Pittsburgh schools and police show no hurry to reach cooperative agreement as new school year begins

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey (left) and Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Wayne Walters. (Photo courtesy of Jason Cohn for Pittsburgh Public Schools) As schoolhouse doors open, Pittsburgh’s district and its police bureau remain in apparent defiance of a 12-year-old law requiring that they agree on communication and coordination. by Charlie Wolfson, PublicSource Pittsburgh Public Schools Board … Continued The post Pittsburgh schools and police show no hurry to reach cooperative agreement as new school year begins appeared first on New Pittsburgh Courier.

Pittsburgh schools and police show no hurry to reach cooperative agreement as new school year begins

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey (left) and Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Wayne Walters. (Photo courtesy of Jason Cohn for Pittsburgh Public Schools)

As schoolhouse doors open, Pittsburgh’s district and its police bureau remain in apparent defiance of a 12-year-old law requiring that they agree on communication and coordination.

by Charlie Wolfson, PublicSource

Pittsburgh Public Schools Board President Sala Udin said last month that the district under new Superintendent Wayne Walters would be “connected at the hip” with city government, but a disconnect that has persisted for more than a decade remains unsolved as students begin the 2022-23 school year.

The city police bureau and the school district still lack a cooperative agreement outlining how the two sides communicate and interact about student violations and in the event of an emergency. The agreement is required by state law.

Udin said last week the deal is on his “distant radar” and he is giving Walters, who was made permanent superintendent this summer after a year as interim, time to settle his senior staff and “get his vision clear going forward.” 

 

“The district is optimistic this can be accomplished with the new administration,” Weiss said.

In a July interview the day after he was announced as permanent superintendent, Walters said he was not prepared to speak about the negotiations but that “conversations have started.”

Mayor Ed Gainey pledged to improve cooperation with the school district [PPS] when he took office this year. Gainey’s spokesperson Maria Montaño said the administration has had no discussions with the school district around the pending agreement and that the mayor’s team is “working to rebalance and strengthen the partnership with PPS.” 

Acting Police Chief Tom Stangrecki said an agreement “seems like something relatively easy to accomplish” but did not comment on why it has not been accomplished yet, noting that he was not consistently involved in previous talks. Stangrecki became acting chief in July when former Chief Scott Schubert retired. 

“There’s a renewed interest in looking at it again, so my suggestion is, hey, let’s get everyone together and talk about it,” Stangrecki said.

Nina Esposito-Visgitis, the president of the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers, said she is more concerned about a shortage of school police officers than the lack of an agreement with city police. The district’s police officers can make arrests but do not carry firearms. Public records show the district employed 19 officers last year, and the union leader said that force has shrunk since. 

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