COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Monday, December 9, 2024 11:40 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT KENYATTA JOHNSON COUNCILWOMAN NINA AHMAD COUNCILWOMAN CINDY BASS COUNCILWOMAN JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILWOMAN KATHERINE GILMORE RICHARDSON COUNCILMAN JIM HARRITY COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR. COUNCILWOMAN RUE LANDAU COUNCILWOMAN QUETCY M. LOZADA COUNCILMAN ANTHONY PHILLIPS COUNCILMAN NICOLAS O'ROURKE COUNCILMAN MARK SQUILLA COUNCILMAN ISAIAH THOMAS COUNCILMAN JEFFREY YOUNG, JR. RESOLUTIONS: 181014, 240888, 240889, 240986 - - -
This is the public hearing and public meeting of the Committee of the Whole regarding Resolution Nos. 240888, 240889, 240986 and 181014. Mr. Christmas, will you please call the roll.
Present. Thank you very much, Mr. Christmas. A quorum of the Committee is present and this hearing is now called to order. Mr. Christmas, will you please read the title of the first resolution.
Resolution 10 No. 240888, appointing Rick Carrion to the Board of Directors of the City Avenue Special Services District. Resolution No. 240889, reappointing Howard Wurzak to the Board of Directors of the City Avenue Special Services District. Resolution 240986, appointing Gary Brandeis to the Board of Directors of the City Avenue Special Services District of Philadelphia and Lower Merion. And Resolution No. 24 181014, calling for the Council Committee of the Whole to convene public meetings and public hearings pursuant to the Educational Supplement of the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter to review the administration, management, operation, and finances of the School District and adopt plans to coordinate the activities of the Board of Education, the Mayor and the City Council for the improvement and benefit of public education in Philadelphia.
Thank you very much. This morning we will first consider three resolutions to appoint and reappoint directors to the City Avenue Special Services District. After considering the City Avenue appointment resolutions, we will hear testimony on Resolution No. 181014 to review the administration, management, operations and finances of the School District of Philadelphia. Before we call our first witness, I would like to recognize Councilmember Jones for any remarks he would like to make concerning the City Avenue Special Services District resolutions.
Thank you so much, Mr. President. As my colleagues know from around the city, Special Services Districts augment the regular services that are done on behalf of commercial corridors. In the case of City Avenue, they're one of the most exemplary Special Services District I can imagine. And I speak from authority of having been the President and CEO of the Philadelphia Commercial Development Corporation, which was responsible for over 100 commercial corridors in the city of Philadelphia. I also state that as we start to look at the long-term viability of these commercial corridors, these services districts also serve in a planning capacity. A report was done on City Avenue that said that density and traffic calming were two of the priorities. And as you look on both sides of City Avenue, working with our partners in the county, you're starting to see more and more development. We had to say goodbye to Lord & Taylor, but we are getting more residents in the area to work from the Schuylkill Expressway all the way down to St. Joe's University, so they coordinate and collaborate with the existing businesses, community organizations and universities, so we are thankful for what they do keeping us safer, cleaner and greener. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you very much. Will Mr. Christmas please call Brian Fenstermaker, President and CEO of the City Avenue Special Services District. (Witness approached Witness table.)
Good morning, Council President Johnson and Councilmembers and Councilmember. Thank you for the kind words, Councilmember Jones. My name is Brian Fenstermaker. I'm President and CEO of the City Avenue Special Services District here to testify on Resolution 21 240888 with Mr. Rick Carrion, Resolution 240889 with Mr. Howard Wurzak and Resolution 240986 with Mr. Gary Brandeis. I did submit written testimony, but I'm happy to provide a little bit of an overview of what we do. And again thank you, Councilmember Jones, for kind of highlighting the work that we do with Philadelphia and Lower Merion as a convening organization. We're about 2.7 miles long, running from 76 to 63rd Street encompassing about 400 different parcels on both Philadelphia and Lower Merion. We've done about million in 15 public improvements with capital 16 improvements and landscaping work as well as retail strategies, so we're really involved in making sure it is a clean, green and hospitality-focused district and we continue to work and strive to make that happen. As you know, we can't do that without our Board members, and we're putting forth three Board members today, Mr. Wurzak who has been a long-time standing Board member and was really a reappointment, and Mr. Rick Carrion who is a new -- the Vice-president of all of TD Bank's Philadelphia market, so we're happy to have him come on board as well as Mr. Gary Brandeis who is now back in City Avenue District representing the Marriott on City Ave, but most notably some of his scholar hotels throughout the state. So we're really happy with the new Board members coming on allowing us to do our work. Happy to answer any questions at this time, so thank you.
Thank you very much for your testimony. Any questions or comments from members of the Committee? The Chair recognizes Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson.
Thank you, Council President. And thank you, Councilmember Jones, to our District Councilperson and my colleague. And also to you, Brian. I just wanted to put on the record the work that you all have been doing on the City Avenue corridor and just say thank you for responding to the community's calls and working with Councilmember Jones and also working with me regarding some of the overarching concerns that continue for the Philadelphia County side of the City Avenue Special District. I just wanted to put two things on the record as we continue to work through some of the overarching challenges in that community relative to traffic safety and just putting that on the record because we know we had an incident with a University student on City Avenue I think between 54th and Cardinal Avenue, which is directly south of the current construction site but also sort of north of where most of the economic development activity is happening currently. And in addition to that, I wanted to, just if you could for me because I don't have the list in front of me, if you could go over the entire list of all the members of the City Avenue Special Services District now.
Sure. I will try to do my best off the top. At least on the Philadelphia side, we'll go from there, would be President McConnell of St. Joseph University. It would be Bernie Prazenica, a General Manager of 6abc. It would be -- well, Mr. Wurzak who's a reappointment. And then on the -- so we have nine and nine on each side, so these will be --
-- the three, yeah. So these are an additional three, Jeff Goldstone who's also on the Philadelphia side as well. On the Lower Merion side we have Richard Gottlieb of Keystone Development. We have Duke Kennedy, it is a real estate firm, Corporate Realty Solutions. We have Mark Brennan of Federal Realty. We have --
And for the record, that's the organization currently doing the housing development in the shopping center?
And then we have Nathan Muchnick, who owns properties on both sides of Philadelphia and Lower Merion --
Yep. That would be at the corner of Bryn Mawr on both sides of the street there.
Joe Kender, Vice-president of Government Affairs for St. Joseph University on the Lower Merion side.
We have Jonathan Spergel with Manko, Gold which is an environmental law firm.
We've recently had with the sale of the Tishman property, which is 123 Bala, we had Janet Giuliani who just recently stepped down and we're making a reappointment there as well. That's on the Lower Merion side.
Yeah, mm-hmm. And we're looking to also include Mack Property which owns the Presidential City moving forward, so we will be looking to bring those in front of you at some point when that space becomes available as well. I think we're still off a couple --
That would just be one more for the Lower Merion side.
And so, for the three resolutions that we are considering today, that would be three on the Philadelphia County side in addition to the President of St. Joe's, Bernie Prazenica from 6abc, Mr. Wurzak who's a reappointment, that would be three plus three is six. Jeff is seven, so --
Okay. And then it's just -- and one more.
Yeah, Ber -- you said who is the reappointment?
Oh, okay. Okay. All right. I have it here. So then that would be nine. With the three it would be nine?
Okay. And so, the only thing that I would respectfully request as we move forward -- and I am in support of these three resolutions for the record. And I am in full support of Councilmember Jones who's my District representative. But the only thing that I would request moving forward is that we see more diversity on the Board and on the Philadelphia side of the Board. There are not many women represented on this Board at all outside of St. Joe's President. I think she may be the only one.
And then in addition to that, I don't know -- is there any person of color or African American who's on this Board?
So Mr. Carrion is Hispanic. We did have two women who stepped down on the Philadelphia side, which is why the two new appointments came in so we're working with that as well. We are trying to make a youth movement as well as diversity movement, so we're aware of those situations. And we'll look forward to kind of moving forward and looking for suggestions on that end as well. This is something of my concern when I came on as well. I will say that we do have some limited -- because the parcels are limited on the Philadelphia side and that does limit kind of our choice selection on that side of the street.
No, I understand. And I want to say for the record you have been very great working with the community and working with us responsive to phone calls. But I do think it's exceedingly important. It's 2024.
We got to have diversity on these boards. We have to have a diversity of thought at the table when we are making decisions for communities that are much more diverse than the composition of the board currently. And so, I'll say for the record that I am in support of the three resolutions that are before us today, but I'm doing so with the thought in mind that in the future that we add additional diversity to this Board. And I know that's something that Councilmember Jones has already been working on and I'm fully in support of that, but I have to state that for the record. These appointments come across this body. It's 18 people on both Philadelphia County and Montgomery County, and we recognize the challenges relative to the ownership perspective. I get that, because my uncle used to own one of the gas stations on Conshohocken Avenue who lives in Bryn Mawr. And so, I understand the sort of real estate challenges that present themselves currently on City Avenue. But I just want us to be mindful in the future of ensuring that we are keeping women at the table and people of color at the table and Black people at the table, particularly because that community on the Philadelphia County side is predominantly Black. Okay.
Thank you very, very much. Thank you, Councilmember Jones. And thank you, Council President.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity.
Oh, I'm sorry, Council President. I don't have any questions for this --
Chair recognizes Councilmember Curtis Jones, Jr.
Thank you again, Mr. President. And thank you, Member Gilmore Richardson, for that observation. But I would also put on the record one of the challenges in that commercial corridor is that to my knowledge there's only one person of color and a female that owns property along that commercial corridor so it's a little more difficult. And one of the focuses we need to place is on economic development and making sure that there is that diversity among building owners and apartment owners and those kinds of things. My question to you on the Lower Merion side how many units are under construction as we speak?
We have -- well, in the Business Journal as of last Friday was another project coming online at 111 Presidential that will be 425 units. It's a $21 million acquisition through Hanover Group, so that'll be a larger project coming right at the corner just off of Presidential Boulevard at 111. 1, and Bala are under development. I think we'll see a hotel come on there first. And then from there we'll see some additional residential and kind of commercial retail. And then the 200 units which is at the Lord & Taylor space will be moving forward. We see that opening in 2026. And these are all mixed-use. We're actually bringing down the big blocks. And so, any parking lot you see anything at least on the Lower Merion side we'll be getting a new streetscape as well as a smaller block, so it will be walkable, pedestrian-friendly focused. And so, we're bringing in kind of retail that'll attract that kind of demand as well.
Do you have a number of new units that you know of? I know the developments, but new --
I can share that with you when I get back because all the projects -- we did have Keystone who was looking at doing a larger scale development. They've scaled that back given economic conditions. And so, that project was going to have about another 200 units. I think it's just going to be a strictly retail play at this point. But I can get back to you with some firmer numbers. And we have some other additional smaller units of 86 here and another 30 in another spot on Bala Ave. I can kind of give you those numbers as what we have in front of Lower Merion Township at this point, but I can give you those and see what it is. But there is development, yes.
So to my At-large members, great space on the Philly side to live, work and play and we welcome you in the 4th District. Thank you, Mr. President.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes -- I had a quick question though before I recognize the next member. Are there any community members a part of the City Avenue Special Services District? Is there representation from the community?
On the community side? It's just property or business owners at this point. That's what the bylaws state.
That may be something to consider. Now, although I'm from South Philadelphia, but my family also comes from the 5300 Block of Lebanon Avenue, so I used to go catch crayfish over there at Lankenau Hospital in the back, right, so I know the area. And I think as time went along, the lack of Black businesses along City Line Avenue is the result of the development that has taken place over a period of time. And so, it's going to be a challenge as time going forward, right, that balance out that Board with business owners as Councilman Jones who comes from PCDC, Philadelphia Commercial Development Corporation, who has a background in supporting small businesses, but that may take some time. And in the meanwhile, my recommendation as a thought would be it shouldn't just be limited to just business owners. In South Philadelphia we have the Special Services District and the Stadium. We have all four sports teams. However, we have representation from the various neighborhoods in South Philadelphia that are impacted by everything that takes place in the Stadium Special Services District, so it may be something to consider just in terms of equal representation at the table. And we can't impress upon you how important it is because as we look at and we read Project 2025, right, there is a movement in America to reverse through policy Black, Brown and women from being at the seat of the table of power and progress in America. And so, I echo the sentiments of my Majority Leader Councilwoman Katherine Gilmore Richardson as well as my colleagues. I know that we're all feeling the same thing. And so, that could be something to take a look at to kind of expand your footprint in that area in terms of representation on both sides equally.
Yes, I think it is important to myself as a whole. For one, I had background working in this area. I worked at the Enterprise Center for seven years before coming over. And the other piece is we do work with the Black Business Showcase and do a lot of work trying to bring up minority-owned businesses within the district, so we're working on that heavily and recruiting and trying to get things situated that way. So it is something at the forefront of what we do. And our staff is mostly minority.
Okay. Thank you very much. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Anthony Phillips. But, Mr. Harrity, your button is on so am I calling on you? CMH: (Gestured).
Okay. Thank you, sir. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Anthony Phillips -- and your button is still on, sir. But I'm going to call Councilmember Anthony Phillips.
Good morning, Council President. I just had a really quick question because I guess it's been burning in my mind since you're here. With City Avenue being a major thoroughfare and something I drive often, what specific initiatives are being taken to alleviate traffic congestion, improve pedestrian safety along the corridor and will this Board be able to help with working on that? That's pretty much the only question I had because I know it's a major, major thoroughfare and there's a lot of traffic and there are pedestrian issues when it comes to safety.
So one of the pieces -- at the anchor end I guess at Lancaster we have Lankenau Medical Center, which is a heavy driver which isn't in our district. And so, it does pull a lot of traffic of different hours and times a day. And then there's the development of the St. Charles Seminary at some point in the future as well. So we understand that there is a traffic issue. We've been doing a number of improvements, capital improvements along that regarding streetlight and infrastructure to kind of help that. We just completed a $3.4 million reconnection of Monument Boulevard on the other side of Target. That was a project that we did. We do understand that and we're hoping that with some of these new developments coming online that people will park their cars and walk. We are well in tracking kind of these things. I will say within the first quarter of '25 the Bala Cynwyd Bridge will be down to one lane each way and that is a PennDOT project. And so, we won't be able to do anything with traffic for about two years after that because it'll be down to one lane, so we'll definitely bottleneck between Conshohocken State Road and Bala Ave. So my apologies in the future, but it's one of those things when the bridge is falling down we need to have that taken care of. And so, it is something on top of mind for us as well.
Just thank you. One lane, you said one lane across that bridge?
It'll be down to one lane each way for about two years.
Oh, all right. Well, we've got to gear ourselves up for that, Philadelphia. Thanks a lot, Council President.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you, Council President. Good afternoon, Brian. I just wanted to chime in on this issue of allowing community representation on the Board in a way that would help expand the diversity and probably the quality of the work. If that representation were there, to say that the University City Special Services District as you know includes all of the major civic associations or representation from all of the major civic associations in the area as well as the institutions and the major business entities so there's a precedent for that as you're thinking about moving forward.
Thank you very much. Any other questions and comments from members of the Committee? (No response.)
Hearing none, are there any other witnesses to testify on Resolution Nos. 240888, 240889 and 240986? (No response.)
Hearing none, we will now go into our public meeting to consider the action to be taken on those resolutions. Mr. Christmas, would you please call the roll.
Oh, pardon me, Councilman Jones. Councilman Jones and Councilman Young. Thank you. Pardon the oversight.
Thank you, Mr. Christmas. A quorum of the Committee is present. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jones, sponsor of the bills, for a resol -- sponsor of the resolutions for a motion on Resolution No. 240888, 240889 and 240986.
Thank you, Mr. President. I move that Resolution 17 Nos. 240888, 240889 and 240986 be moved from this Committee with a favorable recommendation. (Duly seconded.)
The Chair notes for the second -- the Chair notes for the record that Councilmember Gauthier seconds the motion. It has been moved and properly seconded that Resolution Nos. 240888, 240889 and 240986 be reported from this Committee with a favorable recommendation. All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and Resolution Nos. 240888, 240889 and 240986 will be reported from this Committee with a favorable recommendation. We will now resume the -- you can be dismissed, sir. Thank you. We will now resume the public hearing on Resolution No. 181014. Mr. Christmas, will you please call the name of our first witness to testify on the resolution.
The Honorable Cherelle L. Parker, Mayor of the City of Philadelphia. (Applause.)
First and foremost, it's always an honor and privilege to have you back inside our chambers. And so, I want to officially say welcome home.
And just state your name and title for the record and please begin your testimony.
Thank you, Council President Johnson. My name is Cherelle Parker and I am the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia.
Thank you so very much, Council President Johnson, Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson, Majority Whip and Education Chair Thomas and all members of City Council. Thank you all for inviting me to speak with you today. I am pleased to be here with our education leaders, School Superintendent Dr. Tony Watlington and members of the Board of Education who you will be hearing from shortly. I want to thank School Board President Reginald Streater for all of his work for the children of Philadelphia and for the service and partnership that is essential to help move the School District forward. We were grateful for your leadership. I also want to congratulate the Board's new Vice- president Sarah Ashley Andrews. (Applause.)
Yeah, and welcome you to your new role. We look forward to working with you very much. I also want to thank Wanda Novales, the outgoing Board Vice-president, for her service and -- (Applause.)
Yes, and for her help transitioning to a new Board of Education with five incredibly talented new members as well as for the hardworking veteran members. Thank you for your continued collaboration as we work to build a world-class education system for all of our children in Philadelphia schools, traditional as well as charters. On today, Mr. 2 billion, a longstanding problem so vast and so egregious that the Commonwealth Court determined that our system of funding education in Pennsylvania was unconstitutional. To not move full steam ahead in Philadelphia would fail to recognize the scale and the urgency of the needs of our children. We're working every day with intensity and focus. In March, Mr. President, in my first One Philly budget I asked this body for its support for a millage rate shift that would gradually shift millage from 55 percent to 56 percent adding $29 million in new City funding to public education over five years, and you delivered for our students. City Council stepped up to the plate, as it always does. Now, whenever our schools and our children have needed help, City Council has always been there. This body has consistently taken the tough vote, I just want to say that for the record, the tough votes needed to increase funding for our schools and our city, Mr. President. I thank this body for that leadership. In addition to the millage rate increase, the Parker administration also captured growth and property revaluations that will bring an additional $119 million in new City funding to the School District over five years. Now, someone somewhere is doing the math and they would be accurate, that is nearly 250 million in additional local funding for our schools over the next five years. And, Mr. President, that's something we all should be very, very, very proud of, but that's not it. We're doing more. In my action plan, I laid out an agenda to provide opportunity to young Philadelphians through our education system. I am committed to supporting efforts by our School District for both traditional and charter schools to recruit and retain a diverse educator workforce. And I want to state for the record that I am inspired, Mr. President, by leaders like Sharif El-Mekki from the Center for Black Educator Development who is working creatively to address the teacher shortage crisis. And I know Dr. Watlington, unbeknownst to me, both of us had an opportunity to present recently at his Global Gathering Educators not just from the United States but from across the globe. It was unlike anything that I had ever seen before. Why is that work, Mr. President, so important? It's important because representation matters. Many of you know by now that I am a certified high school Secondary English teacher by profession. And I have to always describe for people that means I didn't get here like another program. S. I know from my own journey, and it was shaped by teachers like Mr. Towns at Austin Meehan, Mr. Fairfax at Austin Meehan; Jules and Parkway, Allan Edmunds many people here know him because of his work in arts and the creative economy, but for me that's Allan Edmunds the art teacher at the Parkway Program High School. Their presence, Mr. President, strong Black male teachers, it was so pivotal for me as a young Black woman because it showed me the importance of seeing someone who looked like me and being a male in particular who could guide and inspire me. It was important to me but so many others during that time. I want to state for the record that it matters for young Black boys to see and learn from teachers who look like them, and we can't be afraid to advocate for that and do say it out loud. I did it in Harrisburg, in Council and I won't stop saying it as Mayor of the City of Philadelphia. In September we worked together, Mr.
