Speaking to PPS Board about school changes, unofficial testimony of all the speakers

News update:

https://triblive.com/news/education-classroom/pittsburgh-public-schools-takes-1st-step-of-proposed-school-closure-plan/

From Mark Rauterkus

Good evening, board members, administrators and citizens. My name is Mark Rauterkus. We reside in the Historic South Side. I'm currently working with the International Swim Coaches Association, Heavy Or Not podcast. My roots run deep right here in Pittsburgh Public Schools. My kids came through PPS. I coached swimming for years, including under Dr. Walters. He was my son’s principal for a decade, and for most of that time, I was his varsity swim coach.

I saw that Flag Football is on the agenda. That’s a win. Especially for the girls. But Flag Football, an emerging, Olympic sport, also brings up old questions that still need answers. Years ago, I helped launch a co-ed water polo team at Schenley. We played games, traveled to tournaments — even out of state. We used PPS pools, of which there are many. We ran summer programs with more than 200 student participants — swimming, water polo, running the Liberty Mile, and built tech skills with our “A for Athlete” initiative.

At Schenley, we had support. At Obama, not so much. But the bigger issue is systemic: athletic reform. We saw movement during Mark Roosevelt’s time, and earlier with Dr. John Thompson he committed to pulling sports coaches out from under the teachers’ contract.

Will Flag Football coaches be under the union contract?
Is it getting set up to fail?

I’m happy that many of the mistakes of “Right Sizing” are getting fixed – by ending 6-12 schools. But, in those times, we suggested a phase out rather than a hard close of schools. Let kids finish. PPS has let rumors shut down schools in the past, such as with South Vo-Tech.

Magnets work. The program helped my family. My youngest, a water polo player, just graduated from Tulane Medical School. If you take away magnets, you’ll see more families leave the city.

Same goes for the Gifted Program. Re-positioning the gifted program will flop. The Gifted Program is an asset.

I also don’t see any clarity on Oliver High School’s facility.

Finally, I'd like to help. If this board is willing, I’d be honored to serve on — or chair — a citywide Athletic Reform Task Force – the one that Dr. Linda Lane shut down. That was a mistake.

Sports teach how to be nimble. We need more of that!

Sports teach about playing well with others. We need more of that too.

 - - -

In other voices:

Figures, A+ Schools is in favor of the plan. A+ Schools helped drive the failed Rightsizing Plan that delivered schools with grads 6 to 12. Those 6-12 schools are part of what is being taken apart now. 

+ + + 

We don't want to have these half-baked plans.
Meredith Knight crushed it!

Unofficial Transcript

Mr. Walker, PPS Board

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Monday, June 23rd, 2025 Pittsburgh Board of Public Education public hearing. I would like to call this meeting to order. Before we get started, I want to just clarify the process for tonight. All speakers will have three minutes to give their testimony.

Ms. Erica Gandy will moderate our speakers tonight. You have All been kind of given in order, so all of our folks that are testifying in person will give their testimonies, and then we will transition to our virtual testimonies following. Just a reminder, your three minutes starts when you start talking, and then if you are here, your microphone will blink red as you are 30 seconds left. If you are online later, We will give you the hands up signal to let you know that your time is running low, and then we will stop your microphone at three minutes.

You are not allowed to share your time with anyone else, so we only give you the one speaker for one time slot. And let's see, is there anything else? As usual, after the meeting, all of the written testimony and the video from tonight will be on the district and board website. along with any transcripts of testimony that was not written.

Folks can listen to our testimony by going to the district website and clicking on the meeting link. I think that is it. So I will hand the meeting over to Ms. Gandy. Take it away.

Ms. Gandy, PPS Moderator

Thank you, Mr. Walker. And our first speaker this evening is Rachel Canning.

Rachel Canning

My name is Rachel Canning, and I am the parent of a rising kindergartner in Pittsburgh Public Schools. Her name is Emma, and she's entering this district as it continues to shrink through closures, declining enrollment, and other disinvestment. Instead of offering families more reasons to stay, this board seems to be intent on repeating the same decisions that have steadily weakened our public school system over the last 25 years. So, point one, this vote, I'm asking you not to vote to authorize the process to start to begin school closures on Wednesday.

Point one, this vote opens the door to irreversible harm. You're not just authorizing hearings, you're actually enabling a process that this administration, sadly, has shown that it will run in bad faith, because that is what it's felt like so far. Last summer's exercises around this plan and also the recent public engagement around defining our values that had embarrassingly low participation feels like performative engagement, feels like performative input, feels like rushed decisions, no real accountability. And a yes vote means that you're okay with that.

We have seen this before in Pittsburgh, plans that over promise and under deliver. Schools close, communities get fractured, promises of new programs are canceled eventually, and class sizes continue to grow while vacant buildings sit in neighborhoods. Also, in this political climate, this moment feels really dangerous to be doing this. First, there's a public transit crisis.

Potentially 41 routes are being cut. So while families are struggling to figure out how to get around, we're also giving them this added chaos about how they're going to get to their schools. and also with Trump back in office and the dismantling of the Department of Education, federal voucher legislation gaining ground, that it just feels, for this board to choose voluntarily to dismantle its own school system feels reckless and irresponsible. Let's see.

It doesn't seem... It doesn't seem like you've done everything in your power to protect public education and ensure that we have the revenue that we need. We could be having a conversation about the better way to fund public schools. We could be working with the city and with the state legislature to figure out more effective than property taxing ways of funding public education.

It's like a moment to define that. And you could be leading that, and you're not. This feels like chaos by design. No implementation budget, no staffing road map, no transportation plan.

And that's making people panic. People are gonna leave the district. I'm really interested to see what enrollment looks like in the fall. And it almost feels like it's on purpose.

Like it's to create more mistrust.

Morgan Coles, Parent

Hello. Thank you all for having me here tonight. I wanted to come out here because you all are proposing to close one of my favorite schools in the area, Pittsburgh Fulton. It has made a tremendous difference in my son's life.

He previously was at a charter school where he was bullied. His cell phone was thrown out of a school bus window. And Pittsburgh Public has been the answer for him to have a safe, inclusive environment that allows him to grow. Not only did he grow physically and emotionally, but he also I'm Pittsburgh Fulton is also important because they know me by name.

Not just because I'm there every day, but like they know me. And there are a couple people in this room that know me as well. They know my son. They're able to tell me, hey, your son did X, Y, Z today.

And we talk about how we can correct this. I also wanted to bring to your attention that the closing of Pittsburgh Fulton is going to push more families away back to charter schools. And I noticed during a little bit of digging today that Pennsylvania has a state code for class sizes. It says that there's supposed to be no more than 20 students per teacher.

And that's fine. I get times are tight. Kids learn better sometimes when they're with each other and they can bounce ideas off of each other just like in a workforce. However, I would implore you guys to do what's right and keep these kids in what they know.

How would you like it if you had to go from one house in one year to six months later to another apartment to six months later somewhere else and so on and so forth? That's what you're doing to these babies and they deserve so much more. And lastly, I would like you to think of me as a representation of three. I have three children.

So my three children will be the future. They're going to be the ones that are going to vote for not just myself, but for all of our well-being as we age in this society. my three children are going to be the ones that produce families and hopefully stay here because I love Pittsburgh. Born and raised here and it is the best place on earth for everything, including football.

And my three children will then have spouses who vote and have people to go through the school district once again. So that is then one for me.

Lily Allman, Student

For those who don't know me and my history of working towards a stronger PPS, I have been doing this since I was born, quite literally. My mom was fighting to save my brother's school when she was pregnant with me. And I've been going to meetings on building policy and programs since I was a baby. So I have seen and heard everything the school board has been talking about for 12 years, my entire life.

And I can give years worth of examples how the board members, previous superintendents, and even how Dr. Wayne Walters has destroyed and broken trust. But we only have three minutes, so I'll keep this short. Why should I trust you with my future is the question I seem to be asking every month. You told people to ignore us, the so-called loud few, whenever we voiced our concerns for the students' future.

Whenever we tell you to take your time and hire people or look at things needed for this plan to work and to help us, you completely discard us. You said you would do the hard work to rebuild our trust and listen to concerns, but have turned around to break that promise month after month. So why should I trust you with my future? You plan on closing schools, but you don't even have fully outlined attendance zones or a demographer info.

Your whole plan is built on trying to fit a solution into a plan that was built on bad data and even worse community engagement. I live within two miles of Allegheny based on how the bird flies. According to you, I would walk to Allegheny when you close Schiller. This means I would have to walk an hour to school and an hour home on two highway on and off ramps through unsafe areas with a heavy backpack and up a huge hill, sometimes in snow or high heat, but not uphill both ways.

And on top of that, we have a severe crossing guard shortage citywide. Have you added buses for kids like me where it's unsafe to walk? What about once I get to school? How big will my classroom be?

Are you going to make me cram into a class of 30 or more students with no support staff for our teachers? And how are you going to find teachers and support staff when there is a shortage? How will you make up for the disruption to our educational outcomes while you repeat history? My peers and I have grown up building a strong PPS for years, and I've been trying to help you to do your jobs.

When will you finally do your jobs and listen to the voices of the most impacted people by this plan, the students? Please vote no to closing specific schools until you have a full plan and consider things you might not have considered before.

Valerie Webb-Allman, Parent

So today is my birthday. In case you need to get me a gift, you can always vote no. I spent the morning reflecting on the 15 years that I've been actively advocating for a stronger PPS, and I now have the benefit of understanding past mistakes in a long-term way that only people that have lived through past mistakes can. And I'm begging you not to repeat the biggest mistakes in PPS history.

Superintendent Thompson, Roosevelt, Lane, and now Walters, have all said that we need to close schools in order to achieve the educational outcomes that our students deserve. They all have stated that we need to close buildings to save money, make our schools more racially diverse, and to provide better opportunities to all students. But in the last 25 years, the outcomes have been the opposite. Please stop to ask yourself why.

Superintendent Walter's plan revolves around a model from the past that was successful-ish back then, but can't exist now. The educational world that we live in is currently vastly different. Families now have the choice to leave PPS and go to what appears to be a more stable option. The state now has a funding model that we know bankrupts public education when children go to charter and private school options.

Ignoring that fact is a detriment to PPS, and sets us on a direct course to further closures. If you don't believe that parents will make that choice, you can once again look to history and see the steep decline of enrollment after every single round of school closures. Each time we closed schools, our enrollment dropped. Then we had to return to closures to offset the costs of students leaving the district and the cycle continued.

We only stopped that steep climb when we stopped closing schools. That is a key difference from a time that Superintendent Walters is trying to replicate and it simply won't work anymore. The basis for this plan to work isn't built around the buildings, the budget, or even the curriculum. It's built around the trust and buy-in of community that is directly impacted by it.

