School Advice in Pittsburgh (Lebanon, Wilkinsburg: daycare, house, neighborhoods)

[profslacker]

I'm contemplating relocation to Pittsburgh and need advice on where to live, particularly with respect to schools. We're looking in the city - neighborhoods like Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Friendship, Bloomfield, etc., so we can enjoy the city while living close to where we'd work (Oakland). The sticky question involves finding good arrangement for our elementary-school age kids. We'd love to find a good public school, but would consider private. Are there any good sources of information on pittsburgh public schools? Feedback based on personal experiences would be most useful. thanks!

[pandkc]

As someone who lives in the city and has had our first child finish their first year in the Pittsburgh Public School system, I have a few comments. In general, the public schools have a bad reputation, but I think that there are a few good schools within the system and you just really have to do your homework and find the one that you think meets your needs. The public schools do have a magnet program where in you can apply to send your child to a particular school and depending on the number of applicants, there may be a lottery and your child may or may not be selected. I have heard that Mineado (which is in Squirrel Hill) is a top choice, so I'd imagine that if you are in that feeder pattern (i.e., you choose to live in Squirrel Hill) you would be able to send your children there without the need to find a magnet school. In general Magnet registration takes place in the fall and you are notified in January. If you are planning to move before then, I think there is still a chance of getting into a magnet school. They try and balance them in terms of racial diversity, so depending on your race/ethnicity you may have a shot.. Let me know if you have specific questions..

[BrianTH]

pandkc basically covered a lot of what I would have said. To summarize, if you are working in Oakland, the easiest thing to do is live in the Squirrel Hill part of the Pittsburgh School District (which includes the Pittsburgh part of Regent Square), since that will put you in a pretty good feeder system. But the magnet school program is good too and a possible option for other East End neighborhoods--for example, there is a Pittsburgh Montessori PreK-8 located in Friendship. And then there are charter schools, including a new environmental-themed charter school in Regent Square (that is where we hope to send our son, if he can get in, since we live just a few blocks away).

As for private schools, there are lots of convenient options throughout the East End, including some not-too-expensive Catholic schools, the Falk Laboratory School associated with the University of Pittsburgh, some posh and (for Pittsburgh) expensive schools, and so on. Personally, if we can't get into the charter school, we are thinking about the Shadyside Academy Junior School (preK-5, and also close to us), or the Kentucky Avenue School (a small private K-8 school in Shadyside with an interesting approach).

By the way, when looking at this ourselves, we came to the conclusion it wasn't necessarily a great deal to buy in Squirrel Hill just in order to get access to the relatively good public schools. Basically, you pay enough of a premium to live in Squirrel Hill that you are really paying around the same amount for the better schools one way or another (at least if you only have a couple kids), so we decided to buy a very nice house for less in a neighborhood we loved, knowing there was a good chance we would have to pay for private school.

[robrobrob]

As for private schools, there are lots of convenient options throughout the East End, including some not-too-expensive Catholic schools, the Falk Laboratory School associated with the University of Pittsburgh, some posh and (for Pittsburgh) expensive schools, and so on. Personally, if we can't get into the charter school, we are thinking about the Shadyside Academy Junior School (preK-5, and also close to us), or the Kentucky Avenue School (a small private K-8 school in Shadyside with an interesting approach).

I would also add the Waldorf School in Friendship.

I didn't realize that the Environmental Charter School was that hard to get into. My friends' who have a son that attends there must have gotten lucky.

[*Danielle*]

We moved here so my dh could work in Oakland. He works for UPMC. We live in Mt. Lebanon and the school district here is fantastic.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by robrobrob

I didn't realize that the Environmental Charter School was that hard to get into. My friends' who have a son that attends there must have gotten lucky.

We live in Wilkinsburg, and City of Pittsburgh residents get first preference because that is the District which chartered them. They also just started, so our concern is that when he is ready to go to kindergarten in a couple years, they will be popular enough to not have room for non-City students. Which may or may not be the case, but we like to be prepared for contingencies (fortunately, his daycare offers kindergarten, so we have two shots at it if it is a lottery situation).

Edit: Oh, and after the April lottery this year, all the 2009/10 classes were full, with a wait list of 156 students, 95 of which were for kindergarten. On the plus side, they are looking at expansion, although that may not lead to larger class sizes (they need to expand just to keep adding classes through Grade 8).

[scrapp]

Originally Posted by profslacker

We're looking in the city - neighborhoods like Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Friendship, Bloomfield, etc., so we can enjoy the city while living close to where we'd work (Oakland). The sticky question involves finding good arrangement for our elementary-school age kids. We'd love to find a good public school, but would consider private. Are there any good sources of information on pittsburgh public schools? Feedback based on personal experiences would be most useful. thanks!