President, to launch this Extended Day Extended Year initiative which has created, and I'm proud of this stat, 7,355 new and free enrichment opportunities including STEM programing with the Franklin Institute. This thing that I learned about through a group run by I think the gentleman's name was Sylvester Mobley. Allan Domb spoke about it. It was the first time I heard about it. It's called Coded for Kids. And coding, so along with arts and intramural programs, before and afterschool care and programming -- this is important -- during school breaks and for six weeks in the summertime channeling Vincent Hughes' summer slide. The Extended Day Extended Year program is essential to me because no one can deny that there is an opportunity gap between the enrichment and educational experiences of children in suburban schools versus children in our schools here in Philadelphia, and we must close that gap and we will close that gap because quite frankly, it is a damning limitation otherwise on our children's future leaving them on the outside looking in. We need an educational enrichment programming across the board that amongst other things sets our children on pathways to succeed in this highly technical 21st century global economy in the modern world. We're also investing, this is important, in the first of its kind in the nation, City College for Municipal Employment, CCME as we call it. When the idea first came to me, Mr. President, I must admit that the term good trouble from the late great Congressman came in mind. People were talking about this vacancy number increasing in city government. And I said, well, wait a minute, that could be a bit of good trouble. Why wouldn't we just naturally create a vehicle and a pathway for students in the School District of Philadelphia. And here's the other one, not just the students but their caretakers and their parents as well. Why couldn't we create a vehicle where students and families could enroll in a program housed at the Community College of Philadelphia, the City's college, and be trained for good-paying City jobs when they graduate. In addition, another component of the CCME is a curriculum within our high schools to expose students to City jobs. There are people today right now, even if some of them have retired, who many of us in this room will know say that they worked for the City for 30, 35, 40 years and you say, well, how old were you when you started. And they say, well, I was years old. This is the 9 first and only job I've ever had. 10 And those men and women had access, 11 the opportunity and ability to live 12 with self-sufficiency, be 13 homeowners and take care of 14 families because having a City job 15 was a good opportunity. 16 With that being said, 17 Mr. President, I am committed to 18 working with the District, Philadelphia Works and the litany of other partners in the Philadelphia Building Trades to make sure that career and technical education programs like CTEs are available to every student that seeks it. These programs will help prepare students for in-demand careers that address workforce needs and offer sustainable economic opportunities. It is here, Mr. President, that I want to insert that this is not just CTE as we know it for the building trades. It's training for programs, unions like UNITE HERE to help those who are working in the food service industry. They too offer training and apprenticeship programs that this City of Philadelphia should be funding. And, Mr. President, with your assistance I won't make an announcement today but in the very near future you know that we will be standing together to make an announcement where UNITE HERE will be the foundation for training the next generation of food service workers in the city of Philadelphia. And I don't know about you. It's never been done. )
-- in the city of Philadelphia because I'm happy about that, Mr. President. Now, I want to pivot to a difficult one. This is school facilities. Even as we acknowledge and are working to fill the enrichment gap, we must also acknowledge that our students face an even greater gap, and that is in the quality of the school buildings that they attend every day. There has been some progress and we have to acknowledge the progress when it gets done. And I want to thank the City Council of Philadelphia for its work on this issue but also our Governor Josh Shapiro and representatives in Harrisburg, including, but not limited to, our trailblazing trend-setting Speaker of the House Joanna McClinton, our Appropriations Chairmen Harris and Hughes, all Delegation members in both chambers and quite frankly, Mr. President, all legislators, both Democrats and Republicans. We can't leave out the House Education Chair Schweyer and Senate Education Chair Williams and we ain't forget about our Republican leaders in the Senate; Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward; Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman; and Senator Appropriations Chairman, the Majority Chair Scott Martin; House Majority Leader Matt Bradford and House Minority Leader Jesse Topper. Why do you go through the exercise, Mayor Parker, to list all of these names, leaders who all have a stake in moving forward funding for public education? Because we don't get anything done alone. By working together, we were able to witness the state legislature for the first time in a decade to set up dedicated funding for school facilities, but it is only a drop in the bucket and we need to do more in order to address this issue. This funding for us, when people say, well, what did it help us do, it addressed the major environmental issues in our schools affecting students and teachers alike like lead, asbestos and crumbling ceilings. Now, it is true we need Harrisburg to play an important role in helping us to solve this problem and we definitely have to work together to find common ground and solutions that work for our School District. Now is the time, Mr. President, for the School District, the City Council and the Parker administration to move boldly ahead in intergovernmental collaboration to create a Facilities Plan that will lay the pathway for public schools in our great city over the next years. 10 Imagine, we need to 11 imagine public school facilities 12 that are safe, modern and which 13 match the 21st century economic 14 opportunities that our children 15 deserve. And for the record, 16 Mr. President, we can't do it on 17 the cheap. Lead by Dr. Watlington 18 and the School Board, a school 19 facilities master planning process 20 is already underway. And I don't want to steal their thunder because they will speak on this, but I do want to talk to you about this priority and the hard work that lies ahead for all of us. While we continue working to secure more state funding for our schools and bringing in the programming that every student regardless of the zip code that they live in ought to be able to access to succeed, we must also work together to ensure that our school facilities are well- maintained and modern. Our families need to know and have confidence that we intend to close the school facilities gap and create spaces with PreK classes and gyms and modern laboratories and enough classrooms for the growing number of our students with disabilities. We as a city need to be the smartest, most strategic collaborators on our public facilities so that there are, and this is when Appropriations Chairman Harris comes into mind, there should be playgrounds, rec centers, pools and even community facilities -- I'm thinking about him -- health care facilities, we've had this conversation with our students and their families, can access. This is integral to our planning. Suffice to say the challenges are formidable.
I don't want any member of this Council or anyone in this chamber or watching on television to think that I have just proclaimed something that is very easy and simple to do. It absolutely is not. But we are so very lucky that we have the most dynamic Superintendent in the country leading our public schools, and he will talk about the plan which will consolidate, colocate and repurpose our schools. This plan will make it easier to ensure that students have, and I want the public, the viewing public, to listen to this so they understand what the vision and the ultimate goal is. The plan is to ensure that students have nurses and counselors and music and art teachers in the building all day not just some days, but that we also have to be in the midst of this thinking realistic about facing some hard truths. First and foremost, some school buildings are just so antiquated and outdated, Mr. President, that they're just too expensive to restore responsibly, and we can't be afraid to say that out loud. The process is going to require some hard choices, but we can make together those rightsizing decisions collaboratively and together. Why is this important? And this is when history comes into play, and I'll talk about this in a second about a previous decision we weren't forward-thinking at the time. If we only knew what we could have done had the School District of Philadelphia held on to that real estate and worked in partnership with the City of Philadelphia, and you imagine Turn The Key on steroids and what we could have done with that real estate. Why do I mention that, Mr. President? Because as you know, I have been very forthright about a bold and ambitious agenda to develop or restore 30,000 units of housing right here in the city of Philadelphia. And we should, if we're forward-thinking, keep in mind that repurposing our school buildings certainly has to be a potential avenue to address our city's critical housing short shortage. We have to be willing to think outside of the box and use innovative approaches that are win-wins for both the School District, our city, families and caregivers alike. Why is that important to note now? Because we are a tough city, Mr. President, that's lived through some tough times when it comes to our schools. C. They have been hard at work on this issue for a very long time. I want us to take a stroll back to 2011. And, Philadelphia, I want you to remember when the General Assembly cut $1 billion, and I'm talking about 1 billion with a B from the education budget. And Philadelphia was forced to make huge cuts to every school. Because of those, and this is just my humble opinion, they were misguided cuts, Mr. President, a total of 16 Philadelphia school buildings 17 closed that first year and many of 18 the schools that remained open, 19 they did so with shoestring 20 resources and staff. 21 Now, at the time I was 22 the leader of the Philadelphia 23 Delegation, and in partnership with 24 Philly Delegation members in the House in particular, I can remember our meeting we said no more. Then when I was chairing the Delegation, you got to remember and this is important to note for the record because some people take for granted that we have a McClinton as a Speaker and a Harris as an Appropriations Chair, but when I was Chair of the Philadelphia Delegation in the Pennsylvania House, Mr. President, I didn't get to the negotiating table for Philadelphia because I was special. I got there because the first time in a long time Philadelphia had no 17 legislator who was a leader on either side of the aisle.
There was no Dwight Evans as Chair of the Appropriations Committee, there was no John Perzel as Speaker of the House and/or leader on the Republican side, and that is how as Chair of the Philadelphia Delegation I became the chief negotiator for the City of Philadelphia in the House and had to learn something that I had never done before, and that was I had to learn how to negotiate with a Republican Governor and a Republican-controlled House and a Republican-controlled Senate. People who I had agreed to disagree with quite often. But I couldn't just simply go to a rally and give a feel-good speech, Mr. President, and come take a picture with my fist in the air advocating, and then at that time it was Dr. Hite and all of the other school advocates, I remember standing with Jerry Jordan and the PFT at rallies in the Capitol, couldn't stand there and give a speech and put your fist in the air. They elected us to lead and to negotiate and bring back something tangible and they didn't care that both chambers and the executive branch were led by Republicans. They elected us to lead and that's what they expected. And guess what, people said how are you going to find a way to agree with folks who you disagree with quite often? How are you going to get money to the city and prevent more schools from closing? There were some folks, Mr. President, who said that it was impossible until it wasn't impossible. I learned how to negotiate in a bipartisan fashion with political leaders with whom I didn't necessarily see eye-to-eye with on many things. And I did learn, Council President. And it's really interesting if you're talking about history from your own frame of thinking. I thank God I had a witness because you were there, so I'm not speaking out of school here. And you know that two things can be true at the same time. You can stand very hard to support your morals and convictions. But when you have to govern and deliver for a constituency, it is possible to do both. And I am proud that while this Council and when I say this Council, I'm trying to think who was here. I don't see Brian O'Neill. I don't see Squilla. Jones was here and I'm trying -- Councilwoman Bass was here. I'm thinking about the tough votes that the Council took under the leadership of Council President Clarke, and we couldn't move some of those things if the Council didn't act because we had leaders in Harrisburg who said to us will you come to ask us to do this tough work, what's your local body doing, and they did the heavy lifting. So by the time we got on the trail and we had the ability to put together the deal in the plan, we could say we were in lockstep with the executive branch, even though we agreed to disagree sometimes with the legislative branch, even though we agreed to disagree sometimes with the legislators in Harrisburg. And I don't know how many people remember this, because thankful to Jim Kenney's administration, we just had come back under local control. People forget we had an entity called the SRC, and we had to deal with that entity. I'm trying for the benefit of this big heavy lifting that's in front of us to encourage, inspire and get folks to believe that, yes, it's heavy lifting. But if we all work together, we can do it. How did we do it? We were able to get the cigarette tax funds which were $58 million as well as the sales tax increase of $120 million for our schools. Now, here's the -- this is what's important because sometimes people like to talk about a one-time infusion of some kind of cash. The School District of Philadelphia was facing a structural deficit. We couldn't have any one-time stimulus funds to inject into the District's budget and say, hey, we fixed it. No, it needed badly recurring funds to help stabilize the finances of the School District and to put it on sound fiscal footing. We did this work by working together.
If they can hear me, I say thank you, Senator Vincent Hughes and Senator Anthony Williams and the Republican leaders that we worked with. We all worked together and we were able to get things done. And, Mr. President, we can do it again for our schools, for our children and for their families. I am prepared to do whatever it takes to get the funding to create the school environments that Philadelphia children need, so I am here to pledge on today that we can and we will do it again. Why, because we must. In the next two weeks, Mr. President, I will announce an Interdisciplinary Facility Planning Committee with membership from my administration, from your office as well as leaders in the real estate development field. The committee will have designated input from key labor leaders as well and the finance industry, because if we're talking about reimagining and repurposing old real estate, you can't do that without the lending community to be a part of the conversation. So the committee will review the District's plan and provide guidance and feedback to my office, to you, Mr. President, and Superintendent Watlington, Chairman Streater on the best way to rebuild our schools and raise the funds that we need in order to do so. So to you, Mr. President, Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson, to Majority Whip and Education Chairman Thomas and every member of this body, I want to thank you for your steadfast dedication and unwavering determination to follow every lead, chase down every clue and look under every rock that might reveal new solutions to problems that previously we thought were intractable or unsolvable, because if it were easy, Mr. President, I would argue that people would have done it a long time ago long before I became the Mayor and you became the leader of this body. But it's because it seems impossible to get done, that each and every one of us who are elected in our own right, putting disagreements and politics aside, but to get to the table and do what I learned how to do with Republicans, figure out a way to get to yes and address a problem. My vision every day doesn't change for Philadelphia and, that is, to make it a safer, cleaner and greener city with access to economic opportunity for all. I am committed to working together with all of you, with Dr. Watlington and Chairman Streater to marry our vision with the School District's vision to align our resources to improve student outcomes and -- Dr. Watlington, don't kill me for stealing your line, as you would say -- ensuring that the School District of Philadelphia becomes the fastest improving, large urban school district in the nation. If we do that together, I know we will deliver on our shared vision of a world-class education system our children need and deserve. Together, Mr. President, when we work together, when we work together, Mr. President, and we don't allow disagreements to get into our way, that's how we demonstrate to the City, to the Commonwealth, to the nation that we truly are One Philly, a United City. And you know, Mr. , right. Let me tell you what it does. I think to myself that means they think it's impossible. That means they don't think that we can get it done. That means that they think that differences and disagreements will stop us from getting to the finish line. I'm an eternal optimist, Mr. President. Get frustrated, cry, disappointment, feel human like everybody else, not perfect, never promised perfection. So glad I didn't campaign to the people in the city of Philadelphia that I was perfect and/or -- and another thing I'm grateful for, that I ain't never been to know it all, even when I was in this body, Mr. President, and in Harrisburg. I'm the sponge. I learned as much as I can from my colleagues. I'm learning, never been a know-it-all, right.
But so grateful that I haven't allowed my experience in government and politics to think that all of the big challenges, school facilities, housing, public safety, jobs, jobs, jobs, everything clean and green, it seems so big and how do you chop it down. I compartmentalize it all a little bit at a time, all the right people at the table. If we do it together, we can be One Philly, a United City. And no 6 matter how often people laugh and make fun at me for saying it, I'm not going to stop trying because that's who I am. My name is Cherelle Parker. I'm proud to be the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, and I'm proud to work with each and every one of you as members of Council. No matter what you read, let me tell you what I know and I understand, and I want to look at you to tell you so that you hear it from me. I respect this body. I learned in those chairs over here when I was only good enough and knew enough to take a memo that was signed from here and run it upstairs to the Chief of Staff, but I learned in this body by watching some of the best and the brightest do it. I respect each and every one of you who are members. Doesn't mean that we're not going to agree to disagree. We're going to fight sometimes. And some people who I have very personal relationships with and will fight you over, we are going to agree to disagree, but we should never let that get into the way of our ability to deliver. And for those people who have never had to work the way I have with people who you agree to disagree with, I learned that some people are only comfortable when you're in front of an audience that's clapping or your fists are in the air, because I'm telling you it's easy to be with an audience that's rah-rah and clapping for you. When you got to deliver when people are not happy about it, that's when you measure who someone is. I'm proud, Mr. President, that I respect each and every one of you no matter how many people or entities, industries try to drive a wedge between us, because if this administration doesn't work with this legislative body, it's gridlock and I fail. I can't succeed as Mayor without you, in partnership with you, Mr. President, and all members of this body. And I'm not afraid or weak because I've said that out loud. Thank you. )
I didn't say this to my team, Chief Deputy Mayor Vanessa Garrett Harley; Sincere Harris, Chief of Staff; Tiffany Thurman; Deb Carrera, Director of Education and all members of my team, let me publicly affirm to each of you, I know it's not easy working with me. The sense of urgency and the passion of expecting you to deliver the best that you have to offer, it comes from everything this city gave to me and I owe it to give 1,001 percent. I expect the best from you because that's what the people of our city deserve. Thank you. (Applause.)
Thank you. Thank you, Madam Parker. Mr. Christmas, will you please call the next panel.
Would Mr. Reginald Streater, Esq., President of the Board of Education School District of Philadelphia please come forward. And, Dr. Watlington, could you also please come forward. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Just state your name and begin your testimony.
My name is Reginald Streater. I am the proud President of the Philadelphia Board of Education. And I will begin and then Dr. Watlington when his time is up, he can start. He will --
So good morning to our amazing Mayor Parker, President Johnson, Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson, Chair Thomas and Whip of the City Council, Minority Leader Brooks and Minority Whip O'Rourke, thank you all for having us and inviting us to your house, we really appreciate it, the Board of Education and School District of Philadelphia, to share some key updates on our work since the last time we were all together. I am joined today by the whole Board. All nine members are here: Vice-president Sarah Ashley Andrews, Crystal Cubbage, Cheryl Harper, Whitney Jones, ChauWing Lam, Wanda Novales, Joan Stern, Joyce Wilkerson and our Student Board representatives are also here. They took time out of school today to be a part of this process, and they are Charles Rinker, Kenzy Ahmed and our alternate Jake Benny. And as I stated earlier, I'm the President of the Board of Education Reginald Streater. On behalf of the Board, I would like to begin by taking a moment to thank Mayor Parker and all members of City Council for your continued partnership with the Board and District. It is my high honor to provide remarks following a true partner and supporter of public education, our Mayor Cherelle Parker, the first Black woman Mayor of the City of Philadelphia. Madam Mayor, we thank you for your commitment to public education, our shared focus on student achievement and look forward to continuing to work with you and your team on education priorities. Beyond these meetings, we appreciate the opportunity to engage with the Education Committee under Chair Thomas' leadership on a monthly basis to provide more regular updates on the work of the District and the Board where appropriate. As you can see behind me, joined with us today in addition to the whole Board of Education is also Superintendent Watlington to my right, his leadership team, who will share updates following the Board on the District's progress toward achieving the Board's goals and guardrails, facilities planning and the upcoming budget cycle. Please move to the next slide. Since our appointment, we've been busy. In the confirmation process in the spring, we have spent the last seven months coming together to get to know one another and the diverse talents and unique perspectives we each bring to this Board. This is a picture from a team-building session we did early on as a Board over the summer. We also had the opportunity to participate in an orientation process, including the opportunity to attend a conference at Harvard to learn more about board governance and how we can be the most effective stewards of this 200-plus year old Philadelphia anchor institution in our city, this great city of Philadelphia. Again, I am incredibly proud and honored to serve as Board President under this talented board of individuals. Together we represent a rich tapestry of backgrounds, perspectives and experiences. This diversity allows us to approach challenges from multiple angles and develop more inclusive and well-rounded solutions. While each of us brings a unique perspective, we are indeed united by a single goal, that's student achievement and the academic success of our children, which must be in the forefront of everything we do. Our diverse perspectives foster robust discussions, but what has made us effective is our respect for one another and our ability to find common ground in what's for the best interest of the students we serve, all of our students. Together we function as a cohesive team recognizing that our collective strength lies in our ability to lead together. By leveraging each other's talents and working collaboratively, we can ensure that our decisions are thoughtful, balanced and focused on what's best for students. In that spirit, I'll be asking my colleagues to join me in giving this presentation today.
We are excited about the updates we are sharing with you today as we believe we are working together to advance our vision and mission to improve student outcomes in again this great city of Philadelphia. Please move to the next slide. And I would like to invite Board member Harper to the (inaudible) to give some comments and present. Would you like each Board member to state their name for the record as I did in the beginning?
Good afternoon. I'm Board member Cheryl Harper. I'm one of the newer Board members but we are all one Board.
How are you doing, Ms. Harper? Good to see you again.
I'm fine. You too. As we start, I would like to share a brief outline of our presentation today. Excuse me, I have a real bad cold. We would like to start with our vision and mission, which the Board adopted alongside the Accelerated Philly strategic plan to improve progress towards our goals and guardrails. We will then provide some updates on the work of the Board and recent progress it has made that seems -- I'm sorry. We will then provide some updates on the Board -- on the work of the Board and recent progress it has seen aligned to its goals and guardrails. Next, we will provide an update on the Board's vision and facility planning while Dr. Watlington will share more details in his presentation. We will also share some charter authorization updates, including more information on a new initiative Project Rise, an initiative to consider revision to the charter schools performance framework. Finally, we will preview some ways we believe we can work together in the coming months to chart a united path forward in support of the academic achievement and the success of all 200,000 children under our collective care. Thank you. And at this time, I will pass it on to Board member Lam for the first set of updates. And I apologize for being so cold and hoarse.
You want me to turn up the heat for you? Jonathan Fenton, where you at? Turn up the heat please. I got you, Ms. Harper, to make sure you all right. Please state your name and title for the record.
Hello, everyone. I'm ChauWing Lam. Thank you, Board member Harper. We believe it's important to always begin with our vision and mission. Next slide please. It was only six years ago that the governance of the School District was returned to local control after almost years of state control. 14 Since this return to local control, 15 the Board has been consistently 16 laser-focused on our students and 17 their academic success. We often 18 say as the governing body it is our 19 job to focus the organization on 20 focus. Next slide please. This goals and guardrails governance framework was adopted by the Board in December 2020 and continues to guide the Board's work as we adopt budgets, approve expenditures, review and adopt policy and monitor the progress of the District's performance. The academic goals we set include benchmarks for reading, math and college and career. We also have four guardrails to create the necessary conditions in every school to deliver on our goals. These include welcoming support of schools, enriching and well-rounded school experiences, partnering with parents and family members and addressing racist practices. Through these adopted goals and guardrails, the Board has set its expectations for the Superintendent and the District. We continue to monitor progress towards these goals and guardrails and ensure that our decision-making furthers our progress towards these expectations. As this new Board enters the next phase of continuing to focus on student achievement, we are continuing to work together to make an integrated, coherent and equitable approach to public education that includes all public school options available to our young people, as they are all our children. Through this we remain wholly committed to the Board's vision for a unified system of public education that prepares all students, all students, to imagine and realize any future they desire. In the coming months we will be working to further clarify how we make this vision a reality. Please move to the next slide and I'll pass it to Board member Wilkerson.
Thank you, Board member Lam. First, in terms of academic progress of our students, we're excited to share --
First, in terms of academic progress of our students we're excited to share that this Board's focus on focused approach is working and we remain committed to achieving our goals and guardrails as the District strives to become the fastest improving, large urban school district in the country. This is evidenced by preliminary data from the 2023-24 school year, which showed student attendance increase, the four-year graduation rate increase, the number of dropouts decrease and the District's increased performance in 9 out of 13 areas. These increases support progress towards the Board's adopted academic goals and we look forward to Dr. Watlington sharing more highlights for all of you later this morning. The Board also remains committed to visiting every corner of our city. For example, Board members attended back-to-school events as seen in the two pictures in the top right. The Board has also appointed two student Board reps and one alternate for this school year. These students include Charles Rinker from Franklin Learning Center -- Charles, you want to stand. (Applause.)
