What we know and what we don’t know about Philly school closings

Details of Philadelphia’s long-awaited facilities master plan are finally out, with proposed changes that include 20 closures, six co-locations, one new school building and other investments.

Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. has said he would share specifics of his facilities master plan at a school board meeting in February.

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

Here’s what we know so far:

Of the district’s 307 buildings, most schools — 159 in total — would be modernized under the proposed plan. The district pointed to Frankford High, which closed for two years because of asbestos issues and just reopened in the fall with $30 million worth of work to spruce it up, as an example of modernization.

An additional 122 schools would fall into a “maintain” category, meaning they would receive regular upkeep. And six facilities would be co-located, meaning two separate schools would be housed under one roof, each with its own principal and team.

Finally, 20 schools would be recommended for closure. Among them is Penn Treaty, now a 6-12 school, which would close in its current form, but go on to house the current Bodine High School, a magnet in Northern Liberties. Bodine’s building would become the home of Constitution High, which now occupies a rented space in Center City.

As proposed, Watlington’s plan would cost $2.8 billion over 10 years. The district would put up $1 billion via capital borrowing during that time — leaving $1.8 billion unaccounted for that the superintendent said would need to be covered by state money or philanthropic support. If the district doesn’t get all or some of that amount, the plan would have to be amended.

Right now, the closures are just a proposal, and the school board is slated to have the final say at a vote this winter. They could adopt all, some, or none of Watlington’s recommendations.

If the closures are approved, no school would be shuttered before the 2027-28 school year. And should some schools close, no job losses are expected, Watlington said.

Of the 20 facilities targeted for closure, 12 would be repurposed for district use. Eight would be given to the city for affordable workforce housing, or job creation, both priorities of Mayor Cherelle L. Parker.

We don’t have the full list of proposed modernizations yet, so it’s tough to say the proposed fate of every school.

Every affected student would be routed to a new school. A new transition office would work closely with impacted communities to make sure academics, attendance, and social-emotional needs don’t suffer, Watlington said.

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

The district hasn’t had a facilities master plan in more than a decade. It has 70,000 empty seats citywide, with some schools overcrowded and others with entire unused floors. It’s also got a lot of aging buildings — the average district school is nearly 75 years old — and many have environmental and/or significant systems issues.

Officials said they want to solve district-wide disparities: Some schools have art, music, and ample space for physical education, plus extracurricular activities, and some have few of those things.

Watlington said there was no formula to determine his recommendations. But four factors entered into the decision: building condition, utilization, the school’s ability to offer robust programming, and neighborhood vulnerability — a new measure that considers things like poverty and whether the area has lived through prior school closings.

The district formally launched the final phase of its facilities master planning process in late 2024. Since then, officials have hosted 47 community conversations and received 13,700 survey responses from people in every zip code in the city. Officials heard from a project team of 30 members and received feedback from nine advisory groups composed of more than 170 members.

However, some of those members, and others, are skeptical of the process, saying they feel like their input was performative. In the fall, a grassroots coalition urged the district to pause the process, focus more on investments, and promise no closures.

Officials said more community conversations would be scheduled for February. They’re also accepting input via the facilities planning process website.

The draft plan has been years in the making, and comes following a previous attempt to make one that ended before it went anywhere.

Watlington launched this final phase of the planning process in the fall of 2024. Decisions were originally promised by the end of 2025, but that was pushed off when officials said they needed more time to gather feedback.

The district later launched surveys to gain more input, with the topline result being that Philadelphians didn’t want their local schools closed. Many respondents outlined fears about potential hardships that closing schools could create, such as longer walks to school or tough bus rides in unfamiliar or unsafe areas.

And they flagged worries about merging schools and having large grade spans in a single building.

Mass school closures last happened in 2012 and 2013, when 30 schools shut.

That process hit economically disadvantaged neighborhoods disproportionately, did not yield substantial savings, and generally led to worse academic outcomes and attendance for students.

The mistakes of 2012 informed this go-round, officials said. They have promised better services for schools, students and families affected by any coming transitions.