Pressley Ridge Day School Pittsburgh Celebrates Grand Reopening

On October 28, we celebrated the grand reopening of the newly renovated Pressley Ridge Day School Pittsburgh. Staff, supporters and community partners gathered to mark the completion of a multi-year project that has created a learning environment designed to better support the unique educational, behavioral and emotional needs of our students.

We were honored to welcome Senator Wayne Fontana, Representative Emily Kinkead and Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, who joined us in recognizing the work and community support that made this transformation possible.

Guests toured the newly renovated spaces, including a sensory room, STEAM room, updated PAES Lab, smart boards and new furniture in every classroom, a new student entryway and a refreshed courtyard. Together, these improvements give students the tools and environment they need to learn, grow and build skills for greater independence.

This transformation was possible through the generosity of the foundation, corporate and government partners and individual donors who invested in our students and believed in the vision for this school.

We are especially grateful for the generous support of:

Thank you to everyone who helped make this vision a reality!

Pressley Ridge Class of 2026

Congratulations to our Pressley Ridge Class of 2026—26 graduates across our Day Schools and the School for the Deaf & School for Autism. We are so proud of all you’ve accomplished and can’t wait to see what’s next!

First Lady Shapiro Visits Day School Pittsburgh

We were honored to welcome Pennsylvania First Lady Lori Shapiro to the Pressley Ridge Day School Pittsburgh. The visit highlighted how state investments and strong collaboration among public systems, philanthropy and providers are improving outcomes and creating brighter futures for Pennsylvania’s youth.

The Day School Pittsburgh is currently under renovation thanks to the support of the PA Department of Community & Economic Development, the Allegheny Foundation, Hillman Foundation and other local supporters. The newly reimagined facility includes trauma‑informed spaces, integrated therapeutic supports and innovative classrooms that help students rebuild confidence, reconnect with learning and return to their home districts stronger than before.

We are grateful to First Lady Shapiro for taking the time to visit Pressley Ridge, connecting with our team and students and learning more about the life‑changing work happening every day at Pressley Ridge.

Day School Johnstown Builds New Playground

Pressley Ridge Day School Johnstown held a ribbon cutting ceremony on April 24th to celebrate the opening of their new playground. Thank you to Dave Donate from The Orchard for being a champion in making this playground a reality by sponsoring and hosting fundraising events at his business for over a decade! Thank you to John George from George’s Landscaping and Design LLC, who lent their time and services to excavate the playground site!

Autism Acceptance Month


April is Autism Acceptance Month, we wanted to highlight some sources that could be of benefit to those seeking more resources when it comes to autism awareness. These sources have been provided by Kelly Weimer, Director of Autism Services. For more information, please reach out to kweimer@pressleyridge.org or visit our website to learn more about autism acceptance.

 

 

Legal Services for Special Needs
Estate planning, guardianships, and other legal services for families of special needs individuals.
Kim Orlando, RPM Law, LLC

Autism Connection of PA
They offer support, education, and advocacy to families.

Resources from the PA Bureau of Supports for Autism and Special Populations

ASERT

ASERT (Autism Services, Education, Resources and Training) is a partnership of medical centers, centers of autism research and services, universities, and other providers involved in the treatment and care of individuals of all ages with autism and their families. ASERT was developed to bring together resources locally, regionally, and statewide.

ASERT aims to:

Support the autism community throughout PA
Educate individuals with autism and their families, professionals, and community members
Measure data, needs and change
Connect local, regional and statewide resources
Build resources, programs, and innovative projects.
ASERT is funded by the Office of Developmental Programs.

#ASDNext.org

Getting ready to face the “real” world after high school is a scary and sometimes overwhelming process. That is where #ASDNext comes in! #ASDNext is an initiative of the Autism Services, Education, Resources and Training (ASERT) Collaborative, a key component of the Office of Developmental Programs strategy for supporting individuals with autism and their families throughout the Commonwealth.