And as our alternate, we have Jake Benny from Central High School. (Applause.)
We're also excited to have received 50 complete applications for the Board's Parent and Community Advisory Council that was created as a result of a Charter change implemented or initiated by the Board -- by City Council. In the weeks to come, we solidified our membership for this cycle so we can get to work. The student and community voice provided to the Board through its Student Board reps and PCAC are invaluable and align the Board's guardrails. Please move to the next slide, and I'll pass the mic on to Board member Vice-president Sarah Ashley Andrews.
Just state your name and title for the record and please begin.
Hi. My name is Sarah Ashley Andrews. I'm the Vice-president of the Board of Education. Thank you, Board member Wilkerson. First, I want to thank Mayor Parker for addressing the important topic of facilities. The last time we were all together one of the key issues that this body raised was the need for a facilities planning process. We are pleased to share that in September the Board directed the Superintendent through a formal resolution to begin this process. As the Superintendent concluded the first seven phases of a facilities planning process, the Board formerly directed Dr. Watlington to begin Phase of 8 the Facilities Plan by engaging community stakeholders in a robust process that will result in recommendations addressing the following: Maximize the use of our school buildings and student rostering to provide more equitable rigorous academic offerings, pre-kindergarten opportunities, access to high-quality arts, music and physical education and career and technical education opportunities. We also want to address enrollment trends that have created financial and operational inefficiencies, identify District school buildings to be modernized, colocated or repurposed or closed. We recognize that this is a complex issue, but we believe engaging in a robust planning process is an important step towards creating the conditions that must exist for our academic goals to be possible. Thank you to members of City Council who have been supporting the District and sharing information about the opportunities for engaging in community conversations on this topic. We greatly appreciate your partnership and spreading the word of our listening sessions and feedback surveys. We know that robust engagement is critically important in this process. Members of the public can continue to monitor at our website philasd.org/fpp to join a remaining session or complete the survey, and we do encourage you all to do so. Later on this morning or afternoon Dr. Watlington will share additional information on future community updates and stakeholder engagement and we value Council's continued partnership with these efforts. In closing, we know that maximizing the use of our buildings, better rostering students and responding to enrollment trends, we can increase the rigor of our academic offerings and the opportunities available to our students which will make great strides towards the Board's academic goals and guardrails that are critical to student success and achievement. We expect the Superintendent to present a draft Facilities Plan at the end of next year for Board consideration. Dr. Watlington will provide a more detailed update in his remarks later on this morning and we are committed to supporting him and his team through this important process. Please move to the next side as I pass it to Board member Jones.
Just state your name and title for the record and please begin.
Yes, Board member Whitney Jones. Thank you, Vice-president Andrews. As a new Board under a new Mayor, we have reflected deeply on everything we heard from City Council in our confirmation hearings, our monthly meetings with the Education Committee, through other channels and also the incredibly helpful feedback we have received from all corners of Philadelphia's public education sectors since we have assumed governance reins of the School District of Philadelphia. While we are still a young Board and have much to learn, we are committed to continuing the conversations and remaining open to feedback as we move forward. Please move to the next slide. We are excited to share that in September the Board participated in an in-person convening that the Charter School Office organized between Board members and Charter school leaders. In fact, this was the first inperson convening since before the pandemic and Board members were really excited and thankful to be able to present and connect with leaders from across the charter sector. This was an important opportunity for us to not only get to know each other on a more human level but also learn firsthand about the exciting things that are happening in many of our charter schools. At the convening, the Board and the Charter School Office announced an important initiative, reimagining school excellence or in short, Project Rise. Next slide please. The Board knows that strong accountability systems must evolve over time just like much of society and K-12 learning has evolved in recent years. Project Rise seeks to determine how the charter school performance framework should evolve to best support the needs of our students and in consideration of the feedback we have heard over the years. There will be three phases to Project Rise that will involve charter school engagement at every step. We are currently in Phase 1, which involves a collection of specific actionable feedback from key stakeholders such as Charter School Board members, leaders, families, policy experts and authorizers from across the country. So far we have heard from individuals representing over 50 charter schools and organizations. This work in Phase 1 is being facilitated by two external national authorizing experts and will result in the publication of a specific actionable scope of work that will serve as a foundation for Phase 2. In Phase 2, an RFP will be issued to identify a partner or partners to embark on a comprehensive review of the existing charter school performance framework and recommend an evolved version of the current framework. This phase will culminate in the Board voting to adopt an updated framework. Finally, in Phase 3 the CSO will develop updated processes that are responsive to feedback received from stakeholders, including and especially charter school leaders. This phase will culminate in updated administration procedures to be posted online. We want to be clear, our focus remains on student achievement and experiences. So while we work diligently to update the framework, we will continue to center our students and hold charters accountable to their charter agreements. Please move to the next slide and I will pass it to Board member Novales.
Just state your name for the record and please begin your testimony.
Board member Wanda Novales. Good afternoon, buenas tardes. It is an honor to be here. Thank you, Board member Jones. I'd like to provide an update on this year's new charter application process. The Board has received four applications by the November 15th deadline set by the Pennsylvania's Charter School law. The applications are Celestina Cordero Bilingual Charter School, Early College Charter School of Philadelphia, Pan American Academy Charter School - Pathways High School, and Philadelphia Charter High School For Real Estate and Building Trades. More information on each application can be found on the Charter School Office's website as noted on the bottom slide. The Board will begin its review process this month by holding the first mandated hearing on December 19th. At the hearing the Board will hear presentations from each applicant to take public comment. In January, there will be a second hearing, during which the Board will have an opportunity to ask each applicant clarifying questions through an assigned hearing officer in review of the application. Additionally this year, at least one member of the Board will be present and act as the Board representative for each hearing. The Board representative will ask questions on behalf of the Board and report back on the proceedings of the hearing. This change to our process is a direct result of the feedback we have heard from members of this prestigious body and other stakeholders. This is just another way this Board is seeking to be responsive to the feedback we have received thus far. Please move to the next slide and I will pass it to Board member Stern.
Just state your name for the record and please begin your testimony.
Thank you, Council President. My name is Joan Stern. I a member of the Board of Education. Thank you, Board member Novales. In closing, I want to come back to how excited and proud we are of all the work that is happening right now. We often talk about the educational renaissance happening in Philadelphia. I'm proud of the momentum we are building on the progress towards our shared mission that all sectors of public education in Philadelphia can and will work with urgency to provide every student with the opportunity to achieve positive life outcomes. We are grateful and hopeful that with the leadership of our Mayor and this City Council we can continue to work in partnership in support of public education in the great city of Philadelphia. The City through the Mayor's Office and this City Council has also provided increased funding to the District to support our evidence- based and strategically-aligned investments. We thank Mayor Parker and this legislative body for your financial commitments to the success of our students. We cannot do this without you. Though we would be remiss if we did not continue to mention that to achieve our shared goals for public education in Philadelphia, the School District and our children require reliable, adequate and equitable funding to deliver the education our kids deserve. When we look at our financial outlook, we know that we must be prepared to tackle the financial challenges that lie ahead. Our financial outlook is complex given the change in Presidential administration, the sunset of historic ESSER funding and upcoming collective bargaining agreement negotiations. In the months to come, we look forward to remaining engaged with our local Commonwealth and federal funding partners to ensure we can continue to deliver for our kids and their academic needs, our facilities and our workforce. Please move to the next slide and I will pass it back to Board President Streater to close us out.
Thank you, Board member Stern and to all my colleagues, for these important updates. As evidenced by these updates, we are hard at work in service of our students and to be good stewards of the School District of Philadelphia as its governing body. We look forward to the continued engagement with each of you in your offices. I believe now we will pass it to Dr. Watlington and his team for their updates.
State your name for the record and please begin, Dr. Watlington.
Tony Watlington, Superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia. Good morning, Mr. President, Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson, Whip and Education Chair Thomas, it's a pleasure to be here this morning. I also want to say good morning and thank you to all of the members of City Council who are here this morning. Also, I'd like to say a special thank you to Board President Streater and Vice- president Sarah Ashley Andrews, and I offer again a very strong congratulations for your recent elections and the roles in the Board of Education. Finally, Mr. President, I would like to recognize members of the senior leadership team in the School District and would ask them to stand quickly. Deputy Superintendent of Academic Services, Dr. Jermaine Dawson, if you'll stand. (Applause.)
Deputy Superintendent of Operations, Colonel Oz Hill. (Applause.)
Chief of Communications and Customer Service, Alexandra Coppadge. (Applause.)
And Chief of Evaluation, Research and Accountability, Dr. Tonya Wolford. (Applause.)
We also have here with us this morning our Director of Government Relations, Ms. Laurel Grbach, who many of you work very closely with. It's an honor and a pleasure to be here. I count it as an honor and a privilege to be fortunate to serve as your Superintendent in the nation's sixth largest city and the eighth largest school district. Honored to be here. Slide please. This morning, Mr. President, members of Council, as President Streater said, I will share the District's charge, highlight the outcomes and the direction and our strategic plan Accelerate Philly. We'll get right into the results that the District is experiencing, share next steps and then provide some additional context in Phase 8 of the Facilities Plan as directed by the Board and President Streater. And then I'll give some insights into the building of Fiscal Year '26 budget. And we'll be happy to take questions and feedback. Slide please. Very pleased at this time to share an overview and the District's charge in the District. Slide please. For a quick overview of the District, a reminder as the Board shared early, the District is comprised of some 200,000 students, nearly 200,000 students which represent both traditional District students and Charter students, all a part of the public school children in the School District of Philadelphia. These are actually last year's numbers that show enrollment of 197,115 young people. That number increased this year by 1,841 new students. And the current District enrollment as of this month is 1,988 -- 198,299 young people. There are a total of 249 District-operated schools and we are very pleased that we have a very diverse -- we represent a very diverse school district, with the majority of our students being African American and Latino, with our students and families speaking more than 200 languages, and we believe that diversity is a strength. Slide please. Having been hired by the Board of Education in June of 2022, our charge in the School District of Philadelphia quite simply is to achieve the Board's goals and guardrails, very strong, lofty and stretch goals for academic performance as measured by PSSA scores and Keystone test scores as well as to position our District to become the fastest improving, large urban school district in the country and certainly in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Among the 500 districts in this Commonwealth, we measure our performance and those goals and guardrails related to PSSA scores in Grades 3 through 8 and the Keystone exams in grades 9 through 12. Additionally, when we compare our district to other urban districts across the United States, we're focusing in on NAEP, the National Association of Education Progress scores, which our 4th and 8th graders take every two years in the United States. There's a set of kids throughout the entire nation that take this test in 24 urban districts. We also benchmark our performance with graduation rates and dropout rates with other big cities across the country. Slide please. The District's strategic plan, entitled Accelerate Philly, is our roadmap for how we will achieve the goals and the Board's goals and guardrails as well as position ourselves to be the fastest improving, large urban district. Slide please. In June of 2023, our Board of Education unanimously approved Accelerate Philly, the District's five-year strategic plan. Many members of the District community participated in three groups that contributed to the development of Accelerate Philly, hundreds of Philadelphians. These individuals represented a wide range of roles across the District and they represented the diversity of the city at large. The strategic plan draws on the themes that emerge from the Listening and Learning tour. Kudos to our Evaluation and Research Department led by Dr. Wolford. They put a detailed report of all that we learned across the city, and those learnings are archived on our website.
The Listening and Learning tour was followed by a transition team report that engaged 100 Philadelphians as well as a few local and national experts in the field of K-12 education as well as the personal and lived experiences of people throughout the city. Accelerate Philly has five priority areas that you'll see on the screen. Priority 1, and these are in ranked order. Our first priority in the School District is to improve safety and well-being, both physical, social and emotional as well as environmental safety and well-being. Priority Area 2, to partner with our families and community, not just as partners, not just as engaged partners but as equal partners. Priority Area 3, consistent with the Board's goals and guardrails. Our core business is to accelerate academic achievement. Priority 4 involves recruiting and retaining a diverse and highly effective workforce in the School District. And Priority 5, to deliver efficient high- quality and cost-effective operations. Slide. As we implement Accelerate Philly and prioritize how to expand the budget because the budget is both a moral document, it also speaks to our priorities, the five high levers that help a district to significantly improve, and we know this based on more than 50 years of research in the United States of America. Their number one most significant factor in improving student outcomes no matter what school district or group of students we're working with involves highly-qualified, well- supported, stable teachers over time, the No. 1 factor. Our budget reflects that. No. 2, the No. 2 factor is highly-qualified, well-supported and stable principals over time. Principals are really important because they recruit, onboard, develop and retain highly-qualified teachers. The third area that we're focused on as a high lever is high-quality standards align and culturally appropriate curriculum, both academic curricula in reading, math and science as well as social and emotional curriculum, social and emotional learning resources because our young people need lots of support related to a lot of areas outside of just reading, math and arithmetic, and we understand that. And certainly High Leverage Area 4, to ensure that our kids have enough high-quality time on task and that they have regular student attendance, pushing hard for our kids to be in school no 15 less than 90 percent of every month 90 percent of the year, and our kids have to have rigorous instruction in their classrooms. And certainly, we have to engage our parents and guardians, not just as partners but as equal partners. Slide please. I'd like to get right into the results in the District. I want to begin by saying first I want to acknowledge that we are doing some really good work together under the leadership of the Board of Education. Again, I want to highlight the role of Board President Streater, Vice- president Andrews and the members of the Board because the Board has set a very -- several years ago set a very aggressive vision for the School District of Philadelphia that says that -- and it's outlined in the goals and guardrails and really robust goals. The Board not only set those rigorous goals, the Board spends its time monitoring or progress-monitoring those goals in all of its meetings. One of the Board members, I believe it was President Emeritus Wilkerson or someone said focus on focus, and that was how the Board operates. And certainly, we want to also note that in terms of the outcomes that we are achieving, they are a testament to the hard and strategic work specifically of teachers, principals and school- based staff at the schools throughout the city. We could not do this work without the Board's leadership, and the Board's vision is coming into fruition so we certainly want to thank the Board, our Mayor who spoke this morning, all the members of City Council, our families, our unions and other community partners for their ongoing support. Slide please.
I want to begin by giving you an update on some of the priorities referenced by Mayor Parker this morning, first of which is the Extended Day Extended Year. Across the 20 district-operated schools that are part of this initiative, there are also five charter schools. We've created a free before-school care and enrichment program that serves more than 1,400 children. The program has also nearly doubled the seats available for free afterschool care and enrichment programs, increasing from 1,435 to 2,555 students. And we will continue to grow that over the course of the year. In addition to the free before-school and afterschool care enrichment that's provided in these schools, in these pilot schools, the pilot schools will be open for more than 2,000 students during the winter break, during the upcoming winter break for the first time. They will be open to our young people during spring break and for six weeks in the summer. Mr. President.
I just want to take a moment of my personal privilege, and I'm going to let you finish your presentation so we can open it up to the full body, but does the Extended Day provide breakfast, lunch and afterschool snack? Just was wondering.
Yes, I know we provide breakfast. Dr. Dawson, we also are providing lunch and dinner; is that correct?
Awesome. Just wanted to know for the record. Go ahead, sir.
Yes, sir. Slide please. As we launch this new Extended Day Extended Year initiative, we are partnering with the Office of the Mayor, working very closely with the Mayor and her staff to monitor and assess six measures of success. And so, I want to share those, how that's going. To date, we can share with you, Mr. President and Council, 74 percent of the available seats for before and afterschool programming are filled. 70 percent of these pilot schools offer intramural sports and we're continuing to grow. 100 percent of the students in the Extended Day Extended Year program at the 19 pilot schools are exposed to 20 enrichment programs. And as the year progresses, we will be able to see the percentage of these students who attend school 90 percent of the month or the year and what they tell us about their sense of belonging. We are tracking that data throughout the year. And under Dr. Wolford's leadership, we'll have an biannual survey that allows our parents and our students to give us feedback on their satisfaction on the survey. I also want to note that relative to the Mayor's vision for the City College for Municipal Employment, I believe she talked about that being a manifestation of what John Lewis referred to as good trouble. We're pleased to be a part of that good trouble. The Board and the staff and that work is well underway and we look forward to our young people in the high schools who in the second semester of the year will continue to get some intensive support to prepare for both the civil service exam and to prepare them to be able to take on City jobs here in the city of Philadelphia. Slide please. I want to remind Council that as a reminder from earlier this year the Harvard University Center for Education, Policy and Research and the Stanford University's Educational Opportunity Project released the nation's first post-COVID report about how are America's children doing in reading and math, specifically in Grades 3 through 8. The report is titled, The Education Recovery Scorecard. This report included 30 states and it represented 60 percent of the entire United States public school population. It found that the School District Philadelphia had the fastest school year '22-23 post-pandemic recovery in math in Grades 3 through 8, followed by the Los Angeles Unified School District. And in 3rd through 8th grade reading, the School District of Philadelphia had the second best rebound, recovery performance in 3rd through 8th grade reading following only the Chicago public schools. On the next slide you'll see a depiction of how the large urban districts stacked up. You'll see here that the School District of Philadelphia had the fastest or best rebound performance followed by Los Angeles. You'll see several other school districts listed here. And on the next slide you'll see that the Chicago public schools had the best rebound performance, recovery performance in 3rd through 8th grade reading followed by the School District of Philadelphia, which was followed by San Diego, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, in that order and ultimately Atlanta. Very proud of that hard work, strategic work of the School District. (Applause.)
Thank you. On the next slide I want to highlight how we're doing relative to the Board's goals and guardrails specific to PSSA and Keystone performance. Quickly I'll just note that over the past two years under our strategic plan Accelerate Philly, student attendance has increased, the four-year graduation rate has increased. The number of kids who drop out of schools in Grades 7 through 12 has decreased considerably, and the District increased performance in 9 out of 13 areas. The number of students with regular attendance, those students who attend school 90 percent or more increased by some 3,500 young people and that's really significant. The number of students who dropped out of school has decreased by more than 1,400 students. Very important for a couple of reasons. First, kids who drop out of school don't have the same bright futures as young people who get a high school diploma and get an industry certification, learn to participate in the building trades or get a two-year or four-year degree. They don't have as good as health insurance. They don't live as long. And dropouts, not just in Philadelphia but about this country, dropping out of school is a life or death issue. Additionally, according to a Neubauer Family Foundation report in 2017-2018 time frame, we learned that the cost to the city of Philadelphia and to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, for every child that drops out of school is $405,000. When we multiply $405,000 by some 4,000 kids who on average drop out any given year in the city, this is really important. And so, we're sure pleased to see that number being reduced by 1,400 students. And we also understand, Mr. President, that we have a long way to go and a lot of work to do to get down to zero. percentage points. Percentage of 3rd through 8th grade students -- excuse me. 6 percentage points. 5 percentage points. These increases can be attributed to the laser-like focus by our Board of Education and its goals and guardrails as well as the District's conditions for success where the Board receives a report every month on our student regular attendance rate, our regular teacher attendance rate and the number of dropouts. Slide please. The slide you see currently, President Johnson and Councilmembers, is what we refer to as our District spotlight. Our Research and Accountability Department produces this. It illustrates the District's progress relative to the Board's goals and guardrails on the left-hand side. I know you may not be able to see the screen very well, but it shows School Year '23-24 -- excuse me, School Year '22-23 on the left and on the right-hand side you'll see School Year '23-24. With the green, yellow and red dots, you are quickly able to see three things: A green dot means we're moving in the right direction. A yellow dot means that we are flat. And a red dot means that we are moving in the wrong direction. You'll see in School Year '22-23 the District has 10 out of 13 green dots. In School Year '23-24 you'll see 9 out of 13 green dots. Each school has their own respective spotlight just like this District spotlight, and this assures that every school community is improving the same outcomes. Slide please. This slide, Mr. President and Councilmembers, shows our District enrollment over the past 10 years. I am pleased to share again that for the first time in a decade the School District of Philadelphia released enrollment data some time earlier in the month showing that the district-operated schools increased its enrollment by 1,841 students. Also want to note that the enrollment for this school year now in the district-operated schools is 117,956 students based on the October snapshot. One of the Board members referenced earlier that there are nearly 200,000 children that the Board of Education has responsibility for. They are all our children.
Approximately 60 percent of the children in Philadelphia are in the district- operated schools and approximately 40 percent of the children in the School District of Philadelphia are in our charter schools. Over the past year student enrollment increased in the district-operated schools in our neighborhood high schools. Our enrollment in the district-operated schools increased in our criteria- based high schools. I was so pleased to see that it wasn't one or the other but both. And our student district enrollment increased in 10 out of 15 of the geographic regions or learning networks as well as the opportunity network. The significant improvement that is occurring across the School District in our schools is a testament again to the hard and strategic work of teachers, principals and school- based staff and certainly to the Board of Education which monitors our progress and holds us accountable for driving faster improvement toward its goals and guardrails. As we continue to accelerate achievement, we are thrilled that more families are choosing the School District of Philadelphia and we certainly are working hard so that this trend continues. Slide please. Other improvements I want to note, Mr. President, members of Council. First, I want to note our teacher fill rate over the past three years has improved each year. As of today for the '24-25 school year, we have more than 8,000 positions filled, which places us at a teacher fill rate at 97 percent as compared to 96 percent the previous year and 95 the previous year before that. This is really, really significant when we consider the fact that in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania the number of teachers who are graduating from our public and private universities across the Commonwealth has decreased by 71 percent over the past eight years. That's a much greater decline than the national average which is closer to 50 percent. So as we continue to hire emergency- certified teachers, emergency- licensed teachers, that tells us that we have to double-down on our efforts to support them because they're working hard and doing their absolute very best, and we certainly thank them for that. Yes, sir, Mr. President.
