High school connected to Penn Hills Charter School of Entrepreneurship to open in Wilkins

The Penn Hills Charter School of Entrepreneurship is getting an affiliate high school.

Charter school officials got the go-ahead last month from Wilkins commissioners to transform the office building at 703 Rodi Road, near the Penn Hills-Wilkins border, into Dominus High School.

The target opening date is fall 2025, with the charter running through July 2030.

Like the existing charter school, Dominus High School will be supported by the nonprofit Advancing Youth Initiative, which handles charitable donations to the schools.

A project narrative supplied to the commissioners details a focus on apprenticeships, business skills and six entrepreneurial pathways: retail, culinary, health care, arts and media, law and investing, and technology.

In effect, it’s a more mature version of the curriculum used at the Penn Hills charter school.

“It’s definitely an extension to what we have at Penn Hills charter school,” said Wayne Jones, founder of Dominus High School and CEO of the Penn Hills Charter School of Entrepreneurship. “For years, our parents have been asking and inquiring as to when we might expand to high school.”

Dominus is the Latin word for master or owner.

In this context, according to Jones, that means students having control over their educational experience.

“Really, the whole idea is to develop a model where our students can become globally competitive,” Jones said.

Pittsburgh also is a focus for Jones.

“We need to ensure our kids will have as much of an opportunity to create businesses or land a top position in one of these tech industries in Pittsburgh before someone who is a transplant,” he said.

The school hopes to enroll 125 students in ninth grade each of the first four years for a total of 500 students.

Jones estimates the start-up and first year of operation will cost up to $15 million.

Officials still need to purchase the building, renovate it, hire staff and more. A $1.5 million grant spread across three years from the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools will cover staff training and curriculum development.

The approval from Wilkins represents the realization of long-held expansion dreams.

After opening in 2011, the Penn Hills Charter School of Entrepreneurship quickly outgrew the old William Penn Elementary School. It relocated to its Main Street campus in 2016 and completed a second-floor addition in September.

Around the time of the move, charter school officials started pressing the Penn Hills School Board to amend its charter and allow for high school students.

“We essentially were denied multiple times due to them refusing to vote on the request,” Jones said.

A spokesperson for Penn Hills School District declined to comment.

Woodland Hills School District was more receptive to the nonprofit’s plans to expand its unconventional education model, which encourages students to start businesses and take on roles within a so-called MicroSociety.

The district’s school board gave approval to the Advancing Youth Initiative in August after, Jones recalled, administrators toured the Penn Hills Charter School of Entrepreneurship.

A spokesperson for Woodland Hills School District declined to comment.

Sharon McDaniel, chair of the Dominus High School Board of Trustees, became an advocate for the Advancing Youth Initiative model once her grandson enrolled in the Penn Hills Charter School of Entrepreneurship. He developed his talents as a photographer during that time and has since become a student photographer for Penn Hills High School.

Soon, students like her grandson will have the opportunity to continue developing their passions in a charter environment.

“Carrying that forward from Penn Hills charter to Dominus is just natural,” McDaniel said.