Philadelphia school district plans a $4.6B budget with classroom cuts
Opponents of the district's facilities plan, which would close 17 schools and renovate 169, will also gather before Thursday's meeting.
The Philadelphia school board is poised to pass a $4.6 billion budget Thursday — a spending plan that includes millions in classroom cuts.
The move comes as the school system faces a $300 million deficit after federal COVID funds dried up. The district is spending millions of its fund balance this school year to hold off cuts, but can no longer afford to keep doing so, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. has said.
To make ends meet, Watlington has ordered about $50 million in classroom cuts and an additional $169 million in central-office cuts.
» READ MORE: What budget cuts will mean for one Philly high school, which could lose 13 teachers and its college-prep program
Class sizes will rise as a result of the cuts. Across the district, 148 teaching positions and 117 climate positions will be lost, though no workers will be laid off.
In effort to stave off the cuts, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has proposed a $1-per-trip tax on rideshare services such as Uber and Lyft that she has said would generate about $50 million and pay for the positions Watlington has said he needs to cut.
But the rideshare tax faces steep opposition, both from City Council and from companies like Uber, who have mounted a fierce public and private lobbying campaign. Watlington has said if the tax passes, the positions will be restored.
Some public-school advocates, including city principals, have said the district needs the Uber tax to keep afloat.
The school board is set to meet at 4 p.m. at Philadelphia School District headquarters.
Anger over school closings lingers
Prior to the meeting, several City Council members plan a rally to show they’re still furious about the board’s approval of a facilities plan that closes 17 schools while renovating 169.
The school system signed off on “Accelerating Philly,” the $3 billion buildings plan, on April 30.
That action exposed a chasm between the board and some members of City Council. Several Council members disrupted the April meeting, sending the board into a closed-door session to finish its vote via videoconference.
Wholesale changes are coming to the Philadelphia School District, with the school board passing a $3 billion facilties plan that aims to close 17 schools permanently, and renovate 169.
Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. presented the plan to the school board Feb. 26 and it immediately faced strong opposition. Here's what we do and don't know.
And to see the proposed list school closures and check how your school could be impacted, use our interactive charts.
Each of the schools proposed for closure has its own story. Find them all here.
City Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, one of the loudest voices opposing the school closures, is one of the organizers of the Thursday rally.
Though the school board has already voted on the facilities plan, which district officials say is unrelated to the 2026-27 budget, Thomas and others want to keep the pressure up and halt the closures another way.
Some Council members have said they will block the Uber tax over the board’s refusal to halt the closures of three schools — Lankenau and Robeson High Schools and Overbrook Elementary.
Though Council has no direct say over the district’s decision-making process, it does control a significant chunk of the school system’s finances.
Unlike every other school system in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia cannot raise its own revenue — it falls to city and state lawmakers to do that. In addition to approving or squashing the Uber tax, Council is also responsible for appropriating about 40%, or $2 billion, of the money in the district’s general fund coffers.
Active voices
Sarah Burgess, a member of the parent organizing group Lift Every Voice Philly, has been drumming up support for a campaign to call on the city to produce $75 million in new city funds, via the Uber tax or other means, for schools.
Burgess, whose daughter is a third grader at Lea Elementary in West Philadelphia, said even Parker’s current $50 million proposal isn’t enough. (It fails to restore building substitute positions at every district school, Burgess noted.)
Her daughter’s teacher shared at a recent meeting that the cuts are weighing on staff.
“She was looking ahead to the next year with a sense of worry, and low morale,” said Burgess. “It feels so impossible to watch a city where I know the officials care about kids not be able to figure out how to keep them funded at the levels they were funded last year. And that’s not even enough.”
