Board Covers for Watlington

Board of Education Action Meeting: August 20, 2026

by Lisa Haver

Board of Education President Reginald Streater often exhorts those in attendance to respect others’ time during public testimony and presentations.  That doesn’t seem to apply to the board itself. Over the past year, the board has canceled and postponed several meetings with minimal public notice. They made people guess for months about when they would finally pass the Facilities Master Plan. They unexpectedly recessed the April 23 meeting and reconvened the following week. This month, they have rearranged their calendar, again at almost the last minute. The meeting changes were not placed into an official item, and the board never took a vote; that means the public had no opportunity to comment. The August 13 Goals and Guardrails Committee meeting–canceled. The public hearing scheduled for October 15–moved up to September 3. The September 3 Goals and Guardrails meeting–canceled. The September 24 action meeting–moved back to September 30. No explanation was given for any of these changes. The board apparently has no consideration for the time and schedules of parents, students, educators and community members. Maybe that’s why they refer to us as “customers”–so they can run things like regional managers and not as a governing body accountable to its constituents. 

Board Covers for Watlington
There is not much mystery about why the board canceled both August and September Goals and Guardrails Committee meetings. They are covering for Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr. who is withholding the results of the most recent PSSA scores. The board schedules G & G meetings every month, the purpose of which is to analyze test scores, which they see as the most important indicator of success or failure. This year, for the first time, Watlington has embargoed the results. Stories in the Philadelphia Inquirer  and Chalkbeat have reported on the embargo, pointing out that other districts and charter schools have issued their results. Test scores are used not just to judge the success of individual schools and the district at large, but for other purposes, such as criteria for admission to special-admit schools.  Watlington came in with a promise, often repeated, that he would make Philadelphia the “fastest improving district” in the country. If this year’s test scores showed improvement, Watlington would not be hiding them. If they show a decline, parents and educators have a right to know.  Yet Watlington did not explain the withholding of test scores in his remarks. Not one board member, during the subsequent questioning session, asked him to explain. The board’s Goals and Guardrails page states that “the Board is responsible for monitoring progress toward achieving the Goals & Guardrails every month.” The board hasn’t held a G & G meeting since June. The board must explain to the public why it is violating its own policies.

Board Silent on Asbestos Crisis
The district also made headlines last week after workers uncovered asbestos while on a job at Kensington High School, and then, in the words of PFT President Art Steinberg, “traipsed it all over the building”. The incident occurred in July, and the district assured the PFT that the building would be cleared for the beginning of the school year. The union was not surprised when, just  days before teachers were to return to school, the district then notified them that Kensington students and staff would be relocated, for at least half the school year, to the Austin Meehan building seven miles away in Mayfair. PFT Environmental Director Jerry Roseman told the Inquirer that “…a lack of proper oversight and management is an ongoing problem” as the district implements its facilities plan. Also, as APPS member Kristin Luebbert pointed out in an interview with the Philadelphia Tribune, transportation challenges will also affect attendance and students’ ability to participate in extracurricular activities.  Not one board member asked Watlington about this issue at any time during the meeting. Not one asked why unauthorized personnel were assigned to the operation. They didn’t ask whether a school seven miles away was the closest alternative. They didn’t ask about extracurricular activities. They didn’t ask Watlington to assure them–and the Kensington High school community–that the problem would indeed be remediated in the time promised. Once again, the public can only come to the conclusion that the board is covering for Watlington’s blunders. 

APPS Objections to Secret Charter Proceedings
APPS stated its objections to the board’s violation of the Pennsylvania Sunshine Act in several charter matters. The board voted to renew two charters at this meeting, Inquiry and Youth Build. Inquiry, part of the Belmont network, has been operating under an expired agreement from 2017; they have refused to accept any conditions. The board held no public hearings; all negotiations and finalizations of the agreements were held in private. The board did not disclose the terms of either agreement before the vote, thus taking the votes in secret. In addition, the board announced the schedule for non-renewal hearings on KIPP North Philadelphia Charter, with all meetings closed to the public except for remote meeting attendance. APPS pointed out that the board repeatedly refers to charters as “public charter schools”, thus all charter business must be conducted in public. The board did not respond to any of the objections.

Board Wants to Hear from the People Whose Wishes It Ignored
Both Streater and Watlington implored members of the public to sign up to be on a committee or come to a meeting about the facilities plan. This time around, they say they want to hear from the people at the 17 schools on the closure list. No mention was made of any meetings at schools to be co-located, or whose catchment borders and grade bands would be changed. APPS members pointed out in their testimony that 99% (not a figure of speech or an exaggeration) of those who spoke at board meetings, town halls, rallies, community meetings, and City Council hearings said that the board should not close any neighborhood school.  Six members of the board ignored the will of the people and voted to close schools, with only the most feeble of justifications. APPS members asked in testimony and in letters to the board what happened to the reports of the committees the district already appointed; we got no response. It seems that any recommendations those committees may have made were also ignored. It is insulting to ask the students, parents, educators and community members who fought so hard for their schools, only to be betrayed by the board, to come back for more. They won’t get fooled again. 

Voting
Board Member Cheryl Harper was absent for most of the meeting; she was seen attending remotely only at the beginning of the meeting. In July, APPS members objected to board members, including Harper, violating the board’s own by-laws by voting after failing to remain visible for most of the meeting. In addition to the two charter votes, the board unanimously passed twenty-two other items, approving $53,171,548 in district spending, not including the cost of operating the charters over the next 5 years. There was no deliberation on any of them. One item, added a couple of days before the meeting, approved spending of up to $7 million on rental space for one school, Constitution High School in Center City for at least the next 4 years. The entry for Constitution High in the Facilities Master Plan released in March states that the school, located at 7th and Market, would relocate in 2035 to the building now occupied by Bodine High at 1101 N. 4th Street (with the caveat attached to most of the plan, “pending additional government and/or philanthropic funding”). Will the district be spending the same amount for rent for this one school for the next 9 to 10 years? 

The meeting adjourned at 5: 21 PM. 

Next board meetings: 

Public Hearing (no agenda, no limit on speakers): Thursday, September 3 at 4 PM
Action Meeting: Thursday, September 30 at 4 PM
Non renewal hearings on KIPP North Philadelphia Charter: September 1, 2, 4, and 8th, 9:30 AM via zoom. 

[Published August 24, 2026]