Penn Hills SHS
Pittsburgh · PA · Penn Hills SD · Public
Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
McKeesport Area SHS → Baldwin SHS → North Hills HS → Mt Lebanon SHS → McKeesport Area Technology Center → Avonworth HS → Knoch HS → Westinghouse Arts Academy CS →📋 At a glance
- 📚 12 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- ✅ Gifted & talented program
- 🔢 6 calculus classes · 2 physics · 2 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 86th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: 60th percentile by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 88% (Bottom 43% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Penn Hills SHS compares for families
Standout academic depth by national standards.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 14% nationally with 12 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyPA students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+4 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: McKeesport Area SHS, Baldwin SHS, North Hills HS and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
For Parents
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🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
86th percentile nationally
✅ Gifted/talented program
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). CRDC reports what's offered + enrolled — it doesn't collect AP exam pass rates (College Board owns that data and doesn't release it school-level).
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-2160th percentile by test-taker volume
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.
🎓 4-year graduation rate · federal EDFacts
What % of students graduate on time?
Bottom 43% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate
Source: federal EDFacts ACGR (Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate), 2019 vintage via Urban Institute. EDFacts publishes a range (low-high) to preserve privacy on small cohorts; we display the midpoint.
👩🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC
Teacher experience & reliability
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.
🏛️ Federal Title I context
High-poverty school
Title I Schoolwide eligible
≥75% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. These schools qualify for the highest tier of federal Title I funding and typically receive extra wraparound services. Academic outcomes vary widely — check the state assessment + grad-rate tiles.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.
🏛️ Your state's public flagship
Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus
The in-state tuition gap is the flagship's biggest draw — most in-state families pay far less than the out-of-state sticker. Average net price after aid runs about $32,875/yr. Admission odds depend on your student's GPA and test scores, not which high school they attend.
Source: IPEDS admissions, tuition & enrollment + College Scorecard net price. Flagship = the state's primary public research university.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the most reliable early indicator that a student will leave a school — either by transferring out, dropping out, or matriculating to a charter or private alternative. At this level, today's absentees become next year's enrollment loss and the year-after's revenue loss. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.
Enrollment trend & projection
Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).
If the recent trend holds…
At its recent rate of -0.9%/year, projecting from 2024's 1,049 students:
≈ 48 fewer students by 2029 — a real revenue/relevance risk worth getting ahead of.
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue at risk
At $29,019 per student in district revenue, the 48 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $1,392,912/year in funding at risk.
District total revenue ÷ enrollment, NCES F-33. Public funding largely follows enrollment, so a shrinking class is a recurring budget hit.
Most similar nearby high schools
The schools most like this one — same type, blended on distance and size — and where their enrollment is heading. These are the schools families here weigh against each other.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| McKeesport Area SHS McKeesport |
Public | 8.5 | 966 | -5.6% |
| Baldwin SHS Pittsburgh |
Public | 11.5 | 1,328 | -1.6% |
| North Hills HS Pittsburgh |
Public | 11.8 | 1,443 | +5.3% |
| Mt Lebanon SHS Pittsburgh |
Public | 13.9 | 1,772 | -2.6% |
| McKeesport Area Technology Center McKeesport |
Public | 8.5 | — | — |
| Avonworth HS Pittsburgh |
Public | 14.6 | 579 | +8.4% |
| Knoch HS Saxonburg |
Public | 19.6 | 704 | -2.1% |
| Westinghouse Arts Academy CS Wilmerding |
Public · charter | 5.2 | 282 | -7.2% |