If you are interested in speaking at a School Board Meeting or submitting a written testimony, please email [email protected].
Tips for Speaking at School Board Meetings
Testifying at a School Board Meeting
Philadelphia Board of Education conducts 4 types of meetings:
- Actions meetings, held on the third Thursday of every month
- Goals and Guardrail meetings, held on the 2nd Tuesday of every month
- Policy Committee meetings, held every 3 months
- Public Hearing, held twice a year in the Fall and Spring
The meetings are held in the auditorium of the District Administration Building at 440 N. Broad Street unless otherwise specified. All of these meetings are open to the public. You can find the meetings listed on the Board’s Calendar page. The public is welcome to speak at any of those meetings.
Action Meetings
Action meetings are held on the 3rd or 4th Thursday of every month.
The agenda for these meetings is posted 2 weeks before the meeting and can be found on the Meeting Materials page of the Board’s website The Board can add additional items to the agenda up until 48 hours before the meeting.
The number of public speakers at the Action meeting is limited to 30. Each adult speaker is a limited to 2 minutes of testimony. The number of student speakers is limited to 15. Students may speak for 3 minutes each. You may speak in person or remotely.
Registration to speak at an any meeting opens a 4 p.m. on the Monday before the meeting and closes at 4 p.m. the day before the meeting or when 30 speakers have registered. It is best to register close to 4 p.m. on the Monday before the meeting due to the limited number of speakers. Those who register after the 30 speaker limit is reached will be placed on a waiting list. They will be allowed to speak if some registered speakers do not show up.
You can register online here, or by phone at 215-400-5959. You will need to provide your name, email, topic and status (parent, teacher, community member, etc.), and indicate whether you will speak in person or remotely via the District zoom link or by phone.
You can also submit written comments online here or by hand delivery. Written testimonies must be submitted by 4 p.m. on the business day before the meeting. There is no limit to the number of written comments and there is no word limit on written testimonies. They are counted, summarized, and printed in the Board minutes.
You can live stream the meetings or watch them on X-finity Channel 52 or Vios Channel 20. The link to the live stream can be found on the day of the meeting in a banner at the top of the District’s home page or on the Board’s Calendar page.
You can register to speak at the Action meetings, Policy meetings, the Goals and Guardrails meetings and the Public Hearings using this same registration link or phone number. There is no limit to the number of people who can speak at the Public Hearing meetings.
Talking Points for Creating your Testimony
You can incorporate any of these talking points into your testimony. These are just suggestions to help you get started.
Talk about your experiences in a school library and how you benefited from it.
Talk about the inequities of not having a school library.
Research talking points:
- Two out of three children in Philadelphia cannot read on grade level by 4th grade.
- Children who can’t read on grade level by 4th grade are six times more likely to drop out of school.
- Research shows that students who attend school with full-time professional school librarians score significantly better on reading tests than students whose schools don’t have librarians.
- The School District of Philadelphia had 176 librarians for 259 schools in 1991, but the district stopped funding librarian positions from the central budget in the late 1990s and closed its Office of School Libraries in the early-2000s
- The School District of Philadelphia currently has the equivalent of ONE full-time librarian for its 218 schools and over 118,000 students, as federally reported by the District (NCES, 2024-25).
- Read "Why School Librarians Matter: What Years of Research Tells Us" by Keith Curry Lance and Debra Kachel
What school libraries with a certified school librarian provide:
- a safe, inclusive, and welcoming space
- a diverse and up-to-date collection designed to inspire the joy of reading with children and allow them to see themselves reflected in texts while opening up other worlds
- technologies to access and create information
- a planned curriculum of information, inquiry, and media instruction that empowers students with the skills and attitudes for their personal, social and academic growth.