The Pittsburgh Public School District has more empty desks than it has children enrolled in its 54 schools.
That stark fact has implications that make school closings a real possibility and funnels a disproportionate amount of the district’s money to charter schools.
The amount the district spends on average for each student determines how much it must pay charter schools for every city student it educates.
For the 2022-2023 school year, while other school districts across the commonwealth paid an average of $13,639 per student who was not in special education, the Pittsburgh schools paid $19,398 each in tuition for those students. For children who have an individualized education plan, or are in special education, PPS paid $46,518 per student compared to the average tuition in the state of $31,544, according to figures from the state Department of Education
A+ Schools, in its “2023 Report to the Community on Public School Progress in Pittsburgh,” noted that the city schools were educating 20,072 students last year, while the buildings had 20,665 empty seats. The district also paid to send 5,250 students to charter schools.
Using the state data and calculating the difference between what the district pays for regular education in charters and the average cost for other districts, PPS is paying about $30.2 million more for charter school tuition than the average district in the state.
Former school Director Kevin Carter, who was chair of the board’s finance committee before the board reorganization, pointed out that the cost of charter school tuition doubled in the eight years he served on the school board.
It was actually faster than that. In 2018, charter schools cost the district $74.2 million in tuition. In the budget for 2024, charter payments are up to $144.7 million. Tuition for charter schools now makes up 20 percent of the school district budget.
On Dec. 18, the district will hold an online public hearing at 6 p.m. on the proposed $714 million budget, and on Dec. 20 the board, which includes three new members who were sworn in on Dec. 4, will be voting in a live stream session at 6:30 p.m.
That budget is 4.23% higher than the 2023 budget. Despite a proposed operating deficit of $29.62 million, the budget does not include a tax increase; instead the deficit would be paid from the district’s fund balance, which the budget office estimated will be $75.16 million at the end of this year and $45.54 million at the end of 2024.
Ronald Joseph, the district’s finance director, said the fund balance, which has been money set aside by the district, will be gone in 2025.
“Using your fund balance to fund your deficits is not where we want to be,” Joseph told the board members during a budget workshop.
Joseph projected that by the end of this year, the district will have dipped into the fund balance and spent $8.4 million of it. Next year’s proposed budget is balanced by using $29.6 million from that account.
Closing schools
As the Pittsburgh Public Schools stare down a 2024 budget that has a whole lot of red on the bottom line, school district board members and administrators have been talking obliquely about closing schools.
“We cannot be blind to the fact that we have declining enrollment and we have the same, basically, footprint of buildings that we’ve had. I’m not saying that school closures are the end all and be all, but we have to look at ways that we can make sure that we are adjusting our operations to the size of the population that we are currently serving,” Joseph said.
Since 2004, when Mark Roosevelt served as the superintendent of schools, the district has closed 32 schools, James Fogarty, executive director of A+ Schools said.
School closings aren’t just motivated by funding shortfalls. With too few students in many of the schools, the district isn’t able to provide a broad array of offerings in every school.
A+ Schools’ report included the story of Eric Rogalsky, a math teacher at Pittsburgh Sunnyside PreK-8, who found only five students in the school’s single eighth-grade class who were ready for Algebra I. In other, larger, schools in the district, those students would have been placed in an algebra class, but Sunnyside did not have the manpower to free up a teacher to teach five children for 90 minutes a week.
“We are knowingly denying opportunities to kids because of the way that our buildings are structured,” Fogarty said.
“When you have 13 schools that have less than 200 students with an average cost of $30,000 plus per pupil, that’s just not sustainable,” he added. “The kids that are in those buildings aren’t getting access to opportunities, and the teachers in those buildings, many of them, are feeling stressed and put upon because they don’t have any extra help.”
Closing schools is always met with local opposition when parents and neighbors rise up to save their schools.
An example of that is Pittsburgh Woolslair PreK-5, which had been scheduled to close for the 2021-2022 school year but was saved by neighborhood opposition. The neighborhood school with a science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM) magnet program has 179 students, according to the A+ Schools report.
Fogarty said the data shows that in the city, there are only five neighborhood schools in which more than 50% of the students who live within their feeder pattern attend that school. While 14,095 students traveled to charter or magnet schools, only 9,124 students attended their assigned neighborhood schools.
Looking for funds
In a press release, the district announced it is developing a new strategic plan for the next five years. The draft framework for that plan includes the section: “transform the district’s facility footprint” with the subcategories: “1. Redesign school configurations, 2. Consolidate schools to maximize resources, 3. Optimize physical and financial resources for equitable student experiences, 4. Improve building conditions and infrastructure.”
During the Nov. 28 budget workshop, board members also talked about recapturing about $23 million that is collected for the schools, but has been diverted to the city every year since 2004 to address the city’s financial crisis.
Outgoing District 8 school director Pam Harbin said to district solicitor Ira Weiss, if the city leadership “would go to the legislators and say ‘this is something we want to do’ the legislators would take action.”
Weiss responded, “I’ve lived too long to predict what legislators are going to do. The fundamental thing is unless the city has a way of replacing the revenue that they would lose by losing this diversion, it is not practical to assume that they would voluntarily give up this money.”
“But they could,” Harbin said.
“Yes,” Weiss said, “but they’re not going to do it. They have the same financial pressures that we do — and I’m not defending them— I’m only stating a fact, that’s all. Until there can be an alternative source of funding to replace whatever money that they are provided with, it is not realistic to assume that it’s going to happen.”
District 9 school board member Gene Walker, who was elected board president six days later, said the board will have to focus on areas such as facilities, the district’s footprint and enrollment.
“I think there is a solution,” Walker said about the budget problems. “I think we can get it done. It’s going to take a lot of hard work, a lot of hard conversations, and some really difficult decisions over the next year or two to get it done. And I’m looking forward to working with the upcoming board over the next year or two.”
