COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Virtual, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, December 12, 2023 4:26 p.m. PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT DARRELL L. CLARKE COUNCILWOMAN CINDY BASS COUNCILWOMAN KENDRA BROOKS COUNCILMAN MICHAEL DRISCOLL COUNCILWOMAN JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILWOMAN KATHERINE GILMORE RICHARDSON COUNCILMAN JIM HARRITY COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR. COUNCILWOMAN QUETCY LOZADA COUNCILMAN BRIAN J. O'NEILL COUNCILMAN ANTHONY PHILLIPS COUNCILMAN MARK SQUILLA COUNCILMAN ISAIAH THOMAS
181014, 230788, 230803, 230804, 230805, 230806, 230807 - - -
Thank you very much. We are going to start now. Before we begin the Public Hearing, I will make the following announcement. City Council Committees are currently meeting remotely. We are using Microsoft Teams to make these remote hearings possible. Instructions for how the public may view and offer public testimony at public hearings, other Council committees are included. And the Public Hearing notices are published in the Inquirer, Legal Intelligencer prior to the hearing and can also be found on PHLCouncil.com. I now note that the hour has come. Mr. Christmas, will you, please, call the role to take attendance. Members that are in attendance, please, indicate by saying you're present.
Good afternoon, Mr. President, Mr. Mayor and colleagues. I am present.
Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Mr. President, colleagues. I am present.
Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. Good afternoon, Council President, colleagues. I am present.
Good afternoon everyone. Let's get this party started.
Thank you very much. We have established our quorum. And the Hearing is now called to order. This is a Public Hearing of the Committee of the Whole regarding Resolutions No. 8 230788, 230803, 230804, 230805, 230806, 230807 and 181014. Mr. Christmas, will you please read the titles of the Resolutions.
Resolution 230788: Confirming the appointment of Valerie Harrison, as a member of the Board of Ethics, to serve in the term ending November 16, 2024. Resolution 230803: Reappointing Angela Val to the Board of Directors of the Center City District. Resolution 230804: Appointing Dan Killinger to the Board of Directors of the Center City District. Resolution 230805: Reappointing Jack Solof to the Board of Directors of the Center City District. Resolution 230806: Appointing Jamal Johnson to the Board of Directors of the Center City District. Resolution 230807: Reappointing Randall Scott to the Board of Directors of the Center City District. Resolution 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, operations 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, Mr. Christmas. Before we begin to hear testimony from the witnesses we have for today, everyone has been invited through the meeting. The testifiers should be aware that the Public Hearing is being recorded because the hearing is public. Participants and viewers have no 24 reasonable expectation of privacy. So by continuing to be in the meeting you are consenting to being recorded. Additionally, prior to recognizing members for their questions or comments they have, I will note for the record at this time we will use the Chat feature available on Microsoft Teams to allow the Members to signify that they wish to be recognized. In order to comply with the Sunshine Act, the Chat feature must only be used for this particular purpose. Mr. Christmas, will you, please, call the first witness to testify on the Ethics Board and Center City District resolution.
Mr. President, I think the Mayor wants to be recognized before we do that.
Thank you, Council President. I do appreciate your kindness in allowing me to read my statement relative to the education supplement to the Home Rule Charter because of the length of time of the hearing, if that's okay.
Good. So good afternoon, everyone. I want to thank Council President Clarke, members of City Council for the opportunity to speak today alongside members of the Board of Education and leadership of the School District of Philadelphia at this biannual meeting supported by the education supplement to the Home Rule Charter. This meeting continues to be a reminder of how many people are ready and willing to come together to create a better education system for our children. Since it's founding, Philadelphia as a city has been deeply committed to transformative power of education. And today's meeting is just one example of how we carry on that tradition today. As you know, this is my last biannual meeting I will attend as Mayor. And I want to share with you -- with all of you, my deep gratitude for your hard work on behalf of our City's children. Six years ago, this administration, along with your hard work, embarked on the process of restoring Philadelphia schools to local governance. After going two decades of state control with little to show for it, we knew it was time to put Philadelphians in charge of our City's most important responsibility, the education of our children. We could have not done this without the support of City Council and without the commitment and service of our volunteer board members. I am thankful to each of you. I've long held the belief that public education has two vital functions. It offers children a chance to achieve their full potential, and it's a central pillar of our fight against generational poverty. It's the only way we can achieve lasting prosperity and equity in our City. I, also, know this, the District students and our City's children are the same incredible young people whether they are in a park or classroom, in home or on a field trip, taking a test or taking their books to the library. They are all our children. And we must collaborate in the interest of their health, their academic opportunity and their life long successes. I am extremely grateful to City Council, the School District, the Board of Education, the Office of Children and Families and all the other departments who are working together to reimagine our partnership across institutions. 5 billion in local funding for public education since Fiscal Year 2018. And when the pandemic reached Philadelphia, the District and the City mobilized immediately to serve children and families, setting up an emergency food response and establishing free internet access for learning to continue online with our partners at Comcast and creating a network of 77 access centers for children who continue learning online. Those are the hard days and weeks which turned into hard years as we work without a script to keep students safe, supported and engaged, but we worked together. And for that, we are and I am so thankful and grateful. Four years later, schools are on the road to full recovery. And after an unprecedented structure to learning, we are seeing signs of progress once again. Just as I am grateful for all the partners on this call, I am especially grateful to our dedicated teachers, counselors, nurses, support staff, administrators, out-of-school time and pre-K providers who are on the ground every day to provide quality education, engaging environments and valuable services to our children. I, also, want to thank all the student board representatives who have brought an important perspective to our work in recent years. And I thank you and thank our partners, PFT, SCIU and 32 BJ and CASA for their leadership on behalf of students and staff. As I said many times, our children deserve every opportunity to reach their potential we have made over the last few years. So thank you, again, and keep up the amazing work. And I just want to say finally, I really, really appreciate working with all you. We are not totally finished yet.
But members of the Board of Education and members of City Council and their staffs, I really do appreciate all the hard work you put in. And I appreciate all that you have done for me and our City. So, good luck and Happy Holidays everybody.
Thank you for your unwavering commitment to public education. I really appreciate what you have done.
A lot of money and a lot of support. We appreciate it.
Thank you. Mr. Christmas, you want to read the names of the Education Board's District Resolution --
Yes, sir. Right. The first witness to testify on the Board of Appointments is Valerie Harrison testifying with respect to appointment to the Board of Ethics.
-- Clarke and members of City Council. I am Valerie Harrison, Vice President for Diversity Equity Inclusion and Community Impact at Temple University. I have been nominated by Mayor Kenney to the City of Philadelphia Board of Ethics to serve a term which ends on November 16, 2024. This opportunity is particularly meaningful to me because it would mean completing the term of beloved Temple President JoAnne Epps, a colleague and friend for more than twenty years. I came to Temple as a member of its in-house legal team after more than a decade in corporate private practice. And as I mentioned, I now serve as Temple's Vice President for Diversity Equity Inclusion and Community Impact. I, also, served as general counsel at Arcadia University and Lincoln University, and as Acting President at Lincoln. In both my legal and administrative roles, I have advised and managed portfolios responsible for compliance, specifically investigations and resolution of complaints involving a variety of federal, state and local regulations and laws. I am a Philadelphia native and proud graduate of the Philadelphia High School for Girls. I have a Bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Virginia, a juris doctorate from Villanova University School of Law and a Master's degree in Liberal Arts and a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in African American studies both from Temple University. I would be honored to serve on the Board of Ethics, and look forward to working with you all. Thank you.
Thank you very much for your testimony. Are there any questions of this witness by members of the Committee? (No response.)
There being none, I want to thank you very much. Mr. Christmas, please, call the next name on the witness list.
Our next witness is Paul Levy, President and CEO of the Center City District.
Good afternoon, Council President and Members of Council. Pleasure to be here today. I am here to deliver testimony on the five nominees to the Center City District Board. Just to repeat, there are two new nominees, Dan Killinger as President of National Real Estate Development and Jamal Johnson, who is the General Manager of Comcast Technology Center. First, both are for terms that -- one is for a term that ends at the end of 2026. The second one is for a term that ends at 2025. And then, support of the renewal of three existing board members Jack Soloff, Angela Val and Randall Scott, all for terms that would end at the end of 2028. Should you approve these board nominees, our Board will be 30 percent minority, 35 percent woman and composition, with a very strong mix of commercial, hospitality and retail representation and residential on the Board. Thank you very much. I am prepared to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you very much. Are there any questions of this witness by Members of this Committee?
Councilmember -- President Clarke, this is Councilmember Squilla. I'd just like to be recorded as present for today's hearing.
Okay. Let the record reflect, Councilman Squilla and Councilmember Brooks are present. There appears to be no questions for you, Mr. Levy. As you know, you are riding off into the sunset with some of the rest of us. I want to thank you for your longstanding commitment and relationship that we have had over the years as it relates to the Center City District.
Thank you. It's been a pleasure to work with all of you. And thanks for the opportunity. I really appreciate it.
Thank you, Mr. President. I would be remiss if I didn't, also, acknowledge your service to the City of Philadelphia. Mr. Levy, I walked through the Plaza the other day. And I was taken aback by all of the vision that you had that I so doubted when you started. But once again, you were right and I was wrong. Thank you for your service and commitment to the City of Philadelphia.
I think the bet was, you had to put on ice skate and skates, wasn't it? But thank you very much for those generous comments.
Look, I will buy the popcorn for that one. Any other questions?