You do not currently have the benefit of that trust and you all know it. Parents are already leaving before you even make this vote because they have seen this administration and even some of you on the board cast off the concerns of repeating history. Please stop the path of destruction. It is true that this has been a long process, but that is largely due to the mishandling of the plan and skipped steps in an effort to speed it up.

Just like when contractors cut corners and rush to build buildings or bridges, we can't be surprised that the public is concerned about the structure's future safety or even its eventual collapse. Just because this has been going on for a while doesn't mean that we can't just bypass those crucial steps to get it over with. Please vote no on beginning the closure of specific buildings until this is done right. We know some buildings may need to be closed, but we should determine which buildings are closed with accurate data and a well thought out plan.

We cannot keep repeating the darkest chapters of PPS and pretending that it builds brighter futures. Make the choice to divert from repeat. Thank you for your testimony.

Lamar Black, Community member

All right, thank you everybody for your time here. Tonight, I'm here to speak for the families that are still in the dark. Families asking the most basic, but yet still unanswered questions. Where will my child go to school?

How will they get there? Who's gonna teach them? These are not small details. They're the foundation of trust.

And right now, that foundation is crumbling. There's no staffing plan, concrete available. The attendance zones are shifting. What about transportation?

Trust in PPS is already strained. Too many families feel unheard, unsupported, and unprotected. If the goal is to build trust, then this plan must start with honesty, clarity, and full community partnership, not silence. Vote no.

Anne Farris, Parent

I'm Anne Farris, a PPS parent living in the North Side. Whether PPS families agree that schools need to close for PPS to thrive, many are continuing to ask the question, why the rush? I have heard board members talk about having worked on this a long time.

A little over a year is not a long time to develop a plan to reimagine a school district for over 18,000 students. We can do better. PPS families have been asking this governing body questions about the Facilities Utilization Plan for over a year. For over a year, Directors Taliaferro, Silk, Petrosky, Yord, Barker, and Dudene have also asked pointed questions about budget, attendance zones, and the measurable goals this plan would enable the district to achieve.

And each month, it feels like Dr. Walters has scrambled to provide partial information and gloss it over with divisive rhetoric. The nine of you are voting to approve the extension of the new Academy, Catalyst Academy and Providence Charter Schools on Wednesday, right after you vote to start a public commentary period on the closure of nine Pittsburgh public school buildings. With charter schools utilizing over 21% of the PPS operating budget, Why have there not been solutions discussed regarding reducing those costs? If it has been acknowledged that we can agree the status quo cannot hold, then how do charter schools continue to operate in the status quo while the plan shutters 20% of PPS schools?

Does this sound like reckless doge cuts to you? Superintendent Walters said in a PR video for the plan that this is not the 1980s, the 1990s, the aughts. Well, this is not 2024. When the Facilities Utilization Plan was presented to the public, when the plan was announced, the reason behind a reimagining of PPS was to solve for a projected fiscal cliff.

In multiple town halls, many of the questions had to do with how this plan will solve that problem and the answer multiple times was that actually the plan doesn't save money, that it's no longer about money, it's about equity. Everything is about money and the opportunity to build equitable schools does not exist without it. Board Directors, after careful review, after seeing how the doge cuts have cost US citizens so much more than any savings, how they have impacted all of us in this room, are you able to look your constituents in the eye and tell us what this plan is about? That you believe Dr. Walters has a staffing plan in place to implement it?

That the feeder zones are equitable? and that you can name measurable goals for our students that this plan allows them to achieve. Do you see a future you are proud to call your legacy? In this country now at war, with massive federal funding cuts affecting our basic needs, with congressional leaders blindly following one illogical and vindictive man, there is so much all out of our control.

The nine of you have a voice. You represent the voices of every PPS family in Pittsburgh, and I ask you, where do you stand?

Kari Thompson, Parent

The fundamental challenge this board faces is that we need to keep more families using district schools to have the resources to improve them. I am personally deeply committed to free, quality public education as a human right, to schools as places for building community, and to actively undo other structural problems that we face. Public schools have a unique opportunity to level playing fields that charter and private schools can never provide. They are the roots of a strong democracy.

That's why I'm still here, coming here when I can, fighting to put students first, not the corporate charter schools that benefit from school closings or the suburbs that prosper when wealthy families move out of the city to send their kids to another school. There's some broad consensus that we've started to hear, and if you take parental and community engagement seriously, I suspect we could reach more. From listening to folks over this past year, it seems most people are in favor of more days of in-person teaching, by not being hamstrung by buildings that don't meet the 21st century climate. There's agreement that we want our students to have access to well-rounded curricula that are developmentally appropriate, including music, art, gym, and outdoor time for all elementary students, access to second language opportunities, robust extracurricular options for middle and high school students, and programs that meet the needs of students, whether they're recent immigrants to our city, have physical or learning disabilities, or high aptitudes. Let's start there. Some of those things were supposed to be addressed in this year's strategic plan. While there are a couple of K-8 schools where parents really love the program, many parents seem open to grade realignment, and I'm among them.

I think the board could really use some positive feedback from doing part of this plan, and then that will help families see how this would be implemented across the district. But you don't need to close schools to do that. Vote no on item 8.11 and instead let's get to work to set out what you said you would do in the strategic plan. Like improve quality and relevance of academic experience.

Education research shows that starts with small class sizes. How will making gigantic elementary schools accomplish that? And how will you prioritize community outreach and access from the strategic plan with fewer school buildings? Before moving forward with full school closures, you would build a lot of goodwill by showing us that you can implement parts of this plan successfully.

Show us you can work with teachers and paraprofessionals to figure out how to adequately staff the middle schools involved in realignment. Open those middle schools, complete with facility upgrades by 26-27 school year to show families how this will work. Build confidence and families will stay. Hopefully, many will come back.

Pittsburgh parents have shown they want choice where they send their kids and many have voted with their enrollment paper.

Alanna Peterson, Parent

Hello, I'm Alana Peterson. I'm a proud parent of three recent World's Earthquake graduates and an ER doctor. I'm here to switch it up a little bit because I wanted to talk more about the emphasis on science education and the proposed educational plan that was just delivered. So by my calculation, the PPS students will receive an average of about 20 minutes a day of science education in K-2.

and then in 3-5 when it's mixed in with world language it's a little harder to tell but it's less than that. Somewhere it looks like 6-10 minutes a day. And then 40 minutes in 6-8. If you add the special tech ED you get to about 50 minutes in 6-7.

So PBS is not doing this educational overhaul in a vacuum. There's readily available data on the science-focused education in other states. The state of Massachusetts has one of the highest performing public school systems in the United States. On average, their K to 2 students get 25 minutes of science, 3 to 5 gets 35 minutes of science, and 6 to 8 gets 55 minutes of science every day.

And they put that into their curriculum. I'm not up here on a soapbox. Research has shown that early and sustained exposure to science increases a child's likelihood of entering that field. It has also shown that the US lags significantly behind its peers in science education.

That matters. It isn't about science being cool. It's about our kids' futures, their jobs, and their careers. The 2023 data from the college graduation statistics reported that about 40% of degrees were in liberal arts, the remainder of which were in business, health care, biology, bioscience, and computer engineering.

Depending on your source, only 42% to 55% of liberal arts graduates have full-time jobs at graduation. while 73% of STEM students and 81% of business grads have full-time positions. There isn't applicable data in technical or vocational schools as the vast majority of these are not based in liberal arts. But what I can say is that if a teen chooses to be an electrical technician or a plumber, their science education is going to be far more valuable than their working knowledge of French.

I strongly urge you to consider these facts when making your final decisions if this educational plan is part of today's vote. I urge you to vote no. This shouldn't come as a package deal. Thank you.

Erin Childs, Parent

OK, hopefully from the looks on your faces, you've either pulled it up or you don't care about my numbers. Good evening. My name is Erin Childs. I'm a proud mom of three PPS students, and I also used to work with tons of data as a lab biologist for more than 15 years.

When I started writing up my testimony, I wanted to talk to you about my concerns for how this new educational plan is going to fit into the facilities that we're going to have. However, when I started my spreadsheet, I found a fundamental rounding error that occurs throughout the numbers from ERS's proposal and seems to have been propagated forward all of this time. Hopefully, you've pulled up the sheet, and I can explain it to you. On this sheet, I've listed every school that's in K-5 and 6-8 that's been in the recent proposals.

There are a couple that the data is a little questionable about, like Roosevelt and Morrow. I couldn't get current numbers, but the rest are here. OK, based on that, I've assumed, I've written the listed proposed capacity that came from ERS or from Dr. Walters. And I assumed, and I used the numbers provided on the Facilities Utilization Plan web page.

I assumed that the goal for each school was an even distribution across grades. So I calculated how many students there would be in each grade, and then I figured out how many classrooms each grade needs. That's where the problem starts. Excel is sometimes too smart for its own good.

And if you tell it to show you whole numbers, it shows you the numbers, but it remembers what the real number is. So if you look at the last line of my thing here, this is Starrett. Starrett was mentioned in the proposal, but not during the presentation, as needing 14 classrooms. If you look, there are three grades and 379 students.

That works out to 126.3 students per grade. Presumably, we're not having a third of a student in a grade, but it should be close enough. Based on that and a known number of 28 students per classroom, you need 4.51 classrooms for each grade at Sterritt. Excel rounds that to five.

You say, OK, then we have five classrooms per grade, except for that then when it does the math and you tell it you have three grades, it says 3 times 4.5 is 13.5, which rounds up to 14. And so you lose a classroom. You now have 14 classrooms divided by 3 grades, which leaves you with 4.67 classrooms per grade. This has happened in the majority.

You can see all of the red ones don't match. In most cases, it is missing one or two. In extreme cases, it is missing five. One or two, it's been the other way, although mostly that's Allegheny, which I had some problems with the new numbers because things are moving, King, Allegheny, et cetera.

All of the numbers for classrooms required should be divisible by either six or three, and they're not. This data is not accurate. We need careful math and accurate data before we...

John McFarland, Community member

My name is John McFarlane. I've lived in Pittsburgh for seven years. I intend to spend the rest of my life here. I don't have kids yet, but I'd like to.

The simple fact is that I cannot trust my future children to PPS under your leadership. I am horrified at your capitulation to the whims of some big city consulting firm. These proposed school closures constitute a complete abandonment, not just of our children now, but of our future children who will depend on the public schools. I could spend hours listing all the ways this proposal will tangibly harm the children of Pittsburgh, and my peers today surely will.

