Board Again Renews Substandard Charters

by Lisa Haver and Deborah Grill

“As a board member, I am not willing to ignore low academic outcomes,” said Andrews. “We have to hold schools accountable for outcomes.” 
Board Member Sarah Ashley Andrews, May 14 Goals and Guardrails Meeting

The Board of Education does, in fact, ignore low academic outcomes every year when it renews charter schools that fail to meet basic academic standards.  Last year, the board renewed Mastery Douglass despite its “Does Not Meet” rating in Academics with only 36% points. They are now poised to renew 9 of the 11 schools in this year’s cohort despite only one rating “Meets” in Academics. 

The board conducts most charter business in secret.. There are no public renewal hearings. All negotiations with the board and the Charter School Office take place out of the public eye. The board deems all charter business “quasi-judicial”, then deliberates in executive session. The board votes on all charter renewals without posting the content of the renewal agreements, in effect taking those votes in secret. This year and last, Board President Reginald Streater took a de facto vote after the Charter School Office presentation at the Goals and Guardrails (G & G) Committee Meeting by polling board members, then instructing CSO Director Peng Chao to draw up the renewal documents. The G & G agenda did not list the renewals on the agenda as official action items. These are all clear violations of the state’s Sunshine Act. 

Charters sold themselves over 30 years ago as the key to improving public education; ceding control of public schools to private managers, maintaining only non-union staff, and testing children every year to prove their superiority. Charter companies, in their applications, promised to educate the city’s poor and minority children in underserved communities better than the district public schools. Many even predicted that establishing charter schools would lead to a decrease in poverty and violence. Districts across the country applied the free-market ideology that had public school systems run as businesses, including placing public assets of school buildings and property in the hands of private companies. That was accomplished in some cities by appointing an Emergency Financial Manager (EMF) to usurp the duties of the elected school board. In Philadelphia, the School Reform Commission (SRC) was installed by the state to replace the city’s appointed school board. 

Continue reading about 2025-26 charter renewals here.

Board Votes in Private Meeting to Approve Facilities Plan

Board of Education Action Meeting: April 23 and April 30, 2026

by Lisa Haver

APPS members protest at April 30 Board of Education meeting. (Photo: Lisa Haver)

At the April 30 action meeting, board members finally addressed their constituents on the district’s proposed Facilities Master Plan. Some had attended the public meetings held over the past 18 months  as observers. They did not respond to  testimony given by students, parents, educators and community members at board meetings and town halls over the past 3 months. Not until this meeting, continued from April 23, did board members disclose their positions on the plan. Board President Reginald Streater, on the other hand, had made his position clear early in the process, before public meetings had ended, in City Council hearings and in an Inquirer op-ed.The district brought in heavy police protection, including bike cops who lined up outside the board’s first floor office. An additional metal detector was set up outside the auditorium. Philadelphia police blocked some elected officials from entering the auditorium. Some on the speaker list were able to access microphones, others were not. In the end, most board members betrayed their constituents, voting to pass a plan that had close to 100% opposition. The board of education is unelected and unaccountable. If the plan fails, there is no mechanism by which they can be held responsible.

Continue reading about April 30 board meeting here.

The People Have Spoken: Ditch the Facilities Plan

Board of Education Action Meeting:  March 26, 2026

by Lisa Haver

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Ludlow Elementary parent Shaakira Jones, with daughter, urges board to vote No on facilities plan and closing of Ludlow. (Photo: Lisa Haver)

“The truth is, this plan was created by too many people who are not from here and do not understand this wonderful and complicated city.” 
APPS Member Kristin Luebbert

Students, parents, teachers, graduates and community members returned to the board of education with one message: We love our schools. Do not close them. The board has heard this same message from hundreds of people at board meetings, town halls, City Council hearings, district community meetings, and from the thousands who responded to district surveys. Yet the board has still not said when it will take the vote. At the March 12 town hall, 125 people spoke against the recommendations in the plan; one parent from another school testified in favor of the changes recommended for Moffett Elementary.  At this meeting, one Masterman staff person endorsed the plan’s recommendation to expand Masterman; she didn’t mention that this necessitated the closing of Waring elementary to make room for the magnet school students. So perhaps it’s more accurate to say no one wants this plan–except for two people who want disruptions at schools other than theirs. The people have spoken: the board must reject this Facilities Master Plan. 

Read more about the March 26, 2026 Action Meeting here

Reckless Facilities Plan Will Devastate Philadelphia Communities

by Lisa Haver and Deborah Grill

Moffet Elementary parent Katy Donoghue testifies at March 12 district town hall.
(Photo: Lisa Haver)

You didn’t answer my question.”
Parents, teachers, students, community members at district facilities meetings

‘This is not a budget issue.”
From the District’s  2024-25 facilities plan presentation

School District of Philadelphia Tony Watlington Sr. has released a $2.8 billion Facilities Master Plan that, if passed by the Board of Education, will have a devastating effect on communities in every part of the city. The latest draft of the plan, issued on February 27, recommends 18 permanent school closures, 12 co-locations, 8 buildings to be given to the city at no cost, grade band changes in 34 schools, 16 catchment areas redrawn affecting approximately 33 schools in over 20 zip codes, and modernization projects at 159 schools to begin in 2032. Schools targeted for closure are fighting to stay open. With a couple of exceptions, no meetings were held at schools facing grade conversions or catchment area changes. Most of those recommendations, in fact, were issued weeks after the original plan. 

There are no projected costs for any of the recommendations or modernization projects in the plan. 
The Watlington administration and its consultants have assembled a house of cards. If a middle school is built in South Philadelphia, then students would feed into certain high schools. If a school is built in Kensington, then the catchment maps would be redrawn for the three high schools in that neighborhood. If the district creates an honors program in one high school, the students who transfer to the school after theirs was closed might get into that program. And the one that the entire plan balances on: If the district receives more funding from the state and if the district raises funds from unnamed philanthropic sources, they might be able to make improvements to over 150 school buildings. At almost every meeting, board members implore the public to call their representatives in Harrisburg and ask them to fully fund public schools. Yet this plan assumes that Harrisburg will fund a large part of it.  How can the district base a comprehensive 10-year plan on imaginary funding?

Continue reading here