Council President Clarke, I'll make a comment. And just a quick comment as, obviously, the Center City District is split between our districts and what it meant to have good leadership there and all the concerns and confrontations that we've been through and challenges. And I want to thank Mr. Levy, Paul Levy, for his hard work and dedication. And I know he's not going to disappear and go away. So, I know he's still going to be involved in projects throughout Center City District. But, also, Ms. Gupta, how important it is to be able to work with her and follow her leadership as we transition the Center City District. So, thank you for your time and efforts. And I wish you a happy holiday season. And look forward to continuing to work with you and Ms. Gupta in the future of CCD. Thanks.
Thanks. And Prema will do a great job working with all of you. I know many of you have worked with her in other capacities. So, thanks again for the generous comments.
Thank you. Thank you, Councilman and thank you, Mr. Levy. Thank you for your testimony today. Mr. Christmas, do we have any --
Yes. My apologies. Yes, my apologies. I'm unable to adequately access the Chat. But I wanted to take the opportunity to thank Valerie Harrison for her testimony and for her work at Temple University. And also, thank her for being willing to complete the term of Dean Epps. And just, also, wanted to give her a shout out, of course, for being an alumnae of the Philadelphia High School For Girls. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, Councilwoman. This Chat feature is a little challenging today. I was trying to deal with it myself. But thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Mr. Levy, that appears to be all the questions and comment for you, sir. I want to thank you very much for your testimony and thank you for your service. Any other questions -- any other witnesses, I'm sorry? Mr. Christmas, I do believe we have someone to testify on Public Comment.
Ms. Judith Robinson. IT SPECIALIST: We are calling her now.
Ms. Robinson, not connected yet. (Voicemail of Ms. Robinson plays.) IT SPECIALIST: We got her voicemail when we called.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Darian. Okay. Any other comments or questions from the Members of the Committee? (No response.)
There being none, I want to thank you both for your testimony today, the Ethics Board and on the Center City District. I would ask, is there anyone else present, we have -- whose name we failed to call that wish to offer testimony to Resolution 10 230788, 230803, 230804, 230805, 230806 and 230807? Hearing none, I want to thank all the witnesses. Now going to our Public Meeting to consider the action to be taken by Resolution 16 Nos. 230788, 230803, 230804, 230805, 230806 and 230807. (Public Hearing adjourns.) - - - (Public Meeting commences.)
Now convene the Public Meeting on Resolution Nos. 230788, 230803, 230804, 230805, 230806, 230087. Mr. Christmas, would you, please, call the role to take attendance. Members that are in attendance, please, indicate that you are present.
Good afternoon, Mr. President and colleagues. I am present.
Councilman Jones? (No audible response, but video response.)
Good afternoon, Council President and colleagues. Present.
Thank you very much, Mr. Christmas. We will now go into our Public Meeting. And the Chair recognizes Councilman Jones for a motion on Resolution No. 230805.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. I move that Resolution No. 230805 be amended. A copy of that amendment has been circulated to all Members of Council. I move for the adoption of them. (Duly seconded.)
It's been moved and properly seconded that Resolution No. 13 230805 be amended. All those in favor, indicate by saying aye. (Ayes.)
Ayes have it. No. 230805 is amended. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jones for a motion of Resolution Nos. 230788, 230803, 230804, 230805 as amended, 230806 and 230807.
Thank you, again, Mr. President. I move that Resolutions No. 230788, 230803, 230804 and 230805 as amended, as well as 230806 and 230807 be moved from this Committee with a favorable recommendation; and further move, that the Rules of Council be suspended to permit next reading at our next session of Council. (Duly seconded.)
Thank you. It's been moved and properly seconded that Resolution Nos. 230788, 230803, 230804, 230805 as amended, 230806 and 230807 be reported from this Committee with a favorable recommendation, that the Rules of Council be suspended to permit consideration of these Resolutions at our next session of Council. All in favor, indicate by saying aye. (Ayes.)
Ayes have it. Resolution Nos. 230788, 230803, 230804, 230805 as amended, 230806 and 230807 will be reported from this Committee with a favorable recommendation and suspension of the rules to permit consideration as a resolution at our next session of Council. That concludes our Meeting. And we will return to our Public Hearing. (Public Meeting Concludes.) - - - (Public Hearing recommences.)
And we will now return to our Public Hearing on Resolution 9 No. 181014. Public Meeting and Public Hearing of Council, Board of Education and the Mayor are, for the purpose of coordinating our activities for improvement and the benefit of public education in the City of Philadelphia as required by Section 12-209 of The Philadelphia Home Rule Charter and City Council Resolution 17 No. 181014. Joining us today, as you heard, was the Mayor James Kenney, Board of Education President Reginald Streater, Board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez, Board Members Sarah Ashley Andrews, Julia Danzy, Leticia Egea-Hinton, Chau Wing Lam, Lisa Salley, Cecelia Thompson and Joyce Wilkerson, School Superintendent Dr. Tony B. Watlington and student representative De'Naiza Watson and Cavance Snaith -- I hope I didn't screw those names up -- and Doha Gassem. Please apologize if I did. I would like to welcome you all today for our biannual partnership meeting. Today's Agenda will go as follows. Mayor Kenney, as I indicated earlier, has already given his remarks. And the Board President Reginald Streater will be recognized for the purpose of introducing Board of Education members and the School District Superintendent. Board will make presentations on its current and upcoming initiatives, followed by questions and comments from Councilmembers. Dr. Tony Watlington will then be recognize for a presentation of School District initiatives and plans for the current school year followed by questions and comments from Councilmembers. You will then hear testimony from the members of the public following adjournment. At this time, I recognize Board President Reginald Streater for a presentation by the Board. (Document shared on screen.)
Good afternoon or good early evening, everyone. It is indeed a pleasure to be here today to share updates with you on the Board of Education's work as stated earlier by esteemed Council President. I am joined today by my colleagues on the Board, Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez, Board Member Sarah Ashley Andrews, Julia Danzy, Leticia Egea-Hinton, Chau Wing Lam, Lisa Salley, Cecelia Thompson, Joyce Wilkerson, and our student Board representatives De'Naiza Watson, Cavance Snaith and Doha Gassem as the alternate student board representative. And as already stated, I am the President of the Philadelphia Board of Education. Please move to the next slide. (Scrolls through exhibit.) I would be remiss if I didn't begin today by acknowledging that this will be the last biannual meeting we have with Mayor Jim Kenney and Council President Darrell Clarke. We are so deeply grateful for your leadership and dedicated service to the City of Philadelphia. My colleagues and I thank you for your partnership in the investments in the School District of Philadelphia and your tireless support of the City's public school students over these many years. Through your leadership, the School District has seen a return to local control, which has resulted in building stronger and more intentional partnerships between the City and the School District. These partnerships have been essential in developing new and creative initiatives that have better support our students and school communities through challenging times, including unprecedented global pandemic. Additionally, we would like to extend our gratitude to all the members of City Council for your continued partnership and for being champions on behalf of our students and school communities. Congratulations to the newly elected and reelected Members of City Council. We look forward to continuing our partnership. Finally, I would like to take a moment to congratulate Mayor-Elect Cherelle Parker on her historic win as the first Black woman to be elected Mayor of Philadelphia. I'm especially proud as a father of a young, Black woman or soon-to-be Black woman who, like her peers, now has the opportunity to see herself represented in the highest office here in the City of Philadelphia. We look forward to our partnership and working collaboratively to ensure that all of our students, both District and Charter, get what they need to achieve their highest potential. Please move to the next slide. (Scrolls through exhibit.) We will be focusing today's presentation on where we have been as a Board, where we are now and where we are going. We will start by reflecting on some of the early wins, then discuss our student achievement and conclude by discussing our path forward. Board Member Wilkerson will continue the presentation. Please, move to the next slide.
Thank you Board President Streater. As we moved to the return of local control in spring of 2018, the perspective Board at the time embarked on a listening tour to visit various communities across the city, and visited a number of schools to engage with our stakeholders to better understand the needs of our students and school community. Please, move to the next slide. (Scrolls through exhibit.) As a result of the listening tour, one of the first actions of the new board was to reorganize itself into a commerce -- into a committee structure, committee meetings created a space in public outside of our business meetings so the Board could dive deeper into governance issues. Over the years, we have been organized under the following committees. Through achievement and support, finance facilities, District partnership community engagement, policies and Goals and Guardrails. Currently, we operate with two active committees which are Policy Committee and the Goals and Guardrails Committee. This is because in 2020, we launched Goals and Guardrails, our vision and priority for public education focused on student achievement. Through this framework, we intentionally discuss all governance matters through the lens of student achievement. Since the establishment of committees, this Board has held more than seventy committee meetings. All committee meetings are open to the public. And meeting materials are available on the Board's website. We established Goals and Guardrails in August of this year -- that year to track progress on -- we established the Goals and Guardrails Committee to track progress on our established goals for the public education in Philadelphia, which had been done during the regular monthly meeting. At these monthly committee meetings, the Board has been able to focus more deeply on monitoring the progress being made towards improving student achievement while increasing community information and public engagement in the sessions. Board member Danzy will continue with the presentation. Please move to the next slide. (Scrolls through exhibit.)
