"Today is about bringing opportunity to a region that is often left out of the conversation when we talk about economic mobility, opportunity and education," said Gene Walker, the managing director for Per Scholas in Pittsburgh.
Although there's potential everywhere, Mr. Walker said, opportunity isn't.
Per Scholas, a New York-based nonprofit that focuses on low-income individuals and communities, offers free programming through government grants, donations and corporate partnerships.
Students can train in areas such as cybersecurity, IT and software engineering, and for two years after they graduate from the program Per Scholas helps them out with securing jobs.
At Glassport's new satellite campus, inside the former Tube City building, 10 students of various ages sat near carts filled with computer hardware they will one day soon take apart and study during a 13-week IT program. Another 20 or so simultaneously started their training at Per Scholas' campus on First Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh.
Since opening its Pittsburgh campus in 2021, Per Scholas has trained 575 students, and Mr. Walker said with the new cohort in Pittsburgh and the newly opened Glassport campus, that number will break 600 at the end of the 13-week semester. In Latin, Per Scholas translates to "through the schools."
By the year 2030, Todd Derby, the nonprofit's Northeastern regional senior vice president, said Per Scholas will be training 30,000 "technologists" per year across the country. The tech school has locations in 24 cities across the country, including Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Boston, Newark and Buffalo.
"In the post-COVID world, we all know that access to education looks different, feels different, is different," said state Sen. Nick Pisciottano at Monday's launch event. "And so in order to connect communities like Glassport, regions like the Mon Valley, to success and opportunity, we need a different approach to education. And Per Scholas is providing that."
As Pennsylvania grows as a "huge tech leader" in artificial intelligence, software and robotics, a program like this is key to connecting that industry with local communities, said Priya Ramanathan, who's the senior vice president of government relations and contracts at Per Scholas.
"We are in a place where there are so many opportunities for jobs, but people who live in these communities don't know how to get them," she said. "When we think about a city like Pittsburgh, even getting over two bridges is really hard, and getting to where people are able to connect to learning can be really difficult and a huge barrier."
Being able to stack tech skill certifications makes the program and its job-matching service particularly advantageous, she said.
"We're focused not only on that first job, but wage gain as well," Ms. Ramanathan said.
ACCESS TO THE NEW WORKFORCE
Four years ago at graduation, David McDonald, the superintendent of the South Allegheny School District, kept going up to new high school graduates, asking "Hey, what's next? What are you going to do?"
"And too many of them said, 'I don't know,'" Mr. McDonald recalled at Monday's launch. "I went home, and I never felt like such a failure in my job. We weren't doing our job as a school district to prepare them for what the global economy is that we live in."
So with a grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation, the school district added a cybersecurity program, an aviation program with flight simulators, and a podcast studio — and added a workforce development coordinator position to its team.
The cybersecurity academy was something that, from the start, the district wanted to open up to the community, Mr. McDonald said. As he was trying to wrap his head around how to do that, he said he got a call from Mr. Derby at Per Scholas, and the next step was clear.
"The borough is so over the moon," said Elaina Skiba, Glassport's borough manager. "We're so excited about this, I don't even know what to say. I just didn't think it would actually happen."
The municipality owns the Glassport Borough Building on Monongahela Avenue, and Ms. Skiba said it was bought specifically to house space for community events and activities on a need basis.
And, because of grants, she said, the building is getting a full face-lift that will replace every light, ceiling panel, window and put in new carpet and fresh paint.
Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, who also attended the launch, said: "It keeps me up at night thinking about how we're going to grow as a region.
"And the only way we're going to grow is if we invest in the people that are here, if we invest in the communities that have been left behind, if we make sure we're designing programs and investments with intention that result in shared prosperity."
She said surveying for her administration's Allegheny All in Action Plan made the county's hunger for jobs and access to opportunity "loud and clear," — equitable investments across communities, and not just in Pittsburgh's Downtown core.
"To the future learners, you are going to walk through these doors and get an incredible experience, and at the end, you're going to get a great-paying, family-sustaining job," Ms. Innamorato said.
Mr. Walker, now six months into his role as manager of Per Scholas locally, pointed out how the program's IT support instructors are all Per Scholas graduates, as are many others on the program's team.
© 2025 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
