Solid Building Blocks
Pittsburgh’s Private High Schools Add to Quality of Life
The city of Pittsburgh is known widely in the 21st Century for its collection of public and private universities, a diverse list that supplies many of the intellectual and cultural assets enjoyed by locals and visitors alike.
What’s easy to miss amid the many high-profile examples of higher education is the variety of noteworthy secondary education options. Pittsburgh’s reserve of prominent private high schools offers an additional draw to families researching home-buying and relocation options within the metropolitan area.
Following are highlights of just a few of the outstanding local private high schools located in both urban and suburban settings:
Central Catholic High School
www.centralcatholichs.com
Central Catholic High School is an all-boys college preparatory school located off the 5th Avenue corridor in the east end of Pittsburgh. As an entity of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, Central Catholic is administered and staffed by the Brothers of the Christian Schools.
Founded in the 1920s to serve those from inner-city parish-run elementary schools, Central Catholic now attracts students from central Pittsburgh neighborhoods as well as suburban communities such as Fox Chapel and Cranberry.
Today the campus includes a gymnasium and athletic field, and a weight training room. Next to the main building, on the Neville Street side, is located the Brothers' House, in which the Brothers of the Christian Schools who work at Central Catholic live. A new building for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) subjects opened in the fall of 2016.
Shady Side Academy
www.shadysideacademy.org
Located in the suburban borough of Fox Chapel and Pittsburgh’s Point Breeze neighborhood, Shady Side Academy is an independent secondary and primary preparatory school.
Founded in 1883 in the Shadyside neighborhood of Pittsburgh (where Ellsworth Avenue, Bayard Street and Morewood Avenue meet) as a day school for boys, Shady Side Academy now offers coeducational PK–12 programs on three campuses in the city and its suburbs, including dormitory boarding on its Senior School Campus.
The school has roots as an education destination for the sons of newly-moneyed industrialists of Pittsburgh's East End, including early patrons who were members of the Frick and Mellon families. In 1922, inspired by the Country Day School Movement, the academy expanded to its Senior School campus in the then-countryside of Fox Chapel. Later it combined with the Arnold School in 1940 to form the new Junior School campus. It also added its stone Tudor manor-style Middle School campus in 1958 to round out today’s three-school system.
The first female students enrolled in the academy in 1973. Described in character as a bastion of older, conservative traditions, the academy’s modern reputation has evolved with diversity and financial accessibility.
Winchester Thurston
www.winchesterthurston.org
Winchester Thurston School operates an independent, co-ed preparatory school on two campuses—one in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood, with the other located in the Allison Park neighborhood in the metro area’s North Hills.
Founded in 1887, Winchester Thurston offers preschool-12 education in its Lower, Middle, and Upper School campuses in the city and PK–5 at the North Hills Campus school in the suburbs. The institution has its origins in the founding of the all-girls Thurston Preparatory School in Shadyside in 1887. The Winchester School was founded separately—also in Shadyside—in 1902. The two schools combined in 1935 to form the all-girls Winchester Thurston School in 1935.
In 1967 the school moved to its current Shadyside campus, the former site of Shady Side Academy. By 1988 it added its second Lower School campus in Allison Park in 1988; and in 1991 it transitioned to a co-educational student body.
North Catholic
www.cwnchs.org
Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic High School is a private Roman Catholic high school located in Cranberry Township. The school has roots as an all-boys school founded in 1939 in Pittsburgh by Bishop Hugh Charles Boyle of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh and the Marianists (The Society of Mary) religious order.
For decades North Catholic operated on the north side of the city within the Troy Hill neighborhood. In the 1970s it began enrolling girls into its student body. Today North Catholic has more than 12,000 alumni world-wide.
In 2012, diocesan leaders held a groundbreaking ceremony in Cranberry Township to begin construction of Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic High School, which welcomed students in Fall 2014. The diocese renamed the institution Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic High School beginning with the 2013-2014 school year.
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Note: Look for Part Two of our roundup of local private schools, including the following:
• Oakland Catholic
• Vincentian Academy
• Sewickley Academy
• Seton-LaSalle
• The Ellis School