Thank you, Board member Wilkerson. And first, I would like to say, welcome. Good evening to the Mayor if he's still listening, and to the Members of City Council. Since the return to local control, we have seen stronger and more intentional coordination between the City and School District in working together in the best interest of our students. We know this would not have been possible without your leadership and support for collaboration over the years. Together we have provided essential services to our most vulnerable students, staff and families including the implementation of critical programs during the global pandemic. During this time, the School District and Charter School office worked collaboratively with City agencies to coordinate and implement essential services. Some examples include the launch of PHLConnected, leading to 21,000 internet connections for students and families by March of 2022. The opening of 70-plus access centers and the distribution of more than 16 million pounds of food at sites across the City and expansion of mental and behavioral health supports. More recently, we have been challenged to address the gun violence that has impacted communities across the City and driven an urgent need for collaboration and partnership to keep everyone safe, including our students and staff. The Board appreciates the support we have received from Mayor Kenney, City Council and the Philadelphia Police Department for measures that address pathways to and from school. We know we must work together as a collective village to provide these essential supports to our students to keep them say when they are not in school. Some initiatives include providing crossing guards, school safety zones and trained community volunteers through Town Watch that support the Safe Corridors Program. There is also collaboration with the City's Office of Children and Families, Parks and Recreation and the Free Library to offer programming for our children and youth. These programs are essential in keeping students safe when they are not in school, and offer them opportunities to learn, develop new skills, grow socially and emotionally and to simply have fun. The School District has, also, put in place a number of measures to address school safety and safe passage from school. This includes Safe Pathways, a program that was doubled in size during the last few years from six sites to thirteen. Also vitally important is expanding our mental health services that support the social and emotional health of our school communities. The critical point here is that if we want our students to learn, thrive and succeed, then we must ensure they are safe and physically and emotionally healthy so they are ready to learn. Board member Egea-Hinton will continue the presentation. Please, move to the next slide. (Scrolls through exhibit.)
Thank you, Board Member Danzy. We are proud to report that we continue to be recognized as good stewards of public funds and for our financial progress over the years. Despite our financial challenges and the historic underfunding of the District over decades, we have been able to make progress in student achievement and financial stability in recent years. We appreciate the financial support we have received from the Mayor and City Council over the years, more recent years, as well. We appreciate the financial support we have received and -- I hear somebody talking -- and grateful. In 2019, we upgraded our bond rating to investment grade for the first time since 1977. We have, also, had a positive fund balance for the past several years, and have invested it in our students by filling over 2500 positions, adding academic programs, strengthening behavioral supports for our most at-risk students, and establishing -- reestablishing student activities. We continue to invest in our buildings, through new school construction projects, major renovations, modernizing classrooms, upgrading training equipment, making repairs and remediating environmental hazards. We made strategic and intentional investments with the additional 1.1 billion in federal funds we received to address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. These included investments in safely reopening and sustaining in-person learning, addressing students' social, emotional, mental health, academic needs resulting from the pandemic, maintaining operations and the delivery of services and funding new construction projects, capital improvements and environmental programs. We are thankful for the funding that has allowed us to complete this work. But more work and more resources are needed to make sure all of our students are learning and building to prepare them for future success. To ensure that this vision becomes reality, we need our City and state departments to continue investing in our infrastructure so that we can accelerate the work we are doing. Moving forward, we hope to see that school districts across the Commonwealth receive the additional funding and redistribution of State aid called for by Judge Cohn Jubelirer. I hope I said that correctly. Board Member Salley will continue with the presentation. And please, move to the next slide. (Scrolls through exhibit.) ("Ms. Lisa, you are on mute.")
Thank you. So, thank you Board member Hinton. And good evening to our Mayor and good evening to our City Council. One of the primary responsibilities of the Board is to develop, review and revise policies. This Board has adopted or revised more than 130 policies and resolutions during our tenure. This work has recently included codifying all Board governing bylaws into Board policy and adopting the resolution on welcoming schools to ensure that public schools are safe havens for students and families. I would like to now transfer the discussion to Board member Thompson, who will continue the presentation.
Thank you, Board member Salley. Good evening to Mayor Kenney, Council President Darrell Clarke and Members of City Council. In 2018, the Board established a parent and community advisory to serve as a bridge between the City's school communities and the Board of Education. Advisory Council members share critical information on Board work with their networks while communicating their concerns of the school communities to the Board. The Parent and Community Advisory Council helps the Board engage with our school communities and has offered helpful feedback and guidance to the Board on vital work such as the development of Goals and Guardrails and our superintendent search. Also in 2018, the Board appointed the first of its Student Board representatives. And has since welcomed two students each school year, with the addition of one alternate this year. The students in an advisory role represent the interests of their peers and advise the Board on the impact of Board policies for students during our monthly action meetings. They share Board deliberations and actions with the student body, meet with student groups and initiate important work. The student representatives also serve on the Superintendent's Student Advisory Council. The Board values working with our student representatives, and hearing student voices weigh in on important issues that impact our diverse student body. We appreciate their perspectives and the insights they share with us as they advocate for their peers to have equitable educational opportunities. Now Board member Andrews will continue the presentation. Please move to the next slide. (Scrolls through exhibit.)
Thank you, Board Member Thompson. In September of '23, the Board appointed De'Naiza Watson, a junior at Science Leadership Academy; and Cavance Snaith, a junior at Constitution High School as the Student Board representatives; and Doha Gassem, a junior at Academy Palumbo as our alternate for the 2023/2024 school year. They're all on the call tonight, and they waited. So, let's give them a shout-out for that. I do appreciate them staying on the line. Now, Ms. Watson will share a few updates on the recent work of the Student Board representatives.
Thank you, Board Member Andrews. This year, Cavance, Doha and I have decided to use our term to prioritize increasing student access to resources, opportunities and education to make students' academic experience more equitable across the School District. In addition, we have been working to better understand student experience and provide students with the resources that they need to navigate processes such as school selection and post-secondary planning and readiness. Board Member Danzy will continue presentation. Please move to the next slide. (Scrolls through exhibit.)
All right. First, I want to again thank the students for staying as long as they did. And now, I would like to share a little more about our Goals and Guardrails, the Board's plan for increasing student achievement, its development, implementation and its model for Board governance. Please move to the next slide. (Scrolls through exhibit.)
When we return to local control, it was clear to this Board that we needed to think about governance and oversight -- about governance and oversight in a different way. We needed to restructure how we operated and function as a Board. The focus of our work and time needed to be dedicated to student learning if we wanted the organization to be focused on student achievement. For nearly twenty years, the School District lacked focus and operated in system survival mode, contending with state control and financial instability. In one evaluation by the Council of Great City Schools, it was estimated that the School Reform Commission spent only about 10 percent of their time every talking about student learning. However, research shows that when School Boards focus on student learning and achievement, the enable their Superintendent and District to better understand priorities and track progress towards student achievement. As a newly appointed Board in 2018, we knew we had to do something different. The new Board spent its first two years listening to community input, learning more about District operations at community meetings, and meeting with school boards across the country to inform our path forward. We, also, attended sessions at the Accelerated Board Capacity Institute at Harvard and worked with the Council of Great City Schools to develop a plan for student achievement. Through our engagement with the community and learning from other school boards and professionals, we established our role was to govern the District, listen to the community, set a vision and monitor progress towards achieving that vision. This led to an entire new model of Board governance, decision making that is driven by a student-centered approach. Board Vice President Fix-Lopez will continue the presentation. And please move to the next slide. (Scrolls through exhibit.)
Thank you, Board Member Danzy. And good evening, Mayor Kenney and Members of Council. This led to December 2020 to the adoption of Goals and Guardrails, our priorities to raise student achievement in Philadelphia. Goals and Guardrails has provided a governance framework that sets clear expectations for student success, monitors progress towards those expectations, and calls for the adoption of budgets and policies that provides support based on student needs. Goals and Guardrails is the Board's true north star for all its decision making to ensure that we govern the District in a way that is laser focused on student outcomes and achievements. Please move to the next slide. (Scrolls through exhibit.) In January 2021, the Board began holding monthly progress monitoring sessions for Goals and Guardrails during our public action meetings, which we have continued. The Board uses specific leading indicators to track the progress of each goal and guardrail. We, also, invite members of the public to attend monthly meetings to hear the progress monitoring discussions that the Board and School District community work collectively to achieve success In April 2022, the Board of Education announced the appointment of Dr. Tony B. Watlington, Sr. as our new Superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia. This followed a six-month search process that included a public engagement phase with 48 listening sessions in partnership with more than 50 community partners, a robust digital public survey, a 27-page report containing the feedback of nearly 6,000 Philadelphians The Board is pleased to have appointed Dr. Watlington, who is a visionary educator with more than 27 years of experience who has committed to achieving the Board's Goals and Guardrails. Dr. Watlington began his tenure as Superintendent on June 16, 2022. The Board was deeply committed to facilitating a smooth transition of the District's leadership team to ensure the stability, growth and morale of the School District. In June of this year, the Board adopted ACCELerate Philly, the School District's strategic plan to execute on Goals and Guardrails. The strategic plan was the result of many months of hard work and collaboration among the District's leadership team, steering committee and advisory groups and other stakeholders. The Board is grateful to everyone who invested their time, energy and passion into developing this critically important strategic plan. In October of this year, the Board codified the Goals and Guardrails governance model by adopting them in Board policy. This will ensure that a student-centered approach to governing a School District remains a foundational tenet of our City's return to local control. This is important because we have already begun to see the positive impact of focusing on student achievement For example, in the 2022/2023 school year, the District saw improved student outcomes in 13 out of the areas for students in grades 16 three to twelve including increases in 17 proficiency and reductions in below basic performance on standardized assessments. And I know Dr. Watlington will share more on these positive impacts in his presentation. Board Member Wilkerson will now continue the presentation. Please move to the next slide. (Scrolls through exhibit.)
