Are you “ready?” Whether you are a rising senior entering your final year of high school or just beginning your journey as a freshman, you will find incredible opportunities at West Allegheny High School. Our goal is to prepare you for careers and college, push yourself beyond limits you never thought possible, cultivate and refine your interests and skills, and explore a variety of life’s wonderings. All the while you will be tasked with the responsibility to mold into productive, educated, global citizens prepared to take on your future endeavors after West Allegheny, whether they be post-secondary education in a two or four year institution, obtaining industry certifications in preparation for a career, or enlisting in one of our United States military branches. With this in mind, it is important that you share your thoughts and goals with parents, family members, teachers, coaches, advisors, and school counselors, in order to choose the courses and programs that best prepares and challenges you for your future.
At West Allegheny High School, you will find all of our courses aligned with newly developed Career and College Pathways. These pathways are designed to connect you to a viable career and/or postsecondary education. Students will identify with one or more concentration area, based on your individual interests and skills, post-secondary goals, and potential career aspirations. Within each concentration area you will find information to help focus course selections based on recommended courses for each pathway. Student choice and flexibility, both within and among the pathways, allows you to navigate a well-rounded foundation and experience a plethora of curricular options related to each specified concentration area.
The focus of the administration and staff at the high school is to prepare you for whatever your post-secondary endeavors may be, while giving you the greatest opportunities to be successful and challenging you to be your best. As the backbone to our efforts, we focus on three dimensions to define career and college “readiness”:
- Academic preparedness refers to key academic content knowledge and cognitive strategies needed to succeed in doing college-level work and in preparing for career training. Access to rigorous college level and pre-career courses, such as Advanced Placement, Project Lead the Way, and College in High School courses enhance student readiness in this dimension. Students should strive to maintain a minimum GPA of 3.0.
- Academic tenacity refers to the underlying beliefs and attitudes that drive student achievement. Being in class and facing productive struggle and challenge help students develop into tenacious learners ready to face adversity. Students should strive to exceed 95% attendance rates.
- Career and college knowledge is the knowledge base and contextual skills that enable students to successfully access and navigate college and career paths.
You too should be mindful of these dimensions as you select your courses and plan for your future, striving to challenge yourself and accomplish your loftiest goals. Know that the staff of West Allegheny High School is here to support and guide you, so please utilize your teachers, school counselors, coaches, advisors, administrators, support staff, nurse, and librarian, and allow us to help you to be “ready!”