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Prominence Charter School Scheduled to Open for 2017-2018 School Year
By Christen M. Stroh

Residents of the Mon Valley and the surrounding communities are about to be schooled on a whole different kind of education, as a charter school – the first to exist in this area – gets ready to open its doors. Prominence Charter School is currently slated to be open for the 2017 – 2018 school year, which will begin in mid-August.

4th grader Caleb Crowe is pre-enrolled for Prominence Charter School, which will focus on a STEM-based curriculum and competency-based learning.

Dana Moreno, a Monongahela resident who isn’t originally from the Mon Valley, recognized the need for a charter school in the Valley right away. “I moved here and saw that there just aren’t the same opportunities afforded to the students here that there are in other places, like Allegheny County,” she said, indicating that she started to get involved with the community to get a pulse on what kind of feedback she’d get when proposing the idea. “The community is really looking for this; I’ve gotten an outpouring of interest and support,” she said. Moreno, who has worked at cyber charter schools and even attended one of the very first cyber charter schools to be available as an option, has been working on getting the charter approved and securing a space since the beginning of the year.

Prominence Charter School will offer a STEM-based curriculum – STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math – but will do so in a blended learning environment, heavily incorporating technology and online innovation into a traditional classroom to create meaningful experiences for students. “The benefit to a STEM-based approach is that it gets students to where they need to be globally,” said Moreno, continuing, “Twenty years ago, students were competing at a national level. Nowadays, you’re seeing people having to compete at a global level. It isn’t just the science and the technology, either. STEM-based learning teaching problem-solving and team-building skills, which are just as important.”

Introducing students to the arts is just as important, and Prominence Charter School will have a community arts model in place, meaning that mentors – talented individuals from the community – will come into the classrooms and work with students to share their particular areas of expertise. Students are encouraged to experiment with a different area of the arts – instrumental music, set design, painting, drawing, singing, etc. – each quarter, or they can stay with the same mentor each quarter to gain their own level of expertise.

What sets Prominence Charter School apart from other schools is its competency-based learning model. “It allows us to create a student-focused learning environment,” said Moreno, noting that the concept behind competency-based learning is that educators meet students where they’re at, building skills upon skills that already exist, rather than trying to force a learned skill through extra work or a traditional remediation/acceleration set-up. She added, “We already, as educators, have the tools to teach in this capacity; we just need to figure out how to use them like this.”

Additionally, a looping system will come into play for grade school and middle school, where students will be partnered with the same set of teachers at different interims in their education. Students in K – 2 will have the same set of teachers, 3 – 5 will have the same set of teachers, and 6 – 8 will have the same set of teachers.

Currently, Prominence Charter School is planning to open for grades K – 5 in its inaugural year and will add 6th grade in year two, 7th grade in year three, 8th grade in year four, and high school grades in year five. The feedback received thus far, however, indicates that the need for a middle school right now is there, so the school is evaluating the decision to poetically open as a K – 8 institution initially. There will be two classes of approximately 25 students each for each grade level at the outset. The school is currently accepting students for pre-enrollment; a lottery will take place to fill the slots for each class.

Moreno is currently working with a handful of founders and several volunteers to get all aspects of the school squared away; community members are welcome to join in her endeavors by being either a founder or a volunteer. School board members will also be needed once the school opens. While the school is also currently not staffed, those interested in teaching for Prominence Charter School can express interest via an email address posted on their website and are encouraged to volunteer prior to interviewing, which will start in the spring. The interview process will be a three-step process.

For more information on Prominence Charter School or to get involved, visit www.prominencecharterschool.org or follow them on Facebook at Prominence Charter School.

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