Thank you, Vice President Fix-Lopez. We would now like to discuss some recent successes in the Path Forward. Please move to the next slide. (Scrolls through exhibit.) To continuously improve monitoring efforts, this past August the Board revised the indicators that track progress towards Goals and Guardrails. The Board also used this opportunity to break Goals and Guardrails monitoring out into separate monthly meeting. Through these improvements, the Board hopes to increase focus engagement and meeting efficiency. The Board has, also, worked to tie the evaluation of the Superintendent to its adopted Goals and Guardrails. The Board, also, continues to adopt budgets, policies and strategic investments aligned to the Goals and Guardrails. In March 2023, the Board adopted a $4.5 billion budget that focus on three priority areas. One is strengthening school safety with investments in a physical and social/emotional safety at schools and additional staff at high-needs schools. Two is partnering with parents and community members by investing in family and staff resources to increase attendance and reduce dropouts and investing in a two-way communication system and cuts towards service training And three, ACCELerateing academic achievement by investing in research-based standards aligned core curricula and high-impact tutoring along with increase inequitable CTE and dual enrollment opportunities. As we mentioned earlier, the Board recently adopted ACCELerate Philly, the District's strategic plan that will help us deliver on Goals and Guardrails and prepare students to imagine and realize any future they desire. ACCELerate Philly calls for all sectors of public education in Philadelphia to work with urgency to provide every student with opportunity to achieve positive life outcomes in partnership with diverse families, educators and community members who are valued and respected. The strategic plan was a result of many months of hard work and collaborating among the leadership teams, committees and advisory groups. We are grateful to everyone who invested their time and energy and passion into developing this critically important plan. The Board, also, has been working to formalize internal and external basic processes and procedures to ensure continuity of operation for future Boards. In October this year, the Board voted to add four new policies and eliminate one policy. These updates have been codified -- have codified the work that's been accomplished during the last five years since the Board replaced the School Reform Commission. The updates to Board Policy Manual also aligned Board policies to current law practices and reflect the promise of local control and align the policy revision timelines, what Board expects of the District, Board Member Lam will continue the presentation. Please move to the next slide (Scrolls through exhibit.)
Lam thank you, Board Member Fix-Lopez. And good evening Mayor Kenney and Councilmembers. In our efforts to streamline and update Board policies, in November 2020, the Board also reviewed and revised all Charter School related policies. As the Board does when it revises any policy, these revisions remain through to the Board's Policy Committee, which provides multiple opportunities for feedback and public comment from our key state cultures, including members of the Charter School sector. The Charter School's Office has been intentional in increasing the support and technical assistance it offers to a charter sector. These supports include expanded preview windows and office hours availability during each charter school's annual evaluation which allows for schools to do their evaluation, provide feedback, receive feedback and have their ratings updated prior to final reports being published. The creation of new professional learning communities to share best practices across schools and the Charter School Office staff have consistently been invited to share authorizing best practices at the national level, and are currently leading the authorizing dialogue on establishing frameworks to protect the rights of LGBTQ-plus students Finally, the Board has renewed several charter schools with increases to their authorized number of seats, which has expanded options for students and families to expand more than 2,000 seats Please move to the next slide. And at this time, I will pass it back to Board President Streater. (Scrolls through exhibit.)
Thank you, Board Member Lam. Partially, I want to close by personally acknowledging and taking a moment to celebrate the recent successes we are seeing across our District and our Charter School sector with improved student outcomes. Most recently available, public data shows that we are improving as a City and headed in the right direction. And that's exciting. We believe this is a direct result of our collective focus on student achievement. I want to take a minute and kind of digress a little bit, not too much. I know it's kind of late. But I have been thinking a lot about a landmark case that has changed our country, the Brown vs. Board of Education case. And reflecting on the Brown vs. Board of Education case, where Chief Justice Warren held that racial segregation in public schools even with equal resources deprives children of equal educational opportunities. That hit home for me. And as a civil rights attorney and a product of the Philadelphia public education system, I am deeply committed to a student-centered approach and find inspiration in the notion that to make progress, we must collectively hold all of our students to the same standard and expectations. You might ask, why do student outcomes matter? Why is the Board talking about Goals and Guardrails and equality this and equality that? They are a measure of our success in providing the necessary standards for educating the whole child and preparing them for a 21st Century economy and world. This focus on the whole child, a commitment we have not always necessarily had historically as a nation set us on a path toward equal quality educational opportunities, no matter the child and parent and no matter the school the child attends. I firmly believe that the legacy of this Mayor, City Council and the Board of Education will be defined by our collective laser focus on ensuring that the promise of Brown, equal and quality educational opportunities, exist in public education. And I wholeheartedly know that this will be true going forward. Once again, we are deeply grateful for your partnership and investment in the School District of Philadelphia over the years so that collectively we can build on our resources -- our successes, and continue to lift up every single learner in our City. And with that, at this time, I would pass the presentation to Dr -- Superintendent Dr. Watlington, Tony Watlington, Sr. and their team for updates and remarks. And be available -- I will be available to answer any questions you may have subsequently. Thank you so much.
Yeah. Before Dr. Watlington, Chair recognizes Councilwoman Gauthier. Councilwoman Gauthier?
I just wanted -- thank you, Council President. I just wanted to be recognized as present. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Councilwoman. Dr. Watlington, how are you my friend?
All right. Thank you, Mr. President. Good evening, Mayor Kenney, Mr. President, Board President Streater, Board Vice President Fix-Lopez, members of Council and Members of the Board of Education. Good to see you this evening. We will try to be as expeditious as we possibly can, President Clarke. Next slide please. ) I want to begin on the next slide. I wanted to take a moment to say a special thank you to Mayor Kenney and to you, President Clarke. Going to briefly share an update on District leadership here in the School District. I will share with you a bit more detail in terms of our student achievement outcomes for last year that are a direct result of the Board's keen focus on its Goals and Guardrails. Will say a few words about the facility investments that have occurred over the past ten years. And what is occurring currently is occurring presently and through the next five years. And then, we will kick off the budget development. And I will have our Chief Financial Officer Mike Herbstman to join me for that. And then, we will join President Streater, Vice President Fix-Lopez for questions. Next slide. I, too, want to say a very special thank you. Next slide, please. Thank you to Mayor Kenney. You have done a great job, sir. And we have appreciated the opportunity to work with you and under your leadership and the Board of Education. 5 billion in funding that's been put to good use here in the School District. And we are going to talk about the data that shows just how good of use those dollars have been put to. Really pleased to have seen preK expansion with a number of community schools and the investment in over 10,000 students and families. It's been exciting as a former outsider to watch this school district, the nation's eighth largest public school district return to local control under Mayor Kenney's tenure. And certainly, the creation of the Office of Children and Families has been really important as we work to streamline our work. And very pleased that we are engaging in memoranda of understanding with various City departments so that we can share data to drive faster improvement. Congratulations, Mayor Kenney. And our very best to you. Not just yet, but in a few weeks when you take that well-deserved vacation. I, also, want to say a very special thank you to you, President Clarke, to your leadership on Council for a number of years. Next slide. Quick leadership update as we move to the next slide. It's no secret that our new Mayor-Elect Parker, who I, too, want to join President Streater and congratulate her as Philadelphia's 100th Mayor. And what a historic election we witnessed. She, as you well know, made one of her first decisions as the Mayor-Elect to pick a very fine, outstanding just simply excellent new Police Commissioner. I sure have enjoyed the opportunity to work with Chief Kevin Bethel, Chief of Safety, who has made an indelible contribution to the School District of Philadelphia. The Diversion Program that he led in this City, the expansion of our Safe Paths Programs, increasing the number of analog security cameras and replacing those cameras across the District is just some outstanding work. So, I want to lend my full support and well wishes to Chief Bethel as he transitions first of the year as our new Police Commissioner. I am sure excited to see what he and Mayor-Elect Parker will do in our very fine City. And we have appointed Craig Johnson, who has been in the District for 20-some years and worked his way up through the ranks in the School District having been a school safety officer himself. Deputy Chief Craig Johnson will serve as the interim Chief of School Safety upon Chief Bethel's -- Commissioner Bethel's transition. And so, we look forward to working with him, as well. Next slide. I want to spend a moment, President Clarke, talking about the outcomes from the last school year. Bottom line, what's the brass tax?
