001uh in case you were running a little late. Uh those who were not able to testify in person uh were also able to submit their testimony in writing. Uh and all of those along with this u video today uh will be posted to the district website uh believe tomorrow afternoon. Our stakeholders can view the public hearing by logging into the district's homepage and clicking on the link at the top. And I think that is about it. Uh, and so with that, I will turn the meeting over to Miss Williams. >> Thank you, President Walker. At this time, our first speaker is Emily Sawyer. A second call for Emily Sawyer. At this time, we will transition to our virtual speakers. Our next speaker is Emily Kaine. A second call for Emily Kaine. Our next speaker is
002Laura Gallagher. Good evening. Can you hear me? Oh, there we are. Uh, my name is Laura Gallagher and thank you for the opportunity to address the board. I did this virtually year before last and I'm an ally of 412 Justice and Education Rights Network. Their persistence in pursuing facts about the plans for our children attending public school is remarkable and led to a vote against school closures by the board 6 to three, which I found very encouraging. Um, based on what I've learned from their analyses of the plans during the last several years to close nine buildings and 11 schools, our p our Pittsburgh public school district received a $12 million boost from state cyber charter reforms, ending any idea of a fiscal emergency that was the founding argument for school closures. This means the
003budget does not require displacement of 6,000 students. In addition, the current budget is increased by 6.8 million in central office. Designated vacancies of which Pittsburgh public schools refuses to identify specific positions which don't need to be filled. The staffing numbers were copied verbatim from last year's budget and my opinion and my strong feeling is that the budget is fine and the point is do not close our schools. Thank you. >> Thank you for your testimony. Our next speaker is Lauren Stuperitz. A second call for Lauren Stuperitz. Our next speaker is Mark Rodicus. if we could uh for I'm sorry to jump in here. We're getting word that the uh link to join uh the virtual hearings is not working correctly. Dave, are you able to confirm if folks are able to log in? >> Mr.
004Walker, are you speaking of the Zoom link or the live stream link? >> Uh the Zoom link for participants to actually give their testimony. >> Mrs. Rali, would you be able to help us with that? I'll put it in the chat. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. So, it'll likely need to be emailed to um folks who signed up to give testimony so that they can log into the correct or the updated link. >> Okay. Yeah, we'll need to send a new link to everyone uh who signed up virtually um just to ensure that they have the correct link. A second email has been sent out. Um, yeah, while we wait, we can our inperson uh speaker has arrived. So, we could go back to Miss Sawyer and then we can uh run through uh and
005return back to our uh virtual speakers uh to give them a minute to log on. >> Thank you, President Walker. Our next speaker is Emily Sawyer. Hi. Uh, so I'm a parent of four PPS students and one PPS graduate. Um, if you've heard me up here before, you probably already know what I'm going to say, but um, just want to start by saying we know it's not a choice between closing schools or raising taxes. The preliminary budget had both in it. I'm not suggesting that you don't need to raise taxes. That's not my intention of standing up here at all. But I do want to say that like the Alageney County raised taxes last year. The city is now suggesting that they're going to raise taxes next year. It's a lot for people to deal
006with. Um at some point the regular people in this city are not going to be able to rescue the decision makers and the powerful anymore. Um [snorts] I sent you guys an email with lots of details about what I think needs to change. One of those things being handing out tax abatements to developers. I'm going to say it again every time it comes up. We got to start prioritizing the people that live in this city. If you can't get a corporation or a developer to do work in this city without giving them candy and presents and sweets and treats, how do you expect to get people to stay here and move here? I I don't understand why we why don't we expect the companies and the developers that want to do business in this city
007to do their fair share to put their part in. Like it shouldn't be you don't have to pay your taxes when you move here. It should be this is a city that values its community and its people so much that we expect you to pay your taxes. We take care of people. So, it's hard to hear you're raising property taxes and that's going to mostly affect the people with the least ability to pay those increased property taxes when we're constantly giving abatements. It's just really frustrating. Manchester, you're going to close our school. [snorts] If it's not this year, it'll probably be next year. They're going to put the esplanade in. People are going to get priced out. Guess what? By property taxes. then you're gonna build a new school for the rich people that move
008into the neighborhood. It's just it's it gets hard to take is all I'm saying. Um I know you only have this one tool kind of at your disposal. In a lot of respects, I think that's true. Um but we got to start to work together on the other things we can be doing. We could be changing Pennsylvania state law so it's not so bad for education. Let's change the transportation laws. We don't need to be transport transporting kids that don't go to PPS schools. We can change that. Um, we should be, you know, making sure everybody should be knocking down the doors to get UPMC to pay their taxes, y'all. Like, there should be no rest until that happens. None for anyone. [snorts] And that is a group project. Um, the world is for people.
