Pittsburgh Schools, the good, bad and the ugly (neighborhood, best school)

[chrisruns2far]

Hello,

I'm considering a job offer in Pittsburgh. We do not particularly care for the suburbs and would much rather live in the city and be able to walk to as much as possible and be closer to the center.

We would appreciate any feedback on what people think is the best school district/area inside the Pittsburgh city limits and on the flip-side, which areas and schools and or areas to avoid.

Thanks!

[guylocke]

I believe people say Squirrel Hill has the best inner-city schools. That's a start!

[BrianTH]

Yep, Squirrel Hill in my view has the best lineup of feeder schools in the city--and incidentally, the Pittsburgh part of Regent Square (my neighborhood, although we don't live in the Pittsburgh part) is in the Squirrel Hill feeder lineup as well.

Another thing to know about the city schools is that they have a pretty good magnet program. Obviously that is limited availability (you go through a lottery, and if that doesn't work you can apply directly), but I think a lot of parents have had good luck with it--and once your kid is in, they are in through HS, plus later kids get preferred status in the lottery.

A third thing to know is that PA has a pretty strong charter school law, so that is yet another option for a lot of city parents. In fact, they are starting a new charter school in the Pittsburgh part of Regent Square that I am excited about--even though we do not live in the Pittsburgh part, if the charter school is not filled with Pittsburgh students, it will be open to those of us in nearby districts.

Finally, there are a lot of good private schools around. Some of those are not too expensive (such as the Catholic schools), and many of them offer scholarships.

In short, parents in the city can find a lot of different ways to get their kids into good schools. So, living in Squirrel Hill (plus the Pittsburgh part of Regent Square) is not a bad idea, but it is also not the only path.

[scrapp]

Originally Posted by guylocke

I believe people say Squirrel Hill has the best inner-city schools. That's a start!

I have one child at Pittsburgh Colfax, in Squirrel Hill.

Our feeder pattern used to be Colfax(K-5), Reizenstein (6-8), and Allderdice (9-12). The middle school was so bad that parents lobbied to convert Colfax to a K-8 and close the middle school. To do that, they had to build a new wing on the Colfax building --- they just finished that this year. (Prior to that the entire K-8 school was crammed into the old building, plus some overflow trailers for the older kids.)

I like the administration at Colfax (the principal is good), as they try hard to make due with the resources that they have and the constraints the district places on them. However, the challenges are large. Colfax has a very diverse feeder pattern and as a result the student population has a wide range of abilities. The District is opposed to "tracking" (dividing classes by ability), so classes are mixed. This makes teaching more of a challenge because the teacher has to concurrently juggle between groups of students performing above, at, or below grade level.

Students who perform below grade level are often more needy, more like to be disruptive if not closely supervised, and can cause the school to fail to meet AYP for No Child Left Behind. Because of this, students who perform above grade level often receive minimal instruction and are not adequately challenged. A common complain of parents who have children who are performing above grade level is that their child is bored and not being challenged. Math at the lower-levels is especially problematic --- the District uses "Everyday Math" and it moves at a glacial pace. It is just terrible.

Adjustments to the curriculum is done on a case-by-case basis, usually involving meetings between parents, the principal, and teachers/coaches. This is not an efficient system, and it is parent-complain driven. That means that if you do not actively complain and make a pest of yourself they are going to assume you are happy and nothing will be changed. The school is not proactive, so you have to be.

[Bong477]

I don't have kids so maybe I'm not the best source, but I can tell you that I don't know anyone I work with who lives in the city and sends their kids to public school after elementary school. I'm sure there will be some opinions to the contrary... but if you are living in the city, you need to consider you might have to budget for private school, at least from middle school on. Overall, I don't think Pittsburgh city schools are as bad as many other cities... but they definately have significant problems.