Pittsburgh Public Schools superintendent Wayne Walters weighs in on the district’s future

Pittsburgh Public Schools is the second largest district in Pennsylvania, with a $719 million budget and the responsibility to serve around 18,000 students and their families.

But like many public school districts across the country, it's seen sharp declines in enrollment in recent years. The district has lost 26% of its student population in the last decade, and according to the state Department of Education, PPS is predicted to lose another 5,800 students by 2031.

Wayne Walters: At the age of 16, I came to Carnegie Mellon [University] to pursue music — my passion — and education. And so I was a music major at Carnegie Mellon.

I came from public education and I was compelled to stay there. Both of my parents were educators at one point. They didn't push me into education, they allowed me to fulfill my passion, and so I'm thankful for that.

After that, I started my career with Pittsburgh Public Schools and have been with my only employer ever since.

Absolutely. Mental health — we can't get providers. We had opportunities through federal funding to bring providers in. We could not meet the demand.

Human capital continues to be a challenge. We have teacher shortages; we have bus driver shortages; we have paraprofessional shortages; we have clerical team shortages — I just wonder where everyone went after the pandemic. I know everyone is not at home making money off of TikTok. There are certainly spaces and places for work in Pittsburgh Public Schools, but we just cannot seem to find these individuals.

It's necessary for a variety of reasons. The first that comes to mind is the last time that the district did any reorganization was about 11 years ago. Since then, the district has lost about 26% of the population.

I think people have moved out of Pittsburgh. We've seen housing communities closed. We've seen people moving into the suburbs because [of] all the economics with the city and affordable housing. We have people maybe moving into Pittsburgh but not necessarily people with school-aged children.

But then, when I look at the district, we have challenges of equity. We have a lot of inequities happening where the educational experience for some students is great and in some spaces it's not.

And we have to look at our finances. Last year we had an eighth grade class with nine students. This year we have a fourth grade class with ten students. That's not fiscally responsible. It's not efficient. And so [reorganizing] becomes necessary.

Well, I can't explain anything for my predecessors. I can speak about my vision for equity, and the first piece with equity is that it's about access and opportunities.

In urban spaces and in urban communities students do not start off on the same footing. And so programs like early childhood [centers] are critical; making sure that students have the amenities in their schools [and] access to coursework that will propel them to fuel their dreams.

It shouldn't matter [what] your zip code, your race, your gender, your gender identity, your disability [is]. We cannot afford to have some students well-educated and some students not. That will not build a good future for Pittsburgh.

I believe people may feel that no time is the right time. We have to take action. Some may view it as aggressive. What I will say is, this has been the single time in my tenure in Pittsburgh Public Schools where we've had this amount of community engagement.

I think people are comfortable with what they have, and change is hard for anyone. But when I go to my core customers — my students — they share with me the inequities. Whether they're living in the good side of the experience and their neighbor is living in the poor side of the experience, they're very open in sharing their belief [that it's not right].

I hear more of those challenges from adults that want to maintain the status quo.

I think we've been responsive to the feedback, but I think we also analyze all of the data. Community feedback is one data point, and there are multiple data points that inform decision making in organizations. There's demographic data, there is facilities data around the quality of our schools. The average age of a Pittsburgh public school is 90 years old.

When we think about amenities that are available, we're in a time and space where I have to go remote because the weather has changed . People may always say, "Well, when I went to school, we never got off of school." But when you went to school, you were not hearing record breaking temperatures as we are experiencing now.

When we think about places that have deserts — communities that have no access to healthcare, a supermarket — school becomes that place where we have to create space for that, to serve not only our students but our families. So it's not one data point. It's multiple data points that inform decisions for the consultants.

The other thing I will say about our consultants that some people push back on, is that they're not from Pittsburgh. I appreciate that, because I think with hard decisions, you need an objective stance, not a biased stance.

At one of these town halls, a parent said "I am perfectly happy with the kind of education that my child is receiving at PPS, even though the building may not be up to par. I am happy with the quality of education."