009The world is for people. And if we're not building a world where Thank you for your testimony. Okay. Our next speaker as we move back to virtual testimony is Emily Kaine. A second call for Emily Kaine. Our next speaker, Lauren Stuperitz. A second call for Lauren Stupitz. Our next speaker is Mark Rodicus. Good evening. This is Mark Rodicus. So, I'm coming to you from the historic Southside neighborhood of Pittsburgh. I've been a swim coach, worked many years with the summer dreamers and varsity teams, served on the athletic reform task force. I'm now working with the International Swim Coaches Association, and we do a podcast, by the way, and I will follow up with my written testimony to the board, and I will note a link there because I gave some solid ideas with regards to
010what Pittsburgh public schools might want to do with regards to Summit. That's a passion of mine. So, first of all, uh prior speaker said it, it's I'm definitely against the corporate welfare or the tiffs or the tax breaks, but um please, this is a year to try to hold the line on taxes. I think we're going to be punished greatly by the city of Pittsburgh with the bigger tax bill coming. But I think uh written plan as far as this year's budget's going was a a mishmash, a a bit of a jumbled mess with fear, uncertainty, and doubt flowing from every page. Boy, if you just put some edits to CH GBT and streamline that, I think it would be much easier. But most of all, I would love to see you attack the problems
011in bite-size steps. Sure, one bill or one motion. Remove grade seven and eight from Westinghouse. It's one vote. Remove grades 6, seven, and eight from Obama. It's one vote. Remove grade six, seven, and eight from Scite Tech. Another vote. You know, put Arsenal as a 678 building. Remove the K8. Another vote. Do it in smaller chunks. We didn't like it coming down the pike when they were going to put all these six to 12 schools together. So, in smaller sets, I think we'd be 100% behind things. Um, please keep the gifted center. I think it ensures hundreds of families stay in the city and um anytime you're ready to talk about relaunching the athletic reform task force, I'd be happy to help and lead those efforts and it would cost you zero dollars. So, um
012please use the people in Pittsburgh to fix Pittsburgh issues. I also wonder about Holliver High School. It didn't seem to make it much into the report. It's a big building. it could be an asset that we should be um looking at more closely. Thanks for listening. >> Thank you for your testimony. Our next speaker is Michael Renie. A second call for Michael Renie. Our next speaker is Mrs. Pette Foster. >> Hello. Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Okay. I'm on a Bluetooth speaker. All right. Greetings everyone. As you prepare for the new year, the Education Rights Network welcomes the new school board directors and looks forward to engaging in conversation to share our interests and priorities for the school district. Dr. Walters, your stakeholders strongly encourage you to continue pursuing the multi-million dollar debt
013that the city of Pittsburgh owes the district. That can help offset a large amount of our uh budget problems. We are relieved that the vote for school closures for the 26th year was rejected. However, ERN and other advocates still have significant concerns as special education advocates. I have shared the same information regarding the budget for the past seven years. Special education advocates, parents, guardians, and teachers often feel unheard. I am aware that the PSE special education department has its own budget. However, just like all the budget cuts that are taking place here in our country, special education funding is at an all-time low and we are not getting the funding that we need. If department's head within the school district would include special education into the general budget, then the principles will also include them
014in the school curriculum. A life skill student should have access to any CTE program where they could see themselves in community. Now, PPS will have an unexpected savings of $12 million from the state cyber charter reform. This money should be utilized to help with resources that have been lacking in special education as we prepare for the realistic timeline with transparency for parents to be able to see what will be happening in the future without displacing 6,000 students. New school board directors, we need you to understand as special education advocates that the district will use this budget access to pro properly move towards what could be beneficial to our students who receive special education services. A budget is more than numbers is a social contract, a statement of priority. PPS budget should represent the priority of
015all students since students with disabilities are not included in a meaningful way. They are invisible in the budget. Thank you, Miss Paul Foster. >> Thank you for your testimony. Our next speaker is Michael Cummings. >> Hello board. Welcome to the new members. I'm Mike Cummings. Most of you are familiar with me at this point. um two kids in the district. Uh fiscal responsibility is about a lot more than just balancing budget about investing in things that are worth investing in such as equitable outcomes and even more especially so these investments can simultaneously create monetary return such as through increased enrollment. The best place to start when looking at ways to make the budget is with options that do both especially when we have a tight budget like we do. On the other hand, the austerity
