Pittsburgh Public Schools [PPS] hints at possible school consolidations in the future but promises no announcements will be made without engaging students, families and community stakeholders.
Superintendent Wayne Walters and the district administration laid out a proposal outlining a timeline and recommendations for its facilities utilization plan in a public board Education Committee meeting on Wednesday.
“We do have some challenges ahead, and tough decisions will need to be made,” said Walters. “We will not look like the same, exact district that we are today by the end of this process.”
Recommendations include comprehensive review of the district’s current feeder pattern. The administration has proposed transitioning back to a streamlined structure of exclusively K-5, 6-8 and 9-12 schools. The administration did not outline any plans for the district’s 11 K-8 and five 6-12 schools.
The proposal aligns with the themes of the district’s strategic planning process which began to take shape last year. The board had directed the administration to develop a proposal by March 15.
“We’re at a crossroads where some hard, perhaps uncomfortable decisions need to be made. They’re decisions necessary to keep our district afloat and ensure our students receive the quality education they deserve,” said Walters.
The proposal involves a plan for broader community outreach and involvement of various departments and outside consultants to achieve the strategic plan objective of equitable outcomes in various areas.
The district outlined 12 recommendations such as implementing a facilities protocol; establishing protocols to analyze spending; developing models prioritizing literacy, math, STEM, art, music, world language, physical education and career exploration opportunities; developing a holistic strategy to eliminate racial and disability disparities in education and a focus on student mental health.
Walters said some of the K-8 schools are challenged now to offer programs such as arts, music or career and technical education because of differences in population.
He added that K-5 schools would emphasize foundational learning and core subject areas and 6-8 programs would develop responsive middle schools that can provide support services and career exploration.
The district also recommended updating the magnet programs by standardizing the admission process and establishing support pathways in magnet schools to promote equity. In the short term, magnet school admissions processes that usually occur in the fall will be pushed into early 2025.
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Under the proposed timeline, the school board will vote on approving a consultant during a legislative meeting on April 24. Requests for proposals by consultants will remain open until April 15 and selected consultants will work on a comprehensive analysis of the district’s facilities from May through July. Any recommendations for potential school closures or consolidations will come in August at the earliest. Any vote on the district’s footprint will take place in December at the earliest.
A half-empty district
Nearly half of PPS schools are less than 50% full. According to A+ School’s Report to the Community, the district has an additional seating capacity of 20,665 students, more than its current enrollment.
Schools such as Taylor Allderdice High School are exceeding their functional capacity while others like King K-8 and UPrep Milliones 6-12 are functioning below 50% of their capacity. In all, 44 PPS schools fall below 60% of their educational adequacy capacity, meaning they lack key academic spaces and facilities to accommodate modern learning needs, such as art classes and gyms.
Declining enrollment and increased overhead costs of building maintenance, plus charter school payments, have projected a growing operating deficit. As revenues have failed to keep up with the increasing expenditures, the district drew $30 million from its fund balance to cover the gap, thus dropping it below the minimum requirement as per school policy.
PPS is projected to deplete its fund balance by 2026. With that, the district faces other growing costs like paying $7 million in property tax refunds.
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Since 2000, PPS has undergone multiple rounds of school closures, going from 93 to 54 schools today. Last October, the district resumed talks of closures as part of its strategic planning process.
Nationwide, thousands of schools are on the verge of closing because of enrollment declines since the pandemic. A 2023 analysis by Stanford University showed that schools serving predominantly Black students are more likely to be shut down than others.
Pros and cons of closing schools
Paulette Foster, special education organizer at 412 Justice, an organization that focuses on environmental, economic and education justice, said the district is only focusing on its functioning capacity and not taking into account its educational capacity to provide supports to students who require special education or English language learners services while driving the narrative around school closures.
She added that closures will impact neighborhood schools with economically disadvantaged Black and brown students. The existing bus driver shortage will create transportation issues for parents if those schools are closed, she added.
“How is this whole facility utilization, or school closure, factoring in the construct of what’s gonna cause harm to these parents and the students?” said Foster.
Foster said the district should increase community input by engaging more community stakeholders instead of relying on and spending money on hiring a strategic consultant. PPS spent $110,000 on a contract to hire consultant Martha Greenway to lead the strategic planning process.
Other advocates like James Fogarty, executive director of A+ Schools, believe that the time is ripe for PPS to consider a district-wide reorganization. He said the current system does not provide enough opportunities and supports for staff and students and the district should start thinking about equitable spending in different schools and leverage its assets to drive academic and social-emotional growth.
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Fogarty said the strategic planning process will set up an opportunity for greater community input and engagement. He added that PPS should also build processes to get input from families who do not have the capacity to show up at public meetings.
“The district has a really tough job ahead of it, to make sure that it engenders trust, that the plans that are created will be executed and implemented well,” he said.
The district has proposed six recommendations to better engage the community in the form of surveys, questionnaires, focus groups, interactive workshops, social media, mailings and public hearings.
Some parents worry about closures
Annette Hall, a Woolslair Pre-K-5 parent with two children, said she is concerned about the district’s lack of transparency regarding the facilities utilization plan. Hall, who works with 412 Justice, said many parents including her would have been unaware of the plan if they were not involved with the organization.
“Make it more accessible for parents that aren’t really active maybe in their schools to be able to see this information,” she said.
Rebecca Maclean is a parent with a sophomore at Allderdice, in Squirrel Hill, and a fifth grader at Fulton Pre-K-5, in Highland Park. She said instead of closures or consolidations, the district needs to put in efforts to increase enrollment by engaging new families. Some parents are also reaching out to state legislators to make changes to the charter school funding model so that the district can better manage its finances.
The district spent $146 million in charter school tuition payments in 2023-24, a 21% increase from the previous year.
For parents like Valerie Webb-Allman, school closures feel a lot more familiar. Webb-Allman’s son was in second grade at Woolslair, in Bloomfield, when the last round of PPS closures occurred in 2012. In 2021, the district again proposed closing six school buildings — Woolslair, Morrow, Fulton, Montessori, Manchester and Miller over the course of two years, but they remain open.
“It feels very similar now to what it did back then,” she said. “We felt blindsided back then, by the decision to start the closure process. … So back then, we had to scramble to respond.”
Parents including Webb-Allman and Hall have been turning up in large numbers in the last few district public hearings to speak out against school closures and the district’s lack of transparency.
Board President Gene Walker told PublicSource that the district is due for a conversation about reorganization and will include community input to make informed decisions.
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“We have to take some steps to get us into a place where we can both, you know, survive financially but also provide the highest quality education for our students. And that’s not something we’re able to do right now on either front,” he said.
Jazlynn Worthy, a parent with three children at Woolslair, thinks that closing schools will drive out Black families from the district. Worthy said she won’t choose to send her kids to PPS if they close Woolslair.
“Previously, they had decided to close schools thinking that it was going to be a solution to the problems and yet here we are almost a decade later, they’re still proposing to close schools and it’s not doing anything,” she said.
District spokesperson Ebony Pugh said any changes related to the district footprint, new school configurations and closures will require board approval following a public commentary period and community engagement. Any vote on closures or consolidations will not happen before December.
Lajja Mistry is the K-12 education reporter at PublicSource. She can be reached at lajja@publicsource.org.
