driven plan for Pittsburgh schools
A group of Pittsburgh Public Schools parents plans to present their community-driven proposal to the school board next week.
The proposal addresses an approach to making the district more equitable while closing and consolidating schools. It focuses on school choice as opposed to feeders.
This comes after consultants from Education Resource Strategies presented recommendations for school closings and consolidations to the board Tuesday night. The consultants were hired by the school district earlier this year after an RFP process.
"We really wanted to get authentic community input. We don't feel that PPS or their consultants did that effectively," Pittsburgh Public Schools parent Mike Cummins said.
Cummins said the community-driven proposal would allow schools to have focuses, like arts or STEAM, but it's a shift away from the magnet programs that exist now.
"We would have five regions in the district of Pittsburgh, and you would have a school choice within that region at the elementary level. So you could choose of the four or so schools that are in your region, kind of rank them: these are the schools I would rather go to," Cummins said.
The Education Resource Strategies' recommendations suggest ending magnet programs in seven schools while keeping CAPA intact and expanding Montessori — a school that parent Jazlynn Worthy noted is predominantly white.
"The plan proposes to keep a Montessori magnet open but make all K-5 just no magnets at all. So it just is like pick and choose what you want to do. Please make it make sense because when you, when you say stuff like that, or you agree to plans that have things like that where it's not necessarily equal, then it's just like, whoa, what are we doing?" Worthy said.
The community-driven plan will be presented next Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Smithfield United Church of Christ Community Hall, located at 620 Smithfield St.
Board President Gene Walker said he has not been invited yet but will try to be there if his schedule allows. He told Pittsburgh's Action News 4 that he had previously told parents he would be open to discussing a community-driven proposal but never promised a public presentation.
"The board met during the last business and finance meeting to discuss what to do with the plan, and it was decided that we wanted to review it but that it wasn't likely to get a formal presentation," Walker said. "We conducted an RFP process before hiring ERS, no Pittsburgh entities submitted. The board didn't feel it was appropriate to allow for a presentation from anyone else and set a new precedent for board engagement and presentations."
"Our message is not that we want to fight with you, but we want to help you, right? So we have an open door. We want them to be part of this process, and hear us out, and make the best PPS that we possibly can," Cummins said.
Worthy said she's hopeful board members will attend the presentation next week.
"I'm optimistic in regards to everything. My intention is, you know, to see that the board members are going to come out and actually give us the time and, you know, their ear to listen to what, you know, we have to say," Worthy said.
