Philly could close 20 schools, co-locate 6, and modernize 159: Superintendent Watlington shares his facilities plan

Wholesale changes are coming to the Philadelphia School District, with Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. poised to propose a massive reshaping of the system, including closing 20 schools.

The plan, years in the making, would touch the majority of the district’s buildings and bring change to every part of the city: over a decade, 159 would be modernized, six co-located inside existing school buildings, 12 closed for district use, and eight closed and given to the city.

At least one new building would be constructed.

The 20 closures, which would not begin to take effect until the 2027-28 school year, would be scattered through most of Philadelphia, with North and West Philadelphia hardest hit.

» READ MORE: What’s happening to your Philly school under the proposed facilities master plan?

Watlington released some details of the blueprint Thursday — including the list of proposed school closures — and acknowledged that the changes will roil some communities.

Watlington is scheduled to present his proposal to the school board next month, with a board vote on the plan expected this winter.

Philadelphia, the nation’s eighth largest school system, now has 216 schools in 307 buildings, the oldest of which was built in 1889. It has 70,000 empty seats citywide, though some of its schools, especially those in the Northeast, are overcrowded.

But, Watlington said, “this is not just about old buildings.” Philadelphia’s academics are improving, and faster than most big-city districts, but most of its students still fail to meet state standards — just 21% hit state goals for math, and 35% for English.

“We must find ways to more efficiently use all of our resources so that we can push higher quality academic and extracurricular programming and activities into all of our schools across all the neighborhoods of Philadelphia, while at the same time addressing under and over-enrolled schools,” the superintendent said.

If the school board adopts Watlington’s plan as proposed, the number of empty space in school buildings would decrease, with district schools going from a 66% utilization rate to 75%. The changes would also allow for the district to offer more students pre-kindergarten, algebra in eighth grade, and career and technical education and Advanced Placement courses, officials said.

“Part of the problem here is there’s so much disparity in the School District of Philadelphia,” said Watlington, who suggested the plan will improve equity.

Every building judged in “poor” or “unsatisfactory” condition — there are now 85 citywide — would either close or be upgraded within a decade, though the information released Thursday did not include details on upgrade plans.

There are no guarantees, however. The plan comes with a $2.8 billion price tag — only $1 billion of which the district will cover with its capital funds. The rest of the money is dependent on state and philanthropic support, neither of which is a given.

If the extra funding doesn’t come through, Watlington said, fewer schools in disrepair could be modernized, or the district would have to make other revisions to the plan.

Officials said a backup plan would take longer to complete — 16 years, instead of a decade. The $1 billion version would not allow the school system to upgrade all schools currently rated unsatisfactory or poor. Instead, it would have 45 buildings in the those categories in 2041.

Watlington indicated he wants to close these schools: Blankenburg, Fitler, Ludlow, Robert Morris, Overbrook Elementary, Pennypacker, Waring and Welsh elementary schools; Conwell, AMY Northwest, Harding, Stetson, Tilden and Wagner middle schools; and Motivation, Parkway Northwest, Parkway West and Robeson high schools. (Some of those schools, like Lankenau and Robeson, would become programs inside other schools — Roxborough High would use Lankenau, and Sayre would use Robeson. Others would close outright, with students assigned elsewhere.)

And he named six schools that would move into other school buildings while maintaining their individual structure and identity: Martha Washington, Building 21, The Workshop School, The U School, and a new Academy at Palumbo Middle School.

Students at the affected schools will all move into schools with similar or better academic outcomes or building conditions, or schools that are better by both measures, Watlington said. Transition resources will be available for schools, students, and families from closing schools and for schools that take in new students.

The changes will also affect far more students than those in the 20 schools being shut down or in those sharing locations; closures mean the district would eventually need to redraw at least some school catchment boundaries, which dictate the neighborhood school each child attends.

Watlington said he did not anticipate job losses as a result of the closures.

Officials said they arrived at the blueprint after analyzing data and gathering feedback across the city — in meetings and surveys, and based on wisdom from advisory panels and a planning team. (Some advisory panel members said they had real concerns about the process, felt they got too little information, and said their input was not seriously considered. Some had called for a pause in the process and a plan with no closings.)

» READ MORE: Parents and teachers want smaller classes and no school closures. Here’s what else they said in Philly’s facilities planning survey.

Parents, staff, and community members identified four main themes that informed the recommendations, Watlington said: strengthening K-8 schools, reinvesting in neighborhood high schools, reducing school transitions for students, and expanding access to grades 5-12 criteria-based high schools.