This website was developed to provide a place for individuals with autism to find information and resources specific to them, as well as help them connect with others in their communities., ASDNext.org is designed specifically for individuals on the spectrum, particularly teens and young adults. The website features a social calendar of community events around the state, blogs by young adults on the spectrum, and a community page where individuals can connect with others.

#ASDNext houses resources and information for Pennsylvania teens and adults with autism, as well as family members, caregivers, professionals and community members.

#ASDNext was conceived to help fill the growing need for resources and support to help teens and young adults with autism transition to “adult” life after school. Research has shown that this transition period is extremely difficult for individuals with autism, often resulting in social isolation and high rates of under- or unemployment. Services and supports that were available through school-age years are no longer available and adult service systems often are not well-educated or equipped to support individuals with autism. This is where #ASDNext hopes to help fill some of that gap!

National Resources

CDC

Autism FAQ’s

Four Houses, One Family: How the House System Is Transforming Our Schools

This school year marked a new chapter for Pressley Ridge as all five specialized schools embraced the Ron Clark Academy House System. Only halfway through the year, the impact has been immediate and deeply felt. The energy in classrooms and hallways is more joyful, more connected and more energetic.

From the first week of implementation, the four houses – Altruismo, Amistad, Isibindi and Reveur – became more than just names or colors. They became identities. Students and staff found themselves slipping into chants, exchanging high fives and celebrating victories big and small.

“We didn’t realize how much fun we were missing out on until we started the house system.” —Pressley Ridge Day School Pittsburgh Staff Member

For staff, the shift has been rejuvenating. Working as an educator, especially in these specialized settings, can be demanding. The House System has brought a renewed sense of purpose and connection. Staff turnover has decreased 60%, coinciding with increased attendance. Many staff members share that the spontaneous cheers and shared celebrations have reignited their sense of purpose and community.

“Watching students and staff get excited during the school day over cheers and chants has brought so much fun back to our school.” —Pressley Ridge Day School Johnstown Staff Member

The positive effects extend beyond staff morale. Schools have seen an 11% reduction in restraints during the first half of the year, a promising indicator of a calmer, more supportive learning environment. Students are more motivated, more supported by peers and more engaged socially and emotionally.

Leadership development has also emerged as an unexpected highlight. Older students are naturally stepping into mentorship roles, guiding younger students, leading cheers, and reinforcing positive choices – building confidence and communication skills that will benefit them far beyond their time at Pressley Ridge.

Families are also feeling the House pride. More families are attending school events, celebrating accomplishments and becoming active participants in their child’s school experience. One parent shared a moment that reflected this newfound sense of belonging:

“I wanted to let Altruismo House know the positive impact that you have had on my child today. He began to tear up as he told me how happy he was for being student of the month, and that he had never felt so happy about something like that before.”

The spirit of teamwork is evident everywhere. Students encourage one another to earn house points, celebrate whenever a teammate receives recognition and rally together during assemblies and events. Success is no longer about the individual – it’s about belonging to something bigger.

As the competition continues, so does the excitement. The first half of the year has already transformed the feeling inside each school building, creating stronger relationships, louder celebrations and a sense of joy.

And with months still to go, there’s a collective sense that the best is yet to come.

Pressley Ridge Welcomes Ron Clark to Launch New School Year and House System

On August 19, Pressley Ridge kicked off the 2025–2026 school year with a special presentation by “America’s Educator” Ron Clark at the Greater Pittsburgh Masonic Center. Over 300 staff from Pressley Ridge’s five schools, along with local educators, attended the event.

Clark, founder of the nationally acclaimed Ron Clark Academy (RCA) in Atlanta, enthusiastically shared inspiring stories from his 30-year teaching career—many of which were featured in the Disney film The Ron Clark Story. He emphasized the power of the educators to impact not just students, but everyone those students encounter.

Clark also introduced the RCA House System, which Pressley Ridge will implement this year. Designed to build community and encourage student ownership, the system sorts students into four houses, each representing a core value:

  • Altruismo – The Givers
  • Amistad – Friendship
  • Isibindi – Courage
  • Reveur – The Dreamers

Students earn points for character and achievement, with one house crowned champion annually. Leadership roles and house events foster engagement and unity.

