Gene Walker poses for a portrait in his office on Friday, June 20, 2025, in Downtown. (Photo by Caleb Kaufman/PublicSource)
Gene Walker did not plan to work in education. Now, as newly re-elected PPS board president, he is a strong supporter of a plan that will reshape the district’s footprint.
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Gene Walker never set out to build a career in education. And yet, he credits it with saving him.
A chance phone call steered Walker into the education space, where he spent over a decade, all of which culminated in him becoming the school board president of Pittsburgh Public Schools. He recently won reelection by a mere five votes in a campaign that focused on advancing the district’s contentious Facilities Utilization Plan and implementing school closures.
Walker introduced the resolution that launched the facilities discussion a year and a half ago and has remained one of the plan’s most vocal supporters. Since becoming president in late 2023, the 49-year-old has become the face of a board whose lasting impact may be defined by how it reshapes the district’s physical and financial footprint.
Walker’s support for the overhaul is rooted in two goals: stabilizing the district’s finances and ensuring quality education across all schools without overextending resources.
“The work that I’m trying to lead, I hope and believe, will lead us to a PPS that is not only financially stable and sustainable, but becomes a district where people are attracted back,” he said. “And we only get there if we are willing to make the changes today to make it happen.”
Walker’s push for restructuring has met with stiff resistance from other board members and parents. As the district moves forward with reconfiguring the school district, the next four years will cement Walker’s legacy, which will be marked by how he navigates closures and consolidations.
A gradual journey into education
One of four siblings, Walker is a Pittsburgh native and graduate of the former Peabody High School — the current home to Obama 6-12 in East Liberty. He moved to Northeastern Pennsylvania to attend Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania, Bloomsburg, where he graduated with a degree in business and accounting. He began his career in sales and finance until a phone call in 2008 changed his path.
Saleem Ghubril, a friend and mentor, asked him to return to Pittsburgh and help launch The Pittsburgh Promise, an organization that would fund scholarships and expand post-secondary access to the city’s students.
Walker’s education in PPS and experience in business prompted Ghubril to recruit him to focus on key benchmarks for The Promise.
Walker was recovering from the financial fallout of the 2008 housing crisis, and the job offered stability and purpose.
“The opportunity to come back to Pittsburgh to work for an organization where I didn’t have to, like, scrap and fall for a paycheck was really intriguing, and I figured it would be something cool to learn,” he said.
Walker was one of the first people to be hired for The Promise, where he spent the next nine years holding a variety of roles, starting as a programs manager to help achieve the organization’s strategic goals. He organized college tours for students and developed a workforce development program for youth who lost their scholarships. He eventually became a partnerships manager, handling fundraising and development, before leaving The Promise.
His decision to leave the Promise came after extensive conversations with Ghubril and realizing there were limited opportunities for growth at the organization.
“To me, it’s not a small thing when a colleague trusts me enough to share that their aspirations include doing something either to grow within the organization but, if the opportunities are limited, to have my support in growing outside of the organization,” said Ghubril.
That idea of thinking about, ‘How do we make holistic and generational change in the school district going in the wrong direction for a lot of years?’ was really intriguing for me.
gene walker
Over the next five years, he worked with different organizations such as Mission Commission, Gene Cook Supports, Cafe Momentum and Tickets for Kids Charities. In February, Walker joined as managing director at Per Scholas, a national nonprofit that provides tech training and professional development.
He lives in Brighton Heights with his wife and two kids, who both attended and graduated from PPS Sci-Tech.
Walker was elected to the PPS school board in 2021 to represent District 9, which includes Classical 6-8, Langley PreK-8, Westwood K-5, Perry High School, Morrow PreK-8, Chartiers Early Childhood Center and the Gifted Center. His campaign centered on bold, structural changes, including the replacement of then-Superintendent Anthony Hamlet. He said the decision to run came after encouragement from friends who saw his leadership qualities and passion for education.
“That idea of thinking about, ‘How do we make holistic and generational change in the school district going in the wrong direction for a lot of years?’ was really intriguing for me,” he said.
A vision shaped by mentoring and hard truths
Around 2010, Walker was working on a mentoring program at The Promise designed to increase college access for Black male students. He recalled many conversations with young men where he asked them what they thought their life would look like after five, 10 or 15 years.
More often than not, Walker said, the response was, “I never thought about it, because I don’t think I’m going to be alive that long.”
That was when he realized he needed a different approach to help students think about futures they hadn’t imagined for themselves.
“That kind of mindset has really kind of guided my career into — I can help you find a job, I can help you get a certification, but if I don’t help you dream about what that future looks like, then all the other stuff in the middle doesn’t really matter.”
He said this same conviction for removing limits on student opportunities is now pushing him to see through the district’s consolidation and closures plan.
Walker himself has not been a stranger to school closures. As a Peabody graduate, he was disheartened to see the school close, though he said Obama has proven to be “a really good replacement.”
“I never have kind of put any thought or emotion into building space, because I don’t believe the building makes the school. I think the people make the school,” he said. “So if we need to shift people around to create a better school, then that’s what we should do.”
A narrow win reinforced beliefs
In May, Walker was nearly ousted from the PPS board by challenger Allison Petonic, a researcher who opposed school closures. His narrow win highlighted deep divisions within the community.
Petonic said her campaign prioritized community engagement and listening to residents.
“Community members, educators and staff have forward-thinking solutions and memories that deserve to be listened to,” she said.
The board rejected a community-driven alternative proposal, which some felt was dismissed without serious consideration.
