Kevin Carter and Sala Udin
by Rob Taylor Jr., Courier Staff Writer
The Pittsburgh Public Schools district wants to turn University Preparatory School at Margaret Milliones (a grades 6-12 school known as U-Prep) into a traditional grade-level high school (9-12), while sending students in grades 6-8 to Arsenal Middle School in Lawrenceville, beginning next school year.
On the surface, it sounds like a plan. Superintendent Anthony Hamlet, EdD, knows the data shows Pittsburgh Arsenal is, overall, a better performing school academically.
“Relocating grades sixth through eighth will provide students access to a strong middle school program,” he said in a May 14 release.
The nonprofit organization GreatSchools, which issues ratings on schools throughout the country, gave Pittsburgh Arsenal a perfect 10 rating for student progress in its latest report. “Students at this school are making far more academic progress given where they were last year, compared to similar students in the state,” the report read.
According to advocacy group A+ Schools’ latest Report to the Community, Black students at Arsenal are performing better in English/Language/Arts and in Math compared to the district average for Black students. Thirty-eight percent of Black students at Arsenal achieved Pennsylvania System of School Achievement proficiency levels in English/Language/Arts (compared to 30 percent of Black students in grades 6-8 across the district and 17 percent of Black students in grades 6-8 at U-Prep). And in Math, 30 percent of Black students at Arsenal achieved PSSA proficiency levels (compared to only 10 percent of Black students in grades 6-8 across the district).
Also according to the A+ Schools report, 71 percent of Black students at Arsenal attained a proficient/advanced Algebra I Keystone Achievement Level by the end of eighth grade. That number is far and away the highest in that category for any 6-8 PPS school.
The district anticipates 99 students will be in grades 6-8 from U-Prep next school year—Arsenal can “easily support” that number of new students into a school that is projected to have 161 students, PPS said.
The school board is expected to vote on the recommendation on June 19. The district, obviously, is looking for a vote in the affirmative.
Not so fast, say some school board members who spoke with the New Pittsburgh Courier after a PPS board public hearing, May 20.
“I have reservations about moving more kids out of the Hill District into schools not in the Hill District,” said board member Kevin Carter. “So, we talk about neighborhood schools and community schools, the Hill District has lost most of them, and so I have concerns about what that looks like, taking yet another set of Hill District students and now busing them…into another neighborhood to go to school.”
In February, PPS did announce that U-Prep would become a community school, along with Pittsburgh Arlington K-8 on the South Side and Pittsburgh King K-8 on the North Side. The five original community schools are Arsenal, Pittsburgh Lincoln PreK-5, Pittsburgh Faison K-5, Westinghouse High School and Pittsburgh Langley K-8.
But in a span of a few months, after U-Prep received its “community schools” designation, the district proposed about 100 students to leave the school. It’s not adding up in Carter’s mind, at least not yet.
“If the transition can happen with some qualified individuals then I could possibly be supportive, but right now until the plan is done, I have some reservations about having another pathway for Hill District students to go to,” Carter told the Courier exclusively.
Carter acknowledged the upward trend Arsenal’s having academically, and the lower academic numbers U-Prep students have scored as a whole.
So has Sala Udin, another school board member and decades-long proponent of Black student achievement, particularly in Pittsburgh Public Schools.
“The problem is larger than just moving the middle school,” Udin told the Courier. “The problem is the district’s inability to provide a quality education to all of the kids (in grades) 6-12, and moving the kids from the middle school might help them because Arsenal is a good school, but I’m concerned the kids who are going to be left in 9-12 at U-Prep.”
Top district officials and most board members agree that U-Prep hasn’t reached its full potential since opening in 2008.
“The students and families of Pittsburgh Milliones (U-Prep) have long deserved the university preparatory school promised to them many years ago,” Hamlet also said in the May 14 release. Hamlet envisions the “growth of a college-going culture at U-Prep.”
The district said that with the exception of its Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs, the Early College High School at U-Prep is the only PPS program that provides high school students the opportunity to both earn their high school diploma and college credit towards an Associate of Arts Degree, through a partnership with CCAC, at no cost to students or their family.
A meeting with parents about the proposed changes occurred May 28 at U-Prep, with another meeting with parents scheduled for June 4 at Arsenal.
“I would rather that they all got the same education at U-Prep,” Udin said about the current U-Prep students. “But if I had to choose between them (grades 6-8) being uneducated at U-Prep vs. being educated at Arsenal, I’d rather they go to Arsenal.”
Added Carter: “They (the district) have to make a strong case for why Arsenal would be a better fit for 6-8 students and why no alternative option for keeping those students on the Hill is currently available. I want to keep students in their neighborhoods as best possible, but it always feels like when there’s a shift that needs to happen for students to have to be bused somewhere else, the Hill District students are always at the top of the list.”
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