South Carolina educator buys building in hopes of housing private school in Arnold
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An elementary school teacher from South Carolina is planning to open a private, nonprofit middle school in Arnold starting in the fall of 2025.
Matt DeHart, 26, a fifth grade teacher in Greenville County, S.C., founded the nonprofit Teach from DeHart Foundation in January 2021. He and his wife, New Kensington native Kaylie DeHart, met in college at Bob Jones University, a Christian school in Greenville.
The foundation focuses on creating opportunities for DeHart’s students through trips, speakers and training. It recently completed purchase of the former Alle-Kiski Pavilion, a halfway house at 1704 Fourth Ave., where it plans to open its first school.
“We want to bring passion and excitement and a high-quality, high-rigor education to Arnold,” DeHart said.
The state Department of Education licenses private academic schools in Pennsylvania. DeHart said he plans to apply for approval from the state after work on the building starts next year.
The state Board of Private Academic Schools considers applications to open private schools.
“If they meet the requirements to open a private academic school, the (local) school district does not have any say,” Education Department spokeswoman Kendall Alexander said.
Alle-Kiski Pavilion opened in July 1990 to house jail inmates who were nearing their release dates. It closed in September 2019 following budget cuts at the state Department of Corrections.
The building previously was a public elementary school named for Dr. Harold Thomas, a graduate of Arnold High School who had been a physician in Arnold from 1928 until retiring in 1982. He served in the Army from 1941 to 1946 and was a member of Arnold Council in the 1960s.
“It will be great to see something positive for the community in that building after so many years,” Arnold Mayor Joe Bia said. “Matt and his team have a great plan that they have proved out in South Carolina. (I) can’t wait to see their progress over the coming months.”
DeHart said the foundation, which he chairs, bought the property from The GEO Group for about $39,000, after a $26,529 credit at closing for damage caused by burst pipes and the return of $2,000 in earnest money. The 21,000-square-foot building had been listed at $150,000.
The foundation raised $125,000 toward the purchase, including $100,000 from a single donor, and now owns the building debt-free, DeHart said. The remaining funds will go to other costs, including designs and renovations.
The complete renovation of the building is expected to cost upward of $5 million to $7 million, which DeHart said they plan to raise through a capital campaign and private fundraising. Taken in segments, he said, they hope to have $750,000 to $1 million raised by this time next year.
The school would house between 125 and 150 students in fifth through eighth grades, which DeHart said is an “impressionable age.”
“We want to be able to serve that age group and provide them with the skills and abilities that will give them a chance to believe in themselves and develop self-confidence and a sense of self-worth that they can carry on into high school and college,” he said.
Tuition costs and financial assistance programs have not been finalized.
New Kensington-Arnold Superintendent Chris Sefcheck said it’s difficult to determine at this time what impact the private school would have on the public school district. He said the district would not have to pay students’ tuition but would have to provide transportation for students that choose to go there from the district.
Sefcheck said the opening of another private school in the district’s area would speed up its need to grow and improve its learning environment.
“We also welcome the opportunity to work alongside another educational partner to showcase the importance of education and what it means for the future of Arnold and New Kensington,” Sefcheck said. “However this turns out, we will focus on what we need to do for our faculty and students to excel.”
DeHart said his foundation’s goal is to help, not compete, with other schools.
“We hope area school districts will allow their teachers to come and see what we do,” he said.
DeHart said his foundation started with the idea of providing students with travel opportunities. Parents of his students then suggested he should start a school based on his teaching methods and everything he does with kids.
“The goal is to create the whole student, a better whole student to make them into a better person and, in turn, a better academic,” he said. “I really focus on manners development, social skills, soft skills and help develop them throughout the time they’re under my instruction so, when they step out of my classroom, they know the content and can apply it to real-life situations.”
While visiting his wife’s family in New Kensington in October, DeHart said he was exploring the area and saw the former school with a “for sale” sign.
“My head immediately started rushing with thoughts,” he said. “I’ve always been a guy that thrives on the nearly impossible. When I follow a calling, I follow it with my whole heart. We felt that this is where we are supposed to be.”
DeHart said he envisions the school being the educational piece of the area’s revitalization.
“What we want to do creates opportunities,” he said. “We want to be a school of second chances and opportunities for people who might not have had it otherwise.”
DeHart said he will leave his current teaching job at the end of this school year and work for two years at Bob Jones Academy in Greenville, a Christian preK-12 school affiliated with the university, to gain administrative experience. A representative of the academy said Tuesday that DeHart has applied for a job there, but his hiring had not been finalized.
The DeHarts plan to move to the area in 2024, a year before the school opens. DeHart said he will teach there.
“I’m excited for what’s to come. I’m excited to be in Arnold,” he said. “I really, genuinely, want to create positive change. I want to be an agent of change in a positive way.”