Addition to Versailles charter school will be an accomplishment to mark as 10-year anniversary nears

Young Scholars of Greater Allegheny turns 10 this year. The celebration, though, will take place once a $3.5 million to $3.8 million construction project that expands its building ends.

Principal Adam Cengiz called the two-story addition at the charter school on Center Avenue in Versailles a “good milestone for us in our journey at the campus.”

He anticipates it will take another two to three months to complete the work. With the expansion, the school will have a new gymnasium, a larger, 2,500-square feet cafeteria, a STEM lab, music room and three extra classrooms.

The project has also delayed the start of school one week to the Tuesday after Labor Day.

The Progress Fund based in Greensburg announced its funding of the project in July. The school had approached Enterprise Bank, headquartered in Hampton, for a large expansion loan. “Enterprise liked the idea and asked The Progress Fund to participate in the full $4.7 million loan,” according to an email from the fund. It awarded the school $1 million as part of that amount.

Founded in 1997, the Progress Fund works to create economic opportunity in northern Appalachia including Western and northern Pennsylvania, western Maryland and northern West Virginia, according to its website.

Cengiz said funds remaining once the construction project is completed will pay off the school’s building mortgage. It was previously owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, according to the Allegheny County Real Estate records. The building is owned by Dream Schools Inc., he said.   

The bank originally financed Dream Schools’ purchase of the building, Cengiz said. Young Scholars of Greater Allegheny leases the building from Dream Schools.

According to the Progress Fund, the charter school first opened in a building rented from the St. Nicholas Byzantine Church in McKeesport in 2015, serving kindergarten through fifth grade. In the 2017-18 school year, it added a sixth grade, and in 2019-20 school year expanded to seventh and eighth grades. In 2021, it relocated to a new campus on Center Avenue, offering enhanced facilities and opportunities to continue their growth.

The principal explained that the school’s campus has three separate buildings: “our main building in which we serve second to eighth grade students, a smaller building in which we serve kindergarten to first grade students, and an administrative building which houses our support staff.” The expansion is an addition to the main building, a three-floor building on the east side. It will be connected to the main building on the first and second floors. Superior Frame is the project contractor.

He anticipates the school will open with 380 students this year, although the historically enrollment changes throughout the school year. The average enrollment last school year was 306.

Young Scholars of Greater Allegheny draws students from 12 districts around it, the second-year principal said. The majority of students, 40%, come from McKeesport, with another 10% each from Clairton and Duquesne. The other districts include Woodland Hills, Penn Hills, Gateway and Pittsburgh. The charter school students and their parents do not pay tuition, but they have to buy school uniforms and supplies.

The main reason for the expansion, Cengiz said, was that the building did not have a gymnasium. Its physical education classes had to be conducted outside when weather permitted.

“The main reason was improving the facility,” he said. “We only had one section of middle school grades, seventh and eighth grades. We could not open more. We wanted a stronger middle school program.” 

The charter school has a similar curriculum to Young Scholars of Western Pennsylvania Charter School in Baldwin Township, which Cengiz said is a separate legal entity.

According to its website, the charter school offers a multilingual and multicultural experience for students. It focuses on teaching two world languages, Turkish and Spanish.

“Young Scholars’ unique multicultural learning environment develops citizens of the world,” the website states. “We strive to build and reinforce our students’ sense of personal identity and a larger cultural awareness. We also work hard to stimulate their curiosity and sense of inquiry so they become life-long learners.”

The principal said a high student mobility rate that has been evident in city schools across the country is a “bigger problem than schools can fix. We can start with a full kindergarten, but you lose some students because of family moves.” 

Adding on the middle school grades had been an initial answer to helping students. “We realized the students who stay with us longer show more improvement over the years,” Cengiz said.

The school has a 68-member staff: 44 teachers, four assistant teachers, five administrators, two counselors and 13 support staff.

Once the expansion is completed, the school’s enrollment capacity will be 440, Cengiz said. Then it hopes to add more grades. 

“After this expansion is complete, we do have dreams and plans,” Cengiz said. “At the end of the day, it is not only up to us,” and that to add any more grades requires the charter school apply to do so. “Our parents have been asking us, ‘Will you open a high school?’ In a year or two, we plan to open a high school somewhere around here.”