Pittsburgh community bracing for final recommendations in possible school closure plan
By Megan Tomasic / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Across the city, feelings of apprehension mixed with lingering questions lay heavy on the minds of Pittsburgh Public School parents as they anticipate the release of final recommendations of a plan that could drastically change the district’s 54-school footprint.
The recommendations — a preliminary proposal for which suggested the closure of more than a dozen schools and others seeing grade reconfigurations — have rocked the Pittsburgh community, causing parents to come out in droves, armed with questions about impacts to things such as transportation and class sizes. Many have gone in front of the school board in hopes of swaying elected officials to save their child’s school.
But now, after several weeks of public input sessions, final recommendations for the plan are to be released at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday during PPS’s education committee meeting.
“We're supposed to have updates but we have no idea what kind of updates, which I find disconcerting,” parent Erin Childs said. “It's just very nebulous. They took all of our feedback and somehow maybe incorporated it, but we don't know.”
District officials began work on the plan in January as Pittsburgh Public faced declining enrollments — PPS has the capacity for 40,000 students but currently educates 18,380 — and a growing budget deficit. Chief Financial Officer Ron Joseph last week said the district is expecting a $23.3 million deficit next year, which could grow to $33 million in 2026.
But in addition to ongoing issues in the district, Pittsburgh Public officials are hopeful changes will help create a more equitable learning environment for all students.
“I would not look at it through the lens of a school closure, but I would look at it through the lens of the experiences that we're trying to provide your students, the access and opportunities, creating equity across our district,” Superintendent Wayne Walters previously told the Post-Gazette.
He continued, saying that PPS has “great schools” and “some really strong pockets of success,” but “as a school district that has lost significant population, we have challenges with how we deliver education, with some schools being very small, some schools not having the space to even afford community to come in, and some of the course offerings that we have based on school size. We have to take a look at what education looks like as a district.”
After choosing to move forward with the plan, the district, with the help of Massachusetts-based education consulting firm Education Resource Strategies, held several town hall meetings to collect public input. Officials during those sessions said they were also considering data around the number and size of school buildings, grade configurations, school locations, offered programs, transportation, attendance and feeder patterns, enrollment policies and community resources.
By August, officials released the preliminary proposal, which included the closure of 16 schools, reconfiguring grade structures at 14 others and phasing out six magnet programs.
But the plan almost immediately received pushback from the community.
“I get a strong impression that there is a quiet part to this that neither the district nor ERS wants to say out loud, which is that the district is really hurting for money and the way that they think that they can solve this problem is by closing buildings,” parent Nathan VanHoudnos told the Post-Gazette. “And the way that they're going to try to sell closing buildings is by trying to say that bigger schools are better schools, and it all comes off as very, very false.”
He questioned why officials have not released information on how transportation would be impacted. Mr. VanHoudnos has three children in Pittsburgh Public, one of whom could have a 75-minute bus ride if proposed changes to CAPA are made.
Other concerns he raised centered on equity issues in places such as the Hill District and the North Side.
“I don't like the idea that all of this is only for equity, because I don't think that's true and I think that people are calling their bluff on it and getting pretty mad,” Mr. VanHoudnos said.
The additional community input, officials said, would be used to shape final recommendations. The recommendations were originally scheduled to be released last month but it was ultimately delayed until this month after officials said they needed more time to analyze the collected data.
Now, officials are gearing up to make the final recommendations public.
Afterwards, the board will hold a vote to open the public process on the proposal, starting another round of public input sessions. Another board vote on the actual recommendations will follow.
“The idea is that there will be some level of change in our district to offer higher quality education to the children,” Mr. Walters previously said. “They deserve it.”
For community members, many are waiting to see how the plan will be changed following the most recent town hall sessions.
The advocacy group 412 Justice is hosting a watch party during Tuesday’s meeting. During the event the group will live tweet responses and develop a community response to the proposal.
“Our school board members MUST know we are watching,” the group wrote on Facebook. “We will not sit quietly on the sidelines while they move a reckless plan that lacks data, research or meaningful community input.”
For Ms. Childs, she is now fighting for her three children, all of whom are in impacted schools under the preliminary proposal.
“They're worried too, the kids are,” Ms. Childs said. “They watch the first presentation and they're like, ‘Are they closing my school? When are they closing my school?’”
But for now, Ms. Childs said her main focus is on the final recommendations.
“I'm very concerned how they could have improved it enough to actually make it a good plan for our district,” Ms. Childs said.
Mr. VanHoudnos echoed those thoughts.
“The thing that I am feeling is a hope that the district will have listened to the feedback and have a plan that addresses many of the concerns that the parents and others have raised,” Mr. VanHoudnos said. “I'm hopeful that that will be true. I'm also a little prepared for that not to be true, but I do want to at least give them the benefit of the doubt.”