Monday, March 02, 2009

Tour of University Prep, a new PPS school for grades 6 to 12

The Excellence for All meeting was held at U-Prep. I went. We got an informal tour. Here is the video.



The University Prep School is now only with kids in 9th grade. There are 140 students. They have room for 150.

Next year, starting in the fall of 2009, the school expands as the 9th graders go to 10th and a new 9th class enters. Plus, the school grows to include grades 6, 7 and 8. So, the school will be 6 to 10 in fall of 2009. It goes to 6 to 11 fall of 2010. And, then in the fall of 2011, the school goes from 6 to 12 -- full capacity. The first graduates are in May (early summer) of 2012.

Presently, the kids who want to play sports do so with Schenley. Later, the sports teams will come from joint student bodies -- U-Prep and the new Science and Technology School. Perhaps, one day, the team will have its own sports teams.

Students will be able to enter the school at grades 6 and grades 9. The middles-school has fewer students per grade than what will be in the high school. Half of the kids in the high school grades will come from within the U-Prep middle school and half will come to the school from other schools.

Half of the kids at U-Prep are from the neighborhood. The other half are from around the city. There is a city-wide magnet program at U-Prep. So, regardless where you live, you have a 'chance' to get into that school.

There are a lot of flags and banners around the school devoted to various colleges and Universities. I didn't get much of that on the video tour. Grambling to Ohio State to MIT were represented. College is on the front of everyone's minds, I dare say.

The school's slogan is "We Believe, We Achieve, We Succeed." That is the same slogan as at CAPA, for what its worth. I like the slogan as one like it was used in books on sports psychology I published years ago.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The school website shows 123 students currently in 9th grade.

http://www.pps.k12.pa.us/4907208510120570/site/default.asp

This was the number on February 1 as well. It is not clear whether enrollment at the various schools is still being updated on the first of each month.

A district website shows space available at U Prep for grades 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 (all the current grades).

Mark Rauterkus said...

The current grades, as in this year, is only 9th. Space is available.

New students are able to get into the school for next year in all the grades listed (6, 7, 8, 9, and 10).

Good fact checking. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Who was leading the tour?

Anonymous said...

Ohhh, never mind, don't know how I missed it the first time through.

How long has he been there? Wasn't it someone else before him?

Heck, if they can manage to give the kids there some mildly personalized college counseling, maybe after that they can expand it to the rest of the district.

Anonymous said...

Didn't he say he's not from around here? Well -- he's at least been here long enough that he should know his demographics:
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A46273

That article is dated May 2008 -- maybe that formalized legal agreement about the partnership with Pitt is ready by now? It's been a little longer than 30-45 days.