Walker’s near political death has not changed his stance on closing schools. He said it strengthened his resolve to carry out the work he started.
Walker acknowledged Petonic as a formidable opponent, but said his narrow win was also driven by his commitment to reducing the district’s footprint and implementing the Facilities Utilization Plan.
“I said from the very beginning of my time on the board that my decisions will never be based on whether or not people will vote for me. It will be because I think it’s the right thing to do.”
Transparency questioned
Walker joined the school board with three goals: stabilize the district’s finances, diversify the workforce and improve accountability for the board and the administration.
After becoming board president, he says he has tried to “lead a concerted effort” to improve board governance while steering clear of the day-to-day administrative work.
“For Dr. Walters, I don’t need to know what he’s doing every minute of every day,” he said. “But what I do need to know is that the work that he’s doing has a plan and will ultimately lead to the results that he’s promised.”
Still, Walker admits, working collaboratively with other board members has been challenging.
“That challenge is compounded a bit because the board president tends to be the face of the board, and the one who either gets credit for the things that are going well or takes a lot of blame for the things that people don’t like.”
Despite tensions, Walker is confident that he will retain his presidency in the upcoming term.
Walker was one of five candidates endorsed by Black Women for a Better Education [BW4BE], all of whom won, giving the group a majority on the nine-member board.
Allyce Pinchback-Johnson, the group’s co-founder, said Walker’s focus on board governance and student outcomes was key to their support. She said the new plan was thoughtful and intentional compared to previous rounds of closures.
But not everyone on the board agrees with his style. Some members describe Walker’s leadership style as exclusionary. For first vice president Devon Taliaferro — the sole board member not endorsed by BW4BE in the upcoming term — there is a clear divide between those endorsed by the group and the others.
“I think since he’s been on the board, it’s proven that he has closer relationships and connections with … the slate of candidates that he has run with, and the people who have been a part of the group,” she said.
Taliaferro’s district stands to lose the most schools under the plan (four, including Fulton and Woolslair). She has called for a more deliberate, community-driven process.
Taliaferro feels most of Walker’s disagreements with her seem to stem from differing views on former superintendent Hamlet, who resigned in 2021 amid ethics controversy. Taliaferro, who voted to renew Hamlet’s contract, said he has viewed her as a “pain point.”
“It’s kind of like pushing me out of leadership or pushing me out of decision-making or pushing me out of things because I didn’t make a decision that they liked five years ago, not understanding the reasons behind that,” she said.
Other board members describe Walker as a congenial person whose leadership style is direct and straightforward. Board member Emma Yourd acknowledged the progress in board governance but expressed concerns over the handling of the closures plan. She said some decisions were made exclusively by Walker and Superintendent Wayne Walters, without the broader board involvement.
“That has been frustrating to me because we know that the school closure and consolidation process is very emotional for a lot of our community, and while it’s a necessary step that we have to take from a financial and a physical footprint perspective, I think that it behooves the school board to be as transparent as possible in that process,” she said.
Walker disagreed, saying even if not every board member has agreed to those decisions, none of them were taken without a consensus of the board.
Many community members also accuse Walker of lacking a transparent approach to school board matters.
Emily Sawyer is one of the many parents of PPS students who fundamentally disagree with Walker’s approach to reconfiguring schools.
“I think that there are a few folks in the school district administration and on the school board that are extremely condescending to families and communities and to the idea of community engagement as an important part of this process, and you can see that in the way that they talk about it,” she said.
Walker maintains that he has approached the closures plan with full transparency.
He knows not having information can be frustrating, but he said he believes the board has given the details requested by the public, and the plan should proceed.
Walker has his supporters among the parent community. Wendy Moss, whose child is enrolled at Morrow, said he has been a thoughtful leader who has always listened to his constituents and has kept the community engaged and updated about the Facilities Utilization Plan. Moss is one of the parents who thinks consolidating schools is necessary.
“I tend to think when people are blowing the transparency horn, it usually means that I’m just not telling them the thing they want to hear,” Walker said.
A legacy of school closures
Despite the district’s history of painful closures and consolidations, Walker said he believes things will be different this time. Reflecting on the 2011 closure of Schenley High School, a decision that still stirs strong emotions, he recalled how the reasoning given at the time left many feeling misled.
“When you think about Schenley, the excuse was, ‘Well, there’s too much asbestos, and we can’t afford to fix it.’ And now it’s apartments, and so people said, ‘You lied to us,’” he said.
To avoid repeating that mistrust, he said the board and the administration have made efforts to show the public how reducing the number of school buildings could lead to better resources and supports. He said decisions like these should be made with all the district’s 18,000 students in mind — not just a select few.
Walker said he’s spoken with principals who support the plan, not because it’s easy, but because they see how stretched their resources have become.
“’It’s not just the schools that are struggling that are feeling it. It is the schools that parents want to send their kids to who are also seeing the lack of resources starting to pop up because they have to be shared,” he said.
For Walker, these things aren’t black or white, but part of a complex plan that includes a variety of factors that people do not always understand. He argued that delaying action would only prolong the existing inequities and limited resources.
Maintaining the status quo, he added, would lead to more parents pulling their kids from PPS and enrolling them in charter schools or private schools, leading to further erosion of the district’s finances and the student experience.
“Our teachers will continue to be stretched too thin. Our schools will be under-resourced. Our kids will not have access to the opportunities that they could have if we acted.”
Lajja Mistry is the K-12 education reporter at PublicSource. She can be reached at lajja@publicsource.org.
This story was fact-checked by Hannah Johansson.
This article first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.