Is the District getting better, performing about the same or going in the wrong direction? As we go to the next slide, we will see that the first is our -- our data. While we were building ACCELerate Philly, the five-year strategic plan that you heard Board Member Wilkerson talk about, we didn't take our foot off the accelerator. We focused very intently on five immediate priority areas: Student safety, student and staff safety, improving student attendance, improving teacher attendance, reducing the dropout, improving the four year graduation rate. Under Chief Bethel's very capable leadership, the name of Safe Paths Programs in the District increased from six to thirteen. We are going to increase to another ten schools this year. And by the close of this school year, we should be at twenty-three schools with Safe Paths Programs. We focused very intently on student attendance because since the pandemic, a lot of students across the country are having significant problems with chronic absenteeism. And we know that in order for students to learn, we know that -- we learned from the pandemic that most students learn a lot more when they are in in-person learning versus virtual learning. And we know that the touch point is 90 percent attendance. Across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the average number of students who attend school 90 percent of every month and 90 percent of the year is about 82 percent. In the School District of Philadelphia, prior to last year, that number for us was 57 percent for our students who attended school 90 percent of the month and 90 percent of the year. We are pleased that we increased that percentage of schools in leadership teams. We increased that percentage from 57 to 60 percent last year. And in terms of teachers who attend school 90 percent of the month and 90 percent of the year, that number increased from 77 to 84 percent. We certainly want to thank the PFT, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, President Jerry Jordan, our teachers who are really stepping up to bat. That is a significant improvement. Equally important, the number of students who dropped out of school was reduced by 265 last school year. When we put a face on the data and when we think about dropouts are a life-and-death issue for many of our young people in Philadelphia and other parts of the country. And when we consider the fact that dropouts don't live as long, their life outcomes are not as good as those who graduate from high school and go on to get some kind of post-secondary training, and when we consider the cost of dropouts -- for every student who drops out of school, the cost to the City of Philadelphia is $405,000 according to a Neubauer Family Foundation Report centered here in Philadelphia several years ago. So, it's really important. We want to keep our eye on that dropout rate. We want to bring it down even more this year. And then, certainly, when the data are finally verified, we expect the four-year cohort graduation rate to increase from 71 percent to 74 percent, which is a 3 percentage point increase. So, these were the immediate priorities we focused on last year as we built the strategic plan. And on the next slide, I want to share with you the outcomes in terms of academic achievement. I think that we're very pleased that because the Board of Education has established a fierce sense of urgency, the Board of Education keeps the main thing, the main thing with its Goals and Guardrails, and that's student achievement. If you watch or tune into Board Meetings, our Board is unique compared to a lot of urban school boards because it's focused on the main thing, student achievement. At the top, you'll see the PSSA data for our tests in grades three through eight. And the middle, you will see our Keystone proficiency data. On the left side, for Literature, Algebra and Biology at the high school.
And at the bottom, you will see NOCTI test results, which is a CTE skills-based assessments that's administered at several school across the District. On the right side, first I want to call your attention to across the board, in every area except Algebra 1, the percentage of our students who scored at below basic or the lowest level on standardized state tests here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania went down across the Board. You will see the green dots everywhere except for Algebra 1. On the left side, if you look at the number of students who actually were proficient -- proficient means that you scored at the certain level that the score -- that this Commonwealth deems as the touch point to say you are proficient or pass the test or proficient. That doesn't mean that there is still is a lot of students who made progress, but didn't get quite to that proficiency line. You will see a lot more green than you see yellow or red. Green means that we made progress. Yellow means that performance remained flat. And red means, very transparently, that we went in the wrong direction. And we declined in performance. The next slide just summarizes this for you. And so, you will see on this slide, in terms of the immediate priority areas related to safety, student and teacher attendance, dropouts and the graduation rate, we made improvement in all five of those priority areas last year. And I thank our schools and district teams for their hard and strategic work and our families and our students. Relative to the academic goals, as Vice President Fix-Lopez mentioned earlier, the District increased performance in thirteen out of seventeen areas. One area remained flat. And we went the wrong direction in three out of seventeen areas. And we are certainly focusing on how we will get better in those areas next year, as well. Next slide. Want to spend just a moment, Council, sharing with you the facility investments that have occurred over the past ten years, where we're going over the next five years, as well. Next slide. Certainly, over the past ten years since 2023, the District ought to be proud to have built four new school facilities, completed ten new school additions. There have been forty-six new classroom modernization projects. We have completed lead-paint assessments in 94 of our facilities, and certified 169 lead-safe schools. We have added 1700 state-of-the-art hydration stations in every school. Every school has a hydration stations in them now. Humidity centers have been installed to prevent mold in 31 carefully identified schools. And we have done a lot of work in this district to address longstanding deferred maintenance system upgrades and site improvement initiatives while, also, getting much better at dealing with environmental hazards and concerns. 72 billion, and very strategic and very appropriate investments in the School District. On the next slide, I will call your attention to where we're going over the next five years. Next slide please. 5 billion from January 2023 to June 2028 for the following: New construction to the tune of 602-plus million dollars, major renovations in the District to exceed $440 million, HVAC upgrades to the tune of $353 million. That includes installing air conditioning units in more of our schools. That work is ongoing such that in the hot-weather months, one day we won't have to dismiss school early. You can see the dollars for exterior renovations, energy performance, electrical upgrades, site improvements and minor renovations. 5 billion. I hope you notice the very fine picture of the new TM Peirce School, which we look forward to all of you having the opportunity to visit in the very near future. One of our outstanding new schools that are under construction. We are excited, very excited. Can't wait until it's finished so we can get in there and see this new state of the art facility. Next slide.
I want to say a couple of words about the budget development process before I ask our Chief Financial Officer Mike Herbstman to join us. First, the School District of Philadelphia is and has been a good steward of the public tax dollars. Sometimes I hear politicians and other people say that sometimes these large urban school districts feel like big government with a lot of waste and inefficiency. I'm going to beg to differ with that for three reasons. Number one, in the School District of Philadelphia, as several of the Board Members shared earlier -- and we can go to the next slide to kind of hammer in on this. The School District of Philadelphia has the best investment-grade financial credit rating that it's had in nearly a half century. Board Member Egea-Hinton talked about that. When we consider the fact that both Moody's investor services and Fitch ratings last school year upgraded our credit outlook from stable to positive, and when we consider just a few weeks ago both Moody's and Fitch reaffirmed that positive credit outlook. Moody's and Fitch both know that this School District, like many other districts around the country, are going to go off a financial cliff in the next two years if we don't get more state and local funding. They, also, know that -- they, also, know we've been a historically under-funded School District. The fact that they still keep our credit outlook as positive says that they have high confidence that our Board of Education has been good stewards and will continue to manage the District's finances in a respectful way and appropriate manner. Number two. When we look at the budget relative to our improvements in the District, A, the learning loss as measured by nat performance -- and the School District of Philadelphia was not as significant as some of the other large urban school districts. B, teacher attendance, student attendance, academic outcomes as measured by test scores are all going up. The dropout rate is going down. That is exactly what we want to see happening here in the School District of Philadelphia. The third thing that I will say about the budget development process is that under our new Chief Financial Officer's leadership, Mike Herbstman, we're committed to having a longer budget development process this year. Will be a bit different than previous years because we want to be more transparent and we want to be good partners. And the Board desires to be more strategic, transparent and good partners with our community and make sure people really understand what goes into the budget and how we are being good stewards of public tax dollars. Finally, let me introduce you to Mike Herbstman, our new CFO, for those of you who have not met him. He's not new to a large urban school district. Prior to coming to our district, I knew his former superintendent very well. And she, quite frankly said, he's the best CFO she's ever worked for or worked with. He came from Prince George's County, Maryland. And prior to that, he was the CFO in Alexandria, Virginia. And he, also, worked in the finance office at Chicago public schools. Which as you well know, is the third largest public school district in the country. So with that, welcome Chief Financial Officer Mike Herbstman. And I will ask him to walk you through the next steps of the budget development process. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, Dr. Watlington. And good evening. Back in the spring of 2021, due to historic state underfunding, no state appropriation growth for two years and the early impacts of the pandemic, the District's expenditures outpaced its revenues. As FY2022 budget development approached, we projected deficit greater than $300 million, and reduction seemed imminent. Through effective and efficient use of new federal pandemic funding, the District temporarily delayed this. We say effective, because the District through many pandemic and post-pandemic challenges, saw lower levels of student learning loss than other larger districts. And as Dr. Watlington just presented, the District has made initial strides towards advancing academically achieving the Board's Goals and Guardrails. We say efficient because though while grossly under-resourced, the District was able to accomplish the robust fiscal controls that Dr. Watlington outlined on the previous slide. But now we are in a place where due to the years of insufficient funding and the end of Federal COVID-19 Relief Grant, we, like other districts throughout the Commonwealth across that nation, face upcoming structural deficits. Next slide, please. If we can go to the next slide. Thank you. Back at the Board Action Meeting in May, we presented a Five Year Plan. Next slide. Full line-by-line Five Year Plan won't be updated until we present the lump sum budget in the spring. However, there are some major items that were not included in the May plan that we need to account for in order to get a full depth of our operating budget. So as we show you in the adjusted Five Year Plan on the next slide, it's going to include these items. First, projections of future labor negotiations over the next five years. This includes the recently improved UNITE HERE Local 634 Agreement as well as upcoming negotiations with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, PFT, coming up soon for a new contract in September. And our other three unions that we'll be negotiating with later in this five year plan. The adjustments also included continuation of critical ARPA initiatives and appropriately resourcing and our years of the ACCELerate Philly Strategic Plan. And lastly, we need to consider the Fair Funding discussion. As you know, expert testimony has shown that Philadelphia students are under-funded by nearly $8,000 per student every year across all district run and charter schools. 6 million each year in under-funding. When we show our anticipated revenues on the next slide, it won't include this inequitable funding. 9 percent annual increase in state funding we received between last year and this year. Next slide please. So, this is a high level overview of our Five Year Plan with the adjustments that I just discussed. Follow the green line, you will see our projected budget deficit over time. This represents the difference each year between revenues that are in dark blue and expenditures in light blue. Current year, we have a balanced budget. The green line is right at zero dollars for FY2024. Moving into next year, FY25, the green line dips. And our structural deficit begins there. In FY2025 alone, we have a budget gap of just over $400 million if our revenue expenditures continue in the same pattern. That deficit increases each year. If you follow the orange line, you will see our fund balance will run out in the second quarter of FY2026. From here, the annual deficit continues to increase each year. This is the financial situation that would go forward absent any changes to our revenue or expenditures. Next slide. So, how will we work through the budget development process to close the gap? First, we need to look internally to clean up the budget -- our budget to the maximum level that it can without significant student impacts.