I only have three minutes, so let me just list some of the ways that this will hurt our children. First, you will overcrowd our remaining schools. Pittsburgh public school buildings are, on average, 90 years old and cannot take the strain of adding all of the students from the closed schools. This will not only affect their education by increasing class sizes, but also their physical safety as they are crowded into decaying buildings.

Second, children with disabilities, making up roughly 23% of our student body, will find it even harder just to get to school. Many of these children require special transportation to get to school as it stands. They will face longer commutes, potential cuts to their transportation routes. Third, you will be effectively firing a plethora of devoted teachers and staff who have dedicated their lives to educating our children.

Our schools are already understaffed and now every single member of those staffs will be looking over their shoulder waiting for your axe to fall. I am sick and tired of my local government crying poor. There never seems to be a lack of money when it's time to give out to the charter schools. There wasn't a lack of money to shell out to your corporate bag men at ERS in the first place.

Besides, you are the school board. We elected you to protect the interests of our children. If there isn't enough money, your job should be to go to the city and demand more, or the county, or the state. ERS does not have our best interests at heart.

The private sector certainly doesn't have our best interests at heart. You are the people who are supposed to look out for us. If you move forward with this plan, you will be abandoning the children of Pittsburgh and turning your back on the people who elected you.

Ashley Rooth, Parent

To the superintendent and board members of Pittsburgh Public Schools, my name is Ashley Ruth McLean and I am writing to express my deep frustration and concern regarding the recent decision to eliminate all magnet school programs. This abrupt policy shift is not only unfair, but also destructive and harmful, especially to students like my daughter who are caught in the middle through no fault of their own. Before I share my concerns as a parent, I would like to take a moment to further introduce myself. I am a proud product of Pittsburgh Public Schools and first met our current superintendent when he became principal during my eighth grade year of Frick International Studies Academy, a magnet school.

As someone who has personally benefited from PPS magnet systems, I know how transformative these programs can be. They shaped who I am today and I want the same opportunities for my children. My daughter has been a dedicated and thriving student at Pittsburgh-Dilworth since she was first accepted in kindergarten. She is now finishing her third grade year, and at the time of admission, we were told that she would be able to be enrolled through her fifth grade.

This was a foundational part of our decision to enroll her and make long-term plans based on that commitment. If this policy is enforced as currently proposed, my daughter will be forced to transition to a new school for her 5th grade year, only to have to move again for her 6th grade year. This creates unnecessary instability during two critical developmental years and could have serious emotional, social, and academic consequences for all students, especially the class of 2032. Pittsburgh Dilworth has provided all of the students with structure, high expectations, academic rigor.

But for my third grader, it has brought so much more. Unlike her siblings, she is not outgoing and struggles with social anxiety. And the community at Dilworth has afforded her the opportunity to develop and foster relationships. And I am devastated that your plan intends to uproot her from everything she is familiar with.

If something works well, You don't bulldoze it, you replicate it. Students should not be upheaved and shoveled around like monopoly pieces during this transition. You would want to move into a new house for it to only be partially constructed? As parents, we do not want our soon-to-be fourth graders paying the price for a plan that sacrifices all that we have poured into them.

It is deeply troubling that the administration would soon to prioritize rigid enforcement Zoning reinforcements over well-being, stability of its students who are already enrolled in thriving various magnet learning communities. Children are not just numbers on an enrollment sheet, but they are individuals and relationships, routines, educational needs that matter. This plan is emphatically not student first. At the very least, I strongly urge you to honor your commitments made to those families and children who were accepted in the Magnet Program prior to last year.

Changing the rules meant way through the children's education is not only poor policy, but ethically wrong. I want you to know that I do not stand alone in my feelings. In response to this decision, I initiated a petition for the district to honor its commitment to currently enrolled elementary Magnet students, and in just a short time, over 500 Magnet families and community supporters have signed in solidarity. We are unified in our message that these children deserve stability, dignity, and an education they were promised.

Stephen McClain, Parent

Good evening, my name is Stephen McClain. To Dr. Superintendent Walters and board members, as a parent of three children, I am urging you not to remove my younger two children, a rising second grader and a fourth grader from the current Magnet School. My oldest child graduated from Dilworth and experience had a powerful lasting impact on her academic growth, confidence and love for learning. I can't imagine denying that same opportunity for her younger siblings.

If this plan moves forward, my daughter will be forced to start over at a new school just for one year of fifth grade, only to transition again for sixth grade. That kind of disruption, especially at such a critical time, feels like being tossed around like a leaf blowing in the wind. It's unfair, it's unsettling, and most of all, unnecessary. This plan is being labeled as a feasibility plan, but who exactly is it feasible for?

It's certainly not feasible for my family or for the 500 plus other Magnet families who have signed a petition demanding the current students be allowed to stay in their schools. For us, this plan doesn't offer feasibility. It creates chaos, instability, and broken promises. While their acceptance letters promise transportation, I understand that funding challenges are a major factor driving this new feasibility plan.

If transportation costs are part of the issue, then give families the same option district employees already receive, the ability to transport our own children to and from school. Many of us are more than willing to make that commitment to ensure our children can remain in the schools where they were promised a place and where they truly belong. Even if the district moves forward with phasing out magnet programs, doing so in just one year is not a true phase-out. It's a rushed decision.

The goal of making all schools equitable cannot be achieved overnight or within a single school year. I urge the district to honor its commitment to current magnet students in grades K through 3 by allowing them to complete their elementary education where they began, surrounded by stability, relationships, and support they come to depend on. Extending this plan will not only protect those students but also give the district the necessary time to thoughtfully and effectively invest in all schools, ensuring that equity is more than just a goal. It becomes a reality.

With immense concern, I, Stephen McClain, a parent of Bill Worth, graduate, and two current Magnet students.

Zion Rooths, Student

Dear Wayne Walters, and board members, my name is Zion and I'm in 4th grade at Dilworth. I'm a magnet school I really loved when I got accepted. I was so excited because I thought I would get to stay here until 5th grade, but now you're saying I have to leave before I finish. That makes me feel really sad and confused.

I don't understand what my classmates and I did to deserve being removed from our school, or why this plan doesn't consider the huge negative impact this kind of sudden transition will have on my entire graduating class. The current plan wants me to move schools next year as a fifth grader, meaning I'll only be there for one grade before having to start over again in a new middle school. That means I'll have to make all new friends twice and learn new rules and teachers twice. It feels like I'm just being tossed around like dice and I don't think that's fair.

Please let me finish my time at school where I started. I feel safe here. I feel seen here. I feel like I belong and I hope you'll keep your commitment and let me stay.

Thank you for listening to me.

Hunter McClain, Former Magnet Student

Dear Dr. Wayne Walters and board members, as a proud graduate of Dilworth Magnet, I can say without a doubt that attending this school made a huge difference in my life. It gave me the confidence of strong academic foundation and a sense of community that I still carry with me today. That's why it's so hard to imagine my younger siblings, one going into second grade and the other one going into fourth, being forced to leave the school that has already become their home. I'm especially worried about my little sister who would have had to start over at a new school for just one year of fifth grade, only to transition again for six.

That's not stability. That's being tossed around from place to place like a ping pong ball. Please don't take this opportunity away from them. Even if you plan to phase out magnet programs, I ask that you honor the commitment made to the students already accepted.

Let them finish what they started. Let them experience the same sense of belonging and growth that I was lucky enough to have. at Dilworth. Sincerely, Hunter McLean, Dilworth Magnet graduate.

Rowan McClain, Student

Dear Pittsburgh Public Schools, my name is Rowan. I'm in third grade. I really love my school and I don't want to leave. Sudden changes are hard for me.

And if I have to switch schools now, I'll be starting over in a brand new place for fifth grade, just to have to start over again in sixth. That makes me feel really sad, nervous, and unsure about what's ahead. Please let me finish elementary school.

Sonia Brown, Teacher / Staff

Good evening, my name is Sonya Brown and I just finished my 26th year as a PPS teacher and I just finished my 20th year at Pittsburgh Fulton. So when the Facility Condition Assessments Report came out a couple of years ago, it listed on page 147 of that report that the last renovations on Fulton were done in 1929. So I'm sure that left a lot of people thinking that Fulton was a dilapidated building and that the staff and students were working in deplorable conditions. But actually, a lot of money has gone into updates to Fulton in recent years.

In 2014, we've had new windows. In 2015, a new elevator. In 2017, a new roof. In 2019 and 2020, the whole building was painted and we had new lockers installed.

In 2022, we received clear touch screens for all teachers. In 2023, dry erase boards were installed in every room. And in 2024, a new generator was installed. And I can attest that the generator was working great because we were in school with an after school program when that big storm came up.

and all the lights went out in the building and in a matter of minutes the generator did come on so we know it's working great. In addition to this, the building also has an awesome staff, a phenomenal team and family. We were recognized as a star school three times, school year 2011-2012, school year 2017-2018, and school year 22-23. Our staff is not a transient staff, and we stay there until we retire.

The majority of our staff has been there for an average of over 20 years or more.

Sara McKosky, Parent

Thank you. My name is Sarah McCoskey. I'm the mother of a rising third grade at Pittsburgh Dilworth. I feel like I can't compete with the amazing family that already spoke, but I have to speak out what I feel is best for the students.

If the proposed plan is accepted, my son will no longer be able to attend the school he loves. Dilworth is a magical school. I applied to the program for my son, not because I didn't want him to go to his neighborhood school. I know that school is wonderful as well.

But because it seemed to be the school that would provide him with the best opportunities. And I was right. Dilworth has given my son everything I could hope for and more. A wonderful academic foundation, a diverse accepting environment, music enrichment, and most of all, a loving second home.

Dilworth has given him so much confidence and allowed him to be his very best self. It's part of his identity. PPS has developed an amazing school in Dilworth, and I believe the district knows this. The students, classrooms, and teachers of Dilworth are the first images you see on the PPS website.

Our school represents what the district strives in each of their schools. In fact, a photo of my son's face taken at Dilworth is in a print ad that promises to prepare students for future successes. And now he won't be able to go and finish his education there. But the proposed plan will affect so many more students than my son, hundreds, thousands.

I absolutely believe in equity in education and carefully thoughtful change. However, this abrupt ending of the program and displacement of hundreds of students from the schools they have known for years will absolutely have negative effects on them. If the program must end, at the very least, allow the students being displaced to complete their elementary school education at the magnet schools they love. I am sure I speak for every parent who anticipated that their child would complete their elementary education at the school they were accepted to.

