Youth Opportunity School | |
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Address | |
1510 West Lafayette Avenue , 21217 | |
Coordinates | 39°17′56.56″N 76°38′33.29″W / 39.2990444°N 76.6425806°W |
Information | |
School type | Public, Alternative |
School district | Baltimore City Public Schools |
School number | 858 |
Principal | Ayanna McClean[1] |
Grades | 9–12 |
Enrollment | 40[2] (2018) |
Area | Urban |
Website | BCPSS |
Youth Opportunity Academy (alternately YO! Academy[3]) is a public, alternative high school located in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. The school allows students who have dropped out to obtain either high school diplomas or GEDs.[4] The school is located in the Lafayette Square Community Center, in a building that was originally built in 1972 and originally served as a branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library.[5][6]
The academy is run in concert with Baltimore City Public Schools by Youth Opportunity (YO!) Baltimore, a non-profit organization. YO! was founded in 2000 to provide workforce and education support services, mentoring and social services to young people (18-24) in Baltimore.[3][7] The center also maintains a closet of donated clothes for jobs & interviews.[8] It operates two community resource sites, one in the same center as the academy, the other in East Baltimore, at 1212 North Wolfe Street.[8] Funded from 2000 to 2006 by federal grant,[3] YO! has since operated with funding from the Mayor's Office of Economic Development, and has partnered with Johns Hopkins University.[9] The program has also received volunteers through the AmeriCorps program.[10]