016mindset we seem to be budgeting from right now is a slow, painful, managed decline that leads to death, not prosperity. We need to budget and plan in a way that prioritizes both educational outcomes as well as retaining and drawing families back into the district so that we have the financial means to continue to improve outcomes for all students. The current plan is only a temporary financial band, not a real fiscal fix. And it specifies almost nothing to address equity or excellence. Here's a start to a real financial fix so we can actually focus on building equity and excellence. As others have said, our charter reform has given us a 8 to12 million a year saving. Let's celebrate that and build on it. Second, as our controller has told us, we need to be refining our
017procurement practices and make them more in line with industry standard. This could save 10 to$16 million a year. At that point, our budget may already be balanced for next year. Um, but let's not stop there. And we haven't cut anything. Third, our administration should move into our schools and lease out the Bellfield building. This creates breathing room and generates ongoing income to create a real plan for how to invest in a productive path forward. One that helps not harms our finances by retaining and bringing back families and one where we honor our motto student outcomes improve when adult behavior changes. Our administration should be leading that by prioritizing our kids over their comfort staying in that building. Start the process now of moving into schools with excess capacity that are not on the potential uh
018closure list. also want to say it is their election of duty to not present a budget based on your current reality, but instead upon an unpleased plan. It was so unpopular with the community there's no way you could expect it to pass for sure. You can do both budgets, but only one that is not the one based on our current reality is not optional. You must present that. And then to take all of this and gaslight everybody about tax increases being tied to this vote is just insult to injury. You already had an increase in the budget that did not come from this vote and there are other ways we can address it. Let's please work together to find ways that we can be productive. We can keep families in the district and we can
019>> Thank you for your testimony. >> Our next speaker is Shannon Shriner. Good evening. My name is Shannon Shriner, Folton Elementary parent to a third grader with Down syndrome. This is Sienna, my daughter. Before anything else, I want to welcome our three new board members. You stepped into leadership at a moment when trust is fractured, families are exhausted, and nearly every one of us is holding on to hope that this district can still be better than its history. And maybe that's why what happened at your very first meeting mattered so much. New leadership brings new vision, or at least it should. But instead of beginning with a fresh direction, the board immediately renewed the same leadership that presided over the attempted school closures and the breakdown in public trust that followed. That decision was the
020first story you told us about who you intend to be. And it was telling. If you ran for this seat because you wanted to engage authentically with this community and make a difference, then understand that many of us were hoping you would choose differently. Not because we wanted chaos, but because we needed to see a shift, a reset, a signal that lessons have been learned. Budget decisions don't happen in a vacuum. They happen inside decades of financial erosion. This district is underfunded at every layer. Robbed by the state's charter structure, the state's charter special education reimbursement, robbed by a city who takes the district's earned income tax share while silently abandoning our schools, and robbed by large corporations who have the means to manipulate assessments. The public is constantly told schools must close to survive,
021but the truth is more complex. The millage increase was coming with or without closures and cyber charter reform dollars are the relief you need during this moment. We are not asking you to fix everything tonight. We are asking you to stop treating closure as the only lever you can pull because I have seen what commitment to inclusion and community actually looks like at schools like Folton. Bolton is proof of what is possible when diversity is not a checkbox but a lived reality. My daughter learns alongside students of every race, income, ability level, and language background. She is not tucked away. She is part of a community that sees her worth. Not despite disability, but with it fully present. We came to Fulton after being told by PPS the easiest placement was a life skills program
022across town. Not the school where we live, not the community we are a part of. Fulton proved that when inclusion is a priority, it works. And this district is never wrong when it chooses belonging over bureaucracy. You now have a chance to set a different tone than the board you inherited. Prioritize funding reform. Demand earned income tax restructuring, protect inclusive schools rather than defaulting to consolidation. You get to decide whether your legacy starts with the status quo or with courage. Thank you. >> Thank you for your testimony. Our next speaker is Tiara Collins. A second call for Tiara Collins. At this time, I will recall the three speakers who were not available earlier. >> There's still people. >> I done skipped a couple people. Our next speaker is Valerie Webb Omen. Sorry, I'm at work.
