Board Disregards the Will of the People

Moffet Elementary first-grader Maximo Cordes, with mother Sarah Cordes, testifies at April 23 Board of Education meeting. (Photo: Lisa Haver)

In a democratic society, the will of the people determines public policy. Laws are passed after elected officials hear from their constituents, whose voices can be heard at public hearings and peaceful demonstrations.

Under a totalitarian system, the government imposes its will on the people. The wants and needs of the people, if they are even allowed to express them, are ignored.

Philadelphians are currently living under both systems. Duly elected representatives advocate for the wishes of their constituents while an appointed board ignores them.

In late February, Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr. released his Facilities Master Plan. It called for 20 permanent school closures, later reduced, without explanation, to 18. Since then, meetings have been held at individual schools, at three board meetings and two Council hearings. Opposition to the closings has been overwhelming. Not one person has testified in favor of closing any school. Yet the board has given every indication that it intends to ignore the wishes of district stakeholders and vote to pass the plan later this week.

News coverage has focused on the closings, but the plan also proposes 12 co-locations, grade band changes in 34 schools, redrawing of catchment boundaries affecting approximately 33 schools in over 20 zip codes, and improvement projects in over 150 schools. The district scheduled no meetings to hear from the parents, teachers, students and community members at these schools, who received emails only after the plan was released informing them of the changes as fait accompli. The district blocked these school communities from being heard about the future of the schools before the board’s final vote. They had little chance to refute any of the false data that had been used to justify their recommendations other than to try to get one of the limited slots on the board’s monthly speaker list. Two minutes, of course, is not enough time to present an alternative.

For two months, the board has made people guess when they would vote. Many expected that they would vote in March, and they checked the board’s online agenda every day to see whether a vote on the plan had been added. The board did not vote at their March action meeting, but would not answer questions at that meeting about whether they would vote in April.

Every day children went to school wondering if they would be losing their friends, their teachers, their safe haven. Teachers who wanted to stay at the school they had served for years or decades knew that staying until their school closed meant fewer options when it came time to transfer. Principals left out of the loop were left without answers from parents and community members.

Three days before the April 23 meeting, the board held a press conference to say that they would vote on the plan. Their online agenda, however, had no such information. Three hours before the meeting, Board President Reginald Streater announced that the vote would be delayed. Although City Council members had sent a letter to the board asking for a 1-month postponement, the board voted to delay the vote until a special meeting the following week. Streater didn’t explain how any significant changes could take place in one week after a nearly 2-year process. As of this writing, the board’s website states that there are “no upcoming meetings”.

City Council members have begun to seriously question the feasibility of the plan, in particular the non-existent funding for its $3 billion price tag. District officials, for the most part, have been unable to show Council members how the plan would benefit the people of the city. Council members were unable to get a direct answer to the same question their constituents have asked: why are you closing schools like Lankenau High and Robeson High that serve students and families so well? Apparently rattled by Council’s increasingly exasperated questioning, Watlington proposed some baffling amendments to the plan. After closing Lankenau Environmental High School, he suggested, the district could put an environmental center there. And after closing Paul Robeson High, a West Philadelphia magnet school, the district could build a new magnet school on the site.

Council’s approach, unfortunately, will do little to prevent the plan’s passage and inevitable disruption. Their Hunger Games strategy of advocating for one or two schools to be taken off the list divides rather than unites parents and students. Only Councilmember Jeffery Young has called for the board to reject the entire plan as is and come up with reasonable solutions and realistic funding.

An unelected board faces no consequences for its disregard of district stakeholders. The people of Philadelphia have no say in who represents them on the board; in fact, they are shut out of that entire selection process. One person, the mayor, chooses the nine board members. People can demand that the board keep their children’s schools open, but they can’t vote them out when the board closes them.

There is little doubt that the board will vote to approve the facilities plan. Just three people–the mayor, the superintendent, and the board president–have publicly stated their support for the plan. In this city, the birthplace of American democracy, the will of the people about the future of their public schools appears not to matter.

This summer, Philadelphia will host the country’s 250th birthday celebration. In the birthplace of American democracy, we will honor the freedoms that people fought and died for. But Philadelphia’s parents, students and educators will not be celebrating. They will be in mourning for the loss of their schools and their communities.

Lisa Haver is a former Philadelphia public school teacher. She is a co-founder and coordinator of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools. @appsphilly.net