Upper Darby acting in vacuum; district can’t afford plans
To the Times:
The Upper Darby School Directors are conducting interviews to fill the superintendent role. The chief financial officer just gave his notice and the facilities manager is one of 91 open positions currently unfilled in the district.
Despite this, the school board approved the first steps of an ambitious facilities plan that will require a $145-plus million bond to be issued. This new flow of money will be used to build two new schools, as well as renovate and provide additions to several school buildings over the span of five years. This concerns me for many reasons.
In 2016, I was asked to participate on a Facilities Committee for the Upper Darby School District as a result of my advocacy to make the autistic support program whole. The original focus of these meetings was on the elementary level. We spent hours on this topic and all plans and discussions were driven by the class-size requirements outlined by the school board at the time. However, in 2018 these conversations changed. The meetings began to emphasize middle school needs and discussions quickly evolved into full-blown designs and potential locations. From my perspective, the committee was no longer a space to vet issues, but rather an opportunity to showcase an evolving plan. I cannot speak for the entire committee, as most of it is composed of administrators and school directors that have access to information I do not, but I only learned that Clifton field was seriously being considered when I read that the school board approved an RFP to look at the site, just like many residents of Clifton. And so here we are.
When the entire plan was recently revealed to the facilities committee there was no information on traffic implications; no information on what the annual cost would be to staff the new buildings with teachers, support, aides and administrators, or to bus the children into the locations; and whether we would cap the Act I Index. There was no consideration of the ongoing county assessment process, and how that would impact homeowners, and there was no consideration of how this project would be managed. It was as if they were working in a silo, singularly focused on achieving a goal: to build.
Upper Darby is an underfunded district. We have fallen victim to the blinders put on by the leadership in Harrisburg. The residents of our township dutifully pay more in taxes every year just to sustain what we have. The kids deserve better and the teachers deserve better. However, the district and the leadership have pursued this with blinders on as well. The conversation has moved from prioritizing projects to fixing every facility problem that exists, without consideration on how that will impact the homeowner, and by extension our entire community. The community cannot afford everything and certainly cannot afford it all at once.
When I look at a problem I try to create a strategy, build a coalition and vet all options. I not only apply this to life, but it is what I do for a living. When Primos Elementary did not have an adequate outdoor play facility, I gathered some parents together and we created a plan. Two years later we built a playground.
When I saw that the school had a life-skills program, yet no life-skills room, I found outside funders. Through these journeys, I saw the gaps in resources for special-needs families and teachers in Upper Darby, I gathered supporters and created a fund to help them. Strategy, coalition building, exploring all options. None of these things were applied to this problem and you can only look at the outcry from the Clifton residents as evidence of this. Newly constructed facilities are very nice, but will do little to help a community that is crumbling from flight, flight that results from being unable to afford to live here. There needs to be a better balance in this situation, otherwise, we will all lose in the end.
We need to take pause and try this again, build consensus that the majority of the district can rally behind. Because when we are together, the Royals are unstoppable.