Category: Facilities planning

Board Members Double Down on Unfunded Facilities Plan

Board of Education Action Meeting: October 29, 2026

by Lisa Haver

Students from the 17 schools targeted for closure rally on the steps of 440. (Photo: Lisa Haver)

If we are the leaders of tomorrow, we deserve to be heard today.
Student, Parkway Northwest High School for Peace and Justice

If you are not going to represent our interests, put your resignations in tonight.
CASA President Robin Cooper

Why do we need a local school board if you are going to do the same thing the School Reform Commission did?
City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier

Students, teachers, principals and parents from the 17 school communities under threat of closure rallied on the steps of 440 before the board action meeting. Student drum lines played, accompanied by Philly Elmo. Several elected officials spoke, vowing to fight the facilities plan. Ninety people had signed up to speak: 21 students, 63 adults, 2 union leaders and 4 elected officials. Yet the board set up only 165 seats in the auditorium, 75 fewer than capacity. APPS members demanded that more chairs be set up, promising to interrupt the meeting if people were detained in the atrium despite plenty of room in the auditorium. After initially saying it wasn’t possible, district staff brought in 40 more seats. When we fight we win.

Continue reading about the meeting here

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.”

Continue reading here

Board Covers for Watlington

Board of Education Action Meeting: August 20, 2026

by Lisa Haver

APPS member Kristin Luebbert testifies at August 20 Board of Education meeting. (Photo: 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.

Continue reading here

Nobody Wants This, They Don’t Care

Board of Education Action Meeting: February 26, 2026

by Lisa Haver

Robeson High School teacher Andrew Saltz testifies at February action meeting. (Photo: Lisa Haver)

“Passing this facilities plan would be an egregious breach of trust by the board.”
West Philadelphia Community Member Leah Clouden

Not for the first time, Philadelphia students put the adults in charge to shame. They came with facts and data that disproved the district’s misinformation. They came with well-reasoned arguments about why closing their school makes no sense. They came with charts and maps that clearly illustrate their position that their schools should remain open. They presented data that showed that Black students would be harmed most by losing their schools. This in contrast to Superintendent Tony Watlington, whose rambling, tangent-filled 31-minute speech was one of the reasons this meeting did not adjourn until early Friday morning. Parents, educators, and community members packed the meeting. They were joined by elected officials including City Councilmembers Jamie Gauthier, Jeffery Young, Quetcy Lozada and Cindy Bass, along with State Senators Anthony Williams and Sharif Street and State Representative Daresha Parker. All spoke against the plan and any school closings. The board, for the second month in a row, violated its own by-laws by marking present one board member, Chou-Wing Lam, despite the fact that she was seen by the public on screen for less than half an hour total during the 8-hour-plus meeting. She was not present for the public testimony, yet she was allowed to cast a vote for all action items. APPS did score one victory: after repeated emails to the board, they restored to the auditorium the almost 100 seats they had removed last year.

Read more about February Board of Education meeting here.