Mayor Parker addresses Council spat, school facilities plan promised: Takeaways from school district’s budget hearing

An impassioned Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, addressing how she sat Joyce Wilkerson on the school board over City Council’s objections, said she knew she and Philadelphia’s legislative body would have some disagreements during her tenure.

“But don’t let that be the North Star that determines how we move the city of Philadelphia,” the mayor said in the Philadelphia School District’s budget hearing Tuesday, where the school system laid out its $4.5 billion spending plan.

“I can’t do it without you, and you can’t do it without me. We’re interdependent on each other in order to move Philadelphia forward.”

Parker defended her school board and her actions to circumvent Council’s disapproval of Wilkerson.

“I respect the body — there is no one person or individual that’s bigger than this institution,” the mayor said. “I didn’t try to do something other than what the law requests that the mayor does.”

The mayor said she deliberately chose five new voices for the board, and also held over four members, including Wilkerson, because “to be successful, the board must balance change with continuity, and new skills with experience.”

She got only “a few hours” sleep Monday night, she said, interrupted by a flurry of phone calls, posts and other action on the school board matter — “everybody trying to find a way to benefit from driving a wedge between this president, this leadership, this Council and this administration.”

But, she said, “I don’t want to fight. I want to get things done. I want partnership. I need you.”

Last month, the mayor chose Wilkerson, Reginald Streater, Sarah-Ashley Andrews, ChauWing Lam, Crystal Cubbage, Cheryl Harper, Whitney Jones, Wanda Novales and Joan Stern to comprise her school board. Council confirmed all but Wilkerson, with some members citing concerns, including her history of charter school votes and her stewardship of building issues during her time as School Reform Commission chair and school board president.

Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, chair of the education committee, did not name Wilkerson, but signaled he would not support her because “information had been covered up for years by the previous regime.”

“In our mind, someone needs to be held accountable,” Thomas said at the hearing.

The school district currently has no long-term plan for its vast stock of aging buildings — which are estimated to cost $7 billion to fix — a point of concern for many in Council.

Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. said the district has been methodical and needed to determine academic and organizational goals before committing to a strategic plan, but knows it can’t “kick this can down the road.”

“This administration is committed to work under the Board of Education and the mayor’s leadership to having a plan that makes hard decisions about how we upgrade our school facilities, and we will get it done,” the superintendent said.

While some of the district’s 216 schools are bursting at the seams, others are significantly under-enrolled; district leadership has warned that they will need to think about “right sizing,” raising the possibility of school closings.

While Watlington said his administration was examining setting a minimum school enrollment size, he noted that when the district closed 30 schools in 2013, it saw student achievement drop in both those who were displaced and those who attended schools that received displaced students.

“We believe that we can drive faster improvement when we take a look at how to best use our facilities,” Watlington said. “We know we need to repurpose some buildings to better serve our communities.”

Parker signaled the district and city would lean on sources of funding not widely used in the past to tackle its building problems.

“We have not worked in a collaborative way to tap the philanthropic organizations... in our city to say, ‘We need you to all come together and figure out how do we row in the same direction and work to attack a problem,’” she said. “That is, Mr. President, very humbly, what I’m going to attempt to do as mayor of the city.”

Thomas asked Watlington, who spent his career in North Carolina schools before coming to Philadelphia in 2022, how Philadelphia’s facilities problems compare to other districts.

“In the districts that I’ve worked in prior to coming here, I’ve never had a school-based closure related to heat or an asbestos problem,” Watlington said.

Less than half of Philadelphia’s schools are currently air-conditioned. In the 2022-23 school year, seven district school buildings had to close temporarily due to asbestos problems.

The school system is unique in Pennsylvania as the only district that cannot raise its own revenue, dependent largely on the city and state to fund the education of 197,000 students in traditional public and charter schools.

Watlington and Streater — as well as Parker — trumpeted the district’s progress. Though it’s one of the most struggling school systems in the country, with just 34% of students meeting state standards in English and 16% in math, it recently earned national kudos for the strongest academic recovery among large urban districts, according to a study by Harvard and Stanford universities.

On the campaign trail, Parker said if elected, she would shift the district’s share of the city’s property tax revenue to 58% from its current 55%.

But as mayor, Parker introduced a budget that would increase the district’s share only to 56%.

The one percentage point increase will yield the district $129 million, and her plan is to eventually get to 58% for the schools, Parker said.

“I’m not shying away from that goal. I’m cognizant of us trying to get there in a very methodical, intentional but fiscally responsible manner,” said the mayor.

Watlington underscored the district’s relatively strong financial footing, as evidenced by boosts in recent years to its credit rating.

“We’re not here with hands out, saying, ‘Just give us more money, pour money onto things where there’s no return in investment,’” Watlington said. “We are laser-focused on things that return investment in the school district.”

Council had questions about another Parker campaign promise — year-round school, a program that was tried and rejected by the district in the early 2000s.

In recent months, both the mayor and the superintendent have re-framed the conversation as “year-round access to educational opportunities during non-traditional times,” Parker said at Watlington’s State of the Schools address in January.

Watlington said that in the 2024-25 school year, the district would focus on offering robust after-school offerings so students can be engaged until 6 or 7 p.m.

And in the following year, he plans a pilot of schools that follow an extended school day and year. The most promising model he hoped to emulate, Watlington said, was the Harlem Children’s Zone.

“We know that for some kids — a lot of our kids — we’ve got to eliminate the summer slide, and we’ve got to provide more time to master the content,” Watlington said.

But, he said, no school would be selected for a year-round model without community buy-in.

“We have to build the demand,” Watlington said, “create a demand and build partnership for it.”