Philly's Ultimatum: Adequately Fund Our Schools or Face City-Wide Boycott

Shunning a claim by Philadelphia school officials that the city only needs $50 million to open school doors on September 9th, parents, students and community leaders are threatening a district-wide boycott of the city’s public schools if the city does not secure the full amount of funding necessary to ensure safe, effective schools.

“Unless the schools get what’s needed for them to educate children and not open buildings, we don’t think school should open either,” said Helen Gym, a public school parent and founder of the activist group Parents United for Public Education.

Critics are saying that Superintendent William Hite is short-changing the public school system when he announced Thursday that if the city could not come up with the amount of $50 million by Friday, August 16, Philadelphia’s 218 public schools would not open their doors as scheduled on September 9. The $50 million sum is significantly less than the $180 million initially requested by the school district to avoid a “doomsday” budget scenario.

“These cuts are destroying my future. They’re destroying all of our futures. It’s not right. It’s not fair,” said student Sharron Snyder, who is going into her senior year at Benjamin Franklin High School. “Since they cut my counselor, I won’t have anyone there to help me with my college application,” she added.

At a townhall meeting Monday evening, community members met to discuss the school district’s budget shortfall.

“[This] is a community wide response to the notion that we’re looking at funding schools so that buildings can open, rather than funding schools that can educate children,” Gym continued. “The money that [Hite] asked for is necessary but not sufficient to operate our schools. That’s just a terrible and dangerous standard for our district to put out there.”

“What we are saying is if $180 [million] is what you need to make the schools safe, we don’t want our children entering schools if they’re not safe on September 9,” added Reverend Dr. Kevin R. Johnson, pastor of Bright Hope Baptist Church, who earlier Monday—along with roughly 150 other church leaders, parents, students and school activists—rallied outside the School District headquarters.