The plan dramatically shrinks the number of grade spans in the district.

Currently, there are 13 different kinds of school configurations. Going forward, there be just five grade bands: K-4, K-8, K-12, 5-8, 5-12, and 9-12. (Six schools will be exceptions, however.)

Philadelphia is leaning into a “strong K-8 model,” Watlington said. He recommended closing five middle schools, with some elementary schools adding grades to accommodate.

It’s also turning some high schools that now house four grades into middle-high schools, with 5-12 spans. South Philadelphia High will get investments to its career and technical education space and add fifth through eighth grades, for instance. A new Palumbo Middle School will open, co-located with Childs Elementary in Point Breeze; its students will get preference for admission to the Academy at Palumbo, a South Philly magnet.

The single from-scratch construction announced will be in the lower Northeast — a new Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush, a popular magnet now in the far Northeast. That new building, which will house students in fifth through 12th grades, would rise on the site of the old Fels High School in Oxford Circle.

A new neighborhood high school will open in the current Rush Arts building, if the plan is approved.

Comly, Forrest, and Carnell — all Northeast schools — would be modernized and get additional grades to relieve overcrowding.

No Northeast schools were tagged for closing because all are near or at capacity or overcrowded, officials said, unlike other neighborhoods.

But the superintendent underscored that investments would be made throughout the city.

E.W. Rhodes would get a renovated pool.

A year-round K-8 — which Watlington teased at during his state of the schools speech in early January — would co-locate at Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary in North Philadelphia.

Masterman, one of the city’s top magnets, has long been overcrowded — its middle school would move to Waring, in Spring Garden, one of the closing schools.

And Central High is getting a performing arts center and expanding, as previously announced.

“It’s really important to note this is not a plan to just funnel resources into the Northeast part of Philadelphia, where the population is increasing faster or in a different way than other parts of the city,” Watlington said. “This is not just, build out, invest in some areas, divest in others.”

Watlington said he knows the plan will be difficult for some to swallow, and does not achieve every aim.

But, he said, “we are not going to make good the enemy of perfect.”

Still, Watlington and others vowed this closure process — the first large-scale closures in more than a decade — would not repeat the mistakes of 2012 and 2013, when 30 schools were shut to save money.

A new transition team will focus on what students and schools need, from social and emotional supports to safety and academic help.

“These families will get gold standard, red carpet treatment directly from the superintendent’s office,” Watlington said.

The superintendent said he will urge the board to “strongly consider” his recommendations.

“We have one shot to get this right,” Watlington said. “We believe this is as good a plan as we can bring to the board, and so we’re going to recommend strongly that the board adopt these recommendations.”

School board president Reginald Streater said the facilities planning process was “critical” to bettering student outcomes.

Watlington, Streater said in a release, has led “meaningful community engagement with families, educators, and community members across our city. The board looks forward to receiving the full set of recommendations and carefully considering them as we work together to ensure all of our school facilities and student rostering practices best support access to high-quality educational experiences and opportunities for all students.”

Outrage mounted for some Thursday as district officials began quietly notifying affected communities and groups.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Sharee S. Himmons, a veteran paraprofessional at Fitler Academics Plus, a K-8 in Germantown. “It feels like a family member is dying.”

Himmons is enrolled in the district’s paraprofessional pathways program, taking college courses to earn her degree and teacher certification. She was sitting in her math class at La Salle University when she found out Fitler was slated for closure. She began crying. She failed a test she was taking because her concentration was shot, she said.

“This school is such a staple in the neighborhood,” she said. Fitler is a citywide admissions school, but draws many students from the area. Himmons’ own sons attended Fitler, and she wanted to teach there after her college graduation.

“This isn’t over,” she said. “We’re going to fight — hard.”

Arthur Steinberg, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said he’s waiting to see more granular details of the plan, including the list of schools that will be upgraded and what fixes are promised, and hopes information about how much weight was given to every factor that went into the decisions.

But, Steinberg said, “it is devastating for any community to lose their school — the parents, the kids and the staff.”

As for the process that led the district to this moment, Steinberg said it was abundantly clear even to advisory panel members that their viewpoints were just points of information for Watlington’s administration, that no promises about heeding any advice were made.

Either way, the closure of 20 schools and more changes that will have ripples across the city for years to come all lead back to one factor, he said.

“Without the chronic underfunding of the district,” said Steinberg, “we wouldn’t have gotten to this point.”