Pittsburgh council, teachers' union leader talk about 'emergency' in school system

It’s been five months since Pittsburgh City Council declared a state of emergency in the public school system.

The legislation was passed to begin a process by which the city’s leaders would work with Pittsburgh Public Schools leaders to address a racial achievement gap between white and Black students and overall issues with learning because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The city has no control or oversight over Pittsburgh Public Schools, but “it is time for us as a council to jointly begin conversation with the schools in a very public way,” Burgess said in February.

Burgess’ remarks and council’s action were initially rebuffed by school board members, who accused council of grandstanding.

But on Wednesday, the latest council meeting was held with Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers President Nina Esposito-Visgitis. Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Anthony Hamlet and board members were initially supposed to take part in the meeting but didn’t.

They will appear at a future meeting, Burgess said.

Esposito-Visgitis acknowledged to council that there is a problem and asked the city for its help to solve it.

“Is there a crisis? Absolutely. The first thing we need to do is admit it,” Esposito-Visgitis said. “We need to work together. Nobody can do this alone. Think of what we can do if we all work together.”

The problem isn’t unique to Pittsburgh and by calling it a crisis, Esposito-Visgitis said she wasn’t disparaging the work the teachers and staff at Pittsburgh Public Schools do.

But there’s a lot more work that needs to be done, she said.

“We would like to partner with you,” Esposito-Visgitis said.

“This is a decades-old problem,” Lavelle said. “In order to solve it, it’s going to take a collective, communal response.”

All is not bad and the school needs to build off of its successes, celebrate the good things and address the bad things, Esposito-Visgitis said.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do and teachers are going to step up to do it, but we all have to work together,” she said.

The meeting builds off of those held earlier and more are scheduled, including: 6 p.m. July 14 and 1:30 p.m. July 27 and 30th.