Ackerman: Philly Schools Must Cut Costs

PHILADELPHIA - Philadelphia school chief Dr. Arlene Ackerman tells Fox 29 she is not quitting, but her school district faces a challenging budget shortfall because of state funding. The district is also looking at closing some schools and buildings to save money.

Ackerman runs the Philadelphia school district for the state’s School Reform Commission.

She confirmed to Fox 29 the school district is considering options about closing schools and selling some buildings as part of a master facilities plan that would make the district more efficient as a business.

Ackerman is optimistic about the district as a whole, and especially so about a new initiative modeled on New York’s Harlem Children’s Zone.

But she is also realistic about the budget challenges facing the school district after the loss of federal stimulus money and potential big changes in the state’s funding of the school district.

“Out of crisis, for me, always are opportunities, and this [budget] shortfall that we are trying to anticipate with the big number will be, has given us an opportunity to look at inefficiencies, look at where we may be top heavy, so we are busy looking at what the future will look like for the school district.”

Ackerman said the belt tightening will start close to home.

“The first thing we are starting with is anything that appears to be redundancy in services, programs, and people,” she said.

Fox 29 asked Ackerman about a recent report that some Philadelphia public schools might need to close after a study found 70,000 unused seats in school district classrooms.

“It’s been two decades since we’ve had a master facilities plan and what we found is that we are still operating as a district if we had over 250,000 children. We are now down to 167,000 and we have to operate at an efficient, fiscally efficient way,” she said.

Ackerman confirmed said the facilities plan looks at the option of selling some schools to raise money and also help charter schools find facilities.

“We will address this through the selling of buildings, I’d like to see us work with charter schools, so that they don’t have to build new buildings and use the space. There are plenty of uses for our buildings,” she said.

Ackerman also said it was a “misnomer” that the school district is currently operating under a deficit.

“We are going to end this year in the black,” Ackerman said.

She did acknowledge that the district will lose federal stimulus money and the district could not count on those funds.

“We are going to be prepared for $400 million [deficit] if we have to. We don’t want to see that happen,” Ackerman said about the potential future shortfall for the district.

But she said the budget gap has much more to do with Harrisburg than Washington.

“What we didn’t know was the extent of the state’s budget deficit and their shortfall and that is over $2 billion,” she said. “We get 80 percent of our monies from the state. So we know have to wait to see what the state will do with terms of allocating to the district.”

Ackerman also laughed at rumors that she would be quitting.

“I made a commitment to stay,” she said. “We’ve accomplished more here in 2 ½ years than I did in six years in San Francisco. … I am not leaving.”

Ackerman said the school district’s new Promise Neighborhood project with music legend Kenny Gamble is a shining light in the district.

Ackerman said the program will be similar to the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York and focus on a 290-block area of South Philadelphia in Point Breeze and Greys Ferry.

“It’s free,” Ackerman said when asked about the direct cost of the program to students and parents. “What the initiative is doing is concentrating on a neighborhood, understanding that takes the entire community to ensure the success of its children.

Starting from the time young people are born, until the time they get a career.

Much of the funds, Ackerman said, come from a federal grant. She said the district got $500,000 from the federal government for planning.

“We are talking about schools that have health clinics in them, we are talking about community schools, schools that are open from 6:30 in the morning until 10 pm at night,” she said.

“We will start as soon as we name the new renaissance schools this week, and we will get started on it even before we hear about the grant,” Ackerman said. “It is long overdue.”