A City Hall hearing will likely be scheduled in the near future to discuss the possibility of forming an authority to manage school buildings – in the midst of an asbestos crisis that has forced a series of closures this academic year.
City Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, leader of the body’s education committee, plans to introduce a resolution at Thursday’s session to organize the meeting.
Thomas believes the new agency – along with a recent court decision ruling that Pennsylvania’s education system of funding poorer districts is unconstitutional – could help city schools tap into the state’s ample budget surplus.
“The goal is to put us in a position to try to get as many dollars and as much resources as we can from Harrisburg right now,” Thomas told reporters during a briefing Tuesday at his office. “We don’t know what next year will hold as it relates to the economic status of not just the city but the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
Such an authority would transfer responsibility for the facilities away from the School District of Philadelphia, allowing first-year Superintendent Tony Watlington Jr. to focus on academic achievement and other priorities, Thomas said.
The agency would create a dedicated funding stream to address building issues, which could ease the concerns of state lawmakers leery of sending money directly to the district.
“In order to get resources at this moment, we have to show Harrisburg a certain level of consistency and reliability,” Thomas said.
The resolution to hold a hearing should get approved fairly easily. Max Weisman, Thomas’s communications director, said the meeting is “not really to explore should we or shouldn’t we. It’s to explore avenues of, how can it be done?”
Thomas’s office said the authority could be formed as an independent entity – which might require a city charter change and a ballot question – or be housed in an existing organization, like the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation.
Many of the finer details have yet to be hashed out, including what role, if any, the authority would have in strategic decisions, such as whether to close a school or build a new one. It is also not clear how the organization’s leaders would be appointed.
Council adopted a resolution in early 2022 to form a working group to study the idea; however, Thomas said that effort never ventured out of the brainstorming stage.
Later that year, lawmakers passed a bill requiring schools to receive a special certificate of inspection showing a lack of damaged asbestos and other environmental hazards to open for classes. The district sued Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration in January to block the legislation from going into effect, and legal proceedings are ongoing.
Watlington and Board of Education President Reginald Streater appeared supportive of considering the benefits of a separate authority when the topic was brought up during a council hearing last month.
“I think definitely some type of authority would be helpful,” Streater told lawmakers.
This past weekend, administrators informed families at C.W. Henry, a K-8 school in West Mount Airy, that classes would be virtual for the next two weeks after an inspection found damaged asbestos-containing plaster in the ceiling.
Henry is the fifth district-owned building to have in-person learning disrupted this year due to asbestos. Frankford High School and Mitchell Elementary are expected to remain shuttered through summer break.
