School District of Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr. is recommending the closure of 20 schools, with several other buildings shuttered as part of an effort to consolidate high school programming.
His 10-year, $2.8 billion facilities plan, released Thursday, also 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.
The blueprint is the culmination of a yearslong effort to address under-enrollment at some schools, overcrowding in other buildings and concerns about aging facilities. It would represent the first large-scale closures for the district since 2012, when two dozen schools were ultimately shut down.
Watlington’s recommendations will be formally presented to the Board of Education for approval on Feb. 26. District officials said community conversations will be organized prior to the meeting.
The elementary schools slated to close are Robert Morris in Brewerytown, Samuel Pennypacker (West Oak Lane), John Welsh (North Philadelphia), James R. Ludlow (North Philadelphia), Laura W. Waring (Spring Garden), Overbrook Elementary, Martha Washington Academics Plus (West Philadelphia), Rudolph Blankenburg (Mill Creek) and Fitler Academics Plus (Germantown).
Martha Washington’s grade levels will move into the same building as Middle Years Alternative School. The John Welsh facility will be repurposed as a new year-round high school, and Waring will be used to house Masterman’s middle school.
Wagner Middle School in West Oak Lane and Kensington’s Stetson Middle School are recommended to shut down, with grade levels growing at nearby elementary schools.
The plan calls for the shuttering of Tilden Middle School in Elmwood; the site will be converted to a new athletics facility for Bartram High.
Students at Conwell Middle School in Kensington will be reassigned to AMY at James Martin, and Roxborough’s AMY Northwest is set to be phased out.
Frankford’s Harding Middle School will be closed, and nearby Sullivan Elementary will relocate to that building.
At the high school level, Lankenau will be folded into Roxborough High as an honors program. The same will be happening with Motivation High (merged into Bartram), Robeson (Sayre), Parkway Northwest (Martin Luther King).
Parkway West will be merged into Science Leadership Academy Beeber as a new career and technical education program.
In some cases, schools will be co-located in a facility, sharing a space but with a distinct programming and admissions process. Building 21 is set to be moved inside Martin Luther King; the Workshop School is going to Overbrook High; and the U-School will be located inside Edison High.
The plan recommends that Fishtown’s Penn Treaty High School be phased out, with Bodine High eventually moving into the Penn Treaty building. Constitution High, currently housed in a leased space in Center City, would relocate to Bodine’s current facility in Northern Liberties.
Watlington’s vision includes the building of a brand new Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush, to be constructed at the former Fels property in Oxford Circle. The arts school would be expanded to incorporate grades 5 through 12.
At Benjamin Rush’s current site, in the Far Northeast, the district intends to open a neighborhood catchment high school to ease overcrowding at other schools in the area.
A new career and technical education hub is planned for South Philadelphia High School, including a 5th through 8th grade CTE program.
The district also recommends the debut of a 5th to 8th grade Academy at Palumbo program located at Childs Elementary, with enrolled students having a feeder preference for entrance to the magnet Palumbo High. Childs would remain open.
In addition, the facilities document calls for the addition of a 5th grade at Hill-Freedman World Academy and a 5th and 6th grade at Carver Engineering and Science.
Fairmount’s Bache-Martin Elementary will be modernized to increase capacity, and crews plan to add a performing arts center to Central High and implement other building improvements there to boost max enrollment.
No major changes related to the plan will be undertaken until the 2027-28 school year, with the exception of a new year-round K-8 school that will be co-located at Bethune Elementary as part of the North Philadelphia Promise Zone initiative. The program will be optional for eligible families.
Some of the impacted schools will be phased out over a number of years. District officials said school-specific websites with timelines will be published in the near future.
Watlington said a district transition team will guide schools affected by the plan and offer support to students and caregivers.
“These families will get gold standard, red carpet treatment directly from the superintendent's office,” he added. “That's how serious we are about supporting our families in transition.”
Representatives from the district said the goal is to avoid layoffs and retain every employee affected by the reduction in footprint. Transfers will be handled through protocols detailed in the collective bargaining agreements for teachers, principals and other unionized staff, officials said.
In a briefing with reporters, Watlington repeatedly said that, while the plan is not perfect, the school system “can't make good the enemy of perfect.”
The plan, district leaders said, would allow for the expansion of programs and offerings throughout the city and reduce school transitions by increasing the number of K-8 and 5-12 schools.
Just over half of middle school students have access to Algebra 1 now; if the plan is realized, all will be able to take the course. Under 40% of high schools offer at least five Advanced Placement classes; the number will rise to 50%, officials said.
Watlington said the vision will double access to district-run pre-kindergarten and boost the number of elementary schools with music, art and physical education programming.
A Frequently Asked Questions sheet put together by the district states that 90% of impacted students will be reassigned to schools with “comparable or better academic outcomes.”
Nonetheless, the facilities plan is almost certain to face pushback, given that most, if not all, of the closed schools have served their communities for generations.
At the end of the 10-year process, the school system’s building utilization rate is projected to jump to 75%, up from 66%, according to the district.
All of the vacated buildings will be repurposed for district use or transferred to the city, the superintendent and his team said. Watlington is currently in discussions with Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration over conveying previously shuttered schools for use as part of her affordable housing initiative.
The $2.8 billion plan will result in the modernization of nearly 160 existing schools and reduce the number of facilities considered poor or unsatisfactory from 85 to 0, according to Watlington and his deputies.
Philadelphia’s public schools have long been plagued by environmental issues, notably lead and asbestos, due to aging structures and deferred maintenance.
But funding remains far from certain. The school district is committing $1 billion and hoping to secure the rest from Harrisburg, City Hall and philanthropic sources. If those dollars do not materialize, district leaders have developed a scaled-down version of the initiative to be completed over 16 years. It would leave more than 40 schools with below-par building conditions.
Watlington pitched the strategy as a bargain. He noted that the 2017 Parsons report found that the district would need around $7.8 billion to fix every school.
“We believe that the children in Philadelphia deserve a Cadillac facilities plan that does not cost us Cadillac costs because of the very hard and strategic work that this team has done,” Watlington added. “And we do not believe – I do not believe – that the children of Philadelphia deserve a used Chevy.”