“I am excited to create a space and culture of belonging within our schools. We’re confident that the RCA House System will be a valuable addition to our school community, and we look forward to seeing its positive impact on our students,” said Andrea Roberts, Senior Director of Education for Pressley Ridge.

Used worldwide, the RCA House System has led to fewer discipline issues, stronger relationships, better attendance, and improved academics.

Pressley Ridge currently serves nearly 250 students at its five specialized schools in Western Pennsylvania, including day schools for students with emotional and behavioral challenges located in Pittsburgh, Greensburg and Johnstown, as well as Pressley Ridge School for Autism and Pressley Ridge School for the Deaf in Pittsburgh.

 

McKeesport Area School District forms YESS team through Project SEEKS SES grant

By Jeremy Tepper, ALLEGHENY INTERMEDIATE UNIT

 

About a year ago, McKeesport Area’s administration had heard about Pressley Ridge’s YESS (Youth Engagement Support Services) team model.

The YESS team — which was piloted at the Penn Hills School District — focuses on helping address issues like truancy, while also assisting in de-escalation, interventions and generally trying to create a more positive environment in schools.

While McKeesport was intrigued by the idea of contracting their own YESS team, budget concerns left them putting the idea on the backburner. Fast forward, and McKeesport now finds itself developing its own YESS team, thanks to funding from Project SEEKS SES, a partnership between the Allegheny Intermediate Unit (AIU) and the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) that addresses trauma, behavior and mental health issues in ten school districts.

“SEEKS has been wonderful in providing these opportunities, because without it our school district would probably not have been able to implement it this year,” said Angela Cale, McKeesport Area’s Coordinator of Special Education and Alternative Services.

McKeesport’s YESS team will be comprised of seven members — six youth engagement specialists and one lead youth engagement specialist. The team will focus on grades 6-12, with three of the members spending their time at Founder’s Hall Middle School and three at the McKeesport Area Senior High School. While accessing strengths and weaknesses after the COVID-19 pandemic during asset mapping for the grant, McKeesport found that they had an acute need for further support in their targeted grades.

“As we did our asset mapping, we saw that we had a lot of supports in our elementary school and those supports kind of fall off once you hit 6th grade,” Cale said. “We saw that when we compared suspension data, expulsion data and overall discipline data, that where those supports dropped off was where our greatest need was at.”

Cale said decreasing out of class time will be a primary aim of the YESS team, helping address truancy and issues in a classroom that might ordinarily result in an office referral. Cale anticipates the team will assist with student entry in the morning and dismissal at the end of the day, while also hanging around in high traffic areas that might not usually have too many adults present. During classes, they will walk through the halls and keep their eyes and ears alert for issues inside or outside the classroom.

The YESS team, Cale believes, will be tremendously helpful in not only helping support students, but taking some burden off of teachers.

“We hope that they impact our students in school to have an increase in better grades, a decrease in behavior issues brought into the school, but also to provide support to the students about things that are available and constructive in our community, so that we eventually decrease some of the behavioral incidents that occur in the community,” Cale said.

“They could take things that are happening in the community and meet with small groups in the school to try to quell some of those situations. They will also look at some of the students that have a higher incidence of behavior issues and work with reaching out to families and making sure that they’re checking in with those students to provide daily support.”

Regardless of the student, providing regular check-ins and being a consistent presence is key to the YESS team’s success, said Michele Woodward, the satellite program director at Pressley Ridge. All Pressley Ridge staff is trained in de-escalation skills, restorative practices and trauma-informed care, which makes them particularly effective in being able to earn trust.

“We take on the approach of meeting the students where they are and working from there. We don’t push them before they’re ready but we are a constant presence for them,” said Woodward.

“We give them an opportunity to seek us out when they need to. We do daily check-ins. It could be a simple just saying hello, but if you do that consistently, then over time that trust gets built and they start seeking you out.”

