At Jubilee Christian School in Mount Lebanon, a small group of four 3rd graders take turns reading fairytales.
It's the type of lesson best experienced in a close-knit circle on the floor with friends, but at the start of the pandemic, they had to pivot - like most schools - to online learning. Although, Principal Kara Bell hasn't really noticed any learning loss.
“Because of our small classes, we were able to do individual Zoom sessions with our children or one-on-one tutoring.
The teachers really connected with the children and spent a lot of time with them. So, we didn’t really have a lot of learning gaps.”
And as most public school districts struggled to balance hybrid models or burdensome restrictions upon return, Jubilee Christian School stayed open throughout 2021.
It's a similar story of success at other types of private institutions. At the Kiski School in Saltsburg, most students and teachers live on campus. So extra help, such as tutoring, has been easy to access.
“We were in kind of a bubble in a way. We could control who was coming onto campus and with our testing program, we were able to keep everybody very safe,” says Head of School, Christopher Brueningsen.
Not only did The Kiski School stay open during the pandemic, but the school they experienced a surge in enrollment; enough to offset a moderate decline in international students.
“We saw a lot of families who were in school settings where things were uncertain for fall of 2021 and they still weren’t sure if they were going to be going back to remote learning or blended learning,” says Brueningsen.
It's not just private schools that saw a surge in new students. Agora Cyber Charter School has also seen more families looking to log in.
“We have seen enrollment for this school year like we have never seen before,” says Director of Enrollment, Ileen King.
While most public schools struggled with the switch to online learning, their model never needed to be modified.
“Once they came into Agora and saw that the cyber education model that we have is so much like an in-person model, they stayed.”
Now that most schools have lifted pandemic restrictions, such as masks, remote schedules, and distanced desks, are families fleeing back to public education? It seems the answer is NO.
King says many families that switched back to brick-and-mortar schools this year, ultimately decided to re-enroll in Agora Cyber Charter School. The Kiski School is currently on track to break an enrollment record for the fall of 2022. And at Jubilee Christian School, the K-6 school is planning to add 7th grade instruction in the fall.
Administrators at all three schools attribute their growth to a tailored curriculum, offering small classes with fewer distractions and a strong commitment to education and the families they serve.