Transferred Duquesne Students Meet Challenge
By Tim Puko, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Jul. 10–Of the 200 high schools students who transferred from Duquesne last year, only one dropped out and only one senior failed to graduate at another high school, according to district officials.
State and county education officials said the students had a successful year academically at West Mifflin Area and East Allegheny high schools, where they were transferred after the state closed Duquesne’s high school last year.
Parents on the state’s advisory committee agreed, but asked that the elementary program continue to be strengthened, said Thomas Gluck, the executive deputy secretary at the state Department of Education.
Almost three-fourths of Duquesne’s 31 seniors are enrolling in colleges or trade schools, according to statistics released by West Mifflin and East Allegheny administrators. Eleven students, more than half of the college-bound group, plan to attend the Community College of Allegheny County.
“Everyone felt good about the social (integration). I think on the academic side, it was what everyone expected. … It was hard, but that was good,” Gluck said. “There’s a level of rigor that those students were going to encounter at East Allegheny and West Mifflin, which is exactly what we want in every school in Pennsylvania. They finally have it.”
The student who dropped out was 18 and went to work to help his family through financial hardship, East Allegheny guidance secretary Linda Gorski said. The senior who didn’t graduate from West Mifflin is expected to graduate after summer classes, district spokeswoman Robyn L. Tedesco said.
West Mifflin started the year with 145 Duquesne students. Officials sent 20 who were behind on credits or needed special assistance to alternative schools, including Auberle Education Center in Homestead, Tedesco said.
Only two students of the 63 at East Allegheny were held back a grade, Gorski said. That rate is comparable to the rate among the school’s other 754 students from North Versailles, East McKeesport, Wall and Wilmerding, she said.
East Allegheny Principal Gary Peiffer has said he was happy with the social and academic integration at his school. The challenge was finding a way to get Duquesne students to participate in academic-related activities such as student government, he said.
Gluck twice met with school officials, legislators, teachers and residents to fulfill part of the state law that requires an educational advisory committee to report to the education secretary about the transfer. Residents were most concerned with improving programs from kindergarten through eighth grade to prepare students for more rigorous high schools, he said.
The Allegheny Intermediate Unit took control of the Duquesne district after the state closed its high school.
The main change was to provide staff there with extensive professional development, especially instruction on using student test data to plan lessons, said Cheryl Fogarty, a director and special liaison for Duquesne at the unit. The district couldn’t afford such programs in recent years, according to Stanley J. Herman, who consulted with the district for the University of Pittsburgh.
The unit hired two elementary reading specialists and is hiring principals, Fogarty said. Most of the staff is returning, and officials at the unit are trying to ensure funding for programs to help Duquesne’s students transition into other high schools.
“I’m extremely hopeful for this year,” Fogarty said. “We’re making Duquesne a showplace school district for the future, I really believe that. It will be a place kids will love to be in.”
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