Last fall, when the state Board of Control was set to close Duquesne High School, it’s fair to say the announcement wasn’t universally well-received.

At the time, I received several phone calls and letters from parents of students at two schools slated to take the Duquesne students — East Allegheny Senior High and West Mifflin Area High — who feared the influx of kids from nearby Duquesne would mean a whole world of bad.

Most of the fears that parents expressed stemmed from the poor economic conditions in Duquesne, a former steel manufacturing town on the Monongahela River whose dwindling tax base meant supporting a high school no longer was possible.

[ Full story available at: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/seate/s_594703.html ]