City Council on Tuesday signaled that they are willing to hold up education funding over the School District of Philadelphia’s plan to close 20 schools as part of a broader facilities proposal.
Lawmakers provided major pushback during an all-day hearing at City Hall, questioning Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr. and Board of Education President Reginald Streater about what went into the recommendations.
“What you’re proposing to do here is a step along the way to fundamentally breaking down public education for our children in the city,” Councilmember Cindy Bass said.
“Some of these decisions that are being presented here just don’t make any sense,” her colleague, Quetcy Lozada, added later in the meeting.
Watlington released a draft version of the 10-year $2.8 billion facilities plan Jan. 22. In addition to closures, the document calls for the construction of a new high school in the Northeast, the creation of a career and technical education hub in South Philadelphia and expanded access to Masterman and Academy at Palumbo, among other investments.
It is the culmination of a yearslong effort to address low enrollment at some schools, overcrowding in others and concerns about aging facilities.
“I’m infuriated, if we don’t get a say,” Councilmember Jimmy Harrity remarked. “We do get a say because budgets come, and we will be looking at that. So mindful is the word I would use for today. Be mindful.”
Watlington told lawmakers that he is open to their suggestions, if they would rather shutter one school in their district instead of another included in his plan. But closures are necessary, he went on, to increase the district’s building utilization rate, which currently stands at around 65%.
A long-term decline in enrollment, attributed mainly to the growth of charter schools over the past decade or so, has presented challenges, Watlington told Council.
“We lost some young people when we closed schools back in 2013,” Bass said. “We lost children during COVID. And if we do this, we’re going to lose more children.”
Several legislators asked about the proposal’s potential disproportionate racial impact, citing a Jan. 29 Inquirer analysis that found that the schools slated for closure have a student population that is 68% Black, compared to 40% for all other schools.
In response, Watlington noted that the district considered ‘vulnerability’ factors and said that about half of all Philadelphia public school students are Black and about a third are Hispanic.
“We could have released a draft plan that closed twice as many schools and been able to defend it,” he continued. “Any changes are going to inherently impact Black and brown students, no matter how you slice the pie.”
He characterized the facilities plan as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to eliminate the number of schools with building ratings of poor or unsatisfactory — which currently stands at 85. The district has long contended with environmental challenges involving lead, asbestos and infrastructure issues.
However, that goal depends on the school system securing an additional $1.8 billion, likely from the city and state governments, over the next decade. Without any more money, the effort would leave more than 40 schools in sub-par condition, district officials said.
Debora Carrera, the Parker administration’s chief education officer, testified that the mayor believes “that the current district footprint is unsustainable” and that a comprehensive restructuring plan is needed to unlock funding.
Watlington’s team has said the initiative will provide access to Algebra 1 for all middle grades students (up from 53%); boost the number of high school advanced placement courses; double access to district-operated pre-kindergarten; and increase music, art and physical education programs at the elementary level.
Council members asserted that the process is being rushed and urged school leaders to delay a planned presentation to the Board of Education on Feb. 26.
Streater seemed unwilling to agree to the commitment. He said the BOE will not hold a vote this month; rather, the body will deliberate and make a final decision at a later, unspecified date.
He envisions the board moving forward with “a plan that is dynamic, that could evolve over time.”
“If we don’t do anything and signal a direction, if we continue doing the same thing and expecting different results, which, I would argue, is chronic underachievement, we are doomed,” Streater said.
Watlington indicated alterations may be made before the Feb. 26 BOE meeting, based on recent community meetings and three citywide town halls being held this week.
No closures will be undertaken until the 2027-28 school year, according to the district.
Lawmakers expressed concern about moving small, magnet high schools, such as Paul Robeson and Lankenau, into neighborhood-based schools. Watlington argued that the district does not have the resources to both sustain the smaller institutions while investing in neighborhood high schools.
He repeatedly said that the hope is to boost enrollments at those catchment schools so that they can offer the academic and extracurricular programming available at three of the city’s most crowded schools – Northeast, Lincoln and Washington – all of which are located in Northeast Philadelphia.
Lankenau Environmental Science Magnet High School is set to be folded into Roxborough High as an honors program; but, Winston Hayes, an 11th grader at the school, does not believe the experience will be the same away from Lankenau’s expansive, wooded campus. He was one of the impacted students who attended Tuesday’s hearing and signed up to speak.
“My class is small. I know everybody,” Hayes, 16, told Metro. “The one-on-one with the teachers, the last few schools that I’ve been to, I haven’t got that experience at all. So to have that at Lankenau, especially before I go out to be an adult, that’s really something special.”
