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In an announcement by Superintendent William Hite on Friday morning, the Philadelphia School District (PSD) laid out a plan to open schools Sept. 8 that will include serious temporary cuts to bridge the District’s $81 million budget deficit. Flanked by members of the School Reform Commission (SRC), Hite laid out about six measures the PSD will be forced to take to open public school doors on time.
“For the sake of educating children and minimizing disruptions for families, we have made the decision to make a series of additional difficult — and hopefully, temporary — cuts in order to open schools on time,” Hite said at a press conference. “Delaying the start of the school year punishes students for adult failures.”
Approximately 7,500 high school students who live within two miles of their school will no longer receive transportation support (the distance used to be 1.5 miles); alternative education programs will be reduced, impacting nearly 300 students; schools will be cleaned less and repaired at a slower rate; promise academies, schools that were targeted as under-performing to get turned around, will no longer receive preparation and professional development support; and staffing reductions will occur in a number of departments including police officers plus in additional categories to be determined and announced at a later date.
The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT) have also been called on to make concessions, including health benefits. The announcement also addresses the deep need for the passing of the pending cigarette tax legislation that is expected to generate $49 million this year if it’s passed. If it doesn’t, further cuts could follow.
“Finally, we considered the public assurances we have received from the governor and the house majority leader that they will do everything they can to ensure that the cigarette tax authorizing legislation is passed when the general assembly returns next month,” Hite reported on Friday.
The announcement has spurred debate locally as one of a slew of cuts and budget shifts the District has had to make every year. And every year the district schools operate at a minimum functionality to the detriment of Philadelphia’s children.
As Hite put it, at the end of his address, “To be clear, filling our $81 million gap will only allow the District to return the inadequate and insufficient resources schools had last year. … Adults have the power to make right the wrong being done to our students and schools. Providing all children with a rich, high-quality education is not only a basic right, but a moral obligation.”
Many parents and teachers are quick to villainize the District, but as Anthony Hopkins, the communications director for Public Citizens for Children and Youth, put it, “The bottom line is they got dealt this hand and they understand that it’s important to provide an education for children and they basically had to pick the lesser of evils. So they decided to cut facilities and transportation and alternative education and promise academies. It was either cut there or cut more significantly.”
Hopkins also pointed out that, unless the cigarette tax kicks in on October 1, more and deeper layoffs may occur.
“Layoffs are not off the table. If they don’t get the tax they’re looking at 1,300 layoffs,” he said.
Class size swelling and in some cases split grade level classes (two grades in one classroom) are worst case scenarios. Hopkins explained with a hypothetical, adding that teacher layoffs could send high school class sizes up to 41.
“If you have a school with 400 students, you essentially are going to have 10 teachers in the entire school. You have 10 adults [plus an administrator and a secretary] for a grand total of 12 adults in a school with 400 children and that is not adequate,” Hopkins offered.
But the biggest portions of the budget tweaks laid out on Friday were related to contracts with vendors and facilities. Of the $32 million in temporary cuts, the majority are not necessarily staff-related.
“The biggest area where they cut is in high-risk assumption – they’re going to try to renegotiate contracts with vendors to save money and factor in the money from the sales of [PSD school] buidings,” Hopkins explained.
An additional $9 million was shaved off by minimizing facility maintenance.
“So basically you have kids traveling longer distances to go to less clean schools [that] can’t guarantee safety,” Hopkins said.
Paul Socolar, the editor in chief of “The Notebook,” a publication that collects and reflects input from parents, educators, students and friends of Philadelphia Public Schools, also shared his thoughts.
“Last Friday’s announcement was essentially the District saying that with another round of cuts, without drastic layoffs, they’re hoping they can limp through another year,” he said.
The outrage is deafening. Teachers want to quit. Parents want to move their children into charter schools. Funding deficits often task teachers with cleaning their own rooms and asking students’ parents for help in providing basic supply needs (like paper and pencils) if they don’t do it themselves.
There are no clear solutions, either. In a statement from the Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools, they offered four solutions for bridging the annual budget gap: “A 5 percent extraction tax on Marcellus Shale”; “Closing or tightening corporate tax loopholes”; “Freezing the phase out of business taxes”; and “Expand Medicaid.”
There’s also clearly a disconnect between Philadelphia and Harrisburg. Almost a decade ago the state bailed out a flailing PSD by taking over but hasn’t really invested in fully funding Philadelphia schools or developing a recurring successful budget model.
City Councilman Kenyatta Johnson shared his thoughts on what needs to be done to secure a stronger future.
“Harrisburg must pass the Cigarette Tax now so that we can provide our schools with an additional [$49 million]. We need a statewide funding formula that considers the socioeconomic circumstances of all public school students in Pennsylvania,” Johnson said.
State Rep. Jordan Harris thanked Hite for his hard work in making sure the PSD’s building doors open in September, but also called for urgency in Harrisburg:
“I am disheartened and in disbelief that the majority leadership in the General Assembly would not return to work and pass a cigarette tax to help Philadelphia’s children,” Harris said in a statement. “This is simply not acceptable. Should these cuts go into effect, our education system will be damaged even further and the education our children receive cheapened through no fault of their own.”
Contact Staff Writer Bill Chenevert at bchenevert@southphillyreview.com or ext. 117. Comment at southphillyreview.com/news/features.
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