Two questions: Have you increased pay for incoming certified teachers, increased the salary?
Yes, sir. The salaries, the Board of Education approved a one-year extension to the Philadelphia Federation for Teachers contract last year, which I believe was a 5 percent, if I'm right, Mr. President. And I'll remind Council, Mr. President that this year we are negotiating three labor contracts, Teacher's union, Principal's union and School Police Officer's union.
Next slide. I'm pleased to also report that over the past three years the number of schools with inadequate air-conditioning system such that on hot weather days we have to release our young people early has dropped nearly in half, from 118 to 58. In the current Board-approved capital improvement plan, there are cooling projects scheduled at 13 additional schools. 14 Of the 58 schools 15 remaining with inadequate cooling, 16 13 schools have an HVAC or AC 17 system -- need for a new HVAC or 18 air-conditioning system which 19 represents a total spend of about 20 $295.15 million, and all schools 21 need an electrical upgrade for the 22 installation of 24 -- installation 23 of air-conditioning units in 24 instructional spaces representing a total cost of $59.3 million --
Yes, sir. Of the 58 schools with inadequate cooling, schools need 8 an HVAC or AC system. 9
And/or AC system which represents a $295.15 million spend.
Yes, sir, 11 schools. 11 schools, Mr. President, need an electrical upgrade for the installation of window units in the instructional spaces, and that is a cost of $59.3 million.
So basically 59 million for electrical upgrades and 295 million for HVAC?
Correct. And we have Deputy Superintendent Oz Hill here should you want --
I'm trying to let you get through your presentation, but I want you to provide for the Chair and members of the Council, if you could provide where those schools are located throughout the city of Philadelphia, what Councilmanic Districts. That would be very helpful, sir.
Yes, sir. We'll get that to you subsequent to this presentation. Yes, sir, Mr. President. Again, I want to commend Deputy Superintendent Oz Hill and that operations team and our Chief Operations Officer. And I want to recognize her. I did not see her earlier. Ms. Teresa Fleming, our Chief Operations Officer. Very good to see you, Madam COO. And I think we can applaud. She's a -- (Applause.)
Next slide. Councilmembers, now that you've seen where we've been I would like to share a bit about where we are headed. On this slide you will see that the District will focus on three key areas this year and as we go into the next year. Accelerate academic achievement, we've got a major charge from the Board of Education to put the foot on the gas and accelerate. So we're going to do that by investing in our teachers and leaders and the giving them the best professional development so they can do their jobs as best they can. And second, I'm pleased that last year we launched a new math curriculum, Illustrative Math, this year across the entire District. This year we launched a new English language arts curriculum, Expeditionary Learning and StudySync with (inaudible). And next year we'll launch a new science curriculum under the leadership of Deputy Superintendent Jermaine Dawson, Dr. Jermaine Dawson. Second, we are laser- focused on improving our customer service score by expanding a district two-way communication system that lets parents, that allows us to track every phone call, every email, every message, every piece of correspondence from parents or the community or others, and we track how long it takes us to respond. We also track, give our constituents an opportunity to give us a feedback score, and I'll say more about that in just a moment. I want to thank our Chief of Communications and Customer Service Alexandra Coppadge for her leadership in that regard. Third, we will partner with our parents and families by -- earlier this year we reorganized the District in a budget-neutral manner, Mr. President. Did not increase the operating cost of the District. We relocated District leaders, our assistant superintendents and resources into 15 geographic regions across the city. And in the early part of the next year we will relaunch Parent and Family University and we will drive faster improvement on the Mayor's initiative as we pilot and continue to build out the 2020 District pilot schools, and we will also drive on the Mayor's priority related to the City College for Municipal Employment in partnership with our parents and families. Slide please. Did you want me to pause there, Mr. President?
Okay. These are the geographic learning new maps that we launched this school year, which you will see on the far left we have elementary and middle school learning networks. In the center you will see that we have three neighborhood high school networks, and on the far right you'll see that we have one citywide high school networks for some of our criteria based and specialty high schools. And they all have a respective assistant superintendent who has an office inside of these parts of the city so that we can put the resources close to the parents. If parents need to get in touch with the District, they don't always have to come to one of the School Board meetings. They can get access to District leaders in their respective communities as we seek to serve our parents and families better and place the resources closer to home. We're also working to decrease the travel time for our assistant superintendent who supervise these schools and to increase our engagement with grassroots organizations, our faith-based organizations and accelerate academic improvement. In Phase 1, in August the learning networks were created. Now, we created these networks based on geographic boundaries, natural boundaries like rivers, major roadways, train lines and with attention to the current catchment areas. In Phase 2, as we move throughout the year we will actually repurpose and reallocate additional people resources from the Dr. Constance E. Clayton Education Center formerly known as 440 into the learning networks. In addition, schools that were previously in the innovation and acceleration networks will receive ongoing support under the updated learning network structure. This framework allows the District to enhance support across critical areas, including operations, professional learning, talent acquisition, special education, serving diverse learners, student support services, fostering a positive climate and facilitating stronger and better parent engagement. Slide please. I'm really pleased to share with you, Mr. President and Councilmembers, this slide. This slide represents our two-way communications initiative entitled, Let's Talk. If you go to the District website, you'll see it front and center on the main page. During the Listening and Learning tour in the summer of 2022 we heard frustration from parents, family members and others about their concerns, questions and issues that we were not always timely in addressing their concerns or returning phone calls or emails, and we knew we needed to make some changes and to be more timely. Last school year in an effort to improve customer service the District launched a new convenient way for families, students and staff and community members to engage with the District via this new platform entitled, Let's Talk. Let's Talk tracks all inbound communications to the School District, whether it is electronic note, email, phone call and the like to provide -- and our community has a chance to provide a customer service score after they interact just like you might when you take your car to the dealership to get it serviced or some other area of service. This was piloted last school year in my office as well as the Board of Education offices and it slowly expanded over across the District office. Now, this initiative has been launched in all of the district-operated schools as well as all the offices at the District office. As of this month, to date we have received more than a 20,166 increase, whether that's phone call, written messages, et cetera. And our response time is just over three days, 3.2 days. The gold standard is to 48 hours. We're not there yet. And our feedback score for the 20,000-plus increase to date is 8.9 out of an average scale of 10 on customer service. I want to thank Chief Alexandra Coppadge, Deputy Chief Monique Braxton, our District spokesperson and all the members of the Communications team for that leadership. (Applause.)
Slide please. As the Mayor mentioned and President Streater and Board members mentioned, the Board directed that the Superintendent and staff get the Facilities Plan completed. And before I get to that, let me just make a note with family engagement. We are going to relaunch Parent Family University in the spring. We'll continue to -- we are going to launch a Parent and Guardian Advisory Council just like we have a Teachers Advisory Council, a Principal Advisory Council and a Student Advisory Council that meets on a monthly basis. We'll be staffing that up. And the third family engagement opportunity that I want you to know is that under the leadership of our Communications Department, in 2025 we are going to launch an app, a family app so parents can go straight to their cell phones and communicate with the District. (Applause.)
Okay. All right. I think the Board President is listening. Slide please. The Mayor, the Board President and Board members referenced Phase 8 of the Facilities Plan and the Board directed that the Superintendent and staff complete Phase and get some recommendations to President Streater and the Board by the close of the next year, and we are on course to do just that and we intend to deliver. Before I talk about the timeline moving forward, Mr. President, I want to acknowledge, as the Mayor did, some pain points quite frankly from our past and to reiterate what Mayor Parker stated relative to what we learned from the past. A bit of context. 3 billion budget deficit and accordingly, Superintendent Dr. Bill Hite and the Board of Education had some really tough decisions to make fairly quickly in issues not caused by their actions but they certainly had to have a response. So the District closed a number of schools, I believe, 30 in total, and I think the Mayor referenced or so in the first 5 year. Now, the closures saved the 6 District $24 million annually, but 7 these closures also had significant 8 impacts, including declining test scores for the displaced students in the closed schools and declining attendance rates for the students in the closed schools. We also know from research from the University of Pennsylvania and Research for Action for the schools where our young people were removed to, they also experienced some declines in academics. So from these experiences we've learned some valuable lessons that we can apply this time. Our current approach aims to prioritize creating the best conditions for improved student achievement, learning, use comprehensive data -- we have a comprehensive data warehouse that will be completed by the first of the year -- to engage transparently with our community, and to repurpose buildings to better support our communities. Slide please. There are a number of community engagement opportunities being provided across the city under the leadership of Deputy Superintendent Oz Hill. And so, you may have seen this slide if you visited any of those community conversations. Through Phase 8 of the facilities planning process, we look to address the challenges of our District facility which are twofold. Number one, the average age of our school facilities is 73 years. A number of more are 120 years or older. Number two, we've got a really significant problem with underenrolled and overenrolled schools, and we've got to address that. So through the planning process, we look to develop a plan that achieves the following desired outcomes: We heard the Mayor earlier talk about the need for safe, modern and 21st century schools. I heard her say we can't do it on the cheap. I heard her talk about playgrounds, recreation centers, health facilities, nurses and counselors and music teachers and the like being in our schools. And absolutely, that's the vision of the Board of Education for us to create the conditions to improve academic achievement, for us to be in a position to provide those rigorous academic offerings that the Mayor referenced, to provide more PreK across the city, to provide better and higher quality arts, music and physical education in alignment with the Board's goals and guardrails and to enhance the career and technical Education opportunities available across the District. We know to do this we must maximize the use of school buildings. And certainly as we better utilize our resources, we will be able to be in a position to offer Algebra in all of our middle schools or middle grade bands. We'll be in a position to offer more advanced placement or international baccalaureate or dual enrollment opportunities in our high schools and the like. Slide please.
Before I go further, I do want to note that the district-operated schools have space for some 180,000 students, and at present we have more than 117,000 children in the schools. Now, I also want to note that for the first time this 1,841 new student addition could likely grow each year so we need to be mindful of that as well, but we still have a gap that we have to address and attend to. This slide shows the work that's been occurring from August through the current end of the year. This month I also want to note that we've launched the Facilities Planning Listening and Learning Tour under the leadership of Colonel Hill. We've extended an invitation to all internal and external stakeholders to apply to be a part of a facilities planning advisory group. There are a total of 10. This is in addition to the advisory that the Mayor mentioned that she is pulling together over the next few weeks. We've kicked off a facilities planning process project team. We've shared the public survey with all students, families and school-based central office staff as well as extended external stakeholders like elected officials and community partners. Slide please. And this next slide shows you the work that will occur between January of 2025 and the conclusion of Phase 8 in December of 2025. We're very pleased, as directed by the Board, to be in a position to bring this facilities planning process Phase 1 through Phase 8 to a conclusion by December of the next year, of 2025. So as we look to the months ahead, we will continue to engage with our community, work with our project team and advisory groups and provide updates. And to be clear, as the Mayor referenced earlier, we will look forward in the fall to bring to President Streater, Vice-president Andrews and members of the Board of Education some final plan recommendations that will include after a robust engagement process and review of the data a plan that will include, one, what schools in the District we recommend to the Board be colocated; two, what schools in the District we recommend to the Board be renovated, rebuilt or built anew; three, which schools in the District we recommend ought to be repurposed. The Mayor talked about several possibilities for repurposing buildings, and that will certainly be one of the options we bring forward to the Board of Education. And we'll also bring recommendations to the Board relative to, four, which schools ought to be closed because as the Mayor said, they are antiquated and it's too expensive to restore responsively. I also want to note that all of these resources that this chart as well as the previous chart are posted on the District website. Slide please. I do want to note that the facility planing process has a robust project team, which is comprised of local community, education, nonprofit, faith-based and business leaders. After extending an invitation to the Philadelphia community to apply, we've already filled many of the slots on several of the advisory groups and we will fill all the remaining spots on the remaining advisory groups before the close of this month. Those advisories include -- and I also want to note I believe our City Council Education Chair and Council Whip Councilmember Thomas is a part of that project team. So thank you for your service, sir. Relative to the 8 advisories include business and 9 community partners, elected and 10 government officials -- this is in addition to Councilmember Thomas' participation on the project team -- Parent Advisory Council, School Leader Advisory Council, School Support Staff Advisory, Student Advisory Council, registered community organizations and Community Leaders Advisory, a Teacher Advisory Council, Technical Experts Advisory and Union Representatives Advisory. And we look forward to naming the members of all of the remaining seats by the close of this month.
And again, we look forward to the Mayor naming the Intergovernmental Committee that she referenced to you, President Johnson, to also advise her and the Board on this process. Next slide please. To date our community engagement which is being led by Colonel Oz Hill, our Deputy Superintendent of Academic, excuse me, Deputy Superintendent of Operations -- I want to be clear, Dr. Dawson has the academic side and he has the operation side, but they work so closely together, sometimes it just kind of comes together -- there'll be a foundation, the community engagement is the foundation of that eight-phase process that Colonel Hill is leading. And we want to hear from our school communities and engage the public at large. We want you to have -- Philadelphians to have slept under a rock not to have known what's going on over the course of the next year, so we want to thank our Communications team for making sure to widely publicize this, and we're making a concerted effort to get to as many people as we can. From October until the close of the year, we will have offered a total of 32 community conversations where anyone can come and share their thoughts, questions or concerns. Additionally, we extended an invitation for the public to more deeply engage in the process by serving on one of the 10 advisories. And there's also a survey under the leadership of Dr. Wolford that's being shared so that our city and communities can provide their feedback. Want to make sure everybody's at the table. Slide please. As I shared, we continue to invite the community to attend facilities planning community conversations. On the slide here, you can see the next four community conversations are inperson or virtual and will occur on December 11th and 18th as well as December 9th and December 10th, and we certainly look forward to as many people in the city who desire to participate. More information is available on the District website. Slide please. We're also encouraging citizens and community members across the city of Philadelphia to take a survey, the survey to give their feedback about the facilities planning process. On November 25th, this survey launched to provide students, families, staff and community members with an additional opportunity to provide feedback on the facilities planning process. And again, we'll keep that survey open for the time being and we want to get as many responses as possible. Lastly, Mr. President, on the next slide I want to provide to you and Council a brief update on Fiscal Year '26 budget development, and I promise to do this expeditiously. We're nearly halfway through the fiscal year and we're kicking off the budget development process for Fiscal Year '26. Absolutely want to begin by saying thank you to the Mayor and to you, Council President, and all the members of Council --
-- for not just 240 but upwards of $250 million in additional funding over the next five years. We want to give you guys a round of applause for that.
Your investment in the District is invaluable, and as an employee of the Board we say a very sincere thank you. Second, speaking of the Board, I want to -- on the next slide I want to publicly again applaud the Board and the District for making academic gains while maintaining very tight financial controls. Under this Board of Education's leadership and the previous Board, since day my administration has been focused on financial discipline and robust internal controls. Over the last six months we've received two credit upgrade ratings. In May, Fitch Ratings upgraded the District's long-term bond rating to investment grade for the first time in the District's history. And in October, Moody's upgraded us to our highest level in four decades. I continue to learn all the details about that very important process from our CFO Mike Herbstman as well as Board member Joan Stern, who knows that area exceedingly well, and I had a chance to learn more from her as I attended as her guest to the PA Society, and I was very thankful for that. Those upgrades came on the heels of rating outlook upgrades in the previous year. These organizations cited the work of leadership and governance and improved financial positions due in part to the availability of federal relief grant funds. They did note, however, that as those federal dollars sunsetted in September it will be incumbent upon the Commonwealth and the City of Philadelphia to continue moving towards funding adequacy in order to mitigate the impacts of looming future budget deficits. For more than a decade, consecutively the District has had an unmodified or clean audit opinions on its financial statement audit and no material findings, while winning financial reporting awards from the Government Finance Officers Association and the Association of School Business Officials International. Additionally, the District has been designated as low risk for federal audits due to strong internal financial controls, and the grant compliance function has been held up as an exemplar by both the U.S. Department of Education and the Pennsylvania Department of Education. I recall receiving a call in the past year from folks in Puerto Rico as a matter of fact about the District. And then finally, fiscal responsibility and good stewardship continues to be a primary goal of the administration.
Thank you, sir. Very thorough. Thank you for doing your due diligence as well. I have a couple brief questions and I'm going to release the chair to the Chair of Education, Councilmember Thomas. I know a couple members said, well, we might want to -- and some of the staff out there said that they might want to get something to eat, but we want to dig right into this. We want to work. If anybody feels the need to step out and get a bite to eat and come back, I think that'll be okay. But the Chair of Education said it would be appropriate for us to at least do a round off the top of you both giving your presentations. And so, I'm going to delve right into it. One, I commend you on those key areas, the spotlights that were mentioned in terms of increasing performance in the 9 out of the 13 areas. I just want to know, it listed six areas. So I want to know what Areas 7, 8 and 9 are, and then out of that 13, the other four areas that we didn't increase in.
9 out of 13 areas is the correct number. I apologize if we have a typo --
That's correct, you're correct when you say out of 13, correct. But the paperwork has six listed, which means there's another three that isn't listed.
Let me 7 tell you the areas where we are 8 most concerned about. While we're 9 pleased with the improvements in Grades 3 through 8 math, 3rd grade reading, 3rd grade math, which is part of the Board's goals and guardrails, where we have a lot of work to do and I want to transparently say we are not getting better to date. In fact, we're going in the wrong direction in Algebra 1. We're going to turn that around by having some different investment in our teachers who teach math, particularly new teachers and teachers who have not had the benefit of a teacher education program, emergency certification, et cetera. We're going to invest in high-impact tutoring and we've launched a best- in-class math curriculum. That in tandem with other areas will lend itself to improved performance in Algebra.
So they are within the other -- the 4 out of the areas, 12 that's the four areas that you're 13 focusing on that needs improvement, correct?
Correct. Another area that we need to work on is while 3rd grade reading has improved -- we're seeing faster improvement in 3rd and 4th grade reading, but when we get higher in the higher grades, 7th and 8th grade, we're not seeing that same progress. So we need to stay the course so that over time we improve through 8. And then third, one of those areas that was not improved is our regular teacher attendance dropped by 1/10th of 1 percentage point, but it's not a green dot. So it decreased from, I believe, 84.5 to 84.4 or something like that, very closely.
And I just want to talk numbers regarding the School District's budget. We know that local tax revenues are up right now, pretty much 77 million from the initial projections and the projected fund balance you will have of 728 million. And so, I want to know how will these unexpected funds be allocated to address the current deficit and other priorities?
I'd like to invite our CFO Mike Herbstman to the desk to talk specifically about that. As Chief Herbstman comes to the desk, I do want to note those five major areas referenced in Accelerate Philly we intend to use those dollars to drive faster improvement in those areas. I also want to note that the cost for the District will significantly increase in part because of, one, increases in salaries and benefits. Most school districts are people-intense and those benefits and annual salaries will go up over time. And the second driver are charter payments that the Board of Education is required to make. Chief Herbstman.
Thank you, Dr. Watlington. And for the record, Mike Herbstman, Chief Financial Officer for the School District. So we have recently allocated some of those additional funds that we received recently for areas, including extracurricular activities which we recently announced that we've increased as well as funding for some of our local organizations that have helped to identify and connect our students experiencing homelessness with services that they're in need of. I would also note for the record that even with some increases we've seen recently we are projecting in the current year a deficit of about $65.6 million in our operating budget. So a portion as we see new funds come in do go towards that current year deficit as well as the more substantial deficit that we see on the horizon as the federal funds have sunset.
Also, you got a 171 million increase in real estate tax revenue and also 18.16 million in Use and Occupancy tax. How are you utilizing that as well?
With those we are still projecting that deficit overall of about the $65.6 million this year. That's included in our assumptions.
And so, my numbers have that you have $80 million deficit this year and a $400 million deficit coming up on FY26, correct?
It's a little higher than that for next year. It's right now about 442 million where --
Mr. President, if I can ask them to advance to the next slide -- if you'll go back, Ms. Grbach, two slides, it will show the five-year.
Okay. Out of that 7 million we gave to the District 8 this year, is that subtracted from 9 the 80 million deficit? 10
So that 11 includes all of the revenue we 12 received from the City this year in 13 these numbers here. 14
Point of information by the Chair of Education.
I'm sorry. Real quick. So we talked -- for those who don't know, the School District is required to do a quarterly meeting with City Council where we go over the finances of the District and talk about the economic health of the District. In our last dialogue we did look at an $80 million deficit, but I thought the $80 million deficit was the number that was based on where we were financially before we seen some of the revenue that came back from the City? Shouldn't that number be lower based on the extra revenue that the City has collected this year that we didn't necessarily anticipate collecting?
So at that point, I believe we were already anticipating most of that revenue. It has decreased a little bit to a deficit of about $65.6 million.