Jesse McLean, Pressley Ridge’s Executive Director of Pennsylvania, added similar thoughts, noting that Pressley Ridge data indicates that a child is much more likely to be successful if they have trust in an adult in their life.

“We do this by trying to be very proactive in engaging with the students, and building that relationship and rapport so that they feel comfortable talking to us about things before they occur,” McLean said.

“As the saying goes, it takes a village in order to create an impact. We’re just trying to be that one layer, so they know when they come to school, they have an adult that they can trust.”

Duquesne to expand Pressley Ridge services through Project SEEKS SES

By Jeremy Tepper, ALLEGHENY INTERMEDIATE UNIT 

The Duquesne City School District makes equity a priority. On a day-to-day basis, the district is constantly looking for new ways to properly access and educate each and every student equally.

Lucy McDonough, the district’s special education consultant, has furthered those efforts since joining the district this school year.

“That’s been a goal of mine, to build the resources and the capacity within Duquesne to be able to educate all of their students in the district,” McDonough said. “That’s what we’re working toward and we’re going to keep building on that.”

McDonough has helped connect the district with Pressley Ridge, who provides districts with specialized education services, among other things. This school year, Duquesne City and Pressley Ridge have partnered to have two behavioral support staff. The support staff has been so successful that Duquesne City has planned an expansion.

Currently, the district has Pressley Ridge behavioral support staff in one classroom. The plan is to expand that support staff to three classrooms.

“Pressley Ridge has been instrumental in supporting our teacher and the K-2 students as they display mental and behavioral issues. They have helped the students be able to self-advocate, as well as create a schedule that helps the students gain an understanding of their day and what the expectations are,” said Duquesne City superintendent Dr. Sue Mariani.

“The students and the teacher have been able to establish a structure within the classroom where the students are starting to feel successful inside the classroom. We are thrilled with our partnership and look forward to expanding in the future.”

Such an expansion is possible through Project SEEKS SES, an AIU and ACHD grant-funded collaboration to address social and emotional health issues exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Duquesne City was picked by the ACHD as one of ten districts to receive funding from the grant.

“We partnered with Pressley Ridge to provide a higher level of service within our emotional support classrooms, so that we could keep kids in the district, and hopefully make it a quicker return to their regular education classrooms,” McDonough said.

“They have a model they use with two behavioral support staff in one classroom that work alongside the teacher to address the social skills and the emotional needs of the kids, behavioral interventions, and provide a level of support that we don’t typically have here.”

Currently, the support staff is just in a K-2 classroom, which generally affects 8-12 students. With next school year’s expansion, the district will be able to impact roughly 24 or 25 students. Michele Woodward oversees all of Pressley Ridge’s satellite programs. She said her staff’s training makes them particularly qualified to handle the support that Duquesne City needs.

“All of our staff in satellite programs are trained in CPI (Crisis Prevention Intervention). They get training on trauma-informed practices and we also train them on restorative practices,” Woodward said. “We try to take on a more restorative approach with all of the students.”

Woodward said there has been a greater need for emotional and behavioral support staff in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think it has come to the forefront since COVID. The students spent their time learning and socializing through electronic devices,” Woodward said.

“Now that they’re back in the classroom for in person learning, it has been a challenge. We’re really seeing it with some of the younger students who started school during the pandemic. They’re adjusting to what it is like to be in school. For some of the older students, I just think it’s something they have got used to. It’s taking some time to transition back.”

Pressley Ridge’s staff and Duquesne City’s staff collaborate as a team by identifying the needs of each student in the targeted classroom and making a plan for them. Pressley Ridge then keeps track of behavioral data and meets as a team with Duquesne on a weekly basis.

Beyond providing staff, Pressley Ridge has also provided some of Duquesne City’s staff with some of the same trauma-informed training that they have, and Woodward said they were very receptive to it. McDonough is hopeful that this collaborative spirit will help raise the skill level of the district’s staff.

“The goal is that we get immersed in hands-on behavioral interventions and we see it in action,” McDonough said.

“Always the goal of doing anything like this is that we’re able to sustain this and build the capacity in the district to do this.”