023I just ran to the back. Okay. Um, first I just want to welcome the new board members. This is a really difficult time to join the board and I implore you um oh sorry I implore you to um engage with the community members um to catch up on the things that you need to regarding um the budget and as well as the uh closure vote that u may come back up. Uh so starting out I want to start by addressing the claim made by Mr. Walker following the vote to not support the plan by superintendent Walters. said voting uh the plan downshifted the burden to taxpayers, but this is false. A tax increase was already in the plan. What actually shifted the burden to taxpayers are major corporations and so-called nonprofits not paying their fair
024share of taxes, inequitable and unconstitutional education funding at the state level and not fixing the act 47 payments and many other things actually shifted the burden to taxpayers. So making problematic statements, placing blame on that particular vote, which would have only passed an incomplete, rigid, and poorly conceived plan that didn't actually guarantee savings. It It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to blame it on that. It also didn't have any plan to prevent more families from leaving TPS and only poorly attempted to manage decline. That point alone is one of the reasons why past closure plans had to escalate as much as they did. I looked at every single enrollment report and budget available from 2001 to 2014 to see what closure impact on PPS was. Between those years, enrollment at PPS declined by
025about 37%. Um P just another point of information, Pittsburgh's population only decreased about 1% in that time frame. Charter and private school enrollment increased significantly. Tuition costs over those years increased 70%. And so the correlation that I get from that is closing schools doesn't actually save money. And if it did, um especially in the long run, if it did, closing over 40 schools in the last 25 years should have left us in a really great spot. But it doesn't work, so it didn't. Um please keep that in mind while you consider the budget and revisiting uh the resolution to close schools. Uh please be intentional and ask for specific information in the budget before voting on this. The superintendent continues to avoid giving transparent information when it doesn't support his particular plan. Please itemize exactly
026what you need to see and give deadlines so this stops. As this budget vote will already violate policy because the administration chose not to give us apples to apples comparison before November 27th and the public won't have 20 days to review prior to your vote. We need you to enforce information released publicly as soon as possible as well. Lastly, I urge you to vote yes on the millage increase. Passing the increase um tax amounts to homes with taxable assessed home values of $100,000. It increases at about $41 a year. The median taxable >> Thank you for your testimony. At this time, our next speaker is Lily Olman. Although I know the plan is going to appear again sometime soon, I'm just happy you voted no and decided not to act until next school year. Act
027for next school year, sorry. Although Jane plans on bringing it back up, there's another claim I've heard before about this plan. I've heard him say this is because of money. While from a distance this could seem true, but when you look at it from up close, you can see the cracks. Truth is, closing schools doesn't save money. It actually costs more to close schools. On the last round of school closures or closures added up that were put into place, it costs it cost more than $70 million. Maybe instead of claiming this is for money, do an audit. Do the audit and figure out how much school closures have cost in the past. Sorry. Figure out the cost and stop claiming this is about money. >> Thank you for your testimony. Now, I will recall the
028three speakers that were not here previously. The first speaker is Emily Kaine. A second call for Emily Kaine. The next speaker for recall is Lauren Stuperitz. A second call for Lauren Stupitz. Our final speaker recall is Michael Renie. A second and final call for Michael Renie. That concludes the testimony portion of this public hearing. I will now turn the final call for Tiara Collins. >> Good evening. I want to say thanks for voting though for the um school closure and welcome to our new school board members. Secondly, I want to talk about the fact that yeah again they will be bringing this up again and when you do bring it up again, I pray that the next people still vote no. But instead of saying how you're bringing the community in and you're getting the
029community's input, I'm asking you to do a favor and when you go to the the schools that you're talking about closing, go and talk to those students and get their input on what the effects will be to them. And the reason why I say this is because I'm going to tell you a story. My daughter just moved on Saturday and I had to take my 12-year-old grandbaby and move her out of her home that she has been in since she was two years old. My grandbaby is now depressed. Why? Because she didn't want to move. So, we don't think about the effects that we have on our children when we do things like move, close schools, and so forth and so on. So, I'm going to say because my granddaughter went to one of the
030schools that you were talking about closing and she was saying how she didn't want it to close. Instead of always doing things because you want to talk about this for money and it's for the better of the communities, take the true community which is our children because that's who it's affecting and go talk to them and see what they want. So, I'm taking your own opinions because I'm going to be honest. or opinions shouldn't count because the people who opinions that should count is the people who it affects the most and that is the children. I'm done. Have a wonderful evening and thank you for your time. >> Thank you for your testimony. That concludes the testimony portion of this public hearing. At this time, I will turn the meeting back over to board president
031Jean Walker. >> Thank you, Miss Williams. And again, as always, thank you to everyone who came out uh to provide testimony tonight. Uh it is December which means it is a short month which means we fit all of our meetings into the next two weeks. So we will see you all here again tomorrow night for a progress monitoring report on third grade reading. Uh everyone be safe and this meeting is adjourned.