JohnThe School District of Philadelphia has failed to provide parents the basic guarantee that their children will be safe when they walk through those school doors. Most recently, we learned that students at Building 21 and Gratz were denied their right to a safe education when asbestos was discovered in school facilities.

We’ve been here too many times before. We can draw a direct line of destruction from the massive divestment and defunding of our schools over a decade ago to the school closures and educational disruptions that are impacting our kids today.

The emergency that the students at Building 21 and Gratz have experienced is not unlike the challenges faced by students at Cassidy or Ben Franklin High School or at Pierce Elementary — and in every case, it was the community that came together to demand their children's basic right to learn in a safe school. 

John, on my watch, no student will be sent to a school that is unsafe. I’ll share more details in a moment, but will you add your name to support our vision for safe and healthy public schools?

As us adults know far too well, you only get to be a kid once. To have the milestones and memories of this critical period of their lives interrupted due to negligence is just robbery. Time and time again, our kids suffer because of the District’s failure to act. The District knew about the dangers at Building 21 for years, and despite numerous Council laws and hearings, they continuously failed to answer the call when staff, students, and families’ lives were at stake.

As Mayor, I will ensure that the City and District’s dysfunction and hostility toward fixing our schools will end. That’s why I’ve proposed a citywide action plan that will align all parties around a shared vision for safe, healthy public schools. This plan will:

🏫Prioritize the safety and wellbeing of students and staff by immediately addressing the most dangerous conditions in District-owned buildings and ensuring that all facilities have the administrative support needed to maintain a safe school environment;

📊Increase transparency around building conditions and unresolved school facility issues by making data on school facilities publicly available to school communities and local leaders;

👩‍👩‍👧‍👦Make parents and community members part of the solution by establishing parent councils to assist with plans for alternative spaces for displaced school communities while remediations and renovations are being completed;

📑Establish an intergovernmental agreement and taskforce to convene stakeholders, organized labor, and community members to develop a 10-year plan to modernize our schools; and

💰Secure and deploy funding to guarantee the health and safety of every student in Philadelphia by advocating for a greater share of state funding to flow through our funding formula, convening municipal leaders to advocate for the restoration and increased funding for PLANCON, and seeking buy-in from Philadelphia’s leading eds and meds.

Will you add your name as a community supporter of our citywide action plan for safer, healthier schools?

Together, we can rid our facilities of asbestos, lead, and mold. But it will take a leader who truly believes in our school communities and can organize stakeholders, work hand-in-hand with communities, and deliver results for our students. 

As Mayor, I will deliver on a ten-year plan that doesn’t just apply band-aids to long-overlooked crises but ushers our schools into the 21st century.

— Helen