Pittsburgh Public Schools makes over high school’s cosmetology program

PITTSBURGH — The halls of Perry High School trigger nostalgia for just about anyone who attended an American high school. Pennants and murals cheering on the Commodores line the main hallway. Posters with encouraging sayings hang outside of classrooms. Glass cabinets display work from the school’s best artists.

But at the very top of a center stairwell is a sight seemingly so out of place, it stops a stroll down memory lane.

Carved into a gray and white marble countertop, decorated with a potted white orchid in full bloom, are the words “Salon Perry” — pronounced pair-ay — and behind that is the school’s brand new career and technical education cosmetology lab, which is a dead ringer for any posh salon.

It took years to gain funding and plan the new facility that opened in early February, but for Angela Mike, Pittsburgh Public Schools’ executive director of the career and technical education division, the concept originated decades before when she was a cosmetology student in the district’s then-brand-new Westinghouse High School lab.

“I remember walking into that lab for the first time and just being in awe,” she said. “The teacher hugged me and she was so welcoming, and from that day forward, my whole entire life changed in high school. I wanted the kids at Perry to have the same things.”

State of the art

Past the marble reception desk, splashes of turquoise on accent walls and salon chairs catch your eye. To the right is a full-blown hair salon, where students practice skills such as hair cutting, roller setting and braiding.

To the left is a wall studded with nail stations. Each one is fitted with its own ventilation that feeds into the main HVAC system, in accordance with new industry standards. The wall they sit against holds several windows that allow students learning in the cosmetology classroom to be in view of the instructor as she teaches hands-on techniques.

Toward the back are pedicure chairs with basins that are piped into the floor, an upgrade from the versions that require students to carry tubs of water to and from a sink. In the back corner is a room for facials and skin care and a laundry room, where students wash towels and their popular brand new uniforms.

Twenty-five new students per year are admitted into the cosmetology program in either ninth or 10th grade. It allows them to earn at least the 1,250 hours necessary to take the State Board of Cosmetology license exam. Everything from uniforms to exam fees to their “kits” of cosmetology tools — and the coursework — are free, saving each student nearly $25,000.

With more than 84% of Perry’s student body identified as “economically disadvantaged,” that is significant, but dollars aren’t the only measure of the program’s value, according to Mike.

“It’s not just the money that’s important, but they’re saving that time,” she said. “They’re jumpstarting their careers, and they’re able to move toward economic mobility and independence prior to graduating, and that’s the key to all of the career and tech programs in our district,” although, until the opening of Salon Perry, even that wasn’t enough to fill the cosmetology program.

Blunt cut

Pittsburgh Public Schools CTE programs adhere to a “regional model.” While not all programs are available at all schools, students can be bused to a school for a program for a part of their school day or transfer schools entirely, depending on the distance.

Some Pittsburgh Public Schools cosmetology students go to Westinghouse High School for instruction. Before Salon Perry, others were bused to the Oliver High School building, which serves certain purposes, like that one, despite the school’s closure in 2012.

Having their school day interrupted for bus rides to Oliver for instruction in an “old” lab caused cosmetology participation to dwindle at Perry.

“That’s the difference: As soon as it moved up here, the applications just rolled in,” and the program now has a wait list, Mike said.

‘Industry feel’

Aniya Smith, 15, spent her freshman year at Brashear High School, where she sought something to be passionate about. She experimented with a Russian language class and computer programming. But at home, braiding her own hair or her sister’s and designing her own press-on nails are what really sparked her enthusiasm.

A virtual introduction to CTE programs and a nudge from her mother led her to transfer to Perry High School for the cosmetology program.

Aniya was practicing manicure skills with another student when she was interviewed by the Post-Gazette. Above them were high ceilings with exposed pipes and ducts and, below them, swirls of color in the flooring to divide the hair salon from the nail salon. Both were intentional touches by Mike — a former cosmetologist and cosmetology instructor — to provide “that industry feel” to students.

“It actually reminds you of a real salon and makes you feel like you’re really doing something in an actual salon,” she said. “It’s really exciting to do something you really love, and we get to do everything we imagined doing, whether it’s hair, nails, makeup. And we get to do it on each other and teach each other things we didn’t know.”

As Aniya notes, many students come into the cosmetology program with experience. Some, such as her partner that day, freshman Bethany Ong, 14, have a natural interest (makeup in her case) that has her practicing along with online makeup tutorials in her free time. Others, such as sophomore Marsha Dixon, 15, practice skills, such as culturally important hair braiding, independently after watching others in their family or community.

“A lot of them come to class with skills,” Mike said. “What we need to do is hone in on those skills and make them better and get them the license so they can go out there and make the money they’re worth” — a sentiment driven home by another intentional touch in the lab.

Hanging on the wall is a portrait of Madam C.J. Walker, an African American entrepreneur, philanthropist and activist who’s recognized as the first female self-made millionaire by the Guinness Book of World Records. She made her fortune by developing hair care products for African American women she served at the salon and beauty school she established on Wiley Avenue in Pittsburgh’s Hill District.

For this first crop of Salon Perry students — plucked from a student body that is 78% Black — that picture is a reminder of the salon’s opening last month when Madam C.J. Walker’s great-great-granddaughter, A’Leila Bundles, addressed the group remotely. And it’s a reminder of the personalized copies of Bundles’ book, “On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker,” each student received and is reading as a part of their coursework.

Walking the walk

Before Aniya left her three periods of cosmetology classes that day, she voluntarily cleaned her nail station. For her, that also meant setting out the metal tools the next student would need, laid perfectly parallel to one another.

Corina Bonsall, Perry’s cosmetology instructor, taught the discipline before her gig at Salon Perry but never in such a well-appointed space. To her, it makes a difference. “It looks just like a salon, so I feel like they take pride and ownership over what they’re doing,” she said.

Bonsall helps to extend the sense of pride among her students with monthly “self-care days” when students trade services — doing each other’s hair and nails — partially in an attempt to have her future stylists project the look of the profession in their everyday life.

Besides, it’s advertising.

This spring, Salon Perry will open to the school’s students and staff. Not only will that provide additional practice for students, but also — because in accordance with state law, the salon can only charge for the cost of the products used — it will create affordable haircuts, colors, braiding, nail services and more.

Soon after, pending COVID-19 protocols, those benefits will extend to the community at large for one or two days per month. And the students will travel to senior citizens’ homes to exchange skills practice for fellowship.

“Salon Perry is more than just a fancy name for a CTE theory room and shop: It’s a licensed and fully functioning beauty salon,” said Perry Principal Robert Frioni, Ed.D. “This real-world experience gives Salon Perry the potential to become a focal point of Perry Traditional Academy and a showcase of the outstanding work of our CTE students.”

‘Not just doing hair’

Cosmetology students regularly throw around microbiology terms for bacteria and fungi as they learn to keep clients safe. They can name the bones and nerves of the face, discuss financial aspects of the industry, and they use ratios and fractions — far more than the average person does — to create exactly the hair color their clients hope for.

The students’…