| Youth Opportunity School | |
| Streetaddress: | 1510 West Lafayette Avenue |
| City: | Baltimore |
| State: | Maryland |
| District: | Baltimore City Public Schools |
| Zipcode: | 21217 |
| Coordinates: | 39.299°N -76.6426°W |
| Schoolnumber: | 858 |
| Principal: | Ayanna McClean[1] |
| Schooltype: | Public, Alternative |
| Grades: | 9–12 |
| Area: | Urban |
| Enrollment: | 40[2] |
| Enrollment As Of: | 2018 |
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.[7] The center also maintains a closet of donated clothes for jobs & interviews. 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, 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]