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.