\n\t\t\t\t\t\tPittsburgh Public Schools board members gathered Tuesday night to get more answers about the proposed school closure plan.The meeting focused on providing additional information board members had requested as they consider the district\u2019s \u201cFuture Ready Facilities Plan.\u201d The superintendent joined remotely and answered questions over Zoom. Neither the superintendent nor the school board president attended in person.District leaders defended the proposal, saying it was shaped by community input and data.\u201cThe plan that we do have was developed with significant community input,\u201d said Ebony Pugh with Pittsburgh Public Schools. \u201cWe made changes along the way, and we can even with the last iteration, we made some updates and edits. We feel like we’ve put together a very, a solid plan with, again, with input and a data analysis that supports the decisions that we are making.\u201dThe plan proposes reconfiguring the district and closing several schools, including the Student Achievement Center, Friendship, Fulton, Manchester, Miller, Morrow, Schiller, Spring Hill and Woolslair. The goal is to save more than $100 million and create a more equitable experience for students.School board Vice President Tracey Reed said parts of the plan are beneficial.\u201cThere are bones in the plan that are just good practice, that, that help will help to move the district in the direction that we need to go,\u201d Reed said.The board previously voted down the plan in November in a 6-3 vote, citing the need for more time. With a slightly different board makeup this year, members decided to revisit the proposal in February.Reed said Tuesday\u2019s meeting helped answer outstanding questions.\u201cI’ve gotten all the information that I need,\u201d she said.The presentation aimed to clarify K-12 pathways, building enrollment, programming, transportation plans and financial comparisons.\u201cI think the most important answer that we got revolved around what we were going to do to staff the changes that needed to be made,\u201d Reed said. \u201cThat there was, you know, we’re going to have project managers, we’re going to look for deputy superintendent. Those are really important. There was also attention paid to the executive coaching and capacity building.\u201dSome minor updates were included in the latest version of the plan, such as adding pre-K classrooms to the Allegheny Annex and switching to open enrollment.The school board is expected to vote on the proposal in May. If approved, the earliest closures would begin in the 2027-28 school year.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tPITTSBURGH \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh Public Schools board members gathered Tuesday night to get more answers about the proposed school closure plan.<\/p>\n
The meeting focused on providing additional information board members had requested as they consider the district\u2019s \u201cFuture Ready Facilities Plan.\u201d The superintendent joined remotely and answered questions over Zoom. Neither the superintendent nor the school board president attended in person.<\/p>\n
District leaders defended the proposal, saying it was shaped by community input and data.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan that we do have was developed with significant community input,\u201d said Ebony Pugh with Pittsburgh Public Schools. \u201cWe made changes along the way, and we can even with the last iteration, we made some updates and edits. We feel like we’ve put together a very, a solid plan with, again, with input and a data analysis that supports the decisions that we are making.\u201d<\/p>\n
The plan proposes reconfiguring the district and closing several schools, including the Student Achievement Center, Friendship, Fulton, Manchester, Miller, Morrow, Schiller, Spring Hill and Woolslair. The goal is to save more than $100 million and create a more equitable experience for students.<\/p>\n
School board Vice President Tracey Reed said parts of the plan are beneficial.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are bones in the plan that are just good practice, that, that help will help to move the district in the direction that we need to go,\u201d Reed said.<\/p>\n
The board previously voted down the plan in November in a 6-3 vote, citing the need for more time. With a slightly different board makeup this year, members decided to revisit the proposal in February.<\/p>\n
Reed said Tuesday\u2019s meeting helped answer outstanding questions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve gotten all the information that I need,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The presentation aimed to clarify K-12 pathways, building enrollment, programming, transportation plans and financial comparisons.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the most important answer that we got revolved around what we were going to do to staff the changes that needed to be made,\u201d Reed said. \u201cThat there was, you know, we’re going to have project managers, we’re going to look for deputy superintendent. Those are really important. There was also attention paid to the executive coaching and capacity building.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some minor updates were included in the latest version of the plan, such as adding pre-K classrooms to the Allegheny Annex and switching to open enrollment.<\/p>\n
The school board is expected to vote on the proposal in May. If approved, the earliest closures would begin in the 2027-28 school year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Public Schools board members gathered Tuesday night to get more answers about the proposed school closure plan.The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[28915,75073,75069,75072,3841,9513,75067,75068,12739,10495,73,75,74,940,26603,4583,42321,9800,75070,14903,75074,75071,15761,34149,19929,1823],"class_list":["post-166469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-board-meeting","tag-building-enrollment","tag-closing-schools","tag-closure-plan","tag-datum","tag-district","tag-ebony-pugh","tag-future-ready-facilities-plan","tag-manchester","tag-meeting","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-public-schools","tag-pittsburgh-public-schools-board","tag-plan","tag-proposal","tag-question","tag-reconfiguring-district","tag-reed","tag-school-board-president","tag-school-closure-plan","tag-superintendent","tag-tracey-reed","tag-tuesday-night","tag-vote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}