We all know stability and consistency for young children, especially in education, is one of the biggest keys to success. I know this is not all about my son or his friends or the students at Dilworth, but I must speak out about what I believe is best for them all. In the middle of their primary education, these students will lose everything they have built for the past several years. The building they call home, the teachers and staff they have come to know and trust, the academic and artistic enrichment programs they love, and their very best friends they're excited to see every day.

Many of them may adjust fine to their new schools, and I know they are excellent schools, but some may not. But every student will experience a profound preventable loss at this time. We should be providing them with consistency and stability. Improvements and changes may need to be made.

but please do not let our children bear the full brunt of the consequences. Thank you for listening.

Allie Petonic, Community member

Good evening to board members, staff, and the community members. My name is Allie Patonic. In March, leadership pulled the board's consideration of the Facilities Utilization Plan from the legislative agenda. But let's not be distracted from who the real voices of reason are.

They are the students, parents, teachers, staff, and community members who continue to speak out and raise still unanswered questions month over month. Also in March, our city council leaders released a unanimous will of council that echoed community members' concerns for the disproportionate effects of this plan and what they would do to students who are black and brown, students with IEPs, their families, and all of Pittsburgh. In short, it's repeating the mistakes of the past that our communities mistrust. Friends and neighbors who tell me their memories of Shenley, Fort Pitt, Gladstone, Horace Mann, Oliver, and Fifth Avenue know what I mean.

Here in June after an election season, a revised version 3 still has not met these benchmarks for timelines, feeder patterns, and transportation that the will of council covered. Resolution 811 deserves your no vote. Our voices and actions show the power of the people and Pittsburgh deserves better than a reckless plan. We're not here to represent the status quo, as we've been described.

We want changes that do right by our students and communities all over Pittsburgh. And we want changes that would strengthen enrollment in our school system, not reckless, half-baked plans that engineer more decline. By any name, the plan in Resolution 811, the Facilities Utilization Plan, FU Plan Version 3, the Future Ready Strategic Lever for Systemwide Transformation Plan, it remains a reckless plan. There are more pages and diagrams devoted to the plan for a plan this time, but it isn't a plan for the future that students in strong public schools deserve.

Have the students been updated about these plans? You ran out of school calendar for this year after release of version 3, but students deserve to hear about it and offer feedback now, just as they deserved a proper vetting in the earlier versions. Middle grade and high school students have a lot of insight for all these changes to the grades preceding them. Who else is left out?

Our youngest learners. Their teachers and staff and early childhood education are almost completely left out of the plan, even though their facilities are affected. We're left wondering what early childhood education classrooms will be moved or will remain in existing locations. The plan mentions early childhood only twice.

Once to describe vacancies in the positions that we know are underpaid. Early childhood education is popular. These programs excel, they are solutions for working families, and they familiarize families with the district. The public means all of us, students, community, teachers, and staff.

I stand in support of the staff from AFSCME Local 297 who are still working toward a fair contract from the district. They work in the cafeterias, custodians, and maintenance workers.

Rachel Schlosser, Parent

Hi, everyone. My name is Rachel Schlosser. I have two kids in the district, both of whom have IEPs. I work as a special education advocate.

I'm a former co-chair of the Pittsburgh LTF, and I'm currently the vice chair of the governor-appointed special education advisory panel for the Commonwealth. I'm here tonight to ask you to please table the resolution to set dates for hearings required to close nine school buildings. You should vote to table the resolution until Dr. Walters has brought the board a more complete plan for district restructuring, including, at the very least, a cost estimate for implementing the plan and a timeline for all the things, including communication to families, especially our district's most hard to reach families, an updated magnet policy and procedures, updated talks and agreements with Wilkinsburg School District, talks and staffing plan with the PFT, an updated special education plan, and, importantly, thousands of IEP meetings.

As Director Silk read into the record at last week's agenda review meeting, your own solicitor stated that, quote, due process for special education students is critical. The IDA mandates that families have meaningful opportunities to participate in their child's IP. IDA requires districts to ensure that parents of each child with a disability are members of a group that makes decisions about their child's educational placement. A case-by-case analysis is required in order to determine whether this reconfiguration alters a student's program.

To ensure families and students are involved in the process to the extent required by law, the location of proposed services is revised on each impacted student's IEP, which in addition will warrant a meeting of the entire IEP team. In cases where a change in location rises to the level of a change in placement, a reevaluation may also be warranted, as well as an OREP and procedural safeguards. These meetings and discussions occur in the IEP team before the proposed change is implemented or recommended. The district's legal department recommended that IEP meetings be held for each student being relocated from one building to another, or when a student's program might be substantially altered as a result of the district's reconfiguration.

That means even if the student's building assignment is remaining the same. Re-evaluations and subsequent IEP process can take up to 100 days, which means that every single student who will be relocated to a new building, or whose programming might be substantially altered, should have an IEP meeting prior to March 4th, 2026, in order to ensure enough time in case a student were to need a re-evaluation as part of the process, since evaluation timelines don't apply when school is not in session over the summer. IEP teams will also need to know where our specialized classrooms will be located before holding IEP meetings with families whose children receive part or all of their services in a specialized classroom.

So far we've heard nothing about where our regional classrooms will be placed or how our students with disabilities will be cared for during such a time of uncertainty and upheaval. Voting to open the commentary period is putting the cart before the horse and should be the last step. Only after the public and the board have what they know is

Shannon Striner, Parent

Good evening. I am Shannon Streiner, a proud PPS parent and mom to a kiddo with an IEP at Fulton Elementary. I went into last summer with an open mind. I attended the listening sessions and town halls.

That was my summer. I listened closely to ERS. The consultants, this district, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars. I took them seriously.

And honestly, I think I listened to them more than some of you. Angela Smith said this is not final. We used a butter knife to determine attendance zones. What's needed now is an exacto knife with a demographer to go street by street.

Did you use that exacto knife or did you take this on internally and skip the hardest parts? They also warned clearly that closing schools overnight would be a disaster. They recommended staggered, thoughtful, delicate planning. Yet here you are using a sledgehammer, choosing trauma over transition.

Sienna was accepted to Dilworth next year. I don't want to move her, but Fulton students with IEPs went months without speech or OT this year. Ciena didn't have speech or OT for three months this year. I'm still waiting on compensatory services.

I emailed every one of you. Thank you, Devin, for repeatedly showing up. And thank you, Emma Yord, for your advocacy for students with IEPs in this district. Here's what you need to know.

I've spent years trying to find a place in this district where she belongs. Sienna brings joy to every room she enters. Ask her teachers, her PCA, her classmates. She is loved, she belongs, and I am tired of defending her worth at every turn in this country.

I thought I had an ally in this district, but time and again you've shown me it's about the bottom line. Dr. Walters said services follow populations, but disability doesn't follow population. Disability exists in every building. So every school must have autism support, life skills, regional classrooms, paras, aids.

Not as a nice to have, but as a baseline, as a right, because all this school choice I keep hearing about is a joke for my family. They add more choices for those with privilege and leave Siena with none. And here's the part that still frustrates me the most. This could have gone so differently if the district had come to Fulton last year and said Dilworth is bigger, it's in better condition, we can't keep both schools open, but we see what works at Fulton.

The learning support teams, the inclusive practices, the sense of community, help us bring that to Dilworth, help us preserve what's working so we can build something stronger together. I truly believe we would have shown up with ideas, not opposition. But instead of treating us as partners, you treated us as a problem to solve. And to those who say this process is taking too long, let me be clear, if anyone has wasted time, it's this administration.

Sarah Zangle, Parent

Good evening. My name is Sarah Zangle. We've reached the moment for being blunt, so my apologies for anything that's not PC in this. We need a change in our district, a big one, a shake-up, and you guys are on the right track.

We support that. 8-11 is not only the process to start to close schools, but the nod, the signal, the green light for an administration to begin to implement its plan. I believe the proposed facilities utilization plan is more easily manipulated by white privilege than even our current system. I'm going to go ahead and repeat that again.

I believe the proposed facility utilization plan is more easily manipulated by the white privilege than even our current system. And I also believe that this is the last chance the district has to make a change. This is the last time we get to play around with school closure and footprints and facilities. We need a new way of doing things.

On this round, we have to get it right. Within the last few weeks, six families have shared with me that they are leaving Woolslayer. All six are leaving for charters. Of the six, one family is white and economically advantaged.

We will see attrition with this school district change. Of course, we know we will. It's expected. What I believe will be unprecedented is the number and the demographic of families that choose charters this time around.

As history has shown, we will retain students that are traditionally more expensive to educate. They are the students that need the district to be the highest performing version of itself. Black and Brown, Economically Disadvantaged, English Language Learners, IEPs, Marginalized Populations. These are the students that will remain and these are the students that the district needs to deliver the highest quality of education.

How can we do this if we are financially devastated by paying for education and transportation for charter schools? Who do we turn to when we need money? I think we can all agree that the federal administration is not coming to the rescue. And the state might bail us out, but with strings attached.

We have seen it in other cities, state takeover and re-release years later. If anyone's interested in skipping the state takeover part of this equation, I have laid out, we have a proposal that at very least deserves some honest consideration and scrutiny from our district experts. We are here for anyone who has questions. We are happy to have discussions.

Listen, I hope that I am totally wrong. I sincerely do. I'm on this ride in a way that many of you sitting in front of me are not. We are planning on being a PPS family until 2037.

I have a front row seat on this ride. I'm buckled up. I'm ready to go. I'm in it with you guys.

One of the main goals of the community proposal was to design a system that is as impervious to manipulation and privilege as possible. If anyone here is interested in hearing more about an equitable education framework for PPS, we're here, we're available. So please board consider your next steps. Thank you very much.

Bryan Rooths, Parent, Community member

Hear me now. All right. Good evening, Superintendent Walters and Pittsburgh Public School board members. My name is Brian Roots, and I'm a proud parent of Zion Roots, an up-and-coming fourth grade student at Pittsburgh Dilworth.

I'm also a product of Pittsburgh's public school magnet system, and currently a teacher at Urban Pathways Charter School. Since kindergarten, my son Zion has achieved academic high honor roll every quarter, and is a part of the Gifted and Talented program. He has thrived at Dilworth, and now we are proposing that he gets uprooted. He's in jeopardy of being deported out of the magnet program and forced to attend his neighborhood school, which is Pittsburgh phase on.

I can't believe that after all the years of success of Pittsburgh magnet schools, the district is pushing de facto segregation. Pittsburgh is filled with traditional housing patterns, which sometimes leads to socioeconomic disparities, historical discrimination practices. It's also led to some schools in all black communities to underperform their white counterparts. I chose to enroll my son at Dilworth because I wanted him to become a valuable member of a learning community that is more closely mirrored to an all-inclusive society.