That matters a lot to this body, right. So I want you to go ahead and do that victory lap and I want this legislative body to do that victory lap, because when we leave here today for us it makes a huge difference for that deficit to be 66 million instead of 80 million, and I do give you credit for that as well too, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I had one last question before I relinquish the chair to the Chair of Education. So me and my colleagues and I are reviewing Project 2025, right, and it was kind of hokey- pokey during the last election, kind of like what is this, is it real. And it pretty much can become a reality regarding the abolishing of the Department of Education, right. So we're going to take it at face value. Are we strategizing to mitigate any event that it does happen? And then we also know federal fundings are going away. Do we have any plans and strategies to address it? And then also at the convening we had with some other members of City Council and members of the State legislature and members of Congress, we also talked about how in the event that we have to address the issue of immigration and the deportation of immigrants here in the city of Philadelphia, one of the key areas is the significant impact on children who attend our public school system. And do we have a strategy to address that in the event that that happens, under the leadership of Councilmember Rue Landau and Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad?
Absolutely. Yes, sir, Mr. President. I will invite President Streater to speak on behalf of the Board because the Board has on its radar this issue and I believe issued a resolution 8 relative to our students and their well-being, and I will follow President Streater from the District's response.
Yes, so thank you. This question is a question that definitely the Board is engaged in, keeps us up late at night. I think in 2020 or 2021 the Board passed a resolution as it relates to the School District and what happens if federal agencies come and try to enforce or to pull students out of the school if they are assumed to be undocumented immigrants. And I will say this: The Board takes seriously its role in protecting students. This resolution is on the books. It directs the Superintendent to create a process as well as how our school-based staff can engage with federal officials if they come through. That guidance is also guided by our Office of General Counsel. And then I want to actually ask Board member ChauWing Lam to kind of speak to the importance of the resolution. My understanding is that you are an immigrant yourself and -- I'm going to give her a chance to speak on this.
Thank you. So the resolution that was passed by the Board in 2022 still stands. In absence of passing a new resolution, we still back the resolution that was passed. I speak here because I do know a little bit of the struggle of being a non-native-born citizen here in the U.S., and it's important that all of our families feel safe. There are approximately percent of students at the 8 School District who speak a home 9 language other than English whose 10 families may come from other parts 11 of the world who do have concerns. 12 And as of right now the expectation 13 is when they're in a School 14 District building they will be 15 safe. 16
17 Mr. President, may I just also add 18 very briefly that on the 19 administration side working under 20 the leadership of the Board of Education, we are actively working with the Council for Great City Schools and the American Association of School Administrators to stay abreast of the contents of Project 2025 as well as monitoring the events with the transitions with the President- elect and particularly around the U.S. Department of Education. As you may recall, the Council for Great City Schools is an organization two blocks from the White House that represents 78 urban and large school districts across the country. We're very fortunate in the School District of Philadelphia because President Emeritus Wilkerson serves on the Executive Council for that body. Also, I participate in a monthly meeting with superintendents across the country. I believe President Streater does the same with his counterparts across the country. Relative to the resolution President Streater referenced, the administration will fully and completely comply with the contents of that resolution. We're working with the General Counsel and the School District as well as under leadership of Dr. Dawson and all of our principals to have plans in place well in advance of January and 9 we'll have more to share in the 10 upcoming weeks. 11
Thank you. And then also 13 just in terms of the funding 14 strategy to mitigate in the event 15 that there's a significant impact 16 on our school district from a 17 funding standpoint, any strategies 18 to mitigate a shift in policy from 19 the Feds? 20
I think that -- was your question would there be need for financial resources as --
We know it's going to be a need, but what are we strategizing and doing on a District level in response?
I think the immediate thing that we're focused on is per the Board of Education's resolution should officials show up in schools to either target students who are undocumented or for whatever reason are targeted by ICE to make sure that, A, we clearly know the District protocols as directed by the Board, B, that we comply in an appropriate manner consistent with the letter and spirit of the Board's resolution.
And, Council President, we definitely hear your question. We're not trying to be evasive, but right now we have no idea what the next administration is going to do. Every day there's a new thing that's taken back, put on the table as it relates to whether there's going to be a Department of Education. Well, apparently there's someone who's going to be appointed to lead --
Do we have a lobbyist in the federal government on the federal level representing the City of Philadelphia around these particular matters? I know you just mentioned we have representatives on the Council of Great Schools and I know you also sit on the Board. But just the political aspect as well, who works with the Feds?
So Joyce Wilkerson, I'm going to ask her to come up and speak to this issue. She understands this issue very discreetly And can tell you how we're partnering with the Council of Great City Schools and can definitely answer these questions in a more substantive way.
Joyce, just state your name for the record officially and then go ahead.
Joyce Wilkerson, member of the Board. As was mentioned, I also serve on the Executive Committee of the Council of Great City Schools that's been around for over 65 years. The Council works in a bipartisan way and so has relationships on the Hill as well as relationships with a number of education advocacy organizations, and they are doing a deep dive on what we might anticipate coming up. There's a reconciliation bill that's moving through Congress that has to be adopted by the end of the year. We don't expect to see major cuts then, so we're watching carefully to see what we might anticipate going forward. The guidance is that Project 2025 probably has some of the details of what we can expect going forward. And so, we're asking districts across the country to identify so that they can speak with their legislative officials about what potential cuts might mean. So we're working aggressively organizing in an effort to forestall any cuts or at least minimize the nature of the cuts.
Mr. President, I may also note that the Council of Great City schools that President Emeritus Wilkerson is referring to will actually hold its national conference in Philadelphia next October for the first time since 1967 and we're sure pleased with that. Secondly, under the leadership of our Chief of Staff Sarah Galbally who, as you recall, is the former Policy Secretary to Governor Tom Wolf, we have a very strong group of government relations folks who are supported by a lobbyist group that is very focused on local, state and federal government relations.
Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Last question, Mr. Streater.
What's on all of our minds today, this week, the proposed 76ers arena. Y'all just took a vote. Just give us for the record the proposal in front of the Philadelphia School District, the vote, the position that the School Board has taken regarding this particular project.
Yes. Just as a reminder to those who need a reminder, the Board voted at our October -- November 25th 12 action meeting, Council 13 President -- 14
Yeah. We 18 voted to amending the current 19 boundaries of the Gallery at Market 20 East Increment Financing, also known as TIF district. The procedural requirements require that the Board of Education consider this action in advance of City Council holding its next public hearing on the matter. What's important to note is the Board of Education's understanding and what we were told by Council internally and by presentation that was done by people from the Mayor's team, including Mr. Dubow, that should the deal not go through we'll go back to the status quo which is the current TIF that is on the Fashion District.
Do you know how much the current TIF is that represents the status quo just for the record?
I don't know off the rec -- we'll definitely get back to you in writing, but I do know that -- oh, I'm sorry. Let me ask Joan Stern --
Yes. How are you doing today again, Ms. Stern? State your name for the record and please respond.
For the record, I'm Joan Stern. I'm a member of the Board of Education. We were asked pursuant to the State Tax Increment Financing statute as the other taxing authority in the TIF District because our governing body approved joining the TIF District in 2015. In order to remove two parcels from the TIF District so that you lucky folks could get the opportunity to decide about the location of the --
-- arena, we were asked to approve amending the TIF District to remove those two parcels from the District. We did consent to that. We adopted a resolution consenting to the amendment. The state statute requires that we do that before City Council considers what to do with that same amendment of the TIF District because it is the primary taxing authority in that district. So if those parcels were removed, they could then become the site for the 76ers arena, which is an economic development decision which is solely within the purview of the City and this Council would have to consider ordinances allowing for the creation of a site for the arena. That's what we did.
Do you know the amount of the current PILOT in the event that it moves forward, the amount?
If this moves forward and Council decides to approve the site and the Sixers affiliate transfers the site to the City, it will become subject to a mandatory PILOT payment required by the state Tax Reform Code based on the cost of the project, the construction cost, which is all to be financed by nonpublic funds as we understand the current proposal.
My question was did you know the cost of the actual PILOT now versus in the event that the actual proposal moves forward? That's all.
-- but we can ask the administrator of the TIF District to provide that information to your office.
All right. I just wanted to get it from the Board's perspective --
There are tax revenues currently being received which go into the Tax Increment Reserve Fund and pay the debt service.
But we will ask that you be provided with the original projections on the current revenues because this was created before COVID and there has been a decline in retail revenue in the TIF District, which I'm sure all of you are aware of.
Yes, ma'am. All right. Thank you very much, Ms. Stern.
And, Chairman Streater, just for the record what was the vote count?
I actually want to get the answer to your question. I believe Chief --
Point of information, Ms. (inaudible)? (No response.)
For the Fashion District TIF, the initial base amount is $829,000. What is going into the TIF Fund currently is about 1.07 million annually, and that would be reduced if this were to go forward to a revised base amount of about 596,000 instead of $829,000.
And if it does move forward, how much additional revenue will be provided to the Philadelphia School District?
So that varies by year. In the near term the total amounts per year would be lower by about $1 million. If you look at the --
Would be lower by $855,000 in the first year, $927,000 the following year. As you look in the outyears, once the stadium is in operation our total tax revenues would increase over the course of the 11 years remaining on the TIF. The total increase across those years would be about 5.8 million.
And to be clear, that is inclusive of real estate U&O, Liquor and the TIF assumptions.
So it'll be a slight decrease initially and then after it's up for operation, you'll actually see an increase --
Okay. Just want to hear that clarified for the record because we have a lot of different perspectives when individuals come down here. Chair recognizes Councilmember Thomas.
Mr. CFO, real quick before you go, are those numbers you just communicated based on the current TIF or are those projections based on the change in the TIF that you voted on recently?
So the original projections, the initial base of $829,000 is based on the current TIF. But those numbers that we quoted in terms of the decreases in the upcoming years and the final total increase over the 12-year TIF is all based on the total amounts -- or sorry, the difference between the total under the build and no-build scenarios.
So Mr. Chairman of Education is going to clarify for the record the amount of revenue. Go ahead, sir.
So I just wanted to just -- and I don't want to interrupt the Council President's line of questioning, but real quick I think that the point that the Council President is trying to make is that the anticipated revenue hypothetically speaking if the project were to pass would show an increase as it relates to the amount of money that goes to the District with the new TIF compared to the current TIF. I think that's the point of clarification I was trying to make. Would you agree with that?
Over 12 years that it would according to City projections be up by about $5.8 million.
I want to clarify if I may, Mr. President. Since we were also assuming that if the arena were built and the property was transferred to the City so that it would have the same basic revenue production that properties in the Sports District have because once the City owns land, it's not subject to any taxation because the City is exempt from all taxation. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that before the spectrum was built, and that's still a ruling in the Commonwealth. So we were assuming that once they decided to donate the land to the City for a nominal amount and leased the land back from the City, the PILOT would be payable for the entire term of its lease from the City, which would be 30 years beyond the TIF term, and that was a key factor in our decision.
Yes, it's clarified. Thank you very much, Ms. Stern. Chairman Streater.
And just last because we all are working on this every single day, just for the record just give us the vote tally for that particular PILOT?
And just go on the record for the yeas and the nays.
The yeas were myself, Vice-president Sarah Ashley Andrews. It was also Board member Whitney Jones. In addition to Whitney Jones, it was Board member Crystal Cubbage, Board member Cheryl Harper and Joyce Wilkerson. The two nays were Board member -- and the final yea was Board member Stern. The two nays were ChauWing Lam and Board member Wanda Novales. (Applause.)
Ms. Lam, could you take the stand please? (Witness approached Witness table.)
No. Just for the record, your no vote could you expound upon your position?
Just for the record, and we're working on this and we're discussing this issue amongst ourselves so members have an interest in.
Absolutely. At the time of the vote I had only received the materials probably a week or so ahead of time and there was a lot of material to digest. I simply wanted more time to understand the long-term ramifications for the School District of Philadelphia.
Okay. And when you say long-term ramifications, and I think Chairman Thomas just clarified with the finance person Mike -- I don't want to be too casual by -- it's Michael, correct?
The Finance Director for the District that overall in the long run you will make more revenue to support the children in the city of Philadelphia than currently. But give me your perspective on long term, how you think it has an impact on the School District?
Sure. Absolutely. So I think that there's a couple of things to consider. There was the build, no-build comparison of what happens with a new arena, without a new arena. But what I didn't see information about was what happens with an arena with different negotiated numbers or terms. So for instance, the build, no build took into effect based on current negotiations and there were certain anomalies that I saw in the numbers. For example, the comparison assumed that there would be $4.2 million of increased liquor sales in the build scenario versus the no-build scenario. But if they existed in the current arena, I don't see what the difference would be in liquor sales at the current arena versus the new arena. There were just oddities like that that I wanted more time to digest and I wanted to make sure that the City of Philadelphia is getting the best possible deal on this.
The best pos -- and in your mind what would you think would be the best possible deal?
I think that the terms of the -- I'm no economic development expert, but I do understand that the negotiation currently is based on what was negotiated 20-plus years ago in a South Philly District that looks very different from a Center City District. So I think it would be unfair to have the same setup and arrangement be the status quo for the new developers as opposed to taking into consideration the robustness and the liveliness of Center City District, especially on land that the City is allowing -- is owning and becomes tax-free. So I think overall it's not just arena or no arena. It's what terms can we as the City of Philadelphia say is fair for the long-term advantage of the children in our city. And which by the way, when the arena opens our 10-year- olds will be already graduated out. They will be 20. So I personally voted no because of wanting to understand the long-term impact and wanting to increase the amount that's on the table for the foreseeable future. (Applause.)
Okay. And one last part who provided you the build, no-build scenario? Who presented to the Board the build, no-build scenario?
I believe -- I've been watching the hearings at City Council and it was Mr. Dubow and Mr. Rhoads from PIDC.
So did y'all ever have an official presentation and walk you through the numbers and --
-- giving you an idea overall taking apart and examining the CBA and the whole proposal for the area?
Well, the Board received the presentation and the way it was communicated to us was that this was not a vote for the arena. It was a vote for the TIF. And because the way that it was presented to the Board of Education, and understanding Board members can have their different views and we respect that and we're still --
-- just as united, after we took the vote the communication from the Board of Education was that it saw this as opening the door for potential new revenues that were not available to our students with the understanding that we're historically an underfunded school district, but also our focus on student achievement and understanding our role, which is that this Board of Education isn't mandated by the law to be the economic driving body of the City of Philadelphia. That's City Council and that's the Mayor. So with that being kind of the backdrop, the Board communicated its vote that night through our communication mechanisms being as such.
And also, I do know part of some of the things that are proposed has an impact in terms of supporting young people through internships and also job training opportunities overall, but I just wanted to get an idea of how y'all came up with the actual decision, the presentations behind it and how well-informed the Board was in terms of the actual details, because we're working on this 24/7 and doing our best to the best of our ability to address all issues and concerns and trying to get it right to the best of our ability rather we move forward or not with it. And so, that's my line of questioning. So with that being said, the Chair relinquishes his time to the Chairman of Education Councilmember Isaiah Thomas.
Chairmember Thomas, can I add something briefly to that last line of questions real briefly?
Just FYI, the City Council President asked about who gave the presentation. We had a public presentation where everything you discussed was part of the conversation as it relates to the year-round and things like that that are currently --
So when you say a public presentation, not an official let's sit the Board members in the room 2 like members of the City Council was sat in the room and given an overview of the details of the actual proposal that you were going to be --
Council President, there was a presentation to the Board where Mr. Rhoads --
Okay. Public or private? I'm just asking you --
Okay. All right. Because before you just said it was a public --
But it was also a private one, like y'all just in the room 2 amongst yourselves walking you through the vote you're about to take?
It was a presentation just to walk us through, but it wasn't no 8 deliberating. The Board didn't make any decisions nor opine whether or not it would vote yes or no which makes it complicit with the Sunshine Act and --
-- things like that. I just want to put that on record. I know there are certain individuals in --
That's all right. Listen, that's not a big deal. I'm just trying to get clarity, transparency. So there was an actual meeting with Mr. Dubow and whoever else with members of the Board separately, because we don't want to break the Sunshine Act, to say this is what the 76 Place proposal looks like so people can get an idea to build or not to build? That's all I'm asking you.
Yeah. And it was only focused on the financial impact of the current status quo, which has been testified about is --
-- not meeting the expectations of when that TIF was approved and then what potentially could happen with a build scenario as it relates to the TIF. We were not asked to opine on the deal, but those issues. I got you.
But it was private presentations given to members of the Board, correct?
All right. Members charge me to ask these questions from a matter of transparency and just the process in general, so it's not a right or wrong answer. It's more information gathering because we have a big decision that we have to make. And as much information that we have from all parties and stakeholders helps inform us of these decisions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Superintendent.
The Chair turns it over to the illustrious Chairman of Education, Mr. Isaiah Thomas.
Good afternoon. Similar to the Council President, I want to thank you all and your entire team for being here. I know folks are a little restless and we want to take that break, so I would just ask that we all as members stick to some of the time limits, and I would ask that you all be as concise as possible in some of your answers so we can get through this first round. A couple things on my end. You said that the Board vote was a 7 to 2. I'm wondering throughout the course of this year for this new Board that has just been put in, has there been any votes that you've taken on any issues that have been like 5-4?
Okay. Have you been given any legal advice as it relates to the recent decision that City Council made around approving eight members as it relates to any possible liability issues that could be created if there were a 5-4 vote on a particular issue?
Thank you. One of the issues we discuss every year around this time is the start date for school. We always push back on the idea of starting school before Labor Day. We listened to Dr. Watlington in his testimony talk about over $200 million in damage to facilities to specifically address temperature and climate. And while Dr. Watlington comes back to us every year with a detailed explanation as it relates to why he has to start school before Labor Day, while we comprehend we often push back. For the start of the school year of 2024 -- I'm sorry. For the start of the school year of 2025-2026, do you anticipate school starting before or after Labor Day?
Mr. Chairman, there is a diverse internal and external committee currently working on a draft calendar for the next two years -- for the following two fiscal school years. That diverse team is considering everything. The short answer is it's premature to say. But the long story short, that committee under the leadership of Deputy Superintendent Dr. Jermaine Dawson is considering the impacts on student achievement, state law relative to the number of days and when schools cannot be in service, a very diverse holiday footprint across the District representing our diversity, and we'll be bringing a recommendation to President Streater and the Board some time in early to mid-2025 and we will be happy to keep you updated.
Yeah. So I want to go on the record as again encouraging us to start school after Labor Day until we address the facilities crisis. What happens far too often is we start school and it's often disrupted because of things that are beyond our control, like issues related to climate and things of that capacity. So I did just want to put that on the record. In the second round, I'm --
Mr. Chairman, may I just note for the record that more than 16,000 Philadelphians have weighed in on a survey, don't have the details of that because it's still out in the field, but we're getting a lot of --
So 15,000 say that we want to start school after Labor Day. Is that enough?
We're going to defer to Dr. Dawson's capable leadership. I'm sure he'll do a good job.
Thank you, Dr. Watlington. I'm just joking. In all seriousness though, I'll get to the facility stuff afterwards. But I'm going to ask that in the midst of our break I do want to give a huge thank you to Mr. Craig Johnson, who does an excellent job as it relates to his work and what he's charged with. Far too often Mr. Johnson who to no fault of his own, or yours, Dr. Watlington, or yours, Board President Streater, or pretty much anybody in this room, he has to communicate issues to myself and members of the Education Committee as it relates specifically to a school being evacuated to a condition of the building that has happened far too often. I'm hoping that after the break you can tell us how often does a school have to be evacuated because of a facilities-based issue that again is beyond your control but also puts us in a position to disrupt education? I think that's something important for the general public to know. As you know, Dr. Watlington, since you've gotten here I've screamed and cried about the facilities crisis. I believe that's the biggest concern that we have as a city. I think there's no 5 other concern that's more important in public education. And when you look at the job of public education, I commend you and your team for the focus on academic progress. But it's hard for people to step into a building every day and get a quality education when they're worried about the infrastructure, and the infrastructure tells them something different than what we're saying here, which is that we care about our children. So we'll dive into that when we come back from the break. Last question on my behalf: Local procurement is a really important thing for me -- oh, I'm sorry. Let me take a step back. We talked about facilities. I do want to give a special thank you to Dr. Oz Hill as well too. He inherited one of the toughest jobs that anybody can inherit in all the government and he's been handling it in stride, so I just wanted to put that on the record as well. Local procurement is something that's been really important to me and working with our new CFO, we've been able to put us in a position to see some significant strides. When we first started this work together, less than percent of all School 17 District contracts went to 18 Philadelphia-based businesses. 19 For those who don't 20 know, Keeping Local is a bill that 21 I passed in City Council coming out 22 of the pandemic in order to 23 encourage the City to put a large 24 percentage of our City contracts to Philadelphia-based businesses. Now, as a city we have over 50 percent of our contracts going to Philadelphia-based businesses and now the School District is trending in that exact same way. Based on the work that I do on a quarterly basis with the CFO, while we're able to adopt and amend some things in that meeting, there are some things that are beyond his control, and I want to put some of that stuff on the record today. Some of the big contracts that we have that are out there does not put us in a position for our local businesses to bid on. We've pushed the CFO and his team to reduce those contracts. Let me give you an example. The cleaning contract for the School District of Philadelphia is one that we outsource. Now, I understand that when we outsource these contracts these providers often use Philadelphia-based businesses as their prime, and that is a good thing. But if we really want to grow our economy, right, because that also benefits you, I'm wondering and I'll use the substitute teaching contract as another example, why don't we break these contracts down into smaller RFPs so Philadelphia-based businesses can be more competitive as it relates to bidding on School District contracts?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll say two things. Number one, under the leadership of Deputy Superintendent Hill and CFO Herbstman we've held a number of sessions with local vendors to include MBE and WBE vendors to make them aware of the processes established by the Board to help them understand how to get registered as a potential vendor with the School District and to navigate all the areas where they have to do. Secondly, when we look at following a competitive process for services and construction and the like, we are very laser-focused on making sure that we follow the letter and the spirit of state, federal and local ordinances and laws as well as the Board's policy. But it is always something that we're reviewing, because we believe that most school districts in the country tend to be among the largest employers and absolutely where possible within the letter and spirit of the law ought to have opportunities for local participation. We agree with you, sir.
