Closures, consolidations and reconfigurations may come to Pittsburgh Public Schools, according to a sweeping facilities plan presented to the school board Tuesday.
The Facilities Utilization Plan has been under development since April, when the district announced it had contracted Education Resources Strategies to develop a roadmap for economizing the district’s sprawling, underused building stock. The board is set to vote in the new year, following additional public meetings and final recommendations.
The timeline for implementing the full slate of proposals is expected once Education Resource Strategies presents its final recommendations next month, but consultants say implementing a plan as comprehensive as this one could take three to five years.
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The plan shared Aug. 13 recommends a complete overhaul of the district’s grade configurations, moving to K-5, 6-8 and 9-12 grade models. With that, it also announced plans to phase out six full magnet programs and create new neighborhood magnets, meaning students in that neighborhood will have a guaranteed spot in the school.
Consolidations and closures were recommended based on proximity between two buildings, access to spaces and building capacity. The proposal did not take into consideration standalone Early Childhood Centers, Conroy, Pioneer, Clayton and the Gifted Center, which consultants say require more consideration due to their specialized purposes.
“We’re being intentionally bold here,” said Joseph Trawick-Smith with Education Resource Strategies.
Here are the new grade configurations and school closures proposed in each region:
South/West region:
Consolidations:
- Brookline K-8 becomes a K-5 school. Its 6-8 students go to Carmalt.
- Carmalt K-8 becomes a 6-8 school. K-5 students will attend the new Brookline K-5. Carmalt magnet will be phased out.
- Langley K-8 becomes K-5 and 6-8 students attend Classical 6-8. Classical magnet phased out.
- Arlington K-8 will become a 6-8 school and K-5 will attend Grandview K-5, Beechwood K-5 or West Liberty K-5.
Closures:
- Whittier K-5 closes and students would attend new Langley K-5 or Westwood K-5.
- Roosevelt K-5 closes and students go to West Liberty K-5 or Concord K-5.
- South Hills 6-8 closes, and its students go to new Arlington 6-8.
- South Brook 6-8 closes, and students attend new Carmalt 6-8. Pioneer students will remain in South Brook building.
- Carrick 9-12 closes, and students go to Brashear 9-12. Carrick will become a designated Career and Technical Education [CTE] center.
North region:
Consolidations:
- King K-8 becomes a 6-8 school. Allegheny K-8 becomes a K-5 and its 6-8 students go to the new King 6-8.
- Morrow K-8 becomes a K-5 and 6-8 students attend the new King 6-8.
Closures:
- Manchester closes. Its 6-8 grade students go to new King 6-8 and K-5 students go to new Morrow K-5.
- Schiller 6-8 closes, and students go to new King 6-8.
- Spring Hill closing, students attend Allegheny K-5.
Other considerations:
- King 6-8 and Perry 9-12 become STEM programs for neighborhood students on the North Side.
- A new CAPA 6-8 to be housed in the Manchester building and a CAPA 9-12 in Downtown. CAPA 9-12 will expand with more available space in the Downtown building.
East/Center region:
Consolidations:
- Sunnyside K-8 becomes a K-5 school and 6-8 students go to Arsenal 6-8.
- Westinghouse 6-12 becomes a 9-12 school and 6-8 students attend Sterrett 6-8.
- Colfax K-8 becomes a 6-8 school and K-5 students go to Greenfield K-5 or Minadeo K-5.
- Mifflin K-8 becomes a K-5 school and 6-8 students go to a new Colfax 6-8.
- Obama 6-12 becomes a 9-12 school and 6-8 students go to Arsenal 6-8. Both schools become neighborhood magnets, offering International Baccalaureate programs.
- Sci-Tech 6-12 becomes a 9-12 school and UPrep Milliones 6-12 becomes a 6-8 school. Students move between both schools, which become neighborhood magnets focusing on STEM.
Closures:
- Woolslair K-5 closes, and students go to Sunnyside K-5 or Liberty K-5.
- Arsenal K-5 closes, and students go to Sunnyside K-5 or Liberty K-5.
- Fulton K-5 closes, and students go to Dilworth K-5.
- Lincoln K-5 closes, and students go to Faison K-5.
- Weil K-5 closes, and students go to Miller K-5.
- Montessori K-5 locates to a vacated Linden building.
- Magnet programs at Linden, Liberty and Dilworth are phased out over a few years. Dilworth and Liberty become neighborhood schools, while Linden becomes the new location of the district’s Montessori building.
Consultants also proposed renovating many of the facilities expected to serve more students so that every school has:
- More dedicated special education classrooms
- Air conditioning
- Science labs in 6-8 and 9-12 schools
- Expanded spaces for CTE programming in 9-12
- Dedicated art and music rooms
The proposal includes renovations specifically at:
- Morrow Intermediate
- Westwood
- Phillips
- Grandview
- Banksville
- West Liberty
- Brookline
- Sunnyside
According to Trawick-Smith, making these renovations would significantly reduce the number of buildings districtwide that require moderate or major renovations.
At the same time, he said the proposed school closures would impact a higher share of the district’s Black and Latinx students compared to its white and Asian students.
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“We could see some significant changes here, but I do want to raise it, because obviously one of the key factors is, ‘How are we disproportionately impacting any student group?’” Trawick-Smith said. “And I would say in this scenario, we are in certain places.”
Four regional community input sessions will be held by school board President Gene Walker and PPS Superintendent Wayne Walters in the coming weeks to talk through what happens next.
Those will be held on Aug. 22, Sept. 3, Sept. 4 and Sept. 5. A webinar on the proposal will also be held on Aug. 27, as well as what the district is calling “Pop Up Days” on Aug. 15, Aug. 20 and Aug. 23 in several harder-to-reach communities throughout the city.
More information about those events will be added to the district’s website in the coming days.
Board member Devon Taliaferro said because Manchester is located between two K-8 charter schools, families may move out of the district instead of going to a new CAPA 6-8 in the building. She emphasized the need to support the community and potentially house a recreation or education center to meet the neighborhood needs.
Board member Dwayne Barker echoed the sentiment, saying that bringing CAPA students into the Manchester building makes it seem that Manchester students are not worthy of being in the building, instead prioritizing making space for students with special talents.
“This is school gentrification at its finest,” he said.
Board members, district and consultants have repeatedly expressed the need for substantial changes to the district’s footprint, in part due to the district’s tightening budget. While the district was able to shrink its operating deficit for the 2024 budget from nearly $30 million to just $2.2 million earlier this year, the pandemic relief ESSER III funds that helped stabilize its finances are set to expire next month.
Growing charter school costs and reductions in property tax revenue, meanwhile, continue to contribute to gaps between spending and revenue.
With that, the district has lost 26% of its student population in the last decade, and according to the state Department of Education, PPS is predicted to lose another 5,800 students by 2031. The district is also struggling with staffing shortages in certain areas such as paraprofessionals, STEM and foreign language.
Superintendent Wayne Walters said there is more work to be done in the process, and the district will now be going into a listening space to hear from the community before the final recommendations are presented.
“We want the families to know that we’re still listening,” he said, “but we heard them and we’re trying to make things, to make education better in Pittsburgh Public Schools for all of our children.”
Jillian Forstadt is the education reporter at 90.5 WESA. She can be reached at jforstadt@wesa.fm.
Lajja Mistry is the K-12 education reporter at PublicSource. She can be reached at lajja@publicsource.org.
90.5 WESA partnered for this report with PublicSource, an independent local news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. More at publicsource.org.
