Pittsburgh Public School potential closures motivate parents

Every time the Pittsburgh Public Schools talks about closing schools, Pittsburgh Woolslair K-5 in Bloomfield is on the chopping block. And every time, Woolslair parents rise up and fight back against closing the historic school. And they are ready for another fight.

On March 18, PPS announced that the administration has a so called “draft facilities plan,” but would not release details pending a meeting on April 3. 

But parents of Woolslair students have already begun organizing and speaking out to save their school, including appearing at a Feb. 26 school board meeting. 

In November, the school district issued a framework on how it would develop a strategic plan that included a section to “transform the district’s facility footprint,” which meant closing schools. The new language, issued after the latest meeting with parents, teachers and students, said the plan should “optimize resources for equitable student experiences.”

School board President Gene Walker said they both mean pretty much the same thing: The number of facilities needs to be cut down equitably.

Woolslair, which celebrates its 125th anniversary this year, doesn’t have air-conditioning, playing fields or a playground. The only open outdoor area is paved for a parking lot, which is where the children gather during recess. 

Yet its community of students, parents and teachers are fiercely loyal to the building that sits at the corner of 40th Street and Liberty Avenue and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Students and their parents braved a four-hour public hearing before the PPS Board of Directors to speak out to save their school, which was listed in A+ Schools “2023 Report to the Community on Public School Progress in Pittsburgh,” as having 179 students.

The plan to create a way to “optimize resources” falls in line with the study by A+ Schools that found that the schools in the district can accommodate twice as many students as are currently attending PPS. That’s because students have left the city, attend charter, private or parochial schools, or are home-schooled.

At Woolslair, for instance, Walker noted the building is not designed to be a modern school, but the parents and students love the STEAM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math] curriculum and their relationships with the staff.

“We need to find a way, as best we can, to maintain that teacher-to-student relationship,” he said, adding it is not the building they love, it is the relationships they have inside that building.

There also is a financial incentive to close schools. If the district is maintaining more buildings than it needs, it has to pay for them, and the overall per-pupil cost determines the tuition paid per pupil to charter schools.

The threat of school closings was enough to bring out supporters of neighborhood schools to try to save them before they even get on a list.

“Hi my name is Nina Louise and I do not want my school to close,” said the first speaker of the night, a Woolslair first grader who was appearing with her mother, Vanessa Dagavarian. “I love that I learn more at this school. I love my friends and teachers; I love all the field trips. Please do not close my special school.”

Families from Highland Park’s Fulton K-5, which was last listed for closing in 2021 with Woolslair, were also ready to defend their school.

James Fogarty, executive director of A+ Schools who provided a public comment, stressed that there is not a plan listing which schools might close. “No schools can close until next year, so I’m hopeful that the conversation that we’re going to have over the next year allows for full feedback based on the plans that are put forward by the administration.”

The immediate opposition to school closings is being coordinated by the advocacy group 412 Justice and its subsidiary Education Right Network, which published talking points on its website for speakers opposed to school closings.

Angel Gober, 412 Justice’s executive director, who spoke immediately after Fogarty during the public hearing, said there has been a lack of information to the community about the plans so far.

“On Thursday, Feb. 8, we submitted a community right to know letter asking for full transparency on your process of calculating facility utilization data on our school buildings. At that time we had over 230 parents, students and PPS staff members — now we have over 330 signers —demanding public information, more than the amount of people who participated in the so-called PPS strategic plan community feedback session.”

While the school district has determined that its facilities could educate twice as many children as it is, Gober questioned the district’s math.

Walker noted that former Superintendent Mark Roosevelt’s 2005 “Right Sizing” plan was instituted when the district had 25,000 students but had facilities designed for 50,000.

Now, even with the previous school closings, the district can accommodate 38,000 students, but it is educating only 19,000.

Parents and activists who testified noted that schools that were closed were turned into charter schools. Regent Square Elementary School, which closed in 2005, is now the Environmental Charter School, which also opened a middle school in the former Rogers Middle School for the Creative and Performing Arts in Garfield. The old Lemington Elementary School in Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar is also now a charter school: Catalyst Academy.