Penn Center Academy To Close In June

Penn Center Academy, the last YMCA-operated high school in the country, will graduate its last students in June because of declining enrollment and lack of funds.

Headmaster Darrell Johnson said the Philadelphia School District's magnet high schools, such as George Washington Carver School for Engineering and Science and the High School for the Performing Arts - are now attracting the kind of students that once attended Penn Center Academy.

The academy, which shares space with the Central YMCA on Arch Street near Broad, has failed to stem an enrollment decline nearing 20 percent over the last four years.

Another blow is a sharp drop in the academy's summer school program, which occurred when the School District began a full-time summer school. The competing program caused the academy's summer enrollment to drop from a high of 1,000 to only 277 last summer.

Tuition from the summer program had been counted on to bankroll Penn Center through much of the regular school year.

Formerly Temple University High School, the junior and senior high school was founded in 1884 and remained on Temple's campus until 1968, when the YMCA took it over and moved it to its present location.