PPS board member Gene Walker watches kids dance at the Black Women for a Better Education’s PPS candidate launch party on Monday, March 10, 2025, at Freedom Unlimited in the Hill District. (Photo by Anastasia Busby/PublicSource)
Four Pittsburgh Public Schools board seats are contested this year, and school consolidation may be decided by the time new members take office. But they would oversee closures.
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Increased transparency, resizing the district and well-resourced schools are on the minds of candidates running for the Pittsburgh Public Schools [PPS] board this year.
Five out of nine board seats are up for election. Three of five board members — Jamie Piotrowski, Sala Udin and Sylvia Wilson — are not running for reelection.
All candidates are running in the Democratic primary, to be held on May 20.
The election comes at a time when PPS is in the midst of considering a plan aimed at reconfiguring the district’s footprint, involving 10 school closures and consolidations. The plan has drawn persistent criticism from parents and community members, some of whom have cited a lack of transparency and accountability.
However, district administrators and a majority of board members have repeatedly sounded the alarm about a need to resize the district to meet the needs of students and reduce existing inequities. Enrollment continues to decline while overhead costs of maintaining old buildings and charter school tuition continue to rise.
No school closure will take place in the 2025-26 school year. While plans to resize the district and close schools could be charted this year, at least four newer board members could be serving when school closures are implemented.
PublicSource interviewed eight out of nine candidates running for the PPS school board. Tonya Fores did not respond to requests for an interview.
Most accept school closures, with caveats
Nearly all of the board candidates said they believed that the district needs to reduce its footprint and close some schools. However, many acknowledged what they saw as a lack of transparency and community engagement during the process.
Even as candidates Eva Diodati, Carlos Thomas and Tawana Cook Purnell say that the district needs to close some schools, they did not fully agree with the approach taken by district leadership in initiating the Facilities Utilization Plan.
Cook Purnell said bigger schools could bring more resources and educational programming for students but the district needs to carefully look at how each school is funded to reduce inequities.
District 1
Schools: Crescent Early Childhood Center, Faison K-5, Liberty K-5, Lincoln PreK-5, Montessori PreK-8, Sterrett 6-8, Obama 6-12, Westinghouse Academy 6-12, Student Achievement Center
Tracey Reed said past closures and programs geared toward improving student outcomes have not worked and the district has a chance to do that by changing the current configuration.
“[Past school closures] have worked to shrink our footprint, but not really to improve outcomes. And I am more concerned with improving outcomes than I am with shrinking our footprint,” she said.
Nearly 50% of buildings in PPS are half full. Many large buildings have fewer students, leaving them with fewer opportunities, advanced classes or educational programming. Gene Walker, who has been vocal about his support for the consultants’ plan, said this has led to teachers being spread too thinly and many schools unable to offer full-time art or physical education teachers.
Allison Petonic, who is unsure if the board needs to close schools, said the current process has created barriers against public participation. She added that while she may not be able to undo any decisions made by the board this year, she would work to incorporate community voices and feedback in the implementation of any school closures.
“I think that we’ve got to proceed with a whole lot more information and proper care about this and that really means a process that brings community members in, that listens to them, and a lot more data and demography done, too,” she said.
Candidates don’t want test scores to be sole focus
In February, the school board adopted a set of policy changes based on a framework known as Student Outcome Focused Governance. The framework, provided by the Council of Great City Schools, coached board members to drive improvements in student test scores and graduation rates.
Many community members worried that if the framework was implemented, the board would only discuss test scores and leave many decisions to district administration. Some parents were also concerned that the student outcomes focus would not emphasize other aspects of whole child development.
Board candidates agreed that standardized test scores should not be a barometer of student success.
District 3
Schools: Miller PreK-5, Milliones 6-12, Science and Technology 6-12, Weil PreK-5
“I think test scores is just a very narrow-minded way of evaluating children’s success,” said Erikka Grayson. “I think especially when it comes to kids, you need to look at it holistically, being able to understand that the worth of a child is not based off a standardized test score.”
Reed and Walker said it would be up to the board to decide how to define student outcomes based on input from community members and parents. As part of setting those goals, the district is holding 12 community listening sessions through May.
Walker said the district is monitoring third-grade reading to measure success and going forward, they would have an opportunity to ask the community what else it should focus on and have the administration report on that.
Some would expand suspension ban to more grades
Overall, suspension numbers have decreased but Black students tend to be suspended at much higher rates than white students.
Thomas said he would support a suspension ban across kindergarten through fifth grade and Petonic said the idea was worth exploring. Mahdi Bey said he would support a suspension ban across kindergarten through eighth grade.
Petonic and Bey also said investments in community schools could create safer school environments and reduce violence in schools by fulfilling student needs.
District 5
Schools: Greenfield PreK-8, Mifflin PreK-8, Minadeo PreK-5
Currently, the district has a suspension ban from kindergarten through second grade. Past efforts to extend that ban to fifth grades have failed.
Other candidates asked for professional development and culturally relevant training to reduce suspensions. Cook Purnell said cautious hiring and providing trauma-informed training to teachers could bring down suspensions. Walker said there needs to be a districtwide structure that standardizes how disciplinary measures are rolled out along with anti-racist training for staff.
Few ideas for filling classrooms
The district has lost about 7,730 students in the last decade. By 2030, PPS is projected to lose another 6,000 students. Meanwhile, 37.5% of the district’s student population was chronically absent last year.
All board candidates said PPS could increase student enrollment by making schools more attractive and well-resourced but did not specify strategies to do that.
Diodati said schools should bring resources to the community and families who struggle with basic needs. They added that various factors, such as a lack of child care and stress resulting from bullying, have contributed to students missing school.
District 7
Schools: Arlington PreK-8, Carrick 9-12, Concord PreK-5, Phillips K-5, Roosevelt PreK-5, Online Academy
Thomas said there should be an emphasis on mental health issues that lead to increased absenteeism rates. The district, he added, needs to work with parents who are struggling with making a living wage or facing housing insecurity.
“How the parent deals with mental health is how the student is internalizing dealing with mental health, which then reflects how they show up in school,” he said.
Bey said the district can tackle chronic absenteeism by investing in community schools and their programs, such as the Nanas program at Arlington PreK-8, which works with a group of women to make phone calls and provide transportation in an effort to bring students at the risk of being chronically absent to school.
District finances
With shrinking enrollment and rising costs, the district could face a nearly $20 million operating deficit by 2027.
Bey, Thomas and Diodati want to push state legislators to secure more funding. Diodati and Bey also want to see more efforts to stop diverting part of the district’s share of the earned income tax to the city.
“We can’t kick the can down anymore,” said Diodati. “We’ve reached the end of the road, as it were.”
District 9
Schools: Chartiers early childhood center, Classical 6-8, Langley PreK-8, Gifted center, Morrow PreK-8, Perry 9-12, Westwood K-5
On the other hand, candidates Grayson and Petonic said they want to take a growth approach to managing the district’s finances. Grayson said the district should focus on providing an equitable education and bringing students and their funding back from charter schools to the district.
Reed cautioned that while the district regularly projects a deficit, it does not always have one, and board members and district officials need to do a better job of talking about the finances. However, she added, the district could end up in a dire financial crisis if it loses any federal funding.
“The public perception is that the district is broke and I think, to a large extent, is not very smart about fighting it,” she said. “Those things aren’t true.”
Lajja Mistry is the K-12 education reporter at PublicSource. She can be reached at lajja@publicsource.org.
This story was fact-checked by Pamela Smith.
This article first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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