Philly City Council wants to consider having an elected school board following showdown over closing 17 schools

After an extraordinary public rift with the Philadelphia school board over 17 school closings, City Council’s education committee chair is calling for hearings on how the school system is governed.

Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, who led efforts to disrupt last week’s school-closing vote, introduced a resolution at Council’s meeting Thursday. It is expected to pass.

“In its current form, the board is not directly accountable to the public, and is rather entirely appointed by the mayor and confirmed by Council,” Thomas said in a news release. “This committee hearing would explore alternative governance models for the board — namely a fully elected or hybrid elected-appointed board.”

The mayor currently appoints the nine school board members, who are then approved by Council.

Philadelphia is alone in Pennsylvania in its board governance. All other municipalities have elected school boards.

The school board on April 30 voted 6-3 to close 17 schools and renovate 169. The vote capped a yearslong process — and came after Council criticized the district for years for not having a plan to care for its aging buildings.

Thomas and other Council members said the district did not provide enough data around its decisions, and said it was moving too quickly and without meaningfully listening to the public, or giving it opportunities to fully understand the plan before a vote.

A majority of Council demanded the school board remove Lankenau and Robeson High Schools from the closing list, but the board declined to do. (Superintendent Tony B. Watlington did remove three schools — Conwell Middle School, Motivation High and Ludlow Elementary — from the closing list in months prior.)

The school system has a 70,000 empty seats in its stock of more than 300 aging buildings. Officials said the closings were meant to drive better academic and extracurricular opportunities and more equity, and that they could not drive faster improvement without shrinking its capital footprint.

The resolution said the school board “has been unwilling to discuss how the facilities plan would integrate into a range of other city and Council district needs.”

The school-closing vote begs the question, the resolution states: “Considering a more traditional elected or hybrid model of governance may compel the board to be more responsive to students and families’ concerns than the board has proven to be.”

Changing the district’s governance model would require a question put to voters and, if that were to pass, a city charter change.

The resolution is co-sponsored by Councilmembers Nina Ahmad, Kendra Brooks, Jamie Gauthier, Jim Harrity, Quetcy Lozada, Nicolas O’Rourke, and Mark Squilla.

It’s not the first time Thomas has attempted to call the question. In 2024, Thomas made a similar request, which did not yield change. That call was prompted by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s move to seat Joyce Wilkerson on the board, despite Council’s objections to her candidacy.

Wilkerson, a former School Reform Commission chair and school board president, was never confirmed by Council, but continues to serve because no replacement for her has been put forth by Parker. Her school board seat has been questioned in a civil lawsuit that is ongoing.

A spokesperson for the school board could not immediately be reached for comment.

This is a developing story and will be updated.