I wanted him to learn to respect and appreciate other cultures and ethnic backgrounds. I wanted him to feel safe and protected and valued by his teachers. But most of all, I enrolled him because I was for the choice to prepare my son to compete and excel in an academic arena that would give him a strong foundation and prepare him for life outside of the classroom. I understand your goal completely.

It will save money by closing schools, eliminating any need for transportation. Your long-term goal is to make all schools, to coin a phrase from the Supreme Court of 1896, separate but equal. However, your plan will negatively impact the existing K-3 students. These students have foster relationships and are active members of their schools, tight-knit communities.

To force massive deportation is just cruel and unjust. You have given our children no voice, so I will speak for them. You have given our children no rights, so I will advocate for them. You have given them no consideration, but I'm asking the board to do that now.

On behalf of all Maddox School parents, on behalf of Keep the Commitment Coalition, my sister, Ashley Roos, that got 500 signatures out the mud, I'm requesting that you strongly reconsider your plan to segregate learning communities in the city of Pittsburgh. I hope that your commitment, you keep your commitment, and that our children stay, do not deport our kids.

TruLe'sia Newberry, 412 Justice

Hello. How y'all doing? No smiles? It's OK.

I'm here to cause trouble. So good evening, PPS. I want to introduce myself. My name is Trulisa Newberry.

I'm an international social worker, political organizer, and a lifetime educator. I've served 15 years with youth populations from the south side of Chicago, where I'm from, Illinois, throughout the state as a DCFS officer, Arkansas, Florida, Wisconsin, and a former Maryland schoolteacher. I have left my global community in South Africa to be here with the folks here today and to build power with 412justice. And I'm only here to ask y'all one question.

Y'all ready? Who do you serve? Like who do you actually serve? Because I want to know if you are or were elected to serve the interests of the families and folks that need you right now.

9 schools. If there's 9 of you and you are your own school in itself, how would you feel closing down hundreds of children's opportunities to learn and giving the parents and communities a plan that is literally an FU? I mean, that's what y'all named it, not me, you know. Or, is your role to destroy the legacy of those committed to education and justice?

I ask that because I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be at a school board meeting talking about closing schools because I'm usually in neighborhoods that are all white, asking communities to bury our black and brown children. But this vote that you all have should be easy. Nine schools, permanently closing them without a plan. Compacting children, families, and educators who live, breathe, and depend on these places.

If you haven't served 20 years in a school district and know what it's like every single May to test these kids and pick up your classrooms and hope you come back to your classroom, you do not know what devastation feels like to lose your home. So your plan is incomplete. And I'm genuinely asking you to think of the children at Manchester, Baxter, Friendship, Fulton, McClevely, Morrow, Schiller, Spring Hill, and Woolsire. And we got a little girl that goes to Woolsire, so y'all tell her you gonna close her school down.

So education is a right. and we have the right to fight back. And it's your duty to help us fight. If you want money, let's get the money.

If you need resources, let's get the resources. But to shut your doors makes me mad. It makes me mad enough to make a difference. Voting no until you do right by your people, it could take a little bit more than a year.

But I promise you that your children, your natural children and children that look up to y'all.

Martha Riecks, Parent

And once again, here we are. You, the board members, are being asked to vote yes to something that will have a lasting impact on our communities and schools for generations to come. At every hearing this year, we've had community members who come up to the podium, we ask questions, we raise concerns. We really want to understand what you're trying to do with the Facility Utilization Plan.

Transcribe in US English and yet we are asking you over and over again to pay attention to where we are going. What is down this road? And can we fill in those giant gaping potholes with some actual data instead of just glossing over it and saying we'll figure these things out? We continue to get update and update, yet each one continues to fall short.

We've still never hired a demographer to provide input into feeder patterns and enrollment trends. We have feeder patterns that have been drawn by folks who work in education and don't have the skills and same experience and expertise that demographers would. We still don't know what to expect in terms of class sizes or staffing, especially when it comes to getting foreign language into every school. There are no clear construction timelines or plans to assure that all the facilities that remain in use are actually brought up to par, have the air conditioning put in, have the elevators added, while minimizing disruption to students and staff.

Those are things that could have been developed by now. and when it comes to other things like transportation, we still don't have clear information. The facility update report makes a very big deal about how much money the district is going to save by not busing students to magnets, and yet it glosses over the fact that it's now going to be busing more students to feeder schools that are more than a mile and a half from their house if they're an elementary student because the one closer to their house has closed.

Lower Lawrenceville, Middle Lawrenceville is not walkable to Sunnyside. You are putting buses into neighborhoods of students that aren't using them now. Same thing as you bus the Colfax students over to Greenfield Elementary. Where's the transportation numbers for that?

I'd love to see it and know how we're going to have that happen. I genuinely mean that. It really should not come as a surprise that a plan built without extensive community input and meaningful data continues to struggle to be accepted. It makes even less sense to move forward with a public hearing process about closing this many buildings when our elected and professional leadership doesn't have their hands or heads around what this means, and we have new school board members joining this table in less than six months.

If you have questions about the plan,

Brandi McNeill, Student, Parent, Community

Hi, everybody. My name is Brandi McNeil. If y'all see me, it's a rare occurrence. I don't come outside that much, and it was hot.

But I love these kids, so I'm here. They'll pull me out my bed. I'd like to just start with, we the people do not consent, first of all, to that which was offered by Dr. Wayne Walters and his colleagues. We the people do not consent to the deportation and segregation of the proposed ideologies.

We have watched over the generations as many schools and communities of impoverished Citizens have been stripped away and promises broken by the same corporations held with the task of persevering and preserving our high-quality education for our families. We have watched our schools confiscated and closed at an alarming rate over the years. Schools like Belmar, Gladstone, Risenstein, Baxter, and the like. Programs like Teaching Latin.

Also used for law, if people wanted to understand legal processes. A lot of people need help with that. And there are information that we're losing and the understanding of it. Business classes that will work hand in hand with job opportunities, clerical classes, African American history classes, among other incredibly beneficial courses used to be taught at Westinghouse when my mother went to school.

They don't have that stuff no more. It's the good old days. There were even more when her older brother attended. But every year, we get told, oh, we're going to close this to make this better.

We're going to close that to make it better. It ain't getting better. It's getting worse. And right now, we're trying to make it even worse.

Our options are being eliminated, erased. I can walk down the street to go to take the kids to the park and there's an empty Belmore building sitting right there. There's a whole bunch of messed up buildings. We had back then people who could work on houses that were masonaries, people who could actually build the community, the neighbors.

Oh, I got a cousin that can help you fix that window. We don't have that no more. It's gone. They took it all away.

I'm Transcribe in US English Transcribe in US English to look around and try to imagine how beautiful and encouraging our neighborhoods were when we were at our peak and our needs were being met and not further exacerbated. Our neighborhoods have been taking an alarming hit with each closing of a school, with each swipe away of money. We are constantly targeted and the constant war with the very people who were placed to provide us with that better education. Our rights are being constantly attacked.

Shirley Ann Hill, Retired PPS Teacher

I have followed the public hearings regarding the unfair treatment of former Montessori teacher Ms. Stephanie Lapine by Principal Kelly Meyer. Throughout my 41-year career with PPS, I too was subjected to talks of principals like her. In December 2023, Ms. Stephanie Lapine was removed from her classroom by Kelly Meyer. After many attempts, and I mean many, by parents slash guardians, Kelly Meyer did not offer an explanation for Ms. Stephanie Lapine's removal.

Miss Stephanie Lupine was cleared in February of 2024 but was conveniently transferred to another school that does not have a Montessori program. What sense does that make? Why was Miss Stephanie Lupine not reinstated at Montessori where she belongs? Get it right for the 2025-2026 school year.

Why is Kelly Meyer not being held accountable for her unfair treatment of Ms. Stephanie Lapine, the only lead black teacher? Let me repeat it. The only lead black teacher. Some Montessori teachers have filed grievances and still nothing has been done.

Toxic principals like Kelly Meyer put fear in teachers who speak up by sabotaging their teacher evaluations. Pretending there are no problems at Montessori definitely creates an unsettling work environment. Teachers should not have to adapt to this leadership style to keep their jobs. Some principals are good for conveniently cutting positions when you speak up.

I question how students are first when talkative principals are not held accountable. Carrick High School has a very small percentage of black teachers. I quote, recent studies have demonstrated that black students who are exposed to black teachers have a greater chance of academic success. This is from Connect Magazine, September 27, 2024.

Even though it's a year old, it still resonates. Black students at Carrick matter. I hope with the incoming new principal, there will be changes at Carrick. A question I have, what is the rationale behind virtual public hearing speakers going after in-person speakers?

I'm a little confused on that. Please return to the original format where it did not make a difference which option you selected to speak at the public hearing. I'm done.

Vanessa Dagavarian, Parent

Hello. I would like to thank Director Silk and Director Yord for meeting with parents. We really appreciate their time and accessibility. But tonight I would like to bring attention to the administrative building we are speaking in this evening.

This building was built in 1938. Pittsburgh in 1938 was a rapidly growing city with 90 schools. We now have 54. Under the FU plan, there will be 42.

That's 46% of the schools open at the time that such a large stately building was appropriate. Now it feels like a bit of a slap in the face to continue to use a stressed school budget to maintain this building when you plan to shutter communities of learning and social connectivity. The cost to maintain a historical building like this does not seem like it should take priority over our schools. The utilities, costly repairs, and security staffing is much higher than most other PPS buildings.

In many school districts across Pennsylvania, the administrative offices are located in the schools. Not only is this cost effective, but having the administrative staff seeing the struggles and successes firsthand of the students, teachers, and supportive staff Daily would only benefit district outcomes. This building could be rented to CMU or Pitt. If it was sold, it is estimated that it would sell for much higher than its assessed value.

It's interesting how my child's historical building, the oldest educational building in Pennsylvania, has been long neglected by the district. This building doesn't seem to be decaying in the same fashion. I would like to highlight that Wayne Walters was a superintendent for a couple of years when Biden's Build Back Better initiative was being implicated nationwide. How can we trust leadership to handle complicated closures when we could have had environmentally and financially responsible upgrades to our failing buildings where our children attend school?

It would have been paid for by the federal government and increased the value of the buildings that PPS owns. Once again, actions speak louder than catchy slogans. Show us that you put students first and close this building before closing 22% of our schools. On a final note, I support Director Gord's suggestion to have a consolidation committee that meets regularly with the administration to make sure that the plans are progressing and to answer any questions the administration may have regarding board direction.

