The school board on Thursday is scheduled to cast the most consequential vote it’s taken since the Philadelphia School District returned to local control in 2018.
It will consider Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr.’s $3 billion facilities plan to close 17 schools, co-locate six, and modernize 169.
The stakes are incredibly high: Some city and state lawmakers are still negotiating to save some schools from closure, saying the plan disproportionately hurts Black communities. And they’re threatening to hold up funding if certain schools — including Lankenau and Robeson — don’t come off the closure list.
In a system that cannot raise its own revenue, that’s a cataclysmic possibility.
And though district officials say the facilities plan and Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s proposed $1-per-trip tax on rideshare services — money that Parker wants to use to stave off classroom cuts amid the district’s $300 million budget gap — are unrelated, Council has said the fate of the two politically unpalatable decisions are intertwined.
“You’re not getting my vote unless you fix this situation at Lankenau,” City Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr. said last week. “I love you, [school board president Reginald] Streater, but don’t make me show you: mess around and find out.”
Streater and eight other school board members have the final say on Watlington’s facilities plan. But two City Council members said this week that the plan is still in flux.
“We are still in the process of negotiating,” Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, chair of the education committee, said. “I’ve been talking to people and working around the clock on this issue.”
Read more about the proposed facilities plan
Wholesale changes are coming to the Philadelphia School District, with Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. proposing a $2.8 billion facilities plan that includes closing schools.
Watlington presented the plan to the school board Feb. 26 and it has already faced strong opposition. It’s not yet final. Here’s what we do and don’t know.
And to see the proposed list school closures and check how your school could be impacted, use our interactive charts.
Each of the schools proposed for closure has its own story. Find them all here.