Philly school closings: List of buildings to close; timeline of plan; reactions and live updates

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.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker on Thursday praised the community engagement process Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. conducted before issuing the facilities plan and defended the school district from critics.

"It is ambitious, it's thorough, and it's grounded in what I believe matters most, and that's achieving the best outcomes for our students," Parker told reporters. "I'm proud that the district has taken what I would describe as a clear-eyed look at really what matters for our children."

Watlington's outreach efforts, she said, stood in stark contrast to the district's handling of the last round of school closures in the early 2010s, when Parker was a state representative.

City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier said the Philadelphia school district showed “just a complete lack of thought and consideration for really important programs” when crafting its long-anticipated facilities plan, released Thursday.

Council President Kenyatta Johnson said his members had “a lot of concerns.”

And City Councilmember Jeffery “Jay” Young Jr. went so far as to propose amending the city Home Rule Charter to allow Council to remove the school board members who will consider the proposed closures.

The School District of Philadelphia’s plan to close 20 schools through an overhaul of the system received mixed feelings from state lawmakers representing the city in Harrisburg, ranging from careful optimism to concern.

Lawmakers in Harrisburg are responsible for distributing billions of state dollars for public education, including any funding increases. These funds are critically important in Philadelphia, whose tax base alone only meets about a quarter of the needs of its students.

Pennsylvania legislators in 2024 created a new funding formula and plan to invest $4.5 billion more in public education over nine years, as directed by a state appellate court ruling. In a landmark ruling the year earlier, the Commonwealth Court found the state was unconstitutionally underfunding its students by relying so heavily on local property taxes to fund schools, creating a major disparity for students in poorer ZIP codes.

For Akira Drake Rodriguez, another member of the Stand Up for Philly Schools coalition, the district's announcement echoed the highly controversial School Reform Commission closures more than a decade earlier.

"The way this process was presented was trying to not repeat the mistakes of the 2013 closures," said Rodriguez, an assistant professor of city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania who was part of a district advisory group during its planning stages. Yet "the rollout was bumpy," with some principals of affected schools informing their staffs, and others not, Rodriguez said. "It did not feel like it was done with the care and engagement they knew and were trying to address in this process."

Rodriguez noted that Tilden Middle School in Southwest Philadelphia was now slated for closure, after absorbing the populations of the Shaw and Tilden middle schools shuttered by the SRC.

Council President Kenyatta Johnson said Thursday that city lawmakers had "a lot of concerns" about the school district's facilities plan and would do their "due diligence" to evaluate it.

"I’m sure it’s going to be a very, very robust process,” Johnson told reporters. “These are only recommendations. This isn’t the final product.”

Notably, Johnson immediately endorsed a new proposal by Councilmember Jeffery "Jay" Young Jr. that would allow Council to remove school board members, potentially reshaping the politics of the district. Currently, the mayor appoints the nine-member board, and Council votes to confirm them.

Letitia Grant, 41, was frustrated to learn that her daughter’s Penn Treaty School was marked for closure in the district’s plan.

“That sucks. That can’t happen,” she said.

Her daughter is in eighth grade at the Fishtown school, and would have stayed at Penn Treaty through her high school graduation. Grant said her daughter loves her teachers and guidance counselor, and has many friends whom she’d miss.

City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier said the Philadelphia School District showed “just a complete lack of thought and consideration for really important programs” when crafting its long-anticipated facilities plan.

Gauthier said the plan would limit opportunities in her West Philadelphia-based 3rd District. She pointed to changes including Robeson High School and Parkway West ceasing to exist as standalone schools (Robeson would merge into Sayre and Parkway West into SLA Beeber) and The Workshop School co-locating with Overbrook High School.

“What are people supposed to do for good high school options in West Philadelphia?” Gauthier said .

Edwin Mayorga, an Academy at Palumbo parent and member of the Stand Up For Philly Schools coalition, called the planned school closures "deeply troubling."

