School Closures in Philly, Part 2
This post is the second one in this series. Part 1, from August 2026, is here. This is from another Right-to-Know Law Request I submitted to the School District of Philadelphia to learn more about the “master facilities planning process”, aka how and why they picked the schools they picked to close.
Here, I submitted a request for the contract and invoices from Brownstone PR, which is a communications firm the District used to do community engagement while they figured out which schools to close. The district didn’t produce a contract, just 8 invoices totaling about $186k.
So they hired a consulting firm (apparently based in Arlington, VA….) to do:
January 2023: “Ongoing Communications Consultation for the School District of Philadelphia, and the Superintendent specifically” ($6,668)
October 2024: “Constructed engagement plan including securing locations and confirming partners; ongoing management of engagement/listening sessions” ($13,500.00), “Site visits and delivery of session marketing materials” ($3,300.00), “Labor for 11 in-person sessions: October - November 2025” ($67,000.00), “Location stipend to Crane Community Center” ($1000.00) October 2024, “Printing of flyers” ($1575.00), “Food and beverage for 11 in-person sessions” (November) ($1750.00)
November 2024: “Labor for 2 in-person sessions and 10 virtual sessions” ($7500.00), “Food and beverage for 2 in-person sessions” ($500.00)
December 2024: “Labor for 2 in-person sessions and 10 virtual sessions” ($600)
January - March 2025: “Planning for May FPP engagement including: In-person meetings (2) Virtual meetings w. District Leadership and/or DLR (5) Engagement Planning” ($4500.00)
June - July 2025: “Strategy planning for FPP Summer/Fall Engagement” ($2000.00)
January - February 2026: “To support and coordinate community engagement and ongoing management of working and advisory groups for the Facilities Planning Process. Labor for 20 in-person and 20 virtual sessions for families at 20 schools, during the Facilities Planning Process ($76,275.00)
It seems like the District could have saved some money by doing most of this in-house and spent the money on teachers instead??
The full invoices: