At long last, Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) has a starting point – a preliminary plan — to begin right-sizing the district’s brick-and-mortar stock with a comprehensive reordering of building utilization and program configurations. To say it is long overdue is a gross understatement.
As WESA Radio reminded at the start of 2024, citing an internal PPS utilization report, nearly half of Pittsburgh Public Schools’ 61 school buildings are less than 50 percent full.
And the draft plan comes at a time of continuing and sharp enrollment losses – 4,000 students since 2017 and an expected 4,300 more students in the next five years.
Lest it be forgotten, there’s a multimillion-dollar structural operating budget deficit and reserves could be wiped out next year.
The plan, bold and massive as it must be in such a dire situation, will be discussed in public meetings over the next several months. A final decision on the plan, drafted by Education Resource Strategies of Massachusetts, is expected in the new year.
“Sixteen existing schools would close, 14 would change their grade reconfiguration, six magnet schools would phase out and become neighborhood schools and five new programs would open in existing buildings,” the Post-Gazette reports.
“The recommendations focus heavily on streamlining the district’s class structure — a priority identified by the district in April — into PreK-5 and 6-8 rather than having PreK-8 and 6-12 schools,” the P-G says. “They also consider building age — district schools on average are 90 years old — and building condition.”
Nearly 40 PPS schools are said to require moderate or major renovations.
Again, the plan is a starting point. There will be much discussion, if not teeth-gnashing — in the community and on the school board itself. And we’re sure the teachers’ union will have more than a little something to say.
Suffice to say, not everyone will be pleased. Some past attempts have been abandoned.
The Tribune-Review reports that PPS Superintendent Wayne Walters likens the plan to a “base scenario” for school officials to begin considering how to move forward.
But inaction, half-measures and delays are no option. Pittsburgh Public Schools, also long beset by poor academic performance that, perversely, has been propped up by outrageously high per pupil expenditures, quickly is running out of time to begin reinventing and saving itself.
But can it? Past being prologue – dilly-dallying and bogus five-year plans after five-year plans, too often with worse results, suggests not.
Call us cynics. But we prefer realists. After all, this is the epitome of the worst of government- and union-run schools – a deleterious combination that has left far too many students woefully uneducated and far too many taxpayers’ pockets turned inside out many times over.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitue.org).
