School Demographics
For the past seven years I have worked at Pittsburgh Liberty, a Spanish magnet school in Pittsburgh Public Schools. It is located in Shadyside, Pennsylvania on the east side of the city but has students from all the neighborhoods of Pittsburgh. The current enrollment is four hundred students in grades Kindergarten through fifth grade. Students entering Pittsburgh Liberty in Kindergarten are expected to be proficient in Spanish by fifth grade. During my tenure at this school there have been three principals (42% turnover). There have been four to five teachers who retire or resign or leave each year in the past four years (a 15% turnover). There are three classrooms in each grade level from Kindergarten through fifth grade, totaling eighteen classrooms. There is more support staff this year than in previous years and our staff total is now forty-two, a 20% increase. 67% of our students are economically disadvantaged, 14% are diagnosed as special education, 0% ELL, 3% gifted, 74% black/African American, 12% white, 7% multi-racial, and 2% Asian and Hispanic. We have nineteen students currently on the retention list (5%). Our school has been recently labeled a “focus” school by the state of Pennsylvania due to the downward trends of multiple data points showing that we are currently failing in all areas.
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