You’ve got to speak loudly if you want to be heard on South Bellefield Avenue in Oakland during rush hour, so that’s what Paulette Foster did shortly after 5 p.m. on Monday.
“Why do we always have to be on the chopping block?” Foster said, her voice rising above the occasional roar of a passing city bus. Behind her a crowd of more than two dozen grandparents and children held colorful homemade signs slamming a plan that could result in the closure of some Pittsburgh city schools.
Six-year-old Elijah Mitchell held one that read, “Closing Schools is Not Brave or Courageous, It’s Lazy.” Next to him, a young woman clutched a poster board sign that called into question the Pittsburgh Public Schools board’s proposal to spend thousands to hire an outside firm to come up with a facilities use plan. “$250K From Classroom to Consultant,” it read. “Keep $$$ 4 Students.”
The district announced months ago that it may close some schools because of a growing budget deficit and declining enrollment.
“When you take a school out of a district, that also makes that neighborhood a barren wasteland as well,” said Foster, who’s special education director for the advocacy group 412 Justice, which organized the Monday event in front of the Pittsburgh Public Schools administration building.
The parents said neighborhood schools should stay open because they do a better job of providing an education and are key to creating a sense of community. The school board hasn’t been transparent, parents added, and they voiced concern that consolidation would result in an increase in the number of students in classes.
Foster urged parents to speak out at a public hearing scheduled to begin in less than 30 minutes.
“Our students are not trash, our students are not throwaways, our students are the future of this America and this United States,” she said, “and we need to teach them to own their space and speak their voice.”
Below are comments of parents who spoke at the rally.
“My daughter loves her school. I started off homeschooling her a year and a half ago. Last year I started her in first grade (at Miller PreK-5) in the middle of the school year. The teachers welcomed her, brought her up to speed. She’s reading chapter books right now.”
“She has a connection to our community, she can see her friends when she goes to the park during the week. It’s not going to be the same. I remember they tried to close my school 30-some years ago, when I was in elementary school … it was one of the best schools ever. You guys have to stop this game. Start to invest in the schools.”
— Naomi Chambers of the Hill District
“James Baldwin said, ‘Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.’ Now is the time to address the district issues face-to-face, instead of allowing [the school board] to take the lazy way out. Now is the time to use our voices to demand a seat at the table. Now is the time to use our voices, to speak solutions. Now is the time to tell them it is time to stop.”
— Jazlyn Worthy of Lawrenceville
“This will be the fourth time my family has been directly impacted by school closures and consolidation proposals at Pittsburgh Public in 13 years.”
“You can’t keep robbing our communities and asking us to back you up. We are not going to be accessories in our own trauma. We will support a plan that’s built by us and for us. Our schools our city, our voice.”
“We are tired of the proposals, of wasting money. Take that $250,000 and put it in the community, and we will back you up. If you want us to believe in you, school board, you need to believe in us.”
— Valerie Allman of Troy Hill
“It saddens me to see how we’re always burned repeatedly. … You say these children — all colors, brown kids, all of us — are the future. But what future will they have if you’re ripping it away from them? You want to displace them, move them, spread them out ….”
“I want my kids to stay in the community, I want them to grow and flourish in their home. Their school is their home.”
— Sha’kira Baker of the Hill District
Steve is a photojournalist and writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he is currently on strike and working as a Union Progress co-editor. Reach him at smellon@unionprogress.com.