"Closing schools straight off is never to me the right answer," said Mayorga, an associate professor of educational studies at Swarthmore College who said SUPS is planning to rally outside district headquarters next Thursday to oppose the closures. "It's about asking ourselves, what are the conditions that have produced a school that has declining enrollments, or toxic conditions in the facility, and trying to start from there?"

Mayorga said he was still concerned the district hadn't adequately engaged with the community. While the district touted 8,000 responses from a citywide survey, Mayorga questioned how extensively it was promoted.

One lawmaker on Thursday said he planned to oppose some of the closures proposed by the school district and brought legislation that would allow City Council to remove members of the school board.

Councilmember Jeffery “Jay” Young, Jr., a Democrat who represents the North Philadelphia-based fifth district, introduced legislation to amend the city’s Home Rule Charter to give council the authority to remove board members, which it is not currently empowered to do. To become law, Council would need to pass legislation and a majority of voters would have to approve it through a ballot question.

Young said it’s necessary to ensure accountability.

The Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools — a group made up mostly of retired district staff who are frequently critical of the district — blasted the district’s plan and the process it used to get there, and vowed to oppose closings.

“Closing public schools that serve as community anchors has been and will again be devastating,” Lisa Haver, group coordinator and a co-founder, said in a statement. “Members of the school communities affected have been given very little time to organize and fight to save their schools before the board’s final vote.”

Watlington is scheduled to present his plan to the school board on Feb. 26, but a vote has not been set. District officials said it was expected sometime this winter.

Farah Jimenez, president of the Philadelphia Education Fund, called the plan "incredibly ambitious," presenting new opportunities for students. For instance: Centralizing many career and technical education offerings, which could help more kids access them, Jimenez said.

But Jimenez, who served on the former state-appointed School Reform Commission after it voted in 2013 to close more than 20 Philadelphia schools, also predicted challenges — including managing expectations.

"With a lot of change comes a lot of anxiety," Jimenez said, noting schools' role not just as places of education, but as community hubs.

Robin Cooper, president of the union that represents district principals, said the effects of Thursday’s announcement will be felt for years.

“It’s a loss of history, a loss for Philadelphia,” said Cooper. “Schools are a family, and some families are breaking up.”

Cooper said she understands the math — the district has a lot of old buildings, many of which are have decades of deferred maintenance. A state court affirmed that the district has been underfunded for generations.

As the district released the school closure plan, Simon Hauger, founder of the Workshop School, was skeptical.

Given the school system's billions of dollars in deferred maintenance, "the district does not have the talent and capacity to actually solve this problem," Hauger said. "To me, that's the part that's most frustrating ... This is not their expertise. The solutions they're offering are not going to be good solutions."

Under the plan, Workshop would move into the under-enrolled Overbrook High School in West Philadelphia — which "would be fine," Hauger said. "There's good stuff at that building." But that only makes Overbrook, which Hauger estimated takes millions to run, "slightly more utilized," he said. "It doesn't make sense to me."

City Council members were meeting Thursday morning during the first meeting of the year as news of the school district’s facilities plan became public. Several members, who were briefed on the plan earlier this week, said they understood the need to close and consolidate schools but have concerns about how individual closures could impact communities.

“I’m Philly-born and raised, so there’s always like an emotional attachment to schools,” said Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, a Democrat who chairs the Education Committee. “They are a pillar in a lot of neighborhoods. Whenever you step into a conversation like this, you are always going to be super emotional.”

For example, Thomas attended Russell Conwell Middle School in Kensington, which is slated for closure under the facilities plan. He said he will “adamantly” oppose the district shutting Conwell’s doors.

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.

Outrage mounted for some Thursday morning 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.

Here are the 20 schools that would close under Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr.'s revitalization plan:

Elementary schools

Middle schools

Most schools — 159 — would be modernized under the proposed plan. (Frankford High, which closed for two years because of asbestos issues and just re-opened this fall with $30 million of work to spruce it up, is an example the district cited of a modernization.)

An additional 122 fall into the “maintain” category, meaning they’ll just receive regular upkeep.

Six facilities would be co-located, meaning they would be two separate schools housed under one roof, each with its own principal and team.