So I started by commending the CFO because everything you've talked about is things that him and his team has done an amazing job on to move the numbers based on where we were, which was pretty bad, to where we are which is some progress. But we need a commitment from you, Dr. Watlington. We need a commitment from you, Board President Streater. We need you to go on the record and let us know that you're going to be willing to take a look at some of these bigger contracts that Philadelphia businesses unfortunately cannot bid on, break them down in smaller RFPs and try to give Philadelphia businesses an opportunity to be able to bid on some of these contracts. These are the type of things that can change generational wealth in municipalities. These are the type of things that can help us overcome the deficit that you have as well as what we have on our end. And if we do a good job of this, I think that it could put us in a position where some of the struggles that we have economically can dissolve. So I just want to put that on the record and we're going to continue to push on that on the legislative side.
Before I recognize Councilmember Gilmore Richardson and then Councilmember Phillips, let me just put something on the record from Councilmember Driscoll. And hopefully, you can address it after the break. Councilmember Driscoll unfortunately couldn't be here but this is a huge priority to him and his team. Councilmember Driscoll if you don't know represents the Northeast section of the city of Philadelphia and he had a huge concern as it relates to overcrowding at Northeast schools, specifically looking at Lincoln High School. With the status of capital funding for projects in the 6th District, he's concerned that this overcrowding and some of the legal issues can impact some of that work. And we will get you his other questions as it relates to the capital funding. But before I pass it to Councilmember Gilmore Richardson -- I'm sorry, Councilmember Gilmore Richardson, then Phillips -- let me just put some of the issues that was communicated to this body specifically related to Lincoln High School. Lincoln is supposed to have a capacity of 1585. It has over 2500 students enrolled. Lincoln's lunch period begins at 9:05 a.m. for a school that starts at 7:30, so imagine a high school student having lunch at 9:05. Lincoln is one of our better facilities in the city, brand new built. We're told, and I don't know how true this is, that the Lincoln library has six classrooms in the actual library. Now, when I think about a school like Frankford High School that has all the construction issues, I can understand that being in place, but a school like Lincoln I'm not quite sure why that is. We're also told that science classes are not taught in science rooms. We've been told that there have been over five assistant principals who've been driven out of there. And I have about seven other pages of issues, including contract violations and a whole bunch of other stuff that -- again, I'm still turning the page, I'm not going to read all this stuff, but these are the things that's been communicated to myself and Councilmember Driscoll. I'll put Councilmember Harrity in that category as well too. So when we come back from the break, hopefully we'll be able to put some things on the record specifically to answer Councilmember Driscoll's questions as it relates to Lincoln High School. Chair recognizes Councilmember Gilmore Richardson followed by Councilmember Phillips. And, colleagues, if it's okay with you, we're going to try to stick to three minutes per round and then we'll take a break. And then whenever we take that break, we'll just come back 45 minutes later. Majority Leader Richardson.
Thank you. Thank you so much to our Education Chair, my colleague Councilmember Thomas. I appreciate the break because I have to pause here to go pick up my kids from school. I have them in a reading camp to help them try to get on grade level with their reading. So everyone knows I have to leave at 3:00 no matter what on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays so I can get them to this program that I've enrolled my children in to try to get them on grade level with their reading. So at any rate, I will stick to the time limit and just put all my questions on the record. I wanted to start with a thank you. Thank you to Dr. Watlington for assembling what I believe is a great team to help address some of the longstanding challenges that we know we face as a district. I am especially thankful for Laurel, who's our day-to-day person that we work with here in Council, and then also for Dr. Dawson, who I have said many times I think is just one of the best professionals that you have on your team, and also to Mr. Hill who I've recently communicated with, but I am especially thankful for Dr. Dawson. I wanted to say thank you also for the leveling that you have addressed and utilized a portion of your budget to ensure that we are no longer leveling in the District. It has been received with very positive reviews not only from teachers and families but from those who have been impacted in the past. And finally, thank you for working with my office and with Councilmember Jones to add a meeting to the facilities planning process west of the river, which was held two weeks ago now in Wynnefield. I am especially concerned about what may happen based on some of the neighborhood trends across the city relative to which schools have underenrollment and which schools are bursting at the seams as we just heard about the schools in the Northeast represented by Councilmember Driscoll. So I wanted to start there. As you all are undertaking this facilities planning process, if you all could just think about how you are working on the catchment boundary plan as well and ensuring that families are able to utilize the school finder application in a way that points them to their closest local public school. It was funny -- on Friday I received an inquiry from a family in Wynnefield. They actually live in my division where I serve as a committee person. They are interested in transitioning their child from cyber charter school back to the closest local public school. And so, I actually just sent that case over to your office, so please help us help the Jones-Hyman family. So please consider that as you undertake the facilities planning process because I think that continues to be a challenge with not only underenrollment and schools that are bursting at the seams but also routing families to the correct places within their communities. Staying on some of the other issues around facilities, and I know you have a meeting forthcoming on the 10th for families with students who have IEPs, we found in the past that those students and also low-income students and minority students are typically disproportionately impacted when there are facility closures. And so, I wanted to put that on the record relative to students with IEPs. And then also, I wanted to mention specifically Girls High. I know I used a large portion -- thank you, I hear the bell. I used a large portion of my time to talk about Girls High. I'm very thrilled to have new leadership and Principal Argro and last year you all committed to holding Girls High harmless even if they did not meet their full enrollment. And so, I know that we are working to ensure that enrollment is increased there amongst other schools obviously. But I wanted to ensure that you all would at least commit to holding them harmless again this year on the record so that we can give them an opportunity to rebuild over at the Philadelphia High School for Girls.
Finally, we noticed that it was around 13 percent increase for the career and technical education schools around the passage of the NOCTI exam. But I wanted to put on the record that we have received outreach from a few former teachers now who were in the CTE programs who have since left the District over an issue with the education requirement that they were unable to meet. And we lost some really seasoned CTE professionals. I think a few from Ben Franklin High School and some of our other CTE programs because of this requirement. If you all could just address that issue. There is an easy fix for the issue, but it just needs to be addressed at the leadership level at the District. That would be helpful. And then finally, so I can respect time, we would like to see CTE begin in 9th grade so that as a district we are eligible for additional funding from the state to have CTE for a total of four years instead of three years. And I know a big part of your push is increasing the students who are proficient in Algebra 1 and having Algebra 1 earlier in their academic career. But doing that will also help us to have CTE starting in 9th grade instead of 10th grade so that we could receive additional funding. I know that when I was in the District back in the mid '90s I had Algebra 1 in 7th grade at Masterman. We already had two languages at that point by 7th grade, but that is not the case with a ton of other schools, particularly our neighborhood schools. So I wanted to put that on the record. Mr. Chair, if you don't mind, the remainder of my questions I will submit for the record. But I just wanted to say that we are concerned in ensuring that we are incorporating financial literacy as a priority in our School District and wanted to know what metrics the District will use to assess the effectiveness of financial literacy education as it does become an education requirement in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. What plans are in place to involve families and financial literacy efforts with the new work with Parent University and recognizing that intergenerational benefits of programs like the Adult Financial Empowerment workshops that you all have been doing I think with Philadelphia financial scholars? They offer work to parents and caregivers. And finally, how does the District see financial literacy as a tool not only for academic success but also for addressing the broader systematic economic challenges faced by our city? A few of those answers I'd like to ask for the record to get on the record, particularly around Girls High and financial literacy. I will submit all of my questions for the record for a written response. And I do apologize in advance for my departure as I'm a working mom and have to pick up my kids from school.
Mr. Chairman, may I have 60 seconds for just a quick high-level response?
We've heard loud and clear the catchment boundary issues in our sites. You are absolutely correct, Principal Argro is doing a fantastic job at the Philadelphia High School for Girls. She has been all over this city recruiting and I think we're going to have some good things on the other side of this. Relative to financial literacy --
I apologize, Mr. Chair. If you could just commit to holding Girls High harmless relative to the amount of teachers versus based on the enrollment, like you all did last year.
Thank you. We're considering an ongoing commitment to do whatever is necessary to rebuild the enrollment consistent with the approach we took last year. Let me also say relative to your question about financial literacy, absolutely, A, in the Parent and Family University relaunch that Dr. Dawson and Chief Coppadge are leading, there will be a financial literacy for parents and guardians and caregivers. We also as a part of Accelerate Philly will launch a financial literacy module as part of the K-12 curriculum. We're doing reading, math -- and we're doing math first, reading this year, language arts, science after that and then we're going to integrate financial literacy as well. More to come. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Chairman Thomas. I just want to begin by stating that thank you, Board Chair Streater as well as Dr. Watlington. There's been some amazing progress since our last time that we've had in this body and I want to applaud you for that, so thank you so much. One, let me just begin by stating as you know -- this is a question -- this year we have seen high-level community issues that have been addressed publicly here in the city of Philadelphia, particularly the arena. And now, with the school closure that is being proposed I wanted to make sure that we get on record that it's really important that we begin with community engagement throughout this entire process, and I love the fact that we've had 32 community meetings. I just want to make sure that if we can get on record that you work closely with City Councilmembers, stakeholders, agencies that we work with so they could be more involved with this process at the beginning of the conversation as opposed to now we're on defense. We want to be in concert together. And I just was concerned about the fact that we did have community meetings recently which is wonderful, but I just want to make sure we do that with Philadelphia City Council going forward.
Yes, sir, Councilmember Phillips. President Streater and the Board have been very clear about us having a throughline of high engagement from beginning to end of the process. We'll stay on that path.
Awesome, because one of the things that I wanted to note, which was really important for us, is that when presenting to the neighborhood, we want to be very clear about the why, why we have to do the closures. And then after that, we want to present what options are available and then see if we can negotiate a consensus relevant to making sure that every family feels good about where their children are going to go. So I just want to see if maybe as you're building out this plan we have community agencies and organizations that we work with as well as State reps and so forth, maybe we all could be in concert together so this is not like we didn't know. There's no, you know. So we're at the beginning stages so I think we can fix this. I'm happy about that. The last thing I just want to ask about -- and I'll submit the rest my questions on record to you all in an email and so forth, but I just wanted to put on record that recently many City Councilmembers have gone to prisons, other community -- like a prison where we heard about the issue of bullying in the city of Philadelphia public schools and also sometimes we've gone to -- that was in Phoenixville. We've also gone to different community meetings and we've heard about bullying. And I think this is a time -- and I was bullied growing up in Philadelphia public schools. I'm really hoping that as part of our goals for the incoming year we can assess that for the upcoming year it's like how do we address school bullying in its totality so we can make a capital awareness campaign to fix that. So that's one thing. And then the last thing I want to get on record is about Olney High School, which is really, really important to the 9th District, where we have an opportunity to really fix a facility there with their athletic facility, which I think would be pivotal because we haven't had any renovations in the 9th District for any of our facilities in -- well, we had one -- no, actually -- no, we haven't. So with that being said, I just want to see if this could be something that could be a PIAA huge banger for our neighborhood and it could be community accessible to have a track, outstanding football field, baseball field and so forth. And I just want to make sure that as part of the budget process that we're really considering how to make that work. I know Dr. Oz Hill talked about that with me, but I just want to make sure our Board and you and everyone else is really going to work together to see how we can make this happen.
I'm sorry, Mr. Superintendent. Can you please be as concise and efficient in your answers as possible.
Relative to Olney, President Streater and the Board have asked us to bring a plan in the early fall, too soon to get ahead of that. It will be the Board's decision about the expenditures as that support responsibility, but we'll bring very informed, well- thought-out recommendations for it, and we absolutely will double-down on our commitment to preventing and mitigating bullying in the schools.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Harrity and we'll close out with Councilmember -- oh, I'm sorry. Well, Councilmember Harrity, then Councilmember O'Rourke and we'll close out with Councilmember Gauthier. Councilmember Harrity.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you guys for coming out and to answer our questions as far as the year-round school is concerned. I'm the labor guy on Council so I figure I might as well get it out of the way. Have we discussed the year-round plan with the teachers union and the other unions for the School District? And if so, is the PFT in support of the year-round schooling?
We're in constant communication with the PFT and other unions. We have begun a process. We have a labor union contract up next fall and that's part of our communication. Yes, we're in regular communication.
All right. With that being said, what is the plan for the maintenance that's usually done in the offseason?
I will ask Deputy Superintendent Hill if he might could speak to anything related to maintenance in the offseason since that is a part of our facilities work. Could you speak to that? I think the Chair has given us 30 to 90 seconds. Is that right, sir?
Can I ask a clarifying question? Is it what is the plan for the offseason upkeep --
Yeah, all the stuff that we usually repair and all that stuff --
During the time when the students are in school all year --
Yeah. All I want to know is do we have a plan to deal with the new circumstances if we do year-round school that made it -- that will have to be done at some point. Just trying to figure out what that plan is.
Thank you very much for the question, Councilmember. Absolutely we have a plan that focuses on a robust effort during the peak periods when students are not in school to ensure that we don't expose them to any hazards, whether it be for environmental maintenance work or major renovation. Additionally, we are performing scheduled maintenance on major building systems to ensure their functionality and operability.
Okay. So that's all in preparation for -- good. All right. And then the last thing I have is on you guys said that you added 60 schools with air-conditioning in the three years. How many schools now have adequate AC and what's the plan to have schools ready with AC for '26?
Sir, currently we have 58 schools that have instructional spaces that are inadequately cooled. The process of preparing those spaces includes not only the installation of the mechanical systems, but the upgrading of the electrical backbone in those facilities so that we have the capacity to support the mechanical systems. That process is ongoing. We're looking at funding and resources to accomplish those objectives.
Yeah, I appreciate that. But it goes to show that we need to build new schools. Not having the adequate electric is ridiculous. And I get it. You know, back -- it gets a little hotter nowadays than I guess it did years ago. But I just think that at some point we have to, you know, coming from a labor standpoint I know that some of these schools the cost to abate the asbestos and lead would cost you more than it would be just to knock it down and build another one. So I hope we're thinking about that in the next coming school year also.
Chair recognizes Councilmember O'Rourke. And let me just put something on the record real quick. I've been told by my supervisors that we won't be taking a break shortly because we won't be coming back for a second round, so we're going to ask that all members get your questions in now. And instead of taking a break, we're going to go ahead and adjourn today's dialogue. Chair recognizes Councilmember O'Rourke, followed by Councilmember Gauthier. And then after that -- oh, and then we'll close out with -- well, then followed by Councilmember Lozada and then I'll close it out with the final round of questions.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And good afternoon to all the panelists. First time I get a chance to speak to you all today. It was morning time when we got started and now it's the afternoon. And it's already been lifted up by the Council President before he left. Many of us are deeply concerned about the incoming Presidential administration as we already talked about quite a bit, particularly how it will affect migrant students and families in Philadelphia. To your point, Chairman Streater, we're grateful to have a school board that is already committed to the Sanctuary Schools resolution, which was passed in 2021, sets out critical policies to safeguard immigrant students, including rapid response protocol, sets out things like comprehensive staff training to prevent discrimination and harassment, a community table that gives migrant families a voice and decisions that affect their children's education. All these are wonderful things. And grateful and need to shout out Juntos as an organization that has been there to really drive that policy or drive that resolution and getting the work done there. As I understand it, to date though the implementation of the Sanctuary Schools policy has been consistent which has left migrant students and families vulnerable. We do understand that you are going to be working on what implementation on that looks like. I do want to say though on Juntos' point though, they've also proposed a newcomer program to the School Board as well, which requests comprehensive and guaranteed access to critical resources, support services and culturally competent education for every immigrant and newcomer student in our city. Will you commit to implementing the newcomer program to protect the vulnerable immigrant students and families in Philadelphia?
If I can briefly say it's a sad state of affairs that we've had to have this conversation, that we have to pass resolutions to do things that some would say should just be a fundamental right of all the children in the School District of Philadelphia. But what I can say is the Board of Education is in partnership with our Superintendent and committed to ensuring that we can make sure every student is safe, feels safe and that we support them any way that we can. So I can say that in response to that. And we look forward to working with Juntos as we have in the past with the resolution, and that's just the beginning of the conversation that must continue.
I'm glad that is the beginning of the conversation. Mr. Chairman, just so I'm clear are you aware of the newcomer program that has been proposed?
Yes, I believe in your public comment that you submitted to the Board of Education I read that as well as you've mentioned it, and I believe we got some other feedback from Juntos as well.
Beautiful. Thank you so much, Chairman. Appreciate you.
Thank you, colleague. Chair recognizes Councilmember Gauthier and we'll close out with Councilmember Lozada. And, colleagues, for the record we do have six people who've signed up for public comment.
Good afternoon to the both of you and thank you for being here today. I was struck in your presentation by the slide that showed what you learned from the past school closures, and I don't think that's the first time you showed that information to Council. And I'm struck every time that I see it, that we were trying to close a billion dollar- plus gap that we saw closing 30 schools as a means to help with that goal, that it saved us $24 million in terms of dollars but it also cost us a lot in terms of student achievement and performance. I think today was the first time that I heard the statistic that you gave that every student that drops out costs us almost a half a million dollars. So when I think about that statistic and then I think about the million, I'm not really sure 6 we saved it, right, because there 7 could have been an impact on 8 increased dropouts due to the 9 closures as well. 10 And so, what I wanted to 11 know, I definitely liked 12 Councilmember Phillip's question 13 about how you'll engage the 14 community and work with Council. 15 But I want to know as we embark on 16 this path again what are we going 17 to do differently, right, because 18 it's more than about just sort of 19 real dollars and cents. There's 20 also a cost that comes with a 21 school being closed in the 22 community that's almost 23 incalculable. 24 So I'd love to hear -I'm glad to see what you learned, but I want to know how we will employ what you learned as we head down this path again? (Applause.)
Thank you, Councilmember Gauthier. On the one hand we're approaching this with the benefit of more time and we're being very thoughtful about an equity-centered approach. For example, in schools that closed the lionshare of the savings came from position cuts. Equity-oriented thinking says that for the kids who need more we give them more. We just don't balance the budget just by sheer number of kids. So we intend, as we bring recommendations to President Streater and the Board, to be mindful of how we make more investments in some communities where kids are underrepresented, underresourced and need more instead of just balancing the budget by cutting. Secondly, we'll be making sure that we continue to hear the voices of all communities in Philadelphia as we build this plan to bring to the Board.
And can I also add, what's a little different there's a resolution where the Board spoke unanimously that protects students and takes a more equitable approach where we're not running to close a budgetary shortfall, we're actually trying to do things that can actually support student achievement. So I'll just say that that's also a difference and I believe this Board will reject a plan that doesn't deliver on the spirit of the resolution 23 that we passed.
Okay. I appreciate that. And I want us to be looking at this with every site that you suggest, I want to see not just a plan or a recommendation for closing a site because a school building is more than a building, right. A school building is a center of community and it could have all kinds of implications. It could have implications on violence, implications on student morale, student learning. And so, as we go down this road I'm going to be looking to see with each closure that's recommended how we avoid some of those outcomes, negative outcomes, that we know we experienced when we did this the first time around. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to follow up on the school closure conversation but more towards the school that actually have already closed and are kind of sitting vacant in the community, some of which are blighted, right. I know that you guys have done listening tours across the city of Philadelphia. Some residents have not been able to participate. But part of what they wanted me to share with you was the fact that there are some schools that have closed. I'm going to use Fairhill School as an example that is vacant, is blighted. We have a parking lot that's on 3rd and Dauphin, somewhere that is in deplorable condition and it belongs to the City of Philadelphia. What are we doing to make sure that these facilities that are closed don't become problems in the community. When I mention that, I think of Fairhill because it has become one of those spaces where some of our outdoor neighbors have gone to break in and to seek shelter, right, but it also becomes a situation that community residents are afraid of because it can catch fire because people won't know that folks are in there and may need additional attention. The parking lot over at 3rd Street has so much overgrown vegetation that when people go in there and they light fires, they're afraid that that is also going to catch on fire. So what are we doing about making sure that some of these facilities that we can maybe take out of our inventory and use some of that money to be able to invest in some of our existing active spaces is used?
Separating apart from the facilities planning process and the resolution that the Board directed the Superintendent on, I'm going to ask Colonel Hill to come back and say a word about what we're doing about the closed schools to ensure that they're not nuisances and how they're being looked after --
And I apologize if you guys talked about that. I've kind of been dealing with an emergency in the District so I've been in and out. So if you all said it and I didn't hear it, I apologize for that.
And I'll defer to President Streater about the Board's position as far as current facilities that are on its footprint that it owns that are closed.
Yeah. I'll be brief in the resolution. Again, the resolution matters. This is something that the Board has bound itself to. There's a commitment to working with our City partners so that we can be thoughtful and strategic about facilities that may need to be reimagined for now. And I say this -- I also have personal experience with Germantown High School, which was for far too long sitting empty and became a nuisance in some ways but now it's being repurposed. But, yeah, that's embedded in the process, again learning lessons, learning from our past mistakes on that topic.
