At last (& at least) I'm now getting a value out of a query:
 

$stH = stPrep("SELECT * FROM schools ORDER BY ID DESC LIMIT 1");
stExec($stH,null);
$row = $stH->fetch(PDO::FETCH_NUM);
$newschool = $row[0];
echo '<pre>'; var_dump($newschool); echo '</pre>';

However var_dump returns

string(2) "11"

-- but all I want is the last digit(s). I suppose I could clean it with a regex, but isn't there a way to just get the value of that column? WTF is "string(2)"?

Oh. It worked. [extraneous stuff is what var_dump does]

I'm glad we were able to help. Don't hesitate to come back if you have any further problems.

You are a problem.

Good luck getting help with that problem!   :-P

I'm starting to get more of a handle on PDO, previously only fucked around wif MySQL stuffs, a loong time ago.

Well don't hesitate to come back if you need a problem then. Like I said, always happy to help!