The Pittsburgh Public Schools board delayed a vote to begin the state-mandated public hearing process for permanently closing 10 schools.
In a public meeting on Wednesday, Superintendent Wayne Walters asked board members to pull the vote after community members criticized the administration for not providing enough information and rushing the process to close schools.
“I recognize that we cannot avoid the impact of the erosion of trust this had on our relationship with members of the Pittsburgh Public Schools community,” Walters said. “While this erosion has a long history, I fully accept the responsibility of helping to repair this.”
As the next step, the district administration will work to update the feasibility report presented last month to include a financial analysis, preliminary transportation plans and a review of capital investments in April. With that, the administration will also present a final recommendation for a demographer to inform the development of attendance zones and geographical boundaries to determine which schools students will attend as per the plan.
Board President Gene Walker, who voiced his support to move forward with the vote last week, said he had conversations with the superintendent after an hours-long public hearing on Monday and decided it would be best to postpone the vote.
“Even though I feel we can still keep going, but it’s also really important for us to be responsive to the community because they are our constituents and our customers and people we serve on a day-to-day basis,” he said.
The step to overhaul the district’s footprint comes from a variety of issues faced by Pittsburgh Public Schools [PPS]. The district continues to see a steady decline in student enrollment, leaving PPS with half-empty schools. Overhead costs have increased because of maintaining aging buildings. District officials and board members have repeatedly voiced concerns about rising costs and a need to change the overall education system to reduce the district’s existing inequities. The Facilities Utilization Plan aligns with the district’s five-year strategic plan, which started taking shape in 2023.
The following school buildings are slated to close as per the district’s Facilities Utilization Plan:
- Student Achievement Center in Homewood North
- Conroy Education Center in Manchester
- Montessori PreK-5 in Friendship
- Fulton PreK-5 in Highland Park
- King PreK-8 in Allegheny Center
- Miller PreK-5 in the Hill District
- Morrow PreK-5 in Brighton Heights
- Schiller 6-8 in East Allegheny
- Spring Hill K-5 in Spring Hill
- Woolslair PreK-5 in Bloomfield
State law requires districts to hold public hearings at least three months before closing any school. The hearings must also be publicized 15 days before they take place. The hearing process would then allow board members to vote on decisions like closing and consolidating schools and reshaping the district’s footprint.
A divided board
Board members debated the plan in an agenda meeting last week.
Members were divided on whether to open a hearing process. Board members Emma Yourd, Devon Taliaferro and Jamie Piotrowski said they would not want to move forward unless they are provided more information about feeder patterns, attendance zones and a fiscal analysis of the plan.
Earlier this month, the PPS administration put out a request for proposals to hire a demographer who would determine feeder patterns and attendance zones. However, the board would only vote to hire a demographer next month, at the earliest, and completing that work could take months after that. The district has also clarified that no school closures would take place in the 2025-26 school year.
“It’s more than just people being mad because we’re closing schools at this point,” Yourd said. “It’s more that people are going to be mad because they already have been demanding the same answers for the last year from this board and from this administration, and we have not done our own due diligence to provide those answers to them.”
Piotrowski echoed the sentiment, saying that the feasibility report presented by Superintendent Wayne Walters in February did not provide further information about the budget, estimates of capital improvements and closures.
The report backed nearly all of the recommendations given by consulting firm Education Resource Strategies [ERS] in a plan to realign the school’s resources that drew strong backlash in the fall. Key recommendations included changing the current school grade configurations to a traditional model of K-5, 6-8 and 9-12 grades and closing 14 facilities, including 10 school buildings.
“I don’t think it’s time to be voting on this as a board. We insist on making data-based and evidence-based decisions and this is not that,” Piotrowski said.
Other board members, including Walker, Tracey Reed and Yael Silk, expressed support to move forward with the vote, saying that while additional information is required, delaying the process would exacerbate the district’s inequities and financial issues.
“We need to figure out how to be as transparent as possible with the public and we need to move where our hair is on fire,” Reed said.
Walker, who is running for re-election to the board, urged colleagues to finish work on the Facilities Utilization Plan before new members are elected at the end of this year.
“If we’re truly interested in impacting in a positive manner the outcomes of our kids, waiting hurts kids,” said Walker. He added that while the feasibility report lacked further information, it affirmed the work done by consultants.
Tensions rose when Taliaferro criticized Walker’s comments, saying he is dismissive of the people they represent.
“Those are the voices that I hear every day that are like, ‘What the hell is gonna happen with my child? I do not know.’ That is real concern,” Taliaferro said.
But Walker said he has heard from community members who support the plan and would base his vote on all community members instead of just those who are vocal in opposing the plan in public hearings.
Parent input running largely anti-closure
More than 100 parents, staff and community members turned up on Monday evening’s public hearing at the PPS administration building in Bellefield, urging the board to delay any formal process and provide more information and data about the Facilities Utilization Plan.
Andy Kubis, a parent, said instead of closing schools, the district should fight for more state funding and work on a campaign directed at state lawmakers to fully fund schools.
“Closing schools should be the absolute last resort,” she said. “To me, it feels like we’re giving up on public education and surrendering to the charter schools that will circle the waters instead.”
Parent Rebecca Maclean said she was initially optimistic about the consultants’ plan when it was introduced last spring, but a year later is left frustrated by a lack of meaningful community engagement by the administration and board members.
“Voting to open this process now is premature and continues the district’s pattern of being non-transparent and expecting parents who have been ignored or patronized to still get out of the way,” she said.
Dozens of parents and teachers from Conroy Education Center, a facility that serves students with special needs in the district, asked for the board to reconsider the proposal to move the school from its current location on the North Side to South Brook Middle School in Brookline.
ERS’ final recommendations proposed closing three schools, including Conroy, that house alternative or special education programs and moving them to other PPS schools. The superintendent’s report suggested that moving Conroy to South Brook would be feasible.
Meghan Balogh, a life-skills teacher at Conroy, said they need more information about renovation plans at South Brook, classroom accommodations and data before making the decision to relocate Conroy. Other parents and teachers pointed out facilities like private bathrooms, homerooms and specialized services at Conroy would not be available at South Brook.
Several parents and students from schools that are slated to close, including Woolslair Elementary, King PreK-8 and the Student Achievement Center, spoke in opposition.
Parent Brandon Simpson said as a community school, King has done a “complete 360” since COVID and has created various opportunities for students to uplift each other.
“As many problems and challenges they face, the kids get a sense of love when they step into that building.”
Despite many community members asking the board to delay the vote, a few parents and community members showed support for the plan.
Mark Weaver, a parent, said transitioning to traditional grade models, eliminating magnet schools and shuttering some schools could prove beneficial for the district but agreed that parents need more information and transparency about the plan.
“Why not provide great opportunities for all of our elementary students?” he said. “Surely we can distribute funds and resources to match the ZIP code and not have a magnet system where some students get lucky and others feel like they might get stuck.”
Lajja Mistry is the K-12 education reporter at PublicSource. She can be reached at lajja@publicsource.org.