Thank you very much for the question, Councilmember. Just as the Superintendent and the Board President have said, the facilities planning process certainly will inform the long-term disposition of those properties. We are working in tandem right now with the Mayor's Clean and Green initiative to ensure that those properties are maintained and they are not eyesores in the communities in which they sit.
Have you all considered partnering not just with Clean and Green but with PHS as well?
Absolutely, ma'am. It's a collaborative effort and we're talking to our counterparts, both governmental agencies as well as nonprofit advocates in communities to ensure that those properties don't become eyesores.
Awesome. Thank you. And then my last question is around the maintenance backlog. Do you all still have a maintenance backlog? And if so, how backlogged are you and what is being done to address that backlog?
Great question. Thank you, ma'am. We do have a maintenance backlog. On average we get about 650 new work orders every week. That on top of the maintenance backlog that can be attributed to the historic underfunding of our facilities and maintenance in the District it creates a cycle in which we're always catching up, if you will, in terms of addressing the backlog. Because as soon as we take two steps forward in addressing the backlog, we have just received again every week on average about 650 new work orders. We are looking at the resources that we have. We have delineated a component of our internal staff to address the backlog as well as work on the current work orders as they're coming in. We prioritize those work orders which impact the safety and well-being of students, faculty and staff.
Okay. Is there a way that you can provide this body with a list of what number is your current backlog number and where they are by Council District?
Thank you. Let me just go to another quick line of questioning. One of the issues that was communicated to us was concerns around school crossing guards. We talked a little bit about this in our monthly meetings. We asked for there to be some type of communication plan. When there's an emergency in the school currently right now, there is no line of communication to the school crossing guards to be able to communicate whatever incident might have taken place. Again, Mr. Craig Johnson does a great job of keeping City Council informed, specifically the Education Committee and the District Councilmembers when there's a serious incident that takes place. So I'm wondering where we are in that communication plan for the school safety officers and what do we have in place so when there is an emergency that emergency is communicated to our crossing guards who we love and adore?
Mr. Chairman, are you asking us to follow up that issue in writing or to speak to it at this time?
If you don't have an update, please follow up in writing.
The Colonel maybe will have it. Colonel, do you want to follow up in writing or you want to say anything?
I can share a comment right now. Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman. The school crossing guard dilemma is one that challenges us every single day based on the shortage of school crossing guards. What we do to mitigate that challenge is using our patrol officers to also cover, to assist with those known locations where it presents a challenge for pedestrian traffic, also working with the school communities for greater awareness in terms of safety while pedestrian traffic into the schools during bell times.
How long do you think it will take for you to come up with a comprehensive plan that could be communicated to them?
Mr. Chairman, I would like to do a little bit of research, but certainly by the time that the Superintendent updates this body on the next biannual update we'll certainly have a plan.
It would be disappointing for you all to go into contract negotiations with them next year and it kind of not be one of the things that's done as you head into contract negotiations. One of the things you talked about with staff being an issue, you're sitting on an extra pot of money this year. I believe we talked about it being about -- how much?
You're sitting on -- no, that's -- you're sitting on 700 million right now while operating in a deficit. But this year's deficit was projected to be 80 million, and that number is down to about 66 million. You said earlier that you got three contracts coming up. Clearly, school crossing guards is one of the issues that we have as it relates to being able to hire. We clearly have the revenue. Clearly, you can't talk in-depth about contract negotiations, but do you think that you will have an appetite to provide a raise for the school crossing guards similar to what you did for the teachers and the UNITE HERE workers?
Sir, I would like to defer a response to that after having an opportunity to consult with the CFO and with the District staff.
I would say, Mr. Chairman, that we are so early into the budget development process I wouldn't want to be on the record at this point saying anything other than we value all our employees and we'll have some hard decisions to make and we're committed to making good recommendations to the Board.
That sounds very responsible, Dr. Watlington. But I can go on the record and say that we do want to see an increase in pay for a lot of the people who we know are struggling to do the work that they're doing and we know that that's the only way we can address some of the staff and vacancies that we see, but I understand your responsible answer.
To be clear, Mr. Chairman, we have lots of hardworking employees across the School District of Philadelphia and we certainly wish we could pay all of them better than we are now. Thank you.
Thank you for that. That's the appetite that we love to hear. Are there any answers around Lincoln High School yet?
Lincoln High School, can you identify -- I'm going to recognize Councilmember Bass. But as I'm recognizing Councilmember Bass, I did give Laurel some of the issues that was communicated to us around Lincoln High School. So at some point can you guys identify someone to be able to come answer questions around Lincoln High School before we adjourn for today?
Mr. Chairman, if you'll give me 60 seconds, I'll be glad to give a high-level overview and follow up in writing.
Can I recognize Councilmember Bass first. She's been patiently waiting, and then we can go back into that dialogue if that's okay. Thank you, sir. Chair recognizes Councilmember Bass.
Good afternoon almost good evening. Well, listen, I just want to ask just a couple of questions and I want to follow up first on my colleague's question around school crossing guards and I want to pivot to the position of safety because as most of us probably realize, there was a crossing guard who actually passed away over the weekend over I think it was in Jersey, who they showed the videotape footage of them basically trying to stop cars. They stopped one car from, you know, and she was protect -- he or she I should say, was protecting students which were trying to cross the street. And in one case this person was able to stop the car and then the next they weren't and they were hit and they were killed. And so, I wanted to know what we're doing around school safety around crossing guards and also how closely are we working with the Streets Department and the Philadelphia Police Department and school crossing guard network to make sure our kids get home safe? It never ceases to amaze me that people will run right past a school bus with the stop sign extended. They will think nothing of just ignoring it. And so, I would like to see the highest penalty possible placed on them, and I don't know that we're there yet but that's something that we would like to explore and we want to get feedback from you all first.
Given that safety is the number one priority in our strategic plan, I'll ask the Colonel to speak to that. I'm sure the Chair will entertain 60 seconds or less, right?
Just as -- thank you for the question, ma'am, and just as a follow-up to my previous comments, as I mentioned having our Patrol Office from the Office of School Safety provide support to mitigate the shortage in terms of staffing of school crossing guards, unless I am incorrect I believe that crossing guards are City employees and through coordination with the School District we highlight our priorities in terms of their posting.
Yes. So how do you all coordinate with the crossing guards, with the School District, with the Police Department, with the Department of Streets and Safety? Is there coordination, because in my mind at least there should be because you have the need for speed, like traffic-calming measures. This Council enacted a bill last year that said that, okay, we're going to make priorities -- schools for traffic calming. And so, when it comes to placing speed bumps or speed cushions or whatever you want to call them, schools, particularly elementary schools I would imagine get a priority. I know my colleague Council Lady Lozada also introduced a bill to have speed cushions around recreation centers, correct, Council Lady?
Recreation centers, your bill 7 around recreation centers and speed cushions?
and I did one around senior facilities. And so, I know you all are just focusing on the School District portion. So can you give us some sense of where we are with that?
Yes, ma'am. Within the last 90 days we've met with senior members of the City's administration regarding the installation of those traffic- calming devices. At this time we have the devices installed around approximately 50 of our schools and we have shared a prioritized list with senior staff members regarding where we believe the next traunch of calming devices should be installed. In terms of our coordination, yes, ma'am --
I'm sorry. Not to cut you off, can you give us an idea on what that was based on and where they are? What data that was based on, like who determined, you know, we're going to put one at E. Washington Rhodes and we're going to put one at John Greenleaf Whittier and we're going to put one at Emlen Elementary and we're going to put one --
That was based on our serious incident data as captured by the Office of School Safety.
Excellent. Okay. Based on the number of incidents, so it's based on --
Okay. And you have that list available as to where those incidents occurred and what schools are next up?
Yes, we have the list, the prioritized list that we submitted. I'm not certain what the capacity is of the City staff to actually install the devices. I'm not able to speak on that.
Additionally, the coordination with the crossing guard supervisors was a fluid process because at one time we were providing the crossing guard supervisors with space, office space and L.P. Hill as well as MLK. Based on some of the space demands that we've had to support academics and professional development, they are no longer in that space. But through civil affairs coordination through the Office of School Safety, we're still maintaining that coordination with the crossing guards.
Okay. That brings up a whole different line of questions that I do want to ask you about offline because the idea -- it sounded as if what you were saying is that Martin Luther King ran out of space for housing our traffic safety professionals.
What I'm saying is that as we have identified swing space in MLK and we have prioritized the instructional space for our students, the crossing guards have relocated or moved out of -- the supervisors have moved out of MLK and L.P. Hill.
I'll just put it on out there. Martin Luther King has a ton of space. They just have so much space. I mean, maybe I'm wrong. But unless something happened very, very recently, there's a lot of space at a lot of our schools. And that actually brings me to my next question if I can which is, is there any consideration -- I know we have an overcrowded population of schools sort of east of Broad Street, and then on the west side of Broad Street we have what I would describe as almost somewhat some schools are almost empty and there's this conversation around rightsizing and school closures and all those kinds of things. Is there any consideration of where we have classes that are in hall closets and in hallways and stairways? This is what has been reported. Is there any consideration of moving some of the students to prevent those kinds of learning environments which are unhealthy and just not a good thing? Is there any sort of consideration of moving students to a school that has excess space? Is that ever on the table?
Councilmember, I think that's one of the central parts of this whole planning process to address the underenrollment and overenrollment so that we can address those kind of issues, absolutely.
In the near term if you take a school like Lincoln High School, we have essentially capped the number of students who are out of catchment who would go there through some kind of school selection process with the exception of a small number of CT, career technical education students. And we're also making parents aware or people who move into certain areas of the schools that are closest with open space. The Board also has a policy that allows a family to go to any school where there's space available that may not be their catchment area.
So if a student is out of catchment, let's say they're a student at Lincoln and they're out of catchment. And so, you've basically said, okay, you have to choose, select another option. But if you're within the catchment area, which I suspect a lot of the overcrowding likely is, what about those students? Would there be any thought process by the District to move those students into areas where there's a lot of space, a lot of vacancies because I would guess that most of the population, most of the city's growth is east of Broad Street, so the Northeast, the Far Northeast, anything east of Broad Street has seen a lot of growth, not so much on the west side of Broad Street?
For Lincoln in particular as an example, we no longer are admitting out-of-catchment students for the general admission 9 through 12. Any schools that have more students than their capacity on record we are not entertaining at this time moving kids out. We're controlling for the immigration of more students so that we don't keep kicking this can down the road and exacerbating the problem. But over the term of this between now and August when we bring a plan to President Streater and the Board, we absolutely will address all those issues. Thank you.
Okay. And one last question, Mr. Chairman. Can you talk about school lunches?
We're going to let the Colonel talk about school lunches. What would you like him to talk about?
I don't know. What would we like him to talk about? I have a constituent at my home and I get a regular report of school lunches, and some of the concerns and the issues around the likelihood that a school lunch is actually going to be consumed by a school student. And from what I understand, it is not. Now, I know that one of my colleagues, I can't remember if it was Councilman Jones I think maybe who had offered a resolution 4 to have a hearing on the school lunch situation and the amount of lunches essentially that we waste. We waste a lot of money. They don't get consumed. They're not really consumable in the eyes of most of our young people. And so, it just requires in my opinion another look, another thought around, okay, how are we going to make sure we have a delicious and nutritious meal that they're actually going to eat.
If the Chair will give me 60 seconds, I'll take 30 and yield the other 30 to the Colonel. In my 30 seconds, I want to note that Board members and I get a chance to go visit district-operated schools together and we started that process where we actually eat lunch together in the school as well as lunch in the school. So they can opine on what they think about that. I won't speak for the Board.
So your thoughts then since you've consumed the school lunches?
Yes, we eat the same lunches that kids eat. Number two, I could tell you what my favorite is offline. Two, the Colonel's staff brings in food vendors and we bring students to the Dr. Constance E. Clayton Education Center to have them sample a lot of different kind of foods to give him input and the food services staff about what menu options they like.
We're committed to making our lunches as tasty and nutritious as possible with our vendor fairs where we provide students with an opportunity to sample the food items offered by our vendors. We take that and factor that into the resourcing that we have to provide nutritious and tasty lunches to students with the intent of improving the overall experience for them.
Okay. I'd like to follow up on that in the future. Again, I can't remember which of our colleagues actually introduced a resolution 20 calling for us to have a hearing around school lunches and what is offered, because again it doesn't necessarily seem to be nutritious or something that would be palatable to our students, to our constituency. I have a whole other list of questions, Mr. Chairman, but I know that we need to break at some point so --
-- the members don't want to come back from the break. So this is what we'll do, Councilwoman Bass. If you could come, I'll talk to you in a second. Do you have a response to the Lincoln issue? And while the Lincoln issue, Council colleague, can we huddle real quick?
I'll do this expeditiously. In School Year '23-24, Mr. Chairman, classes 8 were added to Lincoln High School. 9 It's no secret that the 10 northeastern part of the city and 11 county are growing. This year we 12 added two new teachers to Lincoln 13 so that we could reduce the oversized classes by some 25 sections. Also, in November we conducted a class audit at Lincoln and we found two classes that were oversized based on the actual student attendance. As you know, we have very clear guidelines in partnership with the PFT in terms of what class sizes can look like. So at Lincoln High School we've scaled back participation in the school selection process so that we don't continue to add to this problem and we have no out-of- catchment continued admissions to the school in Grades through 12. 7 We do have a small number of CTE 8 spaces that we are still continuing 9 to fill. Now, I will say that what are we doing right now, one, the HR Talent Division is focused on getting people hired in some of those vacancies. They moved to the top of the list. We've just filled three instructional positions. As a matter of fact, we've added an additional school safety officer and an additional climate staffer and extended offers to an additional three individuals. We will stay focused on this until we get every single one of those key positions filled, sir. Please know that it's at the top of the priority list and we'll continue to work very closely with the administration at Lincoln High School.
Thank you. One second please. So sorry. Respectfully, I think just in the spirit of Councilmember Driscoll, some of the responses that we've heard around Lincoln is just not where we need to be. I submitted to your Government Relations staff -- and thank you, Laurel, for all the great work you do, got to shout out Laurel -- 10 pages of complaints that have come to our office. I will be at Lincoln High School tomorrow at 3:15 for a basketball game. I won't be cheering for Lincoln, right, but I'm sure I will get a lot of complaints as it relates to what's going on with the school and some of the issues that we've communicated today. We're going to ask that you have a much more comprehensive approach as it relates to these issues. Six classrooms in the library, a lot of us read the story in The Inquirer that talked about issues with young people in and out of school, coming and going as they please, the overenrollment issues, the staff morale, principals being pushed out. And again, that's probably just about 10 out of the -- this got to be over 300 complaints that have came to us from Lincoln High School. And so, we have to put this on the record because it's a huge priority and, most importantly, we want all of the stakeholders at Lincoln to know that this legislative body and I'm sure you would agree as it relates to the School Board and the School District truly cares about the work that they're doing and truly appreciates the effort that they put forward on a consistent basis. So please, Dr. Watlington --
Mr. Chairman, let me just say we hear the urgency of the Councilmembers, the Council Chair just like President Streater, Vice- president Andrews and Board members. Let me assure you that we are doing everything within our resources at the moment to get key positions, teaching positions, unfilled teaching positions, unfilled climate staff. We're assigning additional staff and doing everything we can to support the administration. We'll double- down on that. One of the things that we have not put on the table because we don't think there's support for it is to take an overenrolled school and to move existing registered kids out. We're choosing for --
Have you met with the Lincoln High School community, stakeholders, teachers, residents of the neighborhood to tell them the dilemma that you're in?
Our Deputy Superintendent for Academics and his staff, including I believe Assistant Superintendent Richard Gordon, they are regularly engaging with the Lincoln community and helping the community understand that we're just not sitting here twiddling our fingers --
Doc, respectfully, right, because I just want to move on because we got a lot of other stuff and I'm trying to really be efficient, and I don't think it's fair to you how long you all have had to sit here with no 5 break so I just want to move on, but respectfully there's no way that those folks would complain to us if they felt like they like the responses they were getting from you. So I don't want to accuse you of not doing something, but something isn't working because people feel like they have to sound the alarm. By the time something comes to City Council, that's folks' version of sounding the alarm. And when it comes to me directly, I always tell people, are you sure you want me to know this information because if you want me to know it, I'm going to put it on the record. So I do think that the sense of urgency is a little more present than what's being communicated from you all today. And again, I'll be there at 3:15 tomorrow. And hopefully, Wednesday communication back to you based on my experience there will be a positive one and not necessarily a negative one.
Thank you, sir. Let me move on. You talked about enforcing the Welcoming resolution. I know we're running low on time, but I have to put on record on behalf of the organization Juntos, they submitted concerns around the enforcement of the Welcoming Schools resolution 21 that you spoke a little bit earlier about today. They said that they documented those concerns and sent them to you. I'm hoping I don't have to read them. Are you familiar with these concerns and what do you all plan on doing about that as it relates to the School Board?
I can't cite the concerns verbatim. I am aware that some concerns have been submitted --
I am the king of efficiency. I will give you the concerns. I will pass it back to Councilmember Bass, and then after Councilmember Bass hopefully somebody on your team can read the concerns that was communicated to us and put something on the record to be able to address what this organization is concerned with. I think that it's -- I'm tired, I know y'all tired too, but when we have organizations like this who do it from the muscle because they care about our city, with issues that's important as this we've got to put it on the record. So let's do it that way --
7 seconds left, Mr. Chairman. 8 President Streater and the Board 9 have already requested an update 10 from staff and it's in progress, so 11 we're working on that. 12
I think 16 we have a copy, but we're always 17 happy to have it just to be sure. 18 Thank you. 19
So 20 are you committed to having somebody from the Board meet with this organization so that they feel like their issues have been listened to and you're moving in a way that's reflective of their best interest?
Staff is absolutely committed to working with these individuals. I just wanted you to know that the Board has already requested an update on the plan pursuant to its resolution.
Okay. I'm sure the folks from that organization if they're not listening to this hearing right now, they'll listen to it on replay. And hopefully, they don't make a fool out of you and me and everybody else in here. Councilmember Bass, I'm sorry. Can I recognize Councilmember Ahmad? I did not see her walk in and she has not gone for a first round yet?
Chair recognizes Councilmember Ahmad followed by Councilmember Bass. I apologize.
Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon. Thank you for being here staying so long and, most importantly, sharing good news with us. That's really encouraging, the advances you have made, particularly in the proficiency levels. I hope we keep doing it and hope we can correct Algebra. My question is in light of the recent state legislation banning mental health services, could you share how many School District students use their services and is there a plan to fill the gap in mental health services? Our illustrious Chair shares with us on a regular basis the altercations that go on in the School District. And I think not a day goes by without us hearing about something, and it seems like emotional regulation is at the base of these altercations and problems, which is why not having these mental health services makes it even more serious and how we're filling the gap.
Thank you, Councilmember Ahmad. I know you're particularly interested in science performance in particular.
As well as the others. As you may well know, historically we've used an online service called Kooth that was provided to the District at no 23 cost to the Board by the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth has sunsetted that relationship. And to date, there is no designated replacement yet. And I anticipate that we'll bring in some competitive process to the Board to procure some replacements that's in progress. But in the meantime we'll continue to utilize our counselors, other trained support staff and others to support our students because there are a number of trauma-informed needs that our young people must have met.
So I just wanted to dig into that a little bit. How did this abrupt end happen and were you informed so that you could prepare? It seems somewhere we need to send a message if you're going to do something like that. From what I understood 18,000 students used these services and that's a huge gap. And for you to be able to fill it in with already beleaguered counselors is asking a lot, right.
So maybe we send a letter to our state partners or do something to assist you in making sure we don't face something like this again. And what -- I don't need to know what exactly happened, but why was there no advance notice given to the School District? I would like to sort of get to the bottom of that.
Very quickly in seconds or less, 17 Mr. Chairman. We were caught a bit 18 flat-footed in the sunsetting of 19 this Commonwealth expenditure so we 20 didn't have a lot of advance notice before that work was terminated. But we do have it in our sight to figure out how to procure something in replacement.
So will the state pay for that again since they were paying for this because that just helps with our budget?
I would not be able to speak for the state and I've not personally talked to Secretary Mumin -- is he still there? I think --
His replacement, I have not talked to the current Secretary.
Just for the interest of time, I would love to circle back to understand what transpired, how the state will fill that gap as you are filling it right now and are they going to pay for that because that's less money out of your budget?
We're glad to take that as a homework assignment and submit it in the record, Mr. Chairman.
Before I pass it back to Councilmember Bass, Councilmember Bass talked about some issues as it relates to safety. Councilmember Ahmad brought that up as well too. Real quick question and if you don't know the answer, you can get it back to us in writing. That'll be great. How was the weapons system chosen that we use as it relates to security in our schools and were there any labor laws that were considered in the midst of choosing the systems that we have in place right now?
Mr. Chairman, with your permission we'd love to take that as a homework assignment and submit it with our responses.
Thank you, sir. One other thing and then I'll pass it to Councilmember Bass. Girard Academic Music Program, one of our special admission schools, we know we have issues as it relates to filling seats in the special admission schools. At some point if you can get us something in writing as it relates to an update that could be shared with all members of Council as it relates to where we are with special admission schools, that'll be great. But specifically, one of our special admission schools have been without a principal for a significant amount of time. What's being done to put us in a position to put a principal at Girard Academy Music Program?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We absolutely will do as directed. Also, we have a principal search underway and our staff is in communication with several members of the GAMP community inviting their participation in the process. You may or may not know that several members of the GAMP community spoke to President Streater and several of the Board members at our last meeting. We are engaging the GAMP community and we will have Dr. Dawson, Dr. Jermaine Dawson, is scheduling an open mic session with the GAMP community to talk directly to those constituents.
