[I was asked to speak today at City Council during the public testimony about the School District of Philadelphia budget crisis. What follows are my remarks.]

Thank you to City Council for holding these hearings and being willing to be part of the solution. Thank you for being a supporter of the School District of Philadelphia and of the Science Leadership Academy. I am honored to speak here today on behalf of the communities of schools and the students, parents and faculty who inhabit them.

All over the city, principals are working together, trying to figure out how to preserve the gains they have made… Trying to close budget holes in the most humane ways possible… To keep the teachers who come early and stay late to help our children… To keep the programs that we know enrich the lives and empower the minds of the children in our charge.

At Science Leadership Academy, we have spent the past five years building a school that this city could be proud of. We have been named one of the Ten Most Amazing Schools in the US and featured in many education publications and in a PBS documentary as a model for how schools can and must evolve. We believe that our existence – our ability to thrive – along with the many other outstanding schools in the School District – proves, beyond doubt, that the School District can and does support innovative educational solutions to the problems facing our children today.

But Harrisburg’s draconian cuts to education will make what we do much harder. SLA will receive $430,000 less in funding next year – which represents a 13% budget cut. These cuts mean that we are losing our support staff who run the internship program that allows all students at SLA to have hands-on experiences in the Philadelphia community with organizations in line with their interests. These cuts mean that we will have to close our after-school program earlier every day, even though we know that providing a safe haven for our students is an essential part of what we do. These cuts mean that a school built on inquiry and research will not have a working library. We are concerned that the budget crisis may mean that we will lose our talented young special education teacher who has made a profound difference in the lives of his kids due to the system-wide reductions. The cuts to the district means that a school known for its inquiry-based science program had to cut an extra science teacher just to keep the second counselor we originally received through Imagine 2014.

We know that Philadelphia is not immune from the cuts against public education that we see nationwide, but a vibrant city needs successful, modern schools to help students fully realize their potential as citizens of their city and their world. We need City Council to increase funding to ensure – among the many priorities we have – that counselors who were added under Imagine 2014 remain, ensuring our students have the social emotional support they need. And we need City Council to be the voice of our schools in Harrisburg so that we restore monies lost so we can continue to create meaningful educational experiences for and with our children. I thank you for your support in helping the School District solve this crisis, and please know that we at SLA stand ready to help in any way we can.