School District of Philadelphia plans to close 20 schools, rehab hundreds more: "We have one shot at this"

The School District of Philadelphia plans to close 20 schools and modernize or maintain hundreds more in the next 10 years. District officials announced the recommendations from its "Facilities Master Plan," a project Superintendent Tony Watlington said has been years in the making.

"We have one shot at this, to get this right," Watlington said in a news conference earlier this week.

The 10-year, $2.8 billion proposal would see the district modernize 159 current school buildings and maintain another 122. But the biggest impacts would be to the 20 schools slated to close starting in Fall 2027.

What schools are closing in Philadelphia?

The schools the district is recommending close are:

• Robert Morris Elementary
• Samuel Pennypacker School
• John Welsh Elementary School
• James R. Ludlow School
• Laura W. Waring School
• Overbrook Elementary
• Rudolph Blankenburg School
• Fitler Academics Plus
• Lankenau High School
• Motivation High School
• Paul Robeson High School
• Parkway Northwest High School
• Parkway West High School
• Penn Treaty
• General Lois Wagner Middle School
• Stetson Middle School
• Warren G. Harding Middle School
• William T. Tilden Middle School
• Academy for the Middle Years at Northwest
• Russell Conwell Middle School

How and when each school would close varies. Some will shut down for the start of the 2027-28 school year, with students being reassigned to other schools. Others will be phased out over a period of years, with the district simply not accepting new students at certain grade levels. Magnate schools on the list, like Lankenau, would see programs continue, but would be folded into Roxborough High School as an honors program.

Watlington said the school closings will help them move to more K-8 schools, something he said the district heard from parents.

"Our recommendation is that we move to a strong K-8 model. Reduce the number of transitions," Watlington said. "Parents have told us they'd like less transitions. We believe we ought to follow that."

District leaders also said their plan will lead to better outcomes for students. Watlington said it will double the access to pre-K in the district from 25% to 50%. The plan also claims it will increase access to Algebra 1 for middle schoolers, and bring better access for criteria-based and Career and Technical Education.

According to Watlington, it also makes better use of the district's resources, increasing building utilization from 66% to 75%.

"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 and all the neighborhoods across Philadelphia," Watlington said.

In the plan, district officials said they will utilize 12 of the closed schools for other district operations. For the eight remaining, the district would like to transfer them to the city to use for things like housing.

"We don't want a situation where closed schools sit for a decade," Watlington said.

Philadelphians concerned about schools closing 

The news of school closures brought concerns from impacted parents. Aaliyah said her son is a kindergartener at Ludlow Elementary, and that changing schools could be hard.

"I'm really upset about that because it took a while for him to open up. And he opened up really fast in this school," she said. "The environment is really great, everybody is really happy. So that's pretty upsetting."

Several city councilmembers have also already raised concerns.

Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, chair of the education committee, said he understands the district needs to do something and that there are parts of the plan he agrees with. But there are other areas he has questions, and some he outright disagrees with, like the planned closing of his alma mater Conwell Middle School.

"I definitely would never be supportive of Conwell closing," Thomas said.

The councilmember said he'll put aside personal bias as he reviews the plan. One thing he believes the district needs to answer is why they made the choices they did.

"The how lets people know it's not personal," Thomas said. "And I personally don't know the answer to the how, but I think that's going to be an important part of this message over the next couple weeks."

These next few weeks will be key. School district officials said they'll spend them talking with impacted school communities.

The plan is to bring the recommendations to the Board of Education at its Feb. 26 meeting. The board would then ultimately decide whether to take up the plan or not.

"These are very well thought-out recommendations," Watlington said. "They're not perfect. But we can't make good the enemy of perfect."