Charting a course: Young Scholars school takes an international approach to education
From left, Krystian West, Mi’Asia Johnson, Ja’Lay Grissom and Kalee Holyfield perform in the style of New Edition.
The school’s multipurpose room – you know, that combination of a gym, auditorium and cafeteria – resonates with singing and hand clapping, in time with what’s happening on stage.
Michael Jackson is singing “Man In the Mirror.” Rihanna is doing a rendition of “Diamonds.” Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, is belting out “Respect.”
OK, it’s mostly lip syncing accompanied by some pretty good dance moves as some of the more adventurous Young Scholars of Western Pennsylvania Charter School pay tribute to select musical legends. But the audience loves it.
The occasion is the school-wide Black History Awards program, in its second year and now qualifying as annual.
“It’s very student-oriented,” second-grade teacher Nicole Eljoufri, one of the primary organizers, explains. “They choose somebody they would like to honor, and one student presents an award to another student who is pretending to be that famous African American.”
From entertainers to athletes to civil-rights heroes and heroines, students have the opportunity to learn more about a variety of people who have made positive impacts – some local folks are included, too – while continuing to develop educationally under their school’s guiding principles.
The addition under construction to the left will provide more classroom space and a new cafeteria.
Young Scholars of Western Pennsylvania Charter School is tucked into a corner of Baldwin Township, just a few hundred yards from both the Mt. Lebanon and Castle Shannon lines, and a mural just inside the building’s main entrance sets the tone right away: an image of the earth with “Learning Today, Leading Tomorrow” written beneath, surrounded by faces saying, “Hello!” in all kinds of languages.
“Our school is very diverse,” Eljoufri says, as a peek inside any classroom will reveal. “We have kids coming from all around Pittsburgh, from a variety of backgrounds.”
Founded in 2011 with the goal of providing an “international environment” for students, the tuition-free YSWPCS educates 300 children in kindergarten through eighth grade.
For the unfamiliar, a charter school basically is privately run but publicly funded, with students’ home districts paying for their education. Such arrangements first were authorized in Pennsylvania in 1997.
“Charter schools really grew out of parents wanting more choices for their kids and having an opportunity to feel empowered by that choice,” Eljoufri explains. “It’s a public school, so anyone can enroll.”
Interest is strong for the school, the only one of its kind outside the city of Pittsburgh in the South Hills.
“In April we have a lottery for the open spots in the different grade levels,” coordinator of student discipline Stephanie Michael says, with first priority given to siblings of current students and children of staff members. “The next priority goes to students in Baldwin-Whitehall, because that’s the district we’re in. And then it’s open to everybody else.”
While the number of students is expected to remain constant, the school is growing physically, having embarked on an expansion project. The additional space will feature seven classrooms and a new cafeteria so that students don’t have to eat lunch where they watch assemblies and play basketball.
Teachers Nicole Eljoufri, Stephanie Michael and Teryn Vardoulis
The school started with students in kindergartener through fifth grade, before eventually implementing the upper grade levels, which will occupy most of the new space.
“In terms of the middle school, we work a lot together. We’re a really close team, and we do a lot of interdisciplinary kinds of activities,” English and social studies teacher Teryn Vardoulis says. “We focus on current events at least once a week, and a big thing with us is critical thinking and looking at biases in articles and headlines.”
Yes, YSWPCS students are learning about what might just constitute “fake news.”
“We go through the different ways of leaving information out or kind of highlighting certain information using different word choice,” Vardoulis explains. “So we talk about the ways that nonfiction text, whether it’s in the news or in a textbook, can be biased.”
An emphasis for students in all grades is language instruction, with Spanish and Turkish taught every day.
“When we were initially thinking of what languages we were going to offer, we sent out a survey to the parents and actually had parent input on that,” Michael says. “And since we had such a large Turkish population at the school at that time, Turkish and Spanish were the top two choices.”
A wall of the front foyer of Young Scholars of Western Pennsylvania Charter School reveals its international focus.
The school regularly participates in International Mother Language Day, a worldwide annual observance to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity.
“We choose a language from a certain country, and we do big performances,” Eljoufri says. “We’ve celebrated outside of the school at venues where we have participants from the Greater Pittsburgh community along with our students representing each culture.”
And there’s an added benefit, according to Michael:
“We have parents who bring in traditional foods. The students will learn dances or songs related to those cultures, and it’s just a big sharing opportunity.”
For more information, visit yswpcs.org.