Category: Ears on the Board of Education

Watlington Administration Fails to Fully Staff Schools

Board of Education Action Meeting: September 24, 2026

by Lisa Haver

Girls High students protest overcrowded classrooms before Board meeting. (Photo: Lisa Haver)

At the Board of Education’s September 3 mandatory public hearing, fourteen members of the public addressed the board on a number of issues, including the facilities plan and the impending closure of seventeen public schools. APPS member Deborah Grill testified at this meeting, that the board, with little public notice, moved the date of the hearing up from October 15 to the day before Labor Day weekend; that is probably why attendance was lower than usual. Lisa Haver asked the board how it could adjourn that hearing without uttering a single word in response to the parents, students, educators and community members who came to speak to them. The board, which is made up of religious leaders, civic leaders, educational leaders and a mental health practitioner, did not offer one word of comfort to the Lankenau teacher who broke down in tears, begging the board, “Please do not close Lankenau.” The board has hung banners in 440 with slogans including “the children come first”. A board that closes children’s schools is not for the children. They serve as little more than lackeys for the mayor who appointed them and her political backers.

Girls High Students School the Adults
About 150 students from Girls High rallied before the meeting to demand that the district fix the ongoing understaffing at their school. Three testified about the severe overcrowding in a number of classes. One freshman told the board that she is in a class of 50 students with only one teacher. She told the board and Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr, “We need what we say we need. You cannot say what we need until you talk to us and come to our school.”

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Board Passes $4.9 Billion Budget, Community Questions Priorities

by Lisa Haver

Board of Education Action Meeting, May 28, 2026

APPS member Deborah Grill testifies at May 28 Board of Education meeting. (Photo: Lisa Haver)

As a result of the Board of Education’s speaker suppression policies, over half of the 30 public speakers were representatives of charter schools, 6 from the same school. Several charter CEOs, who have daily access to the board’s Charter Schools Office, took speaker slots, including both Global Leadership Academy CEOs. Recent IRS information shows the GLA CEO making over $500,000 in annual salary/compensation/bonus; GLA Huey CEO made $378,000. Although APPS has raised these issues for years, the board says little about exorbitant administrative salaries, questionable financial practices, and failure to reach minimum academic ratings. In fact, the board exempted the entire charter sector from its $3 billion, ten-year Facilities Master Plan. 

Board Passes $4.6 Budget
The board voted 8-0 to pass the administration’s combined $4.6 billion budget for FY 2026-27 in Item 12 (BM Wanda Novales was absent). The board passed Item 15 by a vote of 7-1, approving the Amended Capital Budget for FY 2025-26, adoption of a Capital Budget for FY 2026-27, and a Capital Program for 2027-32. BM ChauWing Lam voted No on Item 15, citing some “lingering questions”. The 5-year Capital Improvement Plan includes some projects proposed in the Facilities Master Plan (FMP) passed by the board last month. Lam questioned Deputy Superintendent of Operations Oz HIll about why the budget details as presented to the board did not include construction of the new high school in the Northeast that was proposed in the FMP. Hill responded that as yet there was no funding for the school. Actually that is true of most of the projects in the FMP. APPS’ analysis of the FMP shows that at least ⅔ of the funding would come from additional revenues from the state (even though the budget presented at this meeting shows lower revenue from the state) and from unnamed philanthropic sources. BM Whitney Jones, who voted No on the FMP, remarked that the administration’s “intentions are exceeding revenues” and asked how they would fulfill the specific promises of the FMP. He asked Board President Reginald Streater to allow for regular updates on those metrics.

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Board Must Be Honest with Constituents

November 20, 2025: Board Action Meeting

by Lisa Haver

APPS member Deborah Grill testifies at November board meeting. (Photo: Lisa Haver)

The members of the Board of Education, as the governing body of the School District of Philadelphia, must be honest with their constituents. They must direct security staff at 440 not to let some people into the auditorium before others, then lie about whether they are going to bar people who are not on the speaker list. Board President Reginald Streater must stop announcing that people “blocking” the center aisle are in violation of the fire code. APPS challenged him months ago to cite the relevant provision in the city fire code; he could not,  because there is none. The board should replace the almost 100 seats they removed from the auditorium, then they could no longer have their security claim that the room is “at capacity”. The board should stop holding long recesses during the meeting and   “tech” issues. Most important: don’t promise the public for over a year that the facilities plan will be released in November, then go back on it when that time comes. Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr. should not write in district presentations in 2024 that closing schools is not because of budget issues, then the next year imply that long-term underfunding of the district is the reason. The stakeholders of the district deserve the truth.

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Board Postpones Votes on Tax Abatements for Developers

Board of Education Action Meeting: August 21, 2025

by Lisa Haver

Photo: Lisa Haver

In his remarks at the August action meeting, Superintendent Tony Watlington warned of the impending SEPTA service cuts that are scheduled to go into effect on Monday, the first day of school for students. He promised that schools would not mark students late, at least for the first week or so. Yet Watlington presented no plan for getting to school the 52,000 district students who use SEPTA if the transit system goes through with eliminating over thirty of the city’s bus routes; no member of the board asked Watlington for any plan. He encouraged parents to carpool and to make use of the district’s $300.00 allotment for driving their children to school, but he provided no details on that program. Nor did he provide any guidance for parents and guardians who do not own cars. Many parents will walk their children to bus stops at which they will see a notice that no bus will be coming–that day or ever. Is the administration coordinating in any way with SEPTA to direct students and parents to a working bus route? Is the district planning to email parents and guardians–many of whom may not be aware of the service cuts? What’s the plan? Where is the leadership?

Ilene Poses contributed to this report.

Board Hears Only One Side on KOZ Abatements
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