Thank you, Dr. Watlington. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple more questions for you. Bathrooms, so my office did a study around bathrooms in the School District. Well, actually we didn't do a study around bathrooms. We did a survey which as I understand it became very popular, because I know that after we did our survey that you all said, oh, we want to do a survey too and sent it out. And so, it's great to partner with you all on that kind of thing and work together so that we can get information at the same time like in realtime. But one of the things that came back in our survey when we just asked parents of School District students what was one of their concerns around facilities, bathrooms came up over and over and over again. And so, can you tell us is there sort of like just a master plan or facilities plan? I see somebody over there -- UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah (inaudible).
Okay. I heard that. Okay. The bathroom, that's the bathroom crew. But seriously, around the cleanliness, the condition, the care, the maintenance around bathrooms, something everyone needs and no one wants to use a facility that's not well-maintained. Can you talk about that, where we are, what kind of survey you all have done? We'll be happy to share ours with you, but restrooms are an issue in the School District.
Absolutely, Councilmember. I meet with the Student Advisory Council every single month and it's an issue that I hear about from students every month.
It's our expectation that no matter how old a school is or a bathroom, it ought to be clean. It ought to be stocked with paper, paper towels, toilet tissue, soap and the like. Colonel Hill and his staff are working expeditiously on that. We're not where we need to be yet. Every time I go to a school I make it a point to go into a bathroom as does President Streater and members of the Board so that we can stay on top of that. Now, there are some places where I think we've got what, Colonel, like maybe eight plumbers for 200 -- how many?
plumbers for some 249 buildings. And so, there are some things that get a little delayed on the pecking order, but we will be absolutely accountable for --
8 Dr. Watlington, I'm sorry. If you could just repeat what Dr. Hill said for our transcript and for our stenographer. Thank you, sir.
At this time we have 8 plumbers and over 2,000 restrooms in the School District of Philadelphia.
That's not, you know. I don't mean to laugh but it's crazy. You will never be able to get to the need. You'll never be able to get to the need with 2,000. If you said to me you had 2,000 students and 8 teachers, that would sound crazy, right?
Yes, ma'am, it does. It's a daunting task. But by the same token, we bring to bear general service contractors to supplement or augment our internal staffing, and then quite frankly with our site-specific facilities management plan we're doubling-down and providing the supervision and leadership to ensure that every student has access to a clean restroom every single day.
I mean, maybe that's the end goal, but right now you just can't with those numbers.
Upon my arrival in the District, one of the most glaring instances or impacts of historic underfunding is clearly in those facilities in the bathrooms across the District. And no excuse, we still should have clean bathrooms with soap, paper towels, toilet tissue and the like, and we'll stay very focused on that.
Yeah. We're kind of far behind and that's an understatement. I just don't get the sense that we have a plan of attack for this action. And I understand the budgetary constraints and the concerns, but it just doesn't feel like we have a real plan that's going to be transformative of the situation in the next six months, in the next year, in the next two years, in the next five years. 8 plumbers in 2,000 facilities is just insurmountable in my lifetime. I mean, you're just not going to be able to get to it. There was a podcast that I listened to around public education in New York City and there was the story being told about a bathroom in an elementary school that had been in place up until recent time that was in place from, I don't know, the '40s or '50s, it was a really old building and it was similar to what they had encountered at T.M. Peirce before we tore it down and rebuilt it, which was sort of like a long trough or traugh in which young men would go to the bathroom and then there would be little holes where if you needed to sit down and go to the bathroom, and then every once in a while some water would come along and splash everything away. And I actually saw that at T.M. Peirce and it was pretty horrific and pretty disturbing and not something that offered dignity to our young people. And so, I think that there has to be some sort of a sense of expediency moving a little bit faster. Not to say that you all don't care. I'm not trying to suggest that at all. You're working with what you have, but what you have is just not enough and it's just not going to get the job done. And so, Mr. Chairman, I don't know what we can do about that but that was the number one thing that came up on the survey my office did, was bathrooms.
To support our Tech staff, I'm tired, y'all tired, but also we've got stenographers and Tech staff who've been working since 11:30 just like the rest of us. So just please slow down a little bit and speak into the mic so that they can hear everything that you're saying. Sorry, Dr. Hill.
Yes, sir. Thank you and I apologize. What I would like to ensure that I'm doing is making the distinction between the cleanliness and readiness of our restrooms to meet the needs of students and that's done through our facility staff. And there is a plan to do that and that's our site specific facilities management plan, and that's for every school site specific that governs the activities to ensure that those restrooms are cleaned and stocked. That plan is in place. The maintenance which is a skill level that requires plumbing expertise, that is done with our eight organic plumbers, if you will, and also with the support of general service contractors that we use.
I'd have to get that exact number for you, ma'am. I don't have that right off the top of my head.
And also, can we get a list -- I'd like a breakdown. I don't need to see the whole plan for the whole city, but I would like to see at least for my District what is the plan for these restrooms. And if you could make the whole plan available for all of us to check out, but at least for now I assume it's a pretty lengthy document. But for now at least I'd like to see what's going to be happening in my District.
If I can say briefly, Councilmember Bass -- my Councilmember, I live in your District -- everything you said was legitimately right and there is an urgency of the now. But I think this also raises the whole facilities master planning process, and thank you for your partnership with T.M. Peirce. I think, you know, I'm from Germantown. I remember -- we loved that building but there were some things with the building that needed to be upgraded. But I think going to T.M. Peirce and other schools like that that are being built, for the coming conversations around reimagining buildings and spaces like that it's great to go into T.M. Peirce and see what's possible. So I think Dr. Watlington has communicated trying to figure out and find a way to show our communities, show Councilmembers what's possible so that the school will continue in certain spaces but maybe there needs to be a reimagining of the space or rebuild and what's possible. So thank you.
Ninth inning hopefully. Thank you, colleague. Great questions and while we all might be a little tired, hopefully a kid will go to a clean bathroom in the future because we took a few more minutes to put some issues on the books that are really important. As we close out, let me just put a couple more things on the record. So I'm an educator. My Master's degree is in education. My father's a former teacher. Teaching is in my blood, right, former athletic director. I have to just go on the record and push back around the principal issue at GAMP. I'm understanding that you have a convening some time soon as it relates to selecting new principals. I myself have family members who's going through the process, very tedious, very difficult. So if you can, Dr. Watlington, because I'm trying to be sensitive to the amazing staff here at City Council, can you give us a written response before the end of the week specifically around GAMP, the vacant principal position, and what we can do to expedite that process?
Thank you, sir. One more thing on the record for me on my end. Now, Board President Streater, we've done a lot of work around Black charters. Has the new School Board met with the African American Charter Coalition? If so, what happened? If not, why not? And also, what are you looking to do based on the Ballad Spahr report because it had a number of recommendations? What is the new Board looking to do as it relates to implementation around recommendations and in the spirit of Quetcy Lozada, I will say Black and Brown charter Schools as well? So if you could just give us a 60-second response to that on the record, that would be helpful.
I'll be brief. While the Board has not met with the Coalition, the Board for the first time since I've been here has convened with our Charter school leaders inclusive of the Coalition and other organizations and our operators who operate our charter schools. I think that was discussed in our opening conversation. I do know -- I'll just give you an example of how the Board is evolving on some of its practices. One of the things that was raised in the report was a recommendation for some additional face-time with operators and/or potential operators and the Board. And with that being said, this is the first year where a Board member will be an active participant in our new charter application process. And I know Chief Chao who can speak more eloquently about what he's done as it relates to his ongoing meetings with advocates and also our providers in the School District of Philadelphia for charter schools, he can speak more to that but he's actually out right now with a stomach bug and his No. 2 Mario isn't here, but we can follow up in writing as it relates to those pieces. But I do know that there are some pieces that he has already started to implement.
So I would ask that the Board individually not as a collective, we don't want you violating any Sunshine Act rules, take the time to meet with the coalitions around Latino charters as well as Black and Brown charters. We understand that you're taking a vote pretty soon as it relates to expanding or allowing new charter schools. I don't know about the rest of the members of Council, but I personally am not in that. That's up to you guys to figure it out. Whatever direction you plan on going and however you handle that, that essentially is on you guys. But what we will ask is that the institutions that currently exist get the opportunity to allow their voice to be heard and communicate some of the concerns that they have as it relates to their perception of being discriminated against. Thank you for that.
As we close out and get ready to call witnesses, I would like to just take a moment to thank you, Dr. Watlington, Board Chair Streater, for the work that you did around the Northeast field. That super site is going to put us in a position to really have some victory laps around extracurricular activities as well as athletics. I also want to thank you for the work that you did around homeless youth. That $2.3 million that you were able to identify will save a lot of lives as it relates to children in the city of Philadelphia. And I also want to thank you for your effort as it relates to dual enrollment. We appreciate the fact that you've increased the number of seats for students in public schools to be able to attend local universities while still in high school and put them in a position to be able to graduate with both a diploma as well as an Associate's degree. So it's not all bad coming from this legislative body. We do want our bathrooms fixed and we do want some good food. But at the end of the day, we do appreciate some of the concerns that's been communicated in the past and some of the victory laps that we've been able to go on together as it relates to what we need to do. Last but not least, extracurricular activities. I want to continue to have that open dialogue. We have some wins, but we have some losses looking at robotics programs and other programs that have lost funding, that we've suspended. It's hypocritical as government to be able to talk about the focus on extended school and things of that capacity while simultaneously cutting programs that work. The Mayor talked about Sharif El-Mekki and his organization. Since I've been on City Council, I've been begging you guys to put money in the Freedom Schools programs, put money in the Freedom Schools, put money in the Freedom Schools. I believe in African-centered education as well as I know other folks in the room 12 do, and nobody does it better than Freedom Schools. So on the one hand if we're going to tote Sharif El-Mekki for the great work that he's doing, the only reason them Black men are -- not the only reason, but the primary reason them Black men are prepared to go into classrooms and teach is because they have that mock experience in the Freedom Schools program. Councilman Thomas would not be sitting here without the Freedom Schools program. And I bet you that you have a lot of educators and principals who's in the District who come under that same category. So with that being said -- are we good to go?
We are, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to state for the record that I have a list of questions that I'd like to submit to the District for responses in writing. Thank you.
Thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you, Dr. Watlington. Thank you, Board President Streater. We appreciate you being here. Please get something to eat. Take a break.
Hold on, Doc. I'm sorry, Doc. Hold on. Did I miss something, colleagues?
Are you sure? Okay. All right. I see my bosses looking at me. That means something ain't right. Mr. Clerk, can you please call the person who is here to testify. Witnesses who are here to testify, we respect the fact that you waited a very long time to be able to testify, but we're going to ask you to not get too long- winded as it relates to your testimony here today. So with that being said, Mr. Clerk, can you please call the first person to come testify.
The Committee asks Laurie Mazer, Cynthia and Perry to step forward. We'll then hear from Kristen and Edwin after that. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
We'll hear first from Laurie Mazer. Then Cynthia and then Perry. You'll each have three minutes. I'll start the timer when you start talking. Laurie, you're up.
Hi. I'm Laurie Mazer. I'm a parent of two public school neighborhood school students, a 9th grader and a 6th grader. And I'll just start by saying in 2018 and '19 I participated in the comprehensive school planning review process that the School District had that then never was completed, which was supposed to be a process about facilities and planning that was focused on neighborhoods, specific areas in regions of the school. And I would just like to ask that the School District and City Council keep that neighborhood focus and keep that neighborhood- oriented process and center these neighborhood schools as they move forward with the facilities planning process. Within my house I have seven K through 8 schools less than a mile, which is not typical in this city. And those are all the schools in really, really old buildings. Some of these schools serve populations of students that are 30 percent ESL students, 30 percent students with IEPs. And while a school may be underenrolled or having declining enrollment, it serves a critical role to the students that are there and they have to be the focus of this process. I think that's where we have to start. That is the focus, is what are we asking these schools to absorb and to do with the most underfunded and underresourced, you know, with attention to the fact that I understand special admission schools and criteria-based schools are a focus. I think we absolutely have to have the neighborhood schools that take all students from all neighborhoods and their admissions as the focus. And I'd like the District to have a metric that they present to parents that says that every parent can be guaranteed that they'll have a healthy, safe, modern school within a mile of their house before we tell them that we're closing the school. I think you have to be leading with what you're going to offer people and not what you're taking away from them. So it's critical that we focus on schools that are islands in our neighborhoods. They're literally little tiny islands that you're saying are underenrolled but they've been widely underinvested in and they are the thing that need to be the absolute priority as we move forward because those schools serve a critical -- they are literally the thing holding neighborhoods together. So each Councilmember knows and understands the importance of these schools in their District and that our focus cannot be on what we're taking away from people, but it has to be on what we're offering and giving them. And that's it. (Applause.)
Thank you for your testimony, but more importantly thank you for your patience and your willingness to care.
Well, thank you either way. We appreciate it very much. Appreciate it. Please state your name for the record and you may begin with your testimony.
My name is Cynthia Hu. I'm a youth programs manager at Asian American United. We host bilingual and multicultural programming for youth, Asian American youth in the city. So our students come from schools around the city, schools that were mentioned today, schools like Palumbo in Northeast and Furness. I'm here because I'm concerned about the school closings being considered to happen next year. So between 2012 and 2013 the School District closed 30 schools to address a budget deficit, but students, staff, families and their communities were ripped apart. Thousands of students' trust in their educational system was broken forever. As a result, average test scores decreased for both the displaced students and the schools receiving them. Student absences also increased significantly for displaced students. Instead of rushing to close schools, the School District should prioritize student learning and community health in these decisions. Use comprehensive data and deep, meaningful, transparent community engagement. Don't just pay our communities lip service. It is the School District's responsibility to do better for their students and teachers. I attended a School Board meeting a couple of weeks ago, the same meeting where they voted for the TIF. Our students were there in tears appealing and screaming at the top of their lungs and I think that it is such a frustration that solutions that are coming out of the School District, these very same people that are responsible for the well-being of our students, are merely just band- aids for (inaudible) that are getting larger and larger. And you are literally standing in front of students that you are responsible for and giving measly solutions. They were screaming at the top of their lungs for resources, for you to look at them and as adults to stand by them and support them and advocate for them. So ensure that our students are safe, make sure they have access to quality education. With the new Administration coming in, how are the School District and City Hall going to substantively protect our students and families? How are we going to address the sanctuary schools and sanctuary city status right now that aren't being addressed? How are we going to ensure safe spaces, more spaces in schools? We have teachers who have been talking about lack of space, gyms that are being split with lunch periods. So, yeah, as being someone who works with young people and hear this day in and out and being someone who went to school in Philadelphia as a student, I think, you know, put your words where they land and, yeah, ask folks to really care for our students.
Thank you for your testimony, the passionate testimony. Thank you for your patience as well too. And I can assure you that it is going to be some tough decisions that we're going to have to make, but we would love to hear from you as it relates to your lived experiences and what direction we should go in next year. So thank you so much. Please state your name for the record and you may begin with your testimony.
Hi. My name is Perry Lau. I'm a youth educator at Asian Americans United as well and also a former art teacher at McCall Elementary School here in the School District. I'm here to speak on behalf of my youth who are unable to attend this meeting due to being in school. I wrote that maybe a couple hours ago so they could have shown up at this point, but I'm still here to represent the youth that are not able to be here. Our students are heavily engaged in fighting for their communities all over the city. We work with youth who haven't had a permanent math teacher since the beginning of the school year, students who saw their favorite afterschool program get cut or their favorite teacher forced out because of unsustainable teaching conditions. I've held my youth as they've cried too many times to count tired and exhausted from spending hours at the School Board and City Council, having their voices completely ignored and still having to go home to work on their calculus homework for the next day. Youth know that many institutions have failed them by the time they graduate high school if they get the chance to graduate. Yet they still hold out hope for elected officials in the School Board to step up and fight for their futures. Instead of letting them down by disregarding their voices and closing schools, choose a different way. Instead of ignoring their passionate activism against the arena and selling out their neighborhoods, choose a different way. Giving away our precious neighborhood institutions like schools in Chinatown means serving them up on a platter for real estate developers and private equity firms. Our youth, our future should always be at the center of our decision-making and not an afterthought after decisions have already been made. I am so appreciative of the School Board representatives who were here today and the work that they'll do this school year, but there were only three representatives for the approximately 200,000 students in the District who come from many different backgrounds, speak many different languages and who have many different concerns. Student voices are being ignored at the School Board, at City Council, with the Mayor on the arena, with freedom of speech and more. How are student voices actually being represented or is youth engagement just a checkbox? Thank you. (Applause.)
I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you for your patience and thank you for your passion and the work you do for our children. Please state your name for the record. You may be -- I'm sorry. Mr. Clerk, who's next?
Thank you so much. So you have the honor and privilege of being the last person to speak today. Thank you for your patience.
Oh, boy. No pressure. I will be fast. Hi. I am Dr. Kristen Goessling. I am here in my role as a member of the Advisory Council of the Our City Our Schools Coalition. I'm a researcher. I'm an educator. I'm an activist and a proud public education graduate myself. OCOS was founded in 2016 to bring local control back to the city which we did. And so, the disbandment of the SRC and the implementation of the Board of Education was kind of our debut action and we have continued to exist as a space to provide students, families, parents, community members resources and opportunities to lead and make decisions and strategize about how their schools are run, and that is what we believe community engagement is and should be, as collaboration and it's a power- sharing. So we have questions about what community engagement actually is for and what it serves at the District, what these facility planning conversations are actually going to be used for, what is the specific data and metrics that is being collected and how is it going to be used to inform the decisions that are going to be made. Why is the entry point of the conversations about which schools are we going to close and not about what can we do to improve and strengthen our schools, because this is historical, it's cyclical and we've been here before. And we know -- when we hear the District say that they have learned from lessons and those lessons show the cost savings is in personnel in the midst of a teacher retention and hiring crisis, that the outcomes in student performance are negative and detrimental, it does not make sense. It doesn't make sense that this is the solution and that this is our path forward. On top of that, the facility's planning process, I showed up to the conversation that was scheduled in my neighborhood at Lovett Library and it was crossed off. There was no rescheduled announcement. There was no 10 notification. It was simply canceled and the library had no 12 idea if there was going to be another one or how it was going to happen. So those concerns that we have heard from Philadelphians about the District and about education in the city, which is they do not feel represented, they do not trust the leadership of our schools and they would like better communication, all the things that we've talked about, right. And what we know people want to be better, that is exactly how trust continues to be eroded and how transparency is not happening. Thank you.
So we're going to change that. First of all, thank you for your patience and your perspective and your passion around this issue. (Applause.)
Clearly if people are willing to wait eight, nine hours to be able to testify, you're clearly passionate about this issue. Dave Maynard, my Clerk, he has a business card. So as soon as I adjourn this hearing in about 64 seconds, please go see Dave Maynard. Get his card. And anybody who's here today that's willing to engage in indepth, intelligent dialogue and also willing to compromise, we need as much perspective as possible. Because what we did in the past as it relates to closing schools, we got it wrong. We're clearly in the midst of a facilities crisis. We have to get it right. We need as much input as possible. But the worst thing that we can do is give people the perception that we're moving in a way that's not in the best interest of our children. So you have my word as the Chair of the Education Committee that we will be willing to have meetings and open dialogue throughout the course of next year as it relates to coming up with a Facilities Plan for the City of Philadelphia. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your testimony, and please see Dave Maynard as it relates to that particular issue. Chair recognizes -- I'm sorry. Councilmember Bass, before we close out. Not 64 seconds, sorry.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do want to note for the record that -- well, first of all, our office was not involved in the planning or scheduling of the meeting, but we did hear about it just a few days before. And when we reached out to them, they said, oh, it's been canceled.
Okay. I'm sorry. The School District of Philadelphia. So my office did -- I did, not even my office. I reached out to the School District to ask about the meeting that was held. Number one, our office was not informed either. And number two, when we were informed, we saw something online which stated that there was going to be a meeting this coming Saturday at Lovett Library, blah, blah, blah. And so, when we asked about it further, it was the response from the District -- this was a day or two before -- that it was canceled and that anyone who registered would have been notified of that cancellation. And I found that not to be 100 percent accurate because I did reach out to some folks who were listed as being a part of the conversation, presentation, whatever, who had no 23 idea who showed up also on that same Saturday expecting that there was going to be this conversation around school facilities and it didn't happen. So I just wanted to apologize. It was not our office. We did not have any anything to do with putting this thing together. But we did hear about it. We did reach out to the District to make sure that people knew or that they would try to notify people that this was not happening. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, colleague. Very important information to put on the record. And listening to some of the concerns of the constituents, been here over five hours, I think they have to understand that we have the same passion as well as some of the same concerns that they do and we want to work together with the people that we represent to address this. Before I close, I just want to say thank you to our Sergeant-at-Arms, our stenographer, our amazing Tech team and all the people who just did this iron man hearing with no break, no water, no 8 anything. You guys are super amazing. We very much appreciate you. And with that being said, this concludes the business before the Committee of the Whole today. I want to thank you all very much for your attendance and we look forward to the conversation in the future. Thank you all. (Committee of the Whole concluded at 4:28 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. __________________________________ TANEHA CARROLL