No 1 matter what our future funding looks like, this District will exemplify fiscal prudence both to appropriately line our limited resources where it can do the most good for students and to evidence to our state and city-funding partners, including all of you, that any additional funding that you provide will go to excellent use. The first light blue line here shows initial annual budget deficits from the previous slide beginning with $407 million for next year. The District is committing now to deficit reduction measures totaling more than $500 million over the course of Five Year Plan as you see highlighted in the white lines here. All of these actions still result in sizeable budget deficit of $263 million for next year. To reduce this, we are committing to a strategic drawdown of fund balance. We are proposing to strategically commit this fund balance in the next four years, slowly wean off use of the fund balance as we begin to see more revenue, thus avoiding a fund balance cliff at the end of this. Following all of this, our deficit is reduced to a more manageable level. And our fund balance will remain at an acceptable level. With these austerity measures, the District will still need more funding. The year-over-year increases need to balance the budget are shown in the last dark blue line here. Next slide, please. Next slide. As we develop our budget for FY2025 and as we await statewide school funding decisions, the Commonwealth faces dynamic uncertainty. There are three divergent paths forward, and they are dependent on when we finally receive adequate and equitable state funding. With no District taxing authority, unlike the other school districts in Pennsylvania, the School District of Philadelphia is 99 percent dependent on our State and City dollars for our operating fund. Therefore, which path we end up on will be chosen not by our Board or Administration, but ultimately by you and the State as our funders. I would like to join our Board of Education and Superintendent in thanking the City for recent funding increases, and look forward to a continued partnership as we move into a more difficult financial period. Next slide. So here we show the combined increases corresponding to these three paths. First path is State and City funding only at the standard annual growth level. It will leave us about $138 million short, and cause us to go well beyond the austerity measures in previous slides. million increase for next year and no projected increases in the following year. Path Two shows the State and City increasing funding to levels sufficient to cover our operating deficits after all the deficit reduction measures we outlined. million for FY27. These allocations would help us to close our budget gap and achieve short-term fiscal stability, but this is not a path to true advancement. Still maintain the same current inadequate service levels to our students. Finally, Path Three, the State funding formulas that make a down-payment towards adequacy targets. This would put the state on a path to reach researched-based K through 5 adequacy targets within five years. $500 6 million target for the District in year one is 7 in alignment with the State $2 billion FY2025 proposed PA schools work. million dollars in the following two years. This path to accelerate prosperity is what it will take to achieve fair, adequate equitable and constitutional school funding in the Commonwealth. It would allow the District to serve students in the way that they deserve, as we implement the research-based ACCELerate Philly Strategic Plan with fidelity and fully incorporate may of our partner and community recommendations. Next slide. Our budget process, as Dr. Watlington shared, will also look different this year. The biggest difference will be how we collaborate with all of our partners across the city.
In the past, we have not had much public budget discussion until March. Now we are moving towards a transformative engagement process, beginning now more than three months earlier. So, what will it look like? This is really about providing many modes and opportunities for engagement and actively listen to the voices that emerge. This is a two-way communication. It's, also, about in each of these opportunities providing all of our partners with transparent use into our fiscal situation, including our structural deficit. District partners work from equal information. We believe that a governmental budget is a moral document that reflects the priorities of the community. And this engagement plan will help us to unleash the collective wisdom of the City of Philadelphia towards a better budget. With that, I will turn the floor back to Dr. Watlington for closing remarks.
Mr. President, this concludes our presentation. Happy to join President Streater and Vice President Fix-Lopez in any Q and A. Thank you. - - - (At this time, Councilman Jones sitting in for Council President Clarke.) - - -
Thank you. I believe President Clarke has left the meeting, so I will be, as Majority Leader, taking over. And I want to thank you Superintendent as well as the Chair of the Board for this wealth of information as it relates to the good news, the bad news and some of the ugly that we will be facing by way of budget. Let me, as my colleagues tee up, I'm sure they have a host of questions. But I will take the prerogative to ask, under the Fair Funding Formula that the court ruled upon, do you in your conservative estimate, think any of those dollars will reach us in time to offset some of these projected budget deficits?
I will say, Majority Leader Jones, as you know, if we were to receive the funding that the Penn State professor, the expert testified about, that would mean just shy of $8,000 more per student. In terms of would it make a tremendous difference? Absolutely. We knew exactly what to do with those dollars to drive faster improvement. In terms of timelines, I will defer to Chief Herbstman.
Yes. I think to clarify what we're talking about here, is that $8,000 per student is about $1.6 billion above the current formula. So, this would require significant changes in state formulas that would drive it. In terms of --
Let me stop you. Point of information there. What is the current allotment per student to the School District?
In terms of total state funding, I would have to get that number back to you. I apologize.
Estimating 14,000/13,000, around there. Don't quote me on that, but that's a ballpark from my memory.
So, that would bring -- that $8,000 would bring us up above close to 22,000 per student?
Public school, simple math. That's simple math. All right. So having said that, at the time, I believe we are 75 percent done the State Budget. Has any of those revenues come have? Have you received them within the School District?
Yes. We continue this year to get our revenues. After the short delay in funding, we are getting our normal schedule now.
It is -- I apologize. Let me -- approximately for this year, $2.073 billion dollars. About 2.1 billion.
So our Capital Dollars, we fund with our own funds. We -- in this operating budget, we pay the debt service to fund the full Capital Program. As I think the Board presented or, sorry, Dr. Watlington presented earlier, over the six-year Capital Budget, that's about, I believe, 2.4 to 2.5 billion dollars. But that is coming through a bonding that we do out of our operating fund, not from direct State funding.
So what I would ask is out of the capital dollars, where does that put us in the race to fix some of our aging schools and, you know, keep up with needed repairs and others? So how does that 2-point what billion?
Majority Leader Jones, while Chief Herbstman is checking that, I do want to note that, historically, there is no 2 capital funding that comes to the District from the State. That's something that the District has to account for and figure out. Number two, I think it's interesting as a Superintendent a year and a half here in Philadelphia, that out of the 500 school districts in this Commonwealth, this is the only one that cannot raise funding on its own. So, that is a unique challenge here. Just wanted to note that for the record, sir.
So, Superintendent, in your rough estimation, how does that keep pace with the demands for repairs? And thank you very much for Cas -- which is one of the new schools that is being built and will be completed some time in the new year. But how does that money keep pace with some of the needed repairs and new facilities and the demand for those facilities from the school?
The short answer, sir, is that it does not. It does not keep pace with the need.
So, what is the amount that keeps pace with what we -- I remember being with President Clarke when it was estimated $5 billion worth of needed repairs in capital. Where are we -- where are we today?
The Parsons Report from 2017/2018 time frame estimated the cost in 2017/2018 dollars to upgrade schools across the School District to 21st Century learning standards, don't -- want to use that with air quotes, at about -- just north of $7.89 billion. And so, when you think about the $2.5 billion that we are investing between 2023 to 2028, we are biting off what we can afford to do at this moment. But it will require more -- to do more and go further in that work.
Just wanted to put that on the record. I will shift gears, and then turn over the mic to my colleagues. As it relates to -- so, thank you for this. You have attended some of our Safe Corridor role call meetings, 7:00 a.m. every Monday morning with about of the schools that 7 are in impacted areas in my district. And thank 8 you for that. And now soon to be Police 9 Commissioner Bethel, also, made that 7:00 a.m. 10 sojourn. 11 But what I would want to -- one of the 12 issues that's raised by a number of them, and I 13 couldn't answer it, and so I told them I would 14 ask you guys. What is the policy for parents or 15 adults that come onto school grounds and 16 physically and verbally assault school teachers? 17 Is there a standard policy that can be 18 articulated to those people? 19
In the interest time, I 20 will punt straight to Chief Bethel. He has very clear thoughts about that. Chief Bethel.
Is he still here? Thought he had another job. CHIEF BETHEL: I'm still here, sir. Yeah. So we -- when I arrived, we created a threat assessment protocols for any adults in our system that were threatened. We've had that in place for four years. I think it's been sometimes at times challenging to coordinate that process with the Philadelphia Police Department. But I can tell you with 120 percent guarantee, that as I transition over to the Philadelphia Police Department, we will take all of those matters, all of those matters will be taken seriously. We will be dedicating detectives and individuals to address those issues immediately. We have started some of that transition work. Most recently, we are working with Homeland Security. And I think we have the template to make sure it is unacceptable, Councilman, that school leaders and parents -- I mean, school leaders and staff, are coming up to school, attacking our teachers. And more importantly, parents are coming up and attacking other students. So, you have my -- I will state it definitively. We will be working with the School District. We will be creating some significant enhancement to our safety plans. And we will avail them shortly after I arrive at the police department.
We appreciate and have total faith that you will do what you are saying. And so, I'm at a sense of comfort when it comes to -- because every Monday morning, we hear about those kinds of problems that start in the school hallways and wind up in violence on our street. So, we have to hard check that and make sure that people and parents who love their children, follow the protocols and do not cause undue harm or create a threatening situation for students to students, students to teachers and adults to administrators in the school. So, thank you for that. With that -- CHIEF BETHEL: Councilman Jones, if I can just add, one of the things I found was inconsistent, we had to go to the different detective divisions, as you know. I think what I learned here is we need to have some place centralized versus having them spread across the City, the different detective divisions as you are aware. I think that centralized process will give us the ability to respond much quicker and more effectively. So, sorry to cut you off. I just -- the police department has done a great job to make their efforts. I think sitting here today, recognizing we need to have a centralized process to address that.
Appreciate those comments. Mr. Glass, are there any questions for Members of City Council?
