Coalition rallies against Philly’s plan to close schools, and says district should halt the process

Pause the city’s facilities master planning process, a grassroots coalition said Wednesday, weeks before the Philadelphia School District has said it would release a draft of that plan — which will include school closures.

Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. and school board president Reginald Streater have said the long-promised planning process would be different than the 2013 incarnation, that they would consider the harm done then, and would use an equity lens.

Watlington in September said “there are no fixed decisions at this point, and the short answer is we can’t answer any of those questions right now about which schools will close, but we can surely say some will.”

» READ MORE: Philly will ‘surely’ close schools, Watlington says as district releases data that will guide decisions on its 300 buildings

Officials have also said the document — which they promise is on track for delivery sometime this fall, with a school board vote by the end of the calendar year — would also include major renovations, new school construction, and joining some schools into a single building.

But Councilmember Kendra Brooks, who was a school activist fighting the closures on the front lines 12 years ago, said this process feels similar, despite officials’ assertions that their aim is to organize city schools in a way that best advantages children.

Philadelphia has complex facilities needs — 70,000 excess seats in schools across the city, some schools that are more than half-empty, and some bursting at the seams. Its buildings are old, and many have environmental problems.

“This seems like a school closure process,” Brooks said in an interview. “We’ve been here before, and the conversation should be about the future we want for our children — it should include plans for investment, not just closure.”

Brooks joined members of Stand Up for Philly Schools — a coalition of organizations including Parents United for Public Education, the Philadelphia Home and School Council, and Asian Americans United — outside the Barnes Foundation on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway Wednesday night, where members of the Council for Great City Schools met for an opening reception.

“We are being given an extremely limited set of options about the future of our schools. We are being told that school closures are a foregone conclusion. We’re being told to sign off on a plan that we haven’t even seen,” Brooks said to the crowd of dozens of educators, parents, students and other supporters gathered for the cause.

“We don’t know how many, we don’t know which ones, but we know that every school closure hurts a community,” she said.

Those who rallied Wednesday made several demands of the district, which is playing host to the Council for Great City Schools conference. Those asks included pausing the planning process, creating a new strategy for public engagement, and committing at least $250 million annually to keeping district schools well-maintained.

So far, the process has played out poorly, members of Stand Up for Philly Schools say. There’s been engagement on paper, but many in advisory groups said they felt their work was merely lip service, and community meetings have been sparsely attended.

The school board has authorized spending over $5 million on contracts for community engagement, the planning process itself, and the construction and hosting of a data warehouse for all facilities information.

“We feel like we’re not getting the whole picture, we feel like whatever ideas and feedback we gave are not being heeded, and we don’t think there’s enough time in this process,” said Adam Blyweiss, a district parent and teacher who sat on an advisory committee.

Laurie Mazer, a member of Parents United for Public Education, said the process feels “weird, and rushed.”

Getting information has ”been a real teeth-pulling exercise,” Mazer said.

It appeared like an early Halloween celebration at the Stand Up for Philly Schools rally.

Coalition members wore tombstone signs around their necks, each representing a Philadelphia public school that was closed during the district’s last closure plan.

“After months of delays and missing data, it’s clear why so many families don’t trust this process,” said Melanie Silva, the mother to a fourth grader at Rhawnhurst Elementary School in Northeast Philly and a member of 215 People’s Alliance.

Wearing a tombstone sign around her neck representing George Wharton Pepper Middle School and its closure in 2013, Silva described the overcrowded and under-resourced conditions at her daughter’s school. She said the school’s library was a meeting room, and classrooms were so full there was “no room to breathe.” She said the district ought to invest in its schools rather than close them.

“We deserve transparency, we deserve trust, and real investment, not excuses,” she said.

Charles Hudgins, an algebra teacher at Abraham Lincoln High School in Northeast Philly, warned that the district would make problems that schools face today worse by closing more of them. He said that some of his students already travel more than an hour.

“The potential and talent of students is being lost every single day because our school system is focused on quality and numbers. The numbers we care about are the number of excellent schools where our children have opportunities to thrive, to think creatively and to pursue their passions,” said Ruth Kuriloff, 17, a senior at Science Leadership Academy at Beeber.

She and her classmates said students would only be hurt by closing schools to save money.

“These obvious inequities will not get better by closing schools,” said Jordyn McGriff-Laduna, 17, also a senior at the school. “Quality education should not be a privilege. It should be a promise for all students in all areas.”