Pittsburgh Public Schools To Construct Underground Tunnels to Central Office; Prompts Disunion
These tunnels (like all else here at Allderdice) are very high-tech!
The Board of Directors unveiled a new plan that would allow schools to express their anger directly to district administrators. They would do so by constructing underground tunnels from every PPS school that would lead to the PPS Central Office Building. The Board approved this construction project by a vote of 5-4 on the April 1 legislative meeting.
The district administration released the following statement:
“We are announcing publicly today our opposition to the Board’s vote on underground tunnels. They say this project will allow school administrators, teachers, and even students to more easily access ways to communicate directly with the Central Office building–for the sole purpose of yelling at us. Like emails and phone calls don’t make it hard for us, bureaucratics. The Board should not support this and we’ve made calls for this project to be canceled.”
The Backword reached out for comment from the Superintendent but no one was in the office. Dr. Bow Tie allegedly implied his opposition when he spoke to a student leader at a policy meeting, but this claim is unfounded.
The plan is receiving much support from community leaders and the general public as they say the District is not supporting schools sufficiently and equitably.
A community member told The Backword that she believed that “School board members voted for this project as a way of pleasing the overwhelming majority of the public for reelection purposes.” She later said that PPS has become Washington D.C., as “nothing is getting done.”
The City of Pittsburgh allegedly informed the Board of Directors that city construction workers would not provide services to the Board. In response, a Board Member proposed that the 5 members who are in favor of the project construct the tunnels themselves.
Allderdice Principal Dr. CoyBoy commented, “The construction project will be useful for us principals as a mechanism to achieve stress reduction. We as principals expressing our concerns to a district official by phone call is not as satisfying as physically seeing them as we relay our stress. I truly wish some of these district leaders could have my job for one day. I would love to see if they could manage these behavioral issues, like I do or could pull off a striped button-up with a striped tie, like I do.”
The Board said that if the administration does not comply with the construction project that they will fire every Central Office employee.
The Backword will continue to provide relevant developments on Board and administrative disunion in response to this construction project.
Elaine Phillips • Apr 2, 2023 at 2:50 pm
We all are feeling the pressures of the continuous violence that has effected our communities,schools,and homes. The moment we allowed for prayer and God to be removed from schools started our problems. Our country was built on morals, freedom of religion, and equality. Unfortunately, many people don’t agree with this belief and until we all call it truths we are headed for a world of failure. Our children are watching what is going on and they feel hopeless. They feel there’s no reason to look or live for the future. PPS needs to start a program for parents to learn how to improve their skills of parenting for the students who are in trouble with their education and home life. Quit trying to ask for so much from the educators, who just want to educate. Councilors need to be able to do their job and not so many other things that have nothing to do with what’s going on with students. Parents need to be held accountable for their children’s education and actions. If they can’t than the kids SSI checks need to be removed. I get it. Yes, times have changed but the children are crying out for everyone to do their part and we are failing them because there is no sense of direction. This feel good Era is destroying our future because we all know our children aren’t mature enough to make adult decisions. We need to allow them to be children and adults need to stop thinking the children know how to decide what they want for themselves. The brain is not fully developed yet. Administration it is time for you to step up and do what’s right for everyone. Everything is not about the almighty dollar if you care about our Pittsburgh students.