Rebecca Maclean, Parent

Good evening. I'm here tonight to urge you all to vote no on agenda item 8.11, opening up the official process to close schools until the district shares a detailed viable plan with the board and the community. I've been here several times in support of Fulton over the years, and I'm here again tonight even though my children have aged out of Fulton. Tonight I'm here as a PPS parent, community volunteer, and taxpayer concerned that the choices the board and administration are currently making will continue to drive families away from the district.

My family's journey through PPS over almost 20 years illustrates this problem. While two of my children did well at the schools they attended, my middle child has been to five PPS schools, including three elementary schools. Her first move was to stay with her brother. Her second move was to remove her from a bullying situation that went unchecked by an incompetent administrator who was later removed from their position, unfortunately too late to stop a mass exodus of families from that school.

She landed at Fulton for 4th and 5th grades, and her little sister started at Fulton and Pre-K the same year. We were lucky to have Fulton as our neighborhood school, but also lucky we were able to use the magnet process to continue our family's interest in foreign language instruction. After middle school at Obama, my daughter moved to Alderdice and is now a rising senior with a 4.367 GPA, who spent a month in France studying last summer. She's a PPS success story, and I credit her soft landing at Fulton with that success.

The teachers there were invested in making her feel safe and supported, as they are for all of their students, not just kids who look like mine. From what I can tell from the facilities plan, if my daughter was in elementary school now, we would not have been able to make the same choices for her to keep her safe and remain in the district. For our family, Fulton is the reason why we didn't give up on PPS. Unfortunately, PPS is giving families many reasons to consider walking away.

The facilities plan is inaccurate, expensive, and being rolled out with almost no transition time. Beloved schools are being slated to close without plans fully formed enough for parents to understand where their kids are going to end up. I do wonder what you heard from Point Breeze families before you changed the proposed alderdice feeder pattern and why their voices are being heard more than families without the same access to resources. People are being told to trust you, to only see all the details once there's a green light vote.

But no family wants their child to be a guinea pig while you figure it out in real time. And families are already making their choices. I feel equal parts thankful and guilty that my kids are old enough to not experience the turmoil the district has planned for the coming year. PPS needs to have an accurate, detailed, viable plan and effectively communicate with families on the transition plan before voting to close any schools.

Otherwise, charter schools will land in the buildings as the district closes and families fed up with the brick wall of PPS bureaucracy will move in their direction for a sense of stability that PPS currently lacks. Thank you.

Litzy Reconco, 412 Justice

Good evening, everyone. I first want to introduce myself. My name is Lizzy Reconco. I am a youth mentor and also here today with 412 Justice.

But I am also a first generation Latina, 20 years old, born from parents that are supportive, hardworking, but like most, low income. Public schools have been a stepping stone and foundation at my chance of having a good affordable education, getting a good job, and ending financial stability curses. And it's because of these schools that I have become the person I am, a strong, independent, hardworking woman that doesn't take bull from anyone. So best believe I won't take this bull from you.

The teachers, the classes, the students, and the building are an important part of a child's inner development. Do you really want to sit a child back by closing down these schools? I will make this short, but I'll leave with these two questions. Are you prepared for the consequences and effects this will do to children's mental health?

And lastly, we have elected you because we believe you were for the community. But do you think we will continue thinking that if you continue closing down these schools knowing you have kids and community crying and begging you not to do this? And also before I leave, please take that kids first poster if you're not actually for the kids. Thank you.

Becky Mingo, Community member

Hello. Hello, my name is Becky Mingo. I'm a Friendship resident, and I live directly across the street from the Pittsburgh Montessori School. In addition, two of my sons went to the Pittsburgh Pioneer School.

I'm a registered architect in the state of Pennsylvania. I was on the planning commission for the city of Pittsburgh for six years, and I was the executive director of a community development corporation that oversaw new construction and renovation of over $48 million. Hit your button again. to use a round number to estimate the renovations for the schools that are being closed versus the same method that is applied to the schools that are proposed staying open.

If you use the estimate, for example, at the Linden School renovation, and you put those specific areas of improvements with a comparable renovation cost. So I looked at the numbers compared to the things that the board approved for 2025 on your construction list, and I applied them to the Friendship School. In that way, the Friendship School building renovation would only be $5.4 million versus $16.6 million. The cost of renovating the Linden building is $4.2 million according to your estimate.

And you have to add in the cost to move, which would bring the total cost of Linden to $5.6 million. So keeping the Montessori school in friendship would actually save you $200,000. and I didn't look at all of the other schools, but I'm curious about that situation as well. The Montessori school is thriving in this location.

The friendship building floor plan and classroom design aligns with the Montessori pedagogical principles. The wide open hallways create a natural piazza for gathering space. The generous classroom sizes and interconnected doorways support mixed-age learning. Montessori Learning is at home in this beautiful historic buildings.

And as I said before, you don't have to be afraid of historic buildings. There's plenty of funds out there to renovate these beautiful gems. And our neighborhood raised money to help work on the playground. We raised money for Penn Avenue.

We would be happy to help you guys figure out how to raise money for all of these beautiful historic buildings. There really is a lot of money out there. Let us help you.

Gloria Badmos, 412 Justice

Good evening, everyone. Good evening. My name is Gloria Badmus. And we've heard parents speak.

We've heard students speak. They've done their research. But I have some questions to leave you guys today. How many of you have visited the schools you plan to close?

How many times have you visited those schools? Are you a part of the neighborhood and the communities? How many of the parents do you know? Do you know them by name?

Do the parents know you by name? But here we are making decisions for the schools, for the students, for the parents, for the families, for the communities that these students have to go to. Or, I mean, you're taking the opportunity from them from going to that school. And then you're giving them all these unanswered questions, all these uncertainties, like their lives are not already hard enough as it is.

This isn't fair. It isn't right. Where in your conscious are you really thinking about what you're doing? I know that you say that you want to make a plan that works for them, but are you really considering them in the plans?

Are you or are you considering the numbers? Are you considering how good it'll make you look? Are you considering how beautiful it looks on the outside, but not what happens to the lives of the people that you are making decisions around? Have you stopped to think about their needs, like really think about their needs?

Do you plan, do you have a plan on how to transition them to their new schools? Do you have a plan on how to get them to their new schools? Do you have a plan on how to get them comfortable in their new schools? Do you know how hard, we all know how hard it is to be at the first day of school, and now you're making these students, thousands of students, do it all over again, and then maybe having to do it again the next year.

You've heard these students. Please consider them. Are your decisions good for their mental health? Is it good for their emotional well-being, for their social well-being?

You know what happens to these students once they're moved from where they're comfortable. They lose interest in school. and they start getting into other things. Is that the real plan?

Is that the true plan, to get them ready for prisons, to get them ready for correctional facilities? Because if that's it, I mean, just tell us now. Tell us now. Because you're removing students from where they're comfortable.

And you know that after that happens, they won't have much to lean on. Their parents are asking you to make the decisions that you guys are put in office to do. I'm asking you to listen to the children. I'm asking you to listen to their parents.

Emily Sawyer, Parent & Sub Teacher

Closing schools and suspending, expelling, citing, or arresting students are neither radical nor hard. People might be upset by these choices, but they are literally the easiest, least imaginative, least disruptive choices that a school district can make. They are the definition of status quo, since we have been trying all of it for decades and decades and it has never worked yet. When it comes to the student code of conduct, I am tired of hearing people say, we need to have the option to suspend kids for minor bit misbehavior so we can, quote, take misbehavior seriously.

Suspending kids is not taking misbehavior seriously, period. It teaches nothing. It changes nothing. Here's the thing about, quote, chronically misbehaving students.

No one is saying just let them get away with it. We are saying let's solve the problems that cause this behavior rather than just punishing kids and hoping for the best. Spoiler alert, isolation, shame, and disconnection do not create better behavior. Director Walker asked in May 2025 Policy Workshop, what do we do to protect the education of all our students?

We know what the answer is. Adults releasing our punitive mindsets and ideas about who deserves an education. Restorative practices implemented with resources and fidelity. Whole child, student-centered school cultures.

Our own solicitor, who every year meets with advocates and professionals who have been doing work with youth in the legal system for decades, said in the same policy workshop that these folks always have ideas for what we could do differently, but that, quote, they all require a lot of staff. That is a choice about what we spend our time, resources, energy, and people on, because punitive exclusionary discipline takes a lot of people, time, and energy, too. That we keep coming back to the student code of conduct and saying, if we can't suspend, then our discipline has no bite, is a choice.

Yes, we need to take misbehavior seriously. Suspensions aren't doing that. If it was going to work, it would have worked by now. And though I can't believe I'm preaching about a Christian Bible story, just to be clear, Jesus literally left the 99 to go get the 1.

This Bible story makes the absolute opposite point of the one Director Walker was trying to make. I am not saying teachers are Jesus, but I'm also not the one who brought this up, and we shouldn't use religious text to make points about public education, especially when we use them wrong. When it comes to closing schools, it is quite literally what we have always done. Please don't repeat this strategy without first figuring out how we keep ending up here.

Chronic over-resourcing of certain students and communities, gerrymandering and segregation, 33 years of not meeting the MOU no matter how many schools we've closed, y'all. We have to honestly deal with these realities and don't take the easy way out and just close schools again. And lastly, if you are a white person, and especially if you are white and socioeconomically privileged and you are threatening to leave the school system or asking for special carve-outs, ask yourself what legacy you are making yourself a part of. You may think that you are justified this time, but so did those who came before us.

Creating segregation academies, closing down entire school districts rather than integrate, white flight, and creating our own school districts where law and policy blocked black people from living.

Sara DeLucia, Parent

Hi, I'm a parent of three children, all students at Pittsburgh Public Schools. They attend CAPA, they attend Montessori, they attend the Pittsburgh Gifted Center, and two of them had attended Liberty for Elementary. I'm asking you to vote no on resolution 8.11 until the board gives the public a complete plan. There are many topics to address tonight on the issues facing us, but I want to focus on the school closing.

Our children in school are required to complete all of their assignments, all of their work, to receive full grades. The Board of Education needs to do the same thing before they vote on this plan. I'm going to focus on the Friendship School Building because that's the community that I live in. The plan to close this building is based on cost estimates of outdated information, broad assumptions rather than detailed estimates.

So I wonder if other building plans to close are based on similar work. If we move the Montessori program to Linden, this will result in moving the program further from families, decentralizing the program, and still requiring costs to renovate. Many families attend this school due to its central location and proximity to their homes. Moving this will increase transportation costs.

It will have a great impact on the community and the community aspect of public schools. Public schools are essential to communities and are a vital part of our community. The history of the school is that the neighborhood had partnered to build and maintain the grounds and the play park for more than 20 years. Closing the school would place a hardship on the neighborhoods of Friendship, Garfield, Bloomfield, and many others who depend on this space as part of their community.

