City Council
City and Pittsburgh Public Schools partner to create afterschool programs in underserved neighborhoods.
Some lower-income neighborhoods lack a city recreation center or a strong nonprofit offering after-school programs. A bill would let city staff run programs in Pittsburgh Public Schools buildings there instead. A pilot for kindergarten through fifth grade would start in October at schools in Lincoln Place, Sheraden, and Brookline. Details are still in the works, but it won't cost the city.
Written by Amy Whipple
- The bill would allow for the City and Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) to form a partnership for out-of-school-time (OST) programming in select schools.
- City staff will use Pittsburgh Public Schools facilities to offer programming in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods that do not have access to a City-owned Recreation Center or have a robust nonprofit partnership providing similar services.
- The City already provides OST programming at its 11 Recreation Centers.
- The partnership program will be piloted at Mifflin PreK-8 (Lincoln Place), Langley K-8 (Sheraden) and Carmalt K-8 (Brookline).
- Programming will be inclusive of kids K-5th grade.
- Councilmember Gross and Parks Director Vargas both noted the need for future middle school programming across the city
- The City and PPS are still working toward the details of what the partnership agreement will look like. There will be no cost to the City.
- The pilot is slated to launch in October and continue for the remainder of the 2025-2026 school year.
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- City Council · July 22, 2025
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