State leaders tout $175 million to fix old school buildings during visit to South Philly HS

The boiler at South Philadelphia High School is so old that it’s difficult to find replacement parts when something breaks.

There’s no air-conditioning — often a problem in sweltering June and September in the five-story school that occupies an entire city block on South Broad Street — and there’s an outdated electrical system, with lights often shorting out, student Azir Athy said.

Five months ago, Pennsylvania lawmakers toured the school to underscore what they said was a desperate need for significant investment in school buildings across the state. On Wednesday, they came back to tout $175 million in new state money just for that purpose.

State Rep. Jordan Harris (D., Philadelphia), the majority chair of the House Appropriations Committee, called it a “first step.”

“Far too many young people are coming to schools that are actively making them sick,” Harris said at a news conference outside the South Philadelphia High auditorium. “We as a commonwealth must do better.”

Originally, House Democrats proposed $250 million to fix school buildings; the $175 million was a compromise reached this month.

The issue is personal to State Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler (D., Philadelphia): Her children attend Southwark Elementary, a Philadelphia school that had to temporarily shut this year because of asbestos issues. For a time, Southwark students were moved into South Philadelphia High and Childs Elementary in Point Breeze while remediation work happened at their building.

“These sorts of school facilities problems will continue to get more and more expensive and more and more dangerous if we don’t fund the improvements that we need,” Fiedler said.

It’s not clear how much Philadelphia or any other district might get, officials said. The $175 million is split between two funds, one administered by the Commonwealth Financing Authority and one by the Department of Education.

The maximum Philadelphia could possibly receive is $30 million total from both funds, according to state officials.

The district’s facilities needs are vast; the most recent estimate is nearly $8 billion. And though the school system celebrated the opening of a brand-new, $44 million T.M. Peirce Elementary at 23rd and Cambria in North Philadelphia Wednesday, a 2017 analysis found that 85 district schools need major repairs and 21 should be considered for closure and replacement.

State Rep. Pete Schweyer (D., Lehigh), chair of the House Education Committee and a former Philadelphia School District teacher, said the money was a “down payment on something we have allowed to atrophy across Pennsylvania.”

Consider, Schweyer said: “the last eight years, we have spent not one dollar investing in buildings like this.”