School closures hurt cities and communities more than just students who attend these schools. I know many here have children that attend Pittsburgh Public Schools and I know many of your children do not attend the schools that we're voting on tonight. So I'd ask you to consider that. My request is that you vote no on this resolution until you have complete information and valid information to make a sound vote.

Michael Cummins, Parent

Good evening, board and administration. Michael Cummins, parent community proposal organizer. Came to talk about something uncomfortable, but necessary privilege. I'll start with the elephant in the room.

I am a white man. I'm part of a mixed family, but our family has benefit from certain privileges. While it's important to acknowledge that, we also need to be clear-eyed about exactly what our public school system can and cannot control when it comes to privilege. PPS cannot change whether a student comes from a household that have advanced education, financial resources to pay for tutoring, or educational experiences, or the time and flexibility to help with homework every night.

They can't truly address disparities in access to healthy food or safe neighborhoods or stable housing. We should always do the best we can to address these disparities, We can't really do much with them. Even if we had a world with unlimited resources and had a tutor for every student, which we obviously don't have, we still couldn't erase these gaps. That's the unfortunate reality we're in.

But here's what PPS can and must do. We can make sure the structure of our public school system doesn't allow the privileged to tilt the playing field even further in their favor. Unfortunately, as it stands right now, that's exactly what happens, and the current proposal does not substantially improve this. It may even make it worse.

So let me give a few examples. First, families with means can still buy or rent their way in access to the most desired schools, whatever that is, whether it's best performing or not, based on where they live and the money they have in their wallet. That's not equity. We can prevent that with a different system.

Second, navigating special focus programs or magnet schools often requires Insider knowledge or time that families simply don't have. We can fix that by offering a unified registration school preference system on that puts every option available in front of every family in the enrollment process and that creates equity of access to everybody to every option that they have. Third our funding model continues to reward filled seats and school popularity instead of true student need. Ideally, we change that model completely, but if we must keep that funding model, we can still distribute resources more equitably by balancing school enrollment and class sizes through a more flexible model where we have retained more control so that no school or classroom is starved while other schools and classrooms thrive. These are structural issues, and they're solvable with a good plan. I don't think this plan is doing it. However, we have put together an entire proposal that Addresses those issues and many others and I think a much more significant way You can read it at PPS community proposal org Reach out to us.

It's not a perfect plan, but it's a strong solid Starting point and it really puts equity first in this whole process while retaining choice and trying to keep people from fleeing the district We're not here just to point out problems. We're here to work with you to listen to adjust to help build a stronger

Billy Hileman, Pgh Federation of Teachers

Good evening. I'm Billy Heilman, president of the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers. The Federation's position remains, as I've stated previously, that the proposed school closures are too many and cut too deep. Also previously, I've made the point that 100% capacity numbers are not realistic in terms of how schools operate and how master schedules work.

75% capacity is packed. Don't overcrowd our schools. In some ways they are overcrowded now. One way is the number of teacher coverages.

The district used the high rate of teachers losing their planning time to cover classes as part of the explanation for needed changes. Some early childhood coaches this year were used as substitute teachers more than one half the year. That saved the district over $100,000, probably close to $200,000 in the cost to substitute teachers, but it robbed early childhood teachers of the coaching that they need for their instructional delivery. Your employees are stressed out.

They are approaching what may be the most difficult year in memory. They are your greatest asset, the teachers, counselors, parents, custodial, food staff. They don't see your vision. They don't see what's on the other side of this plan.

I've talked to them. They can't articulate what the district will be like after these changes that are proposed. The numbers of schools is about the budget. Vision is about the people.

August of 24, ERS asked in one of their lengthy PowerPoints, would these changes all happen at once? They said no. Changes of this magnitude would require careful multi-year planning. In October, they asked, would all these changes happen at once?

They said no. Changes of this magnitude would require multi-year planning. There's three-year phases. I'll go from phase three.

Phase three of the district's plan from May 25, Northview opens as a K-5. Spring Hill closes. That's phase three. Phase 2 in 27-28, the Gifted Center program closes and the Gifted Center services are in the schools.

The schools affected in Phase 1-26-27 are Arsenal, Colfax, Dilworth, Fulton, Greenfield, Liberty, Linden, Mifflin, Allegheny, King, Manchester, Morrow, Schiller, Montessori, Obama, SciTech Student Achievement Center, Sunnyside, Westinghouse, Wolfslayer, Miller, Mullines, Weil, Langley, Arlington, Brookline, Carmalt, Phillips, Southbrook, South Hills. Oh, then we get to phase two. It's a one-year plan. It's very disruptive.

We don't know what's on the other side. Your teachers and all the other..

Mark Rauterkus, Coach, Community Member, Parent of PPS Graduates, Podcaster/Blogger, International Swim Coaches Assocation

Good evening. Board members, administrators, and citizens, my name is Mark Rauterkus. We reside in the Historic South Side and currently working with the International Swim Coaches Association. And I do have a podcast called Heavy or Not.

But my roots run deep here in Pittsburgh Public Schools. My kids came through PPS. I coached swimming for years, including under Dr. Walters' leadership. He was my son's principals for a decade.

Most of the time I was his varsity swim coach. Hey, I'm coming. I saw the flag footballs on the agenda, and that's a win, you know, especially for the girls. You know, flag football is an emerging Olympic sport, and again, it brings up some old questions we still need answered.

You know, years ago I launched co-ed water polo at Schenley, We played games and tournaments and even went out of state. We use PPS pools, and there are many of them and we swam our summer program with 200 participants when swimming and water polo ran the Liberty Mile built tech schools, but which certainly we had a little bit of support at Obama, not so much, but there's a bigger systematic issue called athletic reform. We saw that movement during Mark Roosevelt's time and earlier with Dr. John Thompson, you know, he committed to pulling sports coaches out from under the teacher's contract.

So, hey, will flag football coaches be under the union contract or are we setting that up to fail? You know, I'm, Happy that a lot of mistakes made with the right sizing are getting fixed by ending the six through 12 schools. But in those times, we also suggested a phase out of the schools rather than a hard close and letting the kids finish PPS rather than just rumor the school to its closure and death like we did at South Votek. You know, and also I thought magnets worked and if we could even spread the things that work, that would be great.

Our youngest, played water polo, went to, just recently graduated from Tulane Medical School. And I think if you take away the magnets, and I agree it has to be equitable, but you'll see more families leave the city. And the same for the gifted program. You know, repositioning the gifted program is going to flop.

You know, the gifted program is an asset for the city. And I still don't see anything in clarity with Oliver High School on the facility list. What's going to happen to that? Finally, you know, if the board's willing, I'd be honored to serve or chair again on the Citywide Athletic Reform Task Force.

That's one that Dr. Lane shut down, and that was a mistake. I think sports teach us how to be nimble. We need more of that. And sports teach us how to play well with others.

And we certainly need more of that, too. Good luck with your decisions.

Holly Munson, Parent

Hi, I'm Holly Munson. To our board members, I have shown up, mostly in person but now on Zoom, along with my son Lars to speak at these hearings over the past year plus. In that time, I have learned your names and faces by heart.

I've listened to each of you talk in board sessions. I have seen you sit there and listen, or I hope listen. I've gotten used to the three minute timer at these hearings, and I'm grateful every time for Ms. Gandhi's gracious thank you for your testimony. I've learned from incredible community organizers involved in this work.

I have changed my mind on some things as I've done research and listened to different perspectives. And board members, I have learned from listening to each of you, even and especially when I disagree with you. And I've really tried to understand your perspective and what drives your decisions. But right now, my sense is that no one is happy.

Wherever you stand on the Facilities Utilization Plan, or whatever it's called now, you probably aren't happy with how the past 15 months have gone. Skeptics of the plan aren't happy because their concerns continue to be dismissed. There have certainly been parents who've said, don't change my kid's school because we like it, or don't close the school because my grandparents went there. And it's healthy to be skeptical of that kind of feedback.

But that is very different from, I am begging you to clarify what changes are happening so that I can make life decisions. And most often, hey, this part of the plan is obviously not rooted in reality, which makes me question your ability to implement any change in a way that won't be a disaster in the short term and for the future of the city. So let's please not conflate feedback about self-interest with feedback about the public interest. Meanwhile, supporters of the plan aren't happy because it's taken over a year to get to a vote and they really want this vote.

So no one's happy. Where can we go from here? While student outcomes to focus governance has a mantra, student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change. And whether you like it or not, we've been on a nightmare roller coaster together for the past 15 months, and a yes vote on Wednesday isn't going to get us off that nightmare roller coaster, because a yes vote would be more of the same whiplash and churn and confusion we've had. Student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change. We need to change our approach, and I suggest these steps. 1.

Withdraw resolution 8.11 one more time until 2. Release the find my school tool if it was ready ready to be published right after the vote on Wednesday it should be ready to publish now Three, hold Dr. Walters accountable to put together an actual plan. And four, require Dr. Walters to do what he committed to do with his plan, which is to foster equity. Yes, PPS is inequitable and needs fixed urgently.

But if your moral reason for rushing this vote is current inequities, then it would be immoral to approve moving forward with Resolution 811 because it moves forward with a plan that actually enshrines existing inequities. So please, let's change adult behavior, withdraw or table vote.

James Fogarty, A+ Schools

Hi, good evening. As a PPS parent, executive director of A Plus Schools, I'm deeply committed to ensuring that this community shows up for our kids. We coordinate resources and supports that get every kid in every school every day, whether that be district-wide through Everyday Labs or school by school with school partnerships at Arlington, Perry, and across the city. and we're hopeful about moving forward with this plan and here's why.

This is the opening of a process to begin the conversation if you approve item 8.11. I believe there's an opportunity here to continue to improve the plan and get us to a more beneficial and equitable school system. But I'm also asking that you invest or seek investment in a cross-functional project management, communications, human resources, and construction team that can deliver on whatever timeline is proposed. There are lots of good arguments for both moving fast and for slowing down.

You've heard them all. I think whatever timeline is proposed though you will need additional resources to be able to do that. I'm encouraging you please to invest or seek investment. Our current footprint does have exceptionally underutilized schools with 27 out of the 54 buildings less than half full.

The cost savings potential cost savings will be beneficial to our community. Second the district is intentionally realigning attendance zones and feeder patterns. There are adequate and good questions about whether those realignments will work, but the reality is our current system concentrates 80 has 25 buildings with concentrations of student poverty 80% or higher. We are currently a very segregated district if we want to change.

Our footprint, we need to do something. These buildings also have an average school size of 276 students, highly segregated buildings tend to get less resources based on their small size, exacerbating challenges to getting to equity. 3rd, and most critically is the educational equity at the heart of this effort. Getting dedicated sites will improve how we serve our fastest growing population of students.