Mr. Chairman looking in the Chat and the attendees area, does not look like are any members wishing to be recognized at this time.
Wow. I think that's a record, Superintendent. I think you and the Board's comments and presentations checked a lot of boxes, answered a lot of questions. So --
I apologize. Councilmember Gilmore-Richardson asked to be recognized.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. And good afternoon colleagues. And thank you so much to the Board President Streater and our Superintendent Dr. Watlington, the entire team of the School District of Philadelphia for their robust presentation. I wanted to go back to a few things that were noted in the presentation, and also ask several questions relative to revenue and financial and fiscal future of the district. First, I just want to congratulate Dr. Watlington on the attendance numbers across the District. I know that was one thing you wanted to focus on upon arrival. And I will tell as a parent of students in the District who enjoy perfect attendance, might I add, we feel that trickling down into each school. So, I want to thank you for the focus on perfect attendance as well as some of the Goals and Guardrails that you all mentioned. I wanted to briefly talk about the financial picture for the District. I saw the article like so many of my colleagues relative to the fiscal situation that you all will be in like the City and like many other municipalities in a couple fiscal years. And so if you all have any debt -- and this question will be for your CFO. If you all have any debt, are you looking at restructuring that debt while your bond rating is high and while we have an opportunity to do so? If that's a possibility.
Councilmember Gilmore-Richardson, thank you for the question. Our CFO transitioned to his car phone. He is going to join us momentarily. He had a child he needs to pick up by a certain time. And I think we want to make sure he gets his child on time. So, he is going to join us shortly. But I, certainly, know that President Streater has asked us to look at every way we can be as efficient as possible while we have the financial health that we do. And so unless President Streater wants to speak to that, I can we can hold it until we get the CFO back on the -- on the line. Would that be okay President Streater?
Okay. That's great. I certainly understand that, particularly to the CFO. I, actually, had to do the same thing as we had a Commerce Committee hearing prior to this. And I, too, have little children in our public school system. But at any rate, I wanted to ask the question relative to how you all are looking at going after federal dollars and federal grant opportunities to ensure that we can supplement some of the line items in the budget as necessary so that may -- maybe that fiscal balance that you all noted, I think it was 400-plus million, that you may have a deficit in a few years where we can sort of chip away at some of that deficit by trying to get in sort of the individualized federal grants. I heard you earlier in the presentation talk about the hydration stations that have been installed. And you know that we work very closely with the District to ensure that that application was submitted to the Federal Government. And the School District of Philadelphia received the highest award of any District in the country. And so, that was a result, one, of Councilmember Gym's legislation, and then six years later, my appointment to the United States Environmental Protection Agency Local Government Advisory Committee. And so, are you all going after any grants -- maybe your grant office can specifically speak to this -- to look at ways where we can chip away at that projected deficit?
I will say two things, Councilmember Gilmore-Richardson. One in alignment with our strategic plan ACCELerate Philly, we have directed the Office of Grants and Fund Development to focus on securing as many federal and other grant-funded dollars to support the strategies in this strategic plan. We're not sure that we will be able to supplement some of the key areas that we currently have to our funding in the district for this reason. A, we had an audit done by the Council of Great City Schools. And they told us that relative to other large school districts our size, we have a much smaller administrator -- central office administrator-to-student ratio. So what that tells me is, we never really built back this School District from the significant cuts that were made years ago, I think some time maybe around the time that Paul Vallas was the CEO. As the state went under -- as the District went under State control, there was significant cuts that we never built back from. So quite frankly, some of the funding that we're using federal dollars for, ARPA dollars for, are things that we just never really back filled some of those supports for schools over time. But the short answer to your question is yes. We are a securing as many -- we are exploring as many federal and other grants as we can through our grant's office. But we're not optimistic that it's going to be able to fill the lion share of the need at this time.
I certainly understand that. But I wanted to ask an additional question relative to your anticipated deficits. Does your anticipated deficit include or, I should say, with your anticipated deficit, what staffing percentages does that include? Meaning, you are projecting this number deficit. Are you anticipating being fully staffed in every staffing category? Or does that deficit account for certain percentages of vacancies in certain positions? And if so, what are they? And what are the percentages?
Chief Herbstman has joined the meeting from his car phone. Chief Herbstman, are you there?
Yes. Good afternoon again. And I apologize for having to step out for a second. So, we do not project all of positions to be present at all time. We do have a vacancy factor, which is a large negative number that we built into the budget. We do this based on historical rates across different positions. As we are looking for this year, we're actually looking to significantly increase those vacancy factors. Because this is a negative rate, we are not going to change our practices. We will always look to fully staff. But we believe that there is room to actually build in a larger negative number that will help reduce the deficit. That was shown on one of the slides earlier. We didn't get into the full details of it. But a portion of the work that we will be doing towards reducing that deficit is in there. This -- there are specific percentages that we use across different school types and different departments and different position types. So, I can't say exactly what the percentages are for each position. But it's based on the historical fill rates that we have had and the time that we have had between filing positions.
Okay. And one -- I just want to mention for the record, please, do not apologize for being a working parent like so many of us. But two, I just wanted to ask that question because my concern was around some of the positions that you all have been filling with folks outside of the District -- yes, with folks outside of the District. And so, I say that from personal experience. Because even this year thus far, my son has not had a speech therapist, as an example. And that's because you all have a difficulty, you know, with hiring speech therapists. And I know sometimes you all, you know, contract positions. But we want to try to fill as many positions internally to the District so you don't have to do that. So, that's why I wanted to know and understand what the vacancy rates were that you all anticipate when you would have this sort of fiscal cliff.
Thank you, Councilmember Gilmore-Richardson. We will take a look specifically at that issue relative to the hiring of the position you just referenced.
Okay. And then just for the record, if you can submit to the Chair, and thus, to the Members of Council, a list of all the vacancy rates that you anticipate for each position, you know, like teacher, you know, staff support. Just detail each of the positions and what you anticipate the vacancy rate would be at that time so that we have a better understanding for budgeting purposes. Now, I wanted to get on the record just a couple of questions, Mr. Chair, if you don't mind relative to leveling.
Thank you kindly, Mr. Chair. Because I was unable to get my hearing scheduled prior to the end of the year due to difficulty in scheduling. But I wanted to just revisit quickly, the District's policy on leveling. And if you can just state for the record the policy and then how it's implemented. And you know, not every school -- and we found this in the most recent process. Not every school has classes below the cap that gets leveled. So, how are these decisions being made relative to which schools and which classrooms are leveled versus others? And then, in this past year in 2023, 45 schools that have classes below cap did not get leveled. That's why I'm asking that question. So why?
I will take the first part of that, Councilmember Gilmore-Richardson. Thank you for the question. Because we follow guidelines with regard to maximum class sizes at certain grade levels driven by our relationship with our labor agreements with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, et cetera, we want to make sure the class sizes don't exceed a certain number. It's a big, high level way to think about this. And because our students don't come in nice bundles of twenty or twenty-two or twenty-three, we find at the beginning of the year, some classrooms have an overage. And some classes are very small. And so, we try to figure out a way to balance those. Now long story short, we are reviewing our processes because we have heard lots of feedback and the Board has asked us to do the same. And we are going to come back before the end of January with the Superintendent's findings and, more importantly, what we intend to do going forward to mitigate the impact on students, families and classrooms. That said, the second part of that question, I'll ask Chief Herbstman to speak to the second part of your question, which I think was related to why were some classrooms treated differently than others.
Yes, thank you. So with -- I'm not familiar with the exact 45 that you're talking about. But I do believe that there is continuing -- consistent practices across schools with a couple of exceptions. The one place where we did make exceptions was earlier in the process, we made -- we decided to do a partial hold harmless last spring for any school that was losing significant funding and, therefore, a significant number of positions. In order to be consistent across that, for those schools, some of which were criteria based, some of which were non-criteria based other schools, we decided that it would be appropriate not to do that hold harmless and then level them further later in the process. So, that might be the schools that you are referring to. But we'd be happy to comment on the list of schools if you are able to provide that.
Well, I mean, I think what would be helpful for us to ensure that the numbers are correct are if you could provide a list of all the schools that had classes below cap that did not get leveled. And then, oh, I think it was 59 schools that did experience some level of leveling. If you can just give us the full list of information for the committee. I know we have been corresponding internally with the District about this, but I think it's good information for my colleagues to have as we continue to move through this process in the budget -- upcoming budget process. And then, also, I think for us it feels as if there is not transparency around the process. It happens very quickly. And so, it happens without a lot of notice. And so, you will receive the information one week, and then the class is leveled the next week. In some cases, the class size can double particularly for the elementary school students. And so, my next question is around the special admission schools. Were there any special admission schools that were leveled this year? Any special admit schools.
First part of your question, your comment, Councilmember Gilmore-Richardson, we accept that feedback. We are committed to doing a much better job in the future depending on where we go with leveling, the enrollment resources review process better known as leveling. We are committed to making that process better. And we absolutely will communicate better going forward. Your point is well taken. In terms of any special admit or criteria-based schools if they experience leveling, Chief Herbstman, what's the data on that part?
So, they were looked at the same ways as the other schools with the exception of there were criterion-based 13 schools that were among the schools that received a partial hold harmless earlier that we did not level. (Fire engine heard.) I apologize. There's a fire truck going by my car. That we did not level further. As -- in terms of if there were any that were on the list of schools that were impacted on leveling, I would have to get that data to you.
