A new school is set to move into the former St. Rosalia School and convent in Pittsburgh’s Greenfield neighborhood – the Yeshiva School’s boys’ campus.
Yeshiva School leaders announced the purchase and move Thursday, noting that the renewed campus will be ready for the fall school year. The boys’ school campus currently sits at the corner of Wightman and Hobart streets, housed in the same building as the Chabad Lubavitch Synagogue.
The Jewish day school, based in Squirrel Hill, focuses on “inspiring lifelong learning coupled with a deep commitment to the Jewish faith,” said Rabbi Yossi Rosenblum, chief executive of the schools.
Pittsburgh’s Yeshiva Schools enroll about 450 students across its early learning center, elementary and middle schools and boys’ and girls’ high schools, officials said. There are about 125 employees.
Rosenblum said the school attracts students from across the country, and the school welcomes out-of-town students, who can stay in dorms while attending either of the high schools. St. Rosalia’s former convent will be turned into one of those dormitories, and it will house around 50 high school boys.
School officials announced in April they planned to open the school’s first girls’ dormitory. Before that, the school could only take out-of-town female students if there were host families willing to house them. The girls’ dormitory will eliminate the need for host families, officials said at the time, and double the number of out-of-town girls they can accept.
The 74,000-square-foot St. Rosalia buildings will be updated to current standards, Rosenblum said, and another 48,000 square feet of academic space will be added. Those additions will include 17 classrooms, science labs, study halls, common spaces, a commercial kitchen and more.
St. Rosalia School, on Greenfield Avenue in Pittsburgh’s Greenfield neighborhood, closed in 2018 because of declining enrollment and steep financial burdens. At the time, there were 22 students in catechism classes and 99 enrolled in the pre-K-through-8th grade school.
Pittsburgh Councilman Corey O’Connor, who represents the Greenfield neighborhood, called the purchase and planned reuse of the buildings “good news for the community.”
“The Yeshiva will offer education and programming for years to come,” he said in a statement. “The school will be an asset to Greenfield, and they are committed to being a good neighbor to the surrounding community.”