Consolidation will enable district-wide access to consistent academic programming, social-emotional supports, and specialized spaces. But I hear you. There's a lot of folks that don't believe that that's going to actually happen. We have to be able to deliver, and that's why I'm encouraging you to get to a cross-functional team that can manage this project.

Teaching academies also create opportunities for our best teachers and leaders to learn from each other and drive improvements and outcomes. We thank you for the time and I hope that you will vote to open up this process and continue to listen to this community and what it's asking you.

Meredith Knight, Parent

Hi, everybody. Good evening. Thank you for the time.

I'm going to be honest. When I was preparing for this hearing, I had several exasperated conversations with other parents because I'm not even really sure what the best thing to ask for is at this point. So instead, I'm going to describe my dilemma as a parent in PPS right now. We were told that this facilities utilization plan was developed because of the budget crisis.

But when we asked what you're expected to save long term through these closures, we were told that instead it's actually about equity. And when we asked for demographic and equity studies to ensure that the plan was working towards those goals, we were told you couldn't afford 1. So here we are, not sure whether this is going to save money or improve equity, but we do know it will be disruptive to our children's education and we do know that it will cause families to leave the district because it already has. We ask what the transition plan will look like and for finer details on feeder patterns and what busing might look like.

And we're told that the school board has to vote first to open the public process before we can have those details. But when we ask if we'll be able to change the plan based on hearings and these details, we're told, no, once the process starts, the plan is the plan. You vote yes or no on it. So here we are, not sure what these critical details are, if this plan will even make sense, and yet unable to change the plan once we have them.

But we do know that a plan without these details is really no plan at all. We as parents, on one hand, don't want our precious school communities to close for a half-baked plan, but we are also in a situation where we're unable to plan for our children's future more than 12 months in advance. So here we are, not knowing whether it's better to ask you to yes vote or to no vote. But we know that neither of them are really good options for our families, and we know that our students and communities deserve better.

I am frustrated because I want to believe that you have the best interests of our students in mind, but it is hard to come to that conclusion when at every turn we're hit with obfuscation, inaccurate data, disingenuous dialogue and blaming procedure for your inability to provide critical information so that anyone outside of the administration can know what this actually looks like. It truly seems like you are viewing concerned parents as the enemy. And if you are viewing concerned parents as an enemy, where does that leave our kids?

I hope you'll take this to heart, but here we are with no evidence that you will.

Mario Booker, Magnet student

We're here. We're here. We should be able to keep our school magnet programs for everybody. I like my friends and teachers because I am able to learn in a good environment.

I've been in this school for three years, and I like my routines and learning meetings. And my most recent attempt, I have built a strong foundation that is making me smarter, stronger, and better. I want what I was promised. I thank you for listening.

Margo Hinton, Community Member

Hi there, you guys. I'm glad I didn't miss this opportunity. My name is Margo Henson. I'm a 33-year veteran teacher from the North Allegheny School District.

I attended the Pittsburgh Public Schools back in the mid-80s. and I'm also, I refereed, I think there was a man talking earlier about flag football. I refereed the girls flag football championship this season, and I'm also a 23 year basketball official. So yeah, a lot to do with education, sports, all of those things.

I just want to take my time to just read a poem and hopefully I can get through it before my time is up. The poem (sorry if the spacing is wrong) is called,

I Hear You.
And I wrote it.

I hear you as a parent working hard and working late,
and your day begins again as you prepare the dinner plates.

Johnny has a practice and Jill has a game.
Dealing with teenagers, your day is never the same.
Pay the bills on time, be a role model too.
Balancing discipline and love are often hard to do.

And don't forget your spouse needs your attention too.
But the end of the day, you wonder who is there for you.
I hear you as a student growing and changing every day, but it seems like your parents think you're just out to get your way.
Mom's expectations and dad's firm hand Homework's piling up, your teacher's list of demands.

Social media intrigues you, but do they really see you?
The bully walks by and no one knows he teases you.
I hear you as a teacher giving your heart to every child,
preparing perfect lesson plans to address each learning style.

With a stack of papers to grade and a list to do at home,
you do so much for other children, sometimes neglecting your own.

Countless hours spent creating tests to meet their needs.
Your wish for them to soar like a bird and one day to fly free.

But where is your advocate?
Now evaluated by those test scores as the stress piles up.

Silently you scream, no more.
I hear you as the principal and sense that something's wrong.
Sometimes we come to you with problems all day long.
Here comes the parent.

My child's not been treated right.
Here comes the student.
The bully made me fight.
Here comes the teacher. I tried to be a light.
Each focused on himself, a victim in his sight.
I hear you. I hear all of you.

But what you may fail to see, it's not just about you.
It's really about we.
Failing to listen to each other is a critical mistake,
for it will take understanding for each one of us to be great.

I can't be great at what I do if my service fails to serve you.
And you can't be great at what you do if your service fails to serve me too.
And I'm saying this because, It feels like nobody's listening.
And until we get to that, I think you should decide to not pass this resolution.

If we're not hearing each other and you don't have consensus and buy-in, that's a failing proposition to begin with.
So I beg the board, and one day I hope to be on that board, but I beg the board to reconsider.
And the last thing I would say, it's not enough to do a survey. to gauge people's um you know belief in something because everybody doesn't feel that out just like when you got voted for.

When you knock door-to-door, I challenge every board member to knock door to door
and talk to every parent and child and community member in their district to find out what's really going on and really get their opinions not wait for them to come to you but you go to them.

Eric Mitzel, Parent

Yeah, good evening. I'm Eric. I have two daughters in the PPS system. One will be a sixth grader.

The other will be a first grader. So appreciate the time this evening. You know, recognizing that The plan put forth, you know, stems from perhaps the need to fill a budget shortfall. It's the catalyst for making changes to find a way to raise, you know, the dollars potentially to, you know, keep certain staff in place, to keep certain buildings in place, but also proposed was a measure to obviously bring equity amongst the student body with the buildings that remain.

Those are difficult things to achieve. I don't have an answer to how to do that, so I understand. It is a challenging proposition, but I'm in favor of finishing out the grade school for current enrollment, recognizing potentially then that that means you've got to phase in a new grade school for those entering the district, which you can't carve that out evenly. That's going to be difficult to manage.

But I think we heard from testimony amongst the others that there are siblings within schools there. or young children who had an expectation that they would finish out through at least fifth grade. To the extent that that's possible, I think that should be prioritized. I think also of important note is that the magnet system enables enrichment, and that should be continued, whether it's at an individual school level or through focused schools.

I think that's critical to early childhood education, but also advancement of a student throughout the rest of their life, whether or not they're going to learn French or Spanish or some sort of STEM program, additional education is always a good thing, not a bad thing. Some other things to note, I think I would like to just kind of highlight as well some of the better performing schools, not because there are under-performing schools, There needs to be a level plan and that's the part within what's what's being proposed but let's look at some of the schools that have done well and figure out what things there that we could that we could replicate. So, my children at the Fulton Fulton, you know, was once a former neighborhood school that has developed and fostered community, often from without the borders of Highland Park. I myself do not live in Highland Park. And I think Ms. Brown was on earlier, noted that within three years of the last 10 school years, it's achieved star status.

Its PSSA scores tend to be amongst the highest in the district. Why is that? It's because the faculty cares, the parents care, and the students care. Each makes it a priority to deliver that education.

And for what it's worth, I think we should foster that enthusiasm. I think we should reward that commitment to education and we should figure out if a school is going to be relocated, closed or otherwise repurposed, what happens to the faculty? Because if you've got teachers that care, the students will care and the parents will be involved. And I think, again, Fulton is an example of one that works and we should try to replicate that as best we can.

Elizabeth Cummins, Parent

Good evening. My name is Elizabeth Cummins and I'm a parent of a PPS parent of a rising kindergartner and also a rising second grader. This restructuring is supposed to be about equity, especially for our most marginalized students. But what's most concerning about the current proposal is how little detail there is about how these changes will actually deliver on that promise.

We're being told that closing schools will free up resources, but there's no clear explanation of exactly how those resources will be used to create more equitable outcomes. That should have been the starting point. Defining what equity looks like in real terms, and then building a facilities plan to support that vision. Instead, it feels like we've chosen a footprint first, and are now trying to make equity fit into it.

We have an opportunity right now to do something truly thoughtful, to design a structure and physical presence across the city that actively supports equity, not just in our educational models, but in how students access and experience school. The coordinators of the PPS community proposal, along with countless other community members, have spent thousands of hours developing community-driven ideas just to do that. The proposal offers a framework built specifically to protect against the ways privilege can distort and manipulate access. From my perspective, it offers a much stronger foundation on which to build an equitable delivery model for education in Pittsburgh.

We've been down this road before. PPS has closed schools numerous times only to see long-term damage, especially in our most vulnerable communities. Without firm detailed commitments on how this plan will be different, how it will create equity and reality, not just in theory, it's hard to not to fear we're headed for another repeat of those same mistakes. We cannot afford that.

Our district can't survive another wave of closures that results in further enrollment loss and even fewer resources for the students who remain. We have to get it right this time and that starts by making … but just please consider, you know, not moving forward so quickly. Thank you.

Trey Cummins, Student

Hi, my name is Trey Cummins. I'm in second grade at Woolslayer. I'm really sad because my school is closing. Unless you're building an outdoor space, it sounds great.

But losing my STEAM program is really hard. STEAM makes exciting learning. I love building things and learning how stuff works, especially robots. It makes me want to come to school every day.

I heard you talk to older kids about what they think. But why not us? Why not the kids at the school that I go to? Even though I'm only in second grade, I have ideas and opinions too.

Why didn't anyone ask us before taking away STEAM?

Ms. Gandy, PPS Moderator

This will conclude our testimony this evening. But before we conclude, we want to ensure that everyone had a chance to speak. So I will go through the names of all speakers who didn't get a chance to speak just to make sure they didn't show up any later.

Mr. Walker, PPS Board President

Thank you very much, Ms. Gandy. And again, thank you to all of our family, community members who come out month after month to ask questions, to question our thinking, to challenge our assumptions. It is really a valuable tool and piece of the work that we do, and so we can't thank you enough. Anticipated maybe a more speakers and so we did schedule a second night for tomorrow But because of the number of speakers that is not necessary anymore So all of you who thought you might have to stay on Tuesday night Your night is now free because that meeting is now canceled and with that we will adjourn. We will see you all Wednesday evening Please be safe if you're driving and I hope you have power when you get home because there are lots of neighborhoods without power tonight.