No ‘rubber stamp’: City Council grills Philly School District officials on plan to close 20 schools
Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. stood by his plan, saying he could have recommended closing "twice as many schools and been able to defend it.”
Philadelphia City Council may not have a vote on Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr.’s sweeping facilities plan, but it indicated Tuesday that it can and will have a say in school closings.
As a packed hearing began in Council’s chambers Tuesday morning, Council President Kenyatta Johnson took a measured stance, saying that the legislative body is “doing its due diligence” on the proposal to close 20 schools, co-locate six and modernize 159.
Isaiah Thomas, chair of Council’s education committee, said Council refused to be a “rubber stamp.”
But, Thomas noted, Council won’t actually vote on the district’s plan — members of the school board are the decisionmakers. Council members are “just using our bully pulpit to put us in a position to fight for what the people are telling us they need,” he said.
Johnson has, however, indicated he’s willing to hold up city funding to the district over the school closure plan. And his colleagues echoed that sentiment Tuesday.
“I’m infuriated that we don’t get a say,” Councilmember Jimmy Harrity said, warning the district officials who appeared before him. “But, Council president, you and I both know we do get a say, because budget’s coming. And we will be looking. Mindful is the word I would use for today — be mindful.”
About 40% of the district’s nearly $2 billion budget comes from local revenue and city funding, which City Council and Mayor Cherelle L. Parker must approve in the annual city budget by the end of June.
Harrity, an at-large Council member who lives in Kensington, said he was “tired that every time cuts come, they come from a certain neighborhood. You know, I live in Kensington, in the 7th District. I talk to these kids. They’re good kids. They deserve everything that other kids in other neighborhoods are getting..you can see that this isn’t what our people want.”
More than 100 community members holding babies and waving signs opposing the facilities plan filled Council chambers on the fourth floor of City Hall on Tuesday as the Council members prepared to spend the day grilling Watlington and other district officials.
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?
District officials have said the facilities process is not about saving money, but about optimizing education and equity for the city’s 115,000 students.
But it was clear Tuesday morning that finances played a part: the district has lost 15,000 students in the last 10 years, and over 80,000 since 1997, when charter schools were first authorized in Pennsylvania. It has 300 buildings, many of them 75 years and older and in poor repair, and some schools with more than 1,000 empty seats, while others are overcrowded.
“We’ve got to be very careful with our limited resources in a historically underfunded district,” Watlington told Council.
Watlington and board president Reginald Streater, who also testified, pitched the plan as a way to add things the district cannot now offer — Advanced Placement courses in every high school, the opportunity for all eighth graders to take algebra, more pre-kindergarten, and career and technical education programs.
“I do not believe we’ll get this opportunity again in our lifetime,” Watlington said.
The superintendent dropped a few previously undisclosed facts about the facilities roadmap, indicating that his recommendations could shift slightly before he presents the plan to the school board on Feb. 26. No date has been set for the board’s final vote, which is expected later this winter.
“It’s premature to say how the final recommendations will land,” Watlington said.
He also said that 20 closings was a much smaller number than he could have settled on.
“We could have come here and presented a plan that closed twice as many schools and been able to defend it,” said Watlington.
This is a developing story and will be updated.