We have many parents who are very happy with the quality of education they receive. But — back to my students — when they enter other spaces and other schools, they quickly tell me, 'Oh wow, I wish we had this,' 'Oh wow, I wish we could do this,' 'Oh, I didn't know you could do this.' Because I think sometimes you don't know what you have until you've seen something else.

I would say: have the Pittsburgh Public Schools experience before making judgment.

We have pockets of excellence. According to the U.S. News World Report , we have the number one high school in the region. Give us the opportunity to reform the space for all students, not just for pockets of students.

I am not in a us-versus-them with charter or private schools, but as a public school product, one who was able to change my life through a public education — that's the lens I live, speak, breathe, that's the lens I support.

There is nothing that the private schools and charter schools are offering beyond what Pittsburgh Public Schools can offer. We offer more.

For us to become the best urban school district in the country.

And there's so many specific things. From the beginning with my five priorities that I came to, I still stand by those:

We need to think about the quality of education, because education has to be reaching. We have students coming in at different points, and so we have to look at those tenets of culturally responsive pedagogy to build capacity.

I think about safety. That is something that everyone talks about, safety, but since the pandemic, it's now safety, health, and wellness.

I think about partnerships, because we need partners, but we need them to be aligned with our district's vision and mission.

And we also know that we need to work on our communication.

And lastly, we have to create access to equity, excellence, and efficiency in our district.

So, that's my vision.

We have a new strategic five-year plan that is out and we're really excited about that. Once the fog clears from the Facilities Utilization Plan and that energy right now, we'll get that new strategic plan out for you so that you can see more of the vision in real life.

When we think about efficiency, I think people [immediately] go to, "You have to show me how you're going to lose money." That's a process, because at the same time, we're trying to build a new experience and amenities for students.

But over time, we expect that there will be a financial impact that would benefit students.

I think I'm more frustrated about individual needs versus the collective need.

I think there's spaces where I see people being very self-centered and selfish. And although they may use words that think about others. Their following sentences do not portray that. And I realize that they have their children, but my role is to think about all of the children.

I look at those who show up at the microphones and we celebrate them because they did come to the table. But I also recognize that so many have not had the voice and the opportunity to share their thinking, to share their perspective. And to be honest, there's spaces where sometimes silence may [mean]: I'm fine with this decision. And so sometimes we take those voices as . Those who are most disenfranchised with the system probably do not have the resources to come and speak out.

And I'm more frustrated that the voices of my students aren't elevated in those ways when they are our core customers. And they have voice, they have agency, and they're well-equipped to share what it is that they need to improve their reality.

We have reached out. We've done mailings, we've done social media, we've done communication in a variety of means with local media. We've done a lot. This has probably been the most engagement that I've seen. We've done pop-ups in community, we've gone to football games in the community, we've gone into bakeries in the community. We've gone into Homewood, into Hazelwood, into the Hill District. We've met with our Latino community, virtual options, in person options, mailers, QR codes–a variety of things to get perspective.

So we've gone into spaces where perhaps people don't know. And we see that on those social media spaces that there's a lot of commentary. It must be reaching [people], but it hasn't gotten to the space where people are showing up.

So even though you may hear some loud select voices that the media may choose to highlight — that may not be the voice of the people. And so, I just want to recognize that as well.

I assume the board will be redirecting me to think about the feasibility of these recommendations. If it involves any school closures of any kind, there has to be a 15 day notification to the public, notifying them that there will be public hearings.

Then, at a minimum, our board has three months before a decision is made. So there's time where there will be other engagement opportunities for people to come in space, for people to send testimony.

But it's not done after October 15th. That's just the consultant's closure of their study of the recommendations and to bring or offer a final recommendation. But then I anticipate the board will ask me: How feasible is this? What will it look like? Because that's the, that's really the work ahead.

Eventually, after all of those spaces happen, the board will make a decision. And after the board makes a decision, then it is my job to execute on that decision.

Doing nothing is really not an option right now.