How some Philly students included a protest against looming budget cuts in their graduation ceremony

On the first day Olney High reopened as a traditional public school four years ago, 750 unregistered students showed up. Rosters had to be built on the spot. It took months for credits to be straightened out.

Despite forbidding obstacles, Olney soared.

On Tuesday, the first class that spent the entirety of its high school career at the “new” Olney graduated — with fanfare, joy, and a touch of wistfulness, as the school prepares for perhaps the deepest budget cuts in the Philadelphia School District next year.

The looming budget cuts prompted a subtle graduation clapback.

Valedictorian Iamdra Peguero was part of a small group that met with school board president Reginald Streater at the school Monday, imploring him to find a way to stop the budget cuts coming Olney’s way.

With the district facing a $300 million budget gap, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. has ordered cuts at schools across the city.

Olney received extra staff four years ago to address the complicated charter-to-district transition. Although it now enrolls nearly 1,000 students, officials have said they’ve got to cut staff to balance the district’s budget.

Peguero and others have expressed alarm about what losing 17 staff members, including 13 teachers and most of the faculty who teach classes in the college-prep track, would mean to Olney.

Last week, a group of Olney staff wrote Streater a letter asking him to consider slowing the budget cuts.

“We applaud SDP for creating staffing and budgetary support for the transition beginning in 2022,” a group of eight Olney teachers wrote Streater. “These supports have helped make Olney’s transition an unprecedented success. We ask the district to extend this support, as the transition period is ongoing. We believe that a slow, planned adjustment to regular district staffing ratios over several years will allow us to sustain and build on the gains we have made.”

The Olney teachers proposed instead of losing 17 teachers all at once, they cut a few teachers per year until 2032-33. If the school’s enrollment rises, the cuts can be avoided.

Streater, who also spoke at the Olney graduation Tuesday, did not agree to the teachers’ proposal, but he said he was listening.

“I had a glimpse yesterday, y’all, of the passionate students and teachers that walk these hallways, and they spoke with me about proposed school changes that they don’t agree with,” Streater said in his graduation speech. “I just want to affirm them right now, and say I appreciate their appeal for different options and their strong voices. It comes from a place and people they love. That’s what it means to be in this community.”

Peguero, in her valedictory address, said she owed her success to her teachers, including many staff who are being transferred against their will because of the budget cuts.

As she spoke, several students behind her unfurled signs: “A school is its people” and “don’t rip away our teachers and counselors.” The audience applauded.

“I want to think the teachers and staff that have supported my high school experience, especially the ones that won’t be here next year because of the ongoing school district force transfer. I speak on behalf of the class and say that we will miss you all.”

Olney’s graduation was also a celebration of its return to the public school system.

“All of us, four years ago, basically restarted a high school,” Principal Michael Roth told students.

Olney spent more than a decade as a charter school run by the nonprofit Aspira before it lost the charter for academic and other issues. Roth said he researched but couldn’t find any other high school in the country that had reverted to become a traditional public school.

A committed administrative team and cohesive staff built myriad opportunities and paths for students, including career and technical education programs, industry certifications, routes into union jobs, a college-prep program, internships, clubs, and sports. The school now has 10 separate majors.

There were moments, Roth said, when he questioned whether Olney, a traditional neighborhood Philadelphia high school — “not a magnet school, not a charter school, not a well-resourced suburban school” — could be great.

“Class of 2026, you threw down a Victor Wembanyama-sized dunk,” Roth said. “You answered my question with a ‘Hell yes!’”

Ariel Lajara, an Olney High graduate and Philadelphia assistant superintendent who was just named superintendent of the Vineland School District, reminded the graduates in his keynote speech that the boundaries of their neighborhood are not the boundaries of their potential.

“They don’t understand that when you have to work harder for your seat at the table, you don’t just want the seat,” Lajara said. “You want to rewrite the whole agenda.”

There were also solemn moments. Honorary diplomas were given to the families of Marquise Saunders and Talik Bridges, two Olney students who died as a result of gun violence in separate incidents in 2024.

But there was plenty of joy, too — two students collected their diplomas holding their children. Some danced across stage. At one point, someone screamed out, “that’s my SISTER!”