If I could add something briefly just to remind everybody what happened. Dr. Watlington and myself and a few Board members greeted students who came to the School District. And rightfully so, we have amazing learners in the City of Philadelphia. And advocated that we do something about potential positions lost around -- I think they just mentioned. Just to kind of give context to why the Board -- why the District was able to hold harmless, and even in the background, we knew there might be unintended consequences. I think this is just an example where you have a lot of holes, and you're trying to plug holes hoping there will be less holes once we -- I'm a believer that we will be adequately funded. We will less have fees, kind of, to rob Peter to pay Paul. I just thought it was important to give that context. Not to mitigate or say your points are not well taken. They are definitely well taken. Just to give context. So, I thank you. Dr. Watlington.
Absolutely. Spot on President Streater. And Councilmember Gilmore-Richardson, I want to just remind Councilmembers that when the lottery was implemented a couple of years ago or in the past year, we had the unintended consequence of nearly 800 vacancies. Well, we've spent time meeting with principals. We had a two-day retreat with our principals of criteria-based schools. And also, met with some of our city-wide high school principals and already spent time with our Deputy Superintendent and members of the team. Long story short, we recognize that because some of the glitches and unintended consequences associated with launching the lottery helped to create some of the vacant seats in our criteria-based schools. So, we want to completely, to the extent we can, we want to own that. So, we thought it made sense to hold harmless -- at least, a partial hold harmless -- have a partial hold harmless because many of those schools to include the Philadelphia High School for Girls, your beloved alma mater. And we're committed this year. And we're currently working to ensure that we fill those seats with students who are -- who desire to be in those schools. And so, I look forward to sharing with President Streater and the Board progress this year toward filling those seats and ensuring that we don't have that unintended consequences anymore.
Okay. Thank you so much, Dr. Watlington and Board President Streater because I think it was multiple things happening, to your point. And it's just sort of like a conundrum that we are just trying to figure this out because all the things happened at the same time. Particularity, a ton of unintended consequences. I just want to get two more questions on the record. And I will reserve, so that we have -- okay -- so, that we have opportunity to more fully discuss this when we have the hearings in the new year. But are charter schools leveled? Why or why not? And then, can you all confirm that some schools -- and I don't want to name this particular school. That some schools class size caps are smaller than the rest of the School District? Meaning are there other schools in the District that have different class caps then what the policy dictates?
I will speak to the other charter issue. So as I mentioned I think in the hearing last week, there are currently 7,000 enrollment vacancies in our charter sector. And by law, we have no capacity or no ability to level or do anything that relates to what the charter schools are able to do with their staffing and their funding and things like that. We only get one bite at the apple, and that's during the non-removal moment where our charter framework, which is intended to -- intended to give the community a mechanism where the Board of Education and the City can provide there's a sense of trust, there's a standard of care that each family can have confidence in. And that standard can includes not just academic outcome or organizational compliance and financial wherewithal to ensure that the next five years, or however long the charter term is, we can all agree and say it and believe that any option in the City of Philadelphia, no matter where it is, there is based upon standard. I will give you the analogy. For example, if a hospital wants to open up in Pennsylvania, that provider has to go before the Board and their standards. And there is check-ins to make sure that there is a standard of care. So if anybody in Pennsylvania decides to go to any hospital, yes, you have a choice to go to any hospital. There is an assumption that that hospital is operating in a way where everybody has the baseline standard of care. So anyway, just kind of want to get that context to the listeners. We're not just talking to each other, we are also talking to the public. That's what the framework does. The framework attempts as much as possible to give guidelines and things of that nature as required by the law, best practices, City law, things like our Crown Act and things like that. Best practices. But as it relates to leveling and things like that, we don't have the capacity to go into those schools to do anything. All we can do is hold accountable and try to offer supports, which we do around our professional learning groups and other mechanisms. So anyway, I just want to get that concept. Thank you.
And I would, also, note that our charter schools are paid based on actual enrollment. So if their enrollment does go down, they --
Our charter schools are paid based on actual enrollment based on the rates -- the State rates. So if their enrollment goes down during the year or prior, they do lose funding as a result of that. But as President Streater said, it's not the same process because we don't control their levels of positions. They make those positions within their funding structure.
Understood. Yes. And I just wanted to go back to the question that I had regarding schools in the district that may or may not have different class caps than what the policy dictates.
Sure. Thank you, Councilmember Gilmore-Richardson. If I'm correct, the -- we follow in the District our labor guidelines with the PFT. Those are negotiated in our labor agreements. I believe kindergarten at a max is capped at no 6 greater than 30. I do believe there's some special arrangements related to our relationship with the University of Pennsylvania relative to Penn Alexander and the lead school. I will ask Deputy Superintendent Grant Skinner if he can speak to confirm the class size max in our labor agreement if you are there, Deputy Superintendent Grant Skinner or Dr. Dawson, Deputy of Academics. If either of you are there to verify. Okay. There you go.
Yes. I'm Jeremy Grant Skinner. The maximum at other grade levels is 33 -- 33 students per class.
Yes, I understand that. But I think my question is, is the leveling policy or the cap size different for different schools around leveling, not the maximum class size.
The decisions made through the process of leveling are based on the maximum class size. Chief Herbstman shared earlier how the hold harmless decision intersected with the impact for some schools with leveling. But the -- other than that, the decisions for leveling are based on whether the school is able to meet the class size maximums in the -- referred to there. So, they are one in the same. Those class size maximums are what are applied through that leveling process.
And Councilwoman Gilmore-Richardson, Mr. Grant Skinner is the Deputy Superintendent for talent, strategy and culture. So, he leads the human resources talent end of the organization. So, he would be the person who could speak to any other questions related to leveling.
Okay. That would be great. I wanted to just get that last question on the record because, I will be honest with you, I have six more. But I will reserve the balance of those questions for the hearing that we have on leveling in the new term so that we can more fully delve into this issue being as though you all have been so patient with us as we are going through the Commerce and Economic Development hearing today. And all of our time has been extended. I appreciate the time that has been given. And I look forward to continuing to work with you all on a number of issues that you all know that I know very personally as a graduate of the Philadelphia High School For Girls, our beloved alma mater, Masterman for Middle School as well as Gompers for Elementary School. And now having three children that I am just trying so hard to keep in the District, one who is graduating in June, and two who I will continue to work with as hard as I can in trying to keep them in the District. But I want to thank you all so much for the work that you're doing. I want to thank the teachers for the work that they do, all the professional staff at the schools, the principals, everyone for the work that they do to help us with our children and our young people each and every day. I appreciate each of them. And just really look forward to continuing to work with you all to make our district the very best in this country. So, thank you very, very much. And thank you, Mr. Chair for the leeway you have granted.
Thank you, Chair Councilmember Curtis Jones. I want to pose the following question to Dr. Watlington and also Board Chairman Streater. Given that the District uses ARPA funding, you know, for after-school programs and we -- we now know that ARPA funding is coming to a close, how are we going to continue to fund after-school programs as well as summer programs knowing that ARPA funding is coming to a close in the City of Philadelphia? Because what we do know, is that after-school programming and summer school program -- summer program, is really important for our young.
No. I just think what the District is proposing to do, hopefully to get the fully funding that we -- that I believe we are gong to get -- I know some people think I'm crazy. I'm an eternal optimist. Can't do this work without being an optimist I think. But what I think, the District is trying to do everything it can to mitigate the loss of funds by stretching out our fund balance. For those who may not understand what that means who are watching the meeting, that's when an institution has a quasi-surplus that's built up over time. And instead of just using it all at one time, I think the District is trying to find a way to wean itself off of it. So -- and I think the District -- I think Dr. Watlington has mentioned that he is trying to find ways to hold harmless as much as he can since that word came up earlier, any and all things that are closest to students. So, there might be some matriculation of reshuffling at 440, but I believe that the Superintendent's plan is to do as much as he can to hold harmless things that are the closest, which are teachers, obviously, anything that touches students. Dr. Watlington, do you want to add anything?
Yes, sir. I will say three things. Number one, we are going to continue to hold harmless where we can to mitigate the impact as best we can. Number two, we are going to tighten our belt where we can, notwithstanding the fact that we are a lean staffed organization. Not my opinion, we got an external audit -- a retro external group out of Washington, DC to do that audit for us. And the third thing is, the bottom line is we have to deal with the historic under-funding of this School District. And at some point, we just can't keep kicking the can down the road and say do more with less. And so, we want to make the case to all of our legislators, the Board and the staff are being good stewards of the tax dollars. And equally important, we are committed to always coming back to Council and to the State Legislature to say this is the return on investment that you are getting for every dollar you spend in the School District.
Thank you. I'm, also, committed to helping the School District of Philadelphia with this issue. You know, as I further support the Education Committee, you know, going to next year, I want to find ways to support you all with this because I come from a background of after-school program directorship. So, I just think it's incredibly -- you got to have quality after-school programs. That's another thing. But yeah, I want to make sure that we have those in place for our young people. And whatever advocacy and support we need, let's just keep that going.
Thank you, Member Phillips, for that insight. Those after-school programs are economic development stimulators for some parents who have to work and need that kind of care to cover those hours that they are not there to be with their children. So, thank you for those questions. Mr. Glass, are there any other questions.
Mr. Chairman, it does not appear there are any members wishing to be recognized at this time.
So with that, thank you for your testimony. We look forward to working with you in the new year to keep this progress moving forward. And so, all those who testified today, this concludes the Public Meeting of Committee of the Whole on the issue of public education. Thank you all very much for your patience. And thank you very much for your testimonies. Take care and good night. (Public Meeting adjourned at 6:29 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. -------------------------- ANGELA M. KING, RPR,