … 

Southwestern Pennsylvania’s pandemic-forged leadership class

Innamorato follows political ally Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey to Grant Street, but also joins dozens of new leaders who replaced longtime executives in both the public and private realms.

Also reaching prominence this year were Pittsburgh Police Chief Larry Scirotto (who promptly disappointed some accountability advocates) and University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Joan Gabel (whose statements on Israel and Gaza left some dissatisfied).

The three years of turnover at the top that followed the Great Resignation may be remembered as a pivot point for the Pittsburgh region, but it won’t likely herald an extended and unanimous chorus of Kumbaya. Exhibit one: Gainey and UPMC (now led by Leslie Davis) show no signs of reaching an accord on any obligations the healthcare giant may have to the city’s coffers.

And the city’s bank balance? It’s likely to get leaner, as federal American Rescue Plan Act funds run dry. 

Gainey won’t be the only local leader scrambling for funds because … 

Schools will likely be scraping by

The Pittsburgh Public Schools are expecting similar headwinds as relief funding dries up and costs mount.

To get through the next budget year, PPS needs to draw nearly $30 million from its depleting rainy day fund. But even then, glaring inequalities persist, with students in some schools feeling they’re being taught in a “playground” instead of a rigorous educational setting.

The district also faces challenges over disparate student outcomes, variable teaching quality and uneven costs maintaining a patchwork of buildings that far exceed the needs of a shrinking student pool.

Graduates of high schools in Pittsburgh and suburban districts may be wise to review university balance sheets before filling out applications as … 

Higher ed weathers storms of its own

Higher education fairs little better in a city that’s hinged its revival on an “eds and meds” economy. 

Many newer workforce entrants are questioning the value of a degree altogether. The Community College of Allegheny County lost about half of its student body between 2010 and 2022 – and even a steep drop since the 2020 pandemic doesn’t account for the whole picture, one of steady decline.

Alarm bells rang out from Chatham University’s sedate Squirrel Hill campus in summer, when faculty learned the university faced a $12 million budget hole. To close the gap, President Rhonda Philips laid off department staff, trimmed administration salaries and slashed faculty pension contributions.

Chatham faculty answered with an early unionizing effort they hope will strengthen their position as the administration seeks to patch its deficit. That push can be viewed as one of many efforts aimed at …

Leveling society’s playing field

Campus concerns early in the year were focused primarily on safety for LGBTQ students, and when Pitt’s response wasn’t satisfying, an effort to bring the issue before the Board of Trustees resulted in criminal charges and student conduct hearings. At Duquesne University, a bid to rename Lambda to the Queer Student Union stagnated amid ongoing tension between the school’s Catholic orientation and the growing push for LGBTQ inclusion.

Nearly every university is grappling with diversity in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in admissions.

That ruling was also seen as a potential warning shot for other programs meant to undo effects of discrimination, and lent some urgency to the Gainey administration’s pledge to refresh the data behind race-conscious programs. Equitable law enforcement remained a work in progress, too, as a mayor elected in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police didn’t immediately dent the racial skew of his own department’s activities, or make “driving while Black” a thing of the past.

Equity efforts increasingly overlap with the ongoing environmental and climate catastrophe, and nowhere is that more newsworthy than in …

A region still fueled by fossils

Pollution from coal, manufacturing and other fossil fuels continues to plague a region still trying to shrug off the nickname “Smoky City.”

After Shell Chemical Appalachia opened its giant new petrochemical plant in Beaver County, a PublicSource investigation revealed a litany of malfunctions where, in many cases, the Department of Environmental Protection largely relied on Shell to assess its own missteps and the validity of public complaints.

In October, the Biden administration announced funding for two hydrogen hubs spanning stretches of Pennsylvania, although a proposal centered around Pittsburgh did not make the cut. Opinion is fiercely split on whether hydrogen has a role in the transition to clean energy or merely extends our fossil fuel dependence.

To some, natural gas extracted through fracking offers another pathway to weaning off coal and its carbon-heavy cousins. But families living less than 900 feet from a well pad in Washington County say their health and quality of life has suffered accordingly, while state legislation to keep drilling away from homes fell flat this summer.   

Climate change and air quality are daunting big-picture problems, and if you’re yearning to feel good about humanity, it might be advisable to look at …

Spirited neighborhoods rising to challenges

If the arc of history bends toward justice, the end of that rainbow can seem elusive — but perhaps it will end in the Hill District.

The neighborhood is still wary about developer promises after witnessing one of urban renewal’s most infamous injustices when the city razed the Lower Hill District and built the Civic Arena and parking lots. But leadership at the Bethel AME Church, victimized by the wrecking ball in 1957, believe they have a pact that will partly redress that tragedy with affordable housing.

Similarly, Wilkinsburg’s population losses created both a need for redevelopment and fear of gentrification. The apparent collapse of a push to merge the borough into Pittsburgh may invite civic leaders to build on the community’s strengths.

Pittsburgh’s growth depends on its embrace of diversity and its willingness to welcome newcomers, and nowhere was that more evident than in Beechview. The South Pittsburgh neighborhood hosts the biggest concentration of Latino residents in the region, and its business district — once crippled by disinvestment and fraud — features what may be the region’s most bilingual main street.

As PublicSource enters its 13th year of writing, photographing and otherwise pursuing stories for a better Pittsburgh, there’s plenty of room for improvement — in the region and the media. Also ample is the spirit of determination to solve problems, whether they’re as concrete as the shortage of affordable housing or as intangible as equity in education. We’ll continue to seek and share truth, whether it’s in the form of professionally reported investigations or community members’ essays. We hope you’ll continue with us on that journey, and thank you for your readership and support.

Rich Lord is the managing editor at PublicSource and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

Jamie Wiggan is deputy editor at PublicSourceand can be reached at jamie@publicsource.org.

Fact-checked by the PublicSource staff.

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