Kensington High School teachers and staff returning from summer break are set to report back Monday in Mayfair, nearly seven miles away from their usual workplace.
School District of Philadelphia leaders, in a letter shared with the press late Thursday night, said Kensington’s classes would be shifted to the former Austin Meehan Middle School through the end of December, due to damaged asbestos.
An asbestos inspector “identified a concern” about the dangerous fiber while crews were demolishing and replacing the HVAC system in the nearly 100-year-old building at Cumberland and Coral streets, Deputy Superintendent of Operations Oz Hill wrote.
As a result, Hill told the Kensington High community that the facility will remain shuttered until January and all programming will be relocated to Meehan, located along Ryan Avenue adjacent to Lincoln High School. Information about “the schedule, transportation, and all logistics will be forthcoming,” he added. Students head back to school Aug. 24.
“Other options closer to Kensington were considered but did not meet the space or accessibility needs for Kensington’s more than 400 students and 90 staff,” Hill said.
Meehan, which closed in 2022, is one of the district’s “swing spaces,” to be used when students need to be temporarily removed from a school.
Once the asbestos is remediated, the HVAC project will resume, and workers will focus on “the continued proactive removal of asbestos materials where we can minimize the future risk of damage,” Hill wrote in the letter.
City Councilmember Mike Driscoll, whose district includes Meehan, said he is “extremely concerned by what appears to be a rushed decision by the school district, especially without first engaging the communities that will bear the greatest impact.”
“The School District needs to work with the affected communities to find an alternative that works for the community – one that puts public safety first while addressing congestion and transportation challenges,” he added.
Isaiah Thomas, Council’s education chair, questioned the “sudden” announcement and said that “many students, families and staff feel – rightfully so – that communication from the School District has been lackluster amid the School Facilities Planning process.”
That process, which resulted in a controversial plan to close 17 schools and improve the remaining facilities, sprang, in part, from the district’s need to address its aging buildings. The school system has long faced challenges related to lead, asbestos and other facilities issues.
Kensington High’s building condition was rated “unsatisfactory,” but it is slated to remain open under the 10-year, $3 billion plan, dubbed “Accelerating Opportunity.” The blueprint calls for accessibility improvements, restroom renovations and new paint, in addition to the ongoing HVAC project. For the 2027-2028 school year, Kensington is supposed to receive a portion of the students who would have gone to Fishtown's Penn Treaty High School, which is designated for closure.
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