The district web site (Pittsburgh Public Schools) has the basic data, including feeder pattern information. The elementary schools in the East End you typically hear about include Colfax, Linden (german magnet), and Minadeo. There are also PTO/PSCC web sites and email lists out there as well. You can also get test score information (e.g. at Welcome To A+ Schools!) but I haven't it all that helpful in conveying the character of the schools.

Our oldest child is completing his second year at Colfax (and our middle child will be starting at Colfax in the fall). Overall, we are reasonable happy with Colfax and plan to continue with it. We had some issues last year, but the staff (especially the principal Mr. May-Stein) was helpful in working things out. This year has been pretty good. I cannot say Colfax is a perfect school, but I do believe that the folks that work there are constantly striving to improve.

One of the big challenges for the administration at Colfax has been to manage a growing school in a district that has been shrinking overall. A few years ago Colfax was converted from a K-5 to a K-8 school and a new wing was added to the building. Currently about 60% of the families in the Colfax feeder pattern use Colfax... this means that there are 4 classes (rounds) per grade and it is very difficult to get into Colfax if you do not live in the feeder pattern.

Another challenge for Colfax is managing a diverse student population. The school has a fair number of gifted students, and it also has students that are struggling. That means that the staff has to keep the gifted students challanged while helping the struggling students "close the achievement gap" (because if you don't close the gap, you'll fail to meet your "No Child Left Behind" yearly progress scores even if you are wildly successful with your other kids).


We both work in Oakland. One of the nice things about the Colfax feeder pattern is that we were able to buy a house midway between work and the Squirrel Hill business district. This puts us within easy walking distance of work, our younger childrens' preschools, all our doctors offices, the Oakland museums/Phipps, and the Squirrel Hill restaurants. We rarely use our cars during the week (and there is no need to take the bus). The drawback is having to maintain and pay taxes on a 110 year old city house...

[robrobrob]

Oh, and after the April lottery this year, all the 2009/10 classes were full, with a wait list of 156 students, 95 of which were for kindergarten. On the plus side, they are looking at expansion, although that may not lead to larger class sizes (they need to expand just to keep adding classes through Grade 8).

It seems as this school is unbelievably popular. I am guessing that most of the students are from the city. This frankly doesn't say much for City of Pittsburgh feeder schools in the area. Where does Regent Square feed to? At one point I thought the kids were being sent to school in Homewood. If that is the case then the enrollment at the Environmental Charter School is understandable but if they feed to Minedeo, then I don't get it because I though Minedeo was pretty good.

We ended up in the burbs to avoid this and I frequently start to second guess our decision because I would love to live in a walking neighborhood again, then I start thinking hard about schools for our kids and I am okay with our choice. If we missed out on a lottery, we just couldn't afford tuition.

[scrapp]

Originally Posted by robrobrob

If that is the case then the enrollment at the Environmental Charter School is understandable but if they feed to Minedeo, then I don't get it because I though Minedeo was pretty good.

My guess (my opinion) is that the attraction of this school is two-fold:

First, the bureaucracy of the Charter School is going to be smaller than the bureaucracy of the much larger Pittsburgh School District, so the Charter School is going to have a more "small town school" feel to it where you'll feel like more decisions are being made locally.

Second, only students with Active Parents are likely to apply to the Charter School, so the application process is going to filter out certain types of "undesirable" students, and it doesn't require private school tuition to do this filtering.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by robrobrob

It seems as this school is unbelievably popular. I am guessing that most of the students are from the city. This frankly doesn't say much for City of Pittsburgh feeder schools in the area. Where does Regent Square feed to? At one point I thought the kids were being sent to school in Homewood. If that is the case then the enrollment at the Environmental Charter School is understandable but if they feed to Minedeo, then I don't get it because I though Minedeo was pretty good.

Yep, the Pittsburgh part of Regent Square feeds into Minadeo. But it is almost surely not the case that the local population is filling up the school--in fact in the 2000 Census, there were only a total of 59 children aged 5-9 in the Pittsburgh part of Regent Square (it is just a small sliver of the neighborhood, which itself is a small neighborhood). Rather, my guess is that children from elsewhere in the City must be flocking to the school (there is no geographical restriction on where they can come from within the City), or else they are filling up with non-City students (a more hopeful interpretation for us).

We ended up in the burbs to avoid this and I frequently start to second guess our decision because I would love to live in a walking neighborhood again, then I start thinking hard about schools for our kids and I am okay with our choice. If we missed out on a lottery, we just couldn't afford tuition.

It is a tough situation, and having your living preferences distorted in this way is an unfortunate byproduct of funding public schools with hyperlocal property taxes. If I had a magic wand, I would fund public schools at the state level through a progressive income tax, but that is unlikely to happen anytime soon, in part because so many people have invested in the status quo.