Philly school closure plan changes again ahead of board vote

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The School District of Philadelphia has again revised its plan for closing, merging and investing in school facilities over the next 10 years. An updated plan released Monday reduces the number of proposed school closures to 17, sparing James R. Ludlow Elementary School.

The latest version of the plan, which Superintendent Tony Watlington referred to as the “final, final” plan on a call with reporters Monday, would retain the Paul Robeson High School and Lankenau Environmental Science Magnet High School properties, but both schools are still slated for closure. The district would seek community feedback on future uses for the Robeson property, which could include demolishing the building and reimagining another school on the property, Watlington said, and would convert the Lankenau property into an environmental education center for students across the district.

The changes boost the plan’s price tag from $2.8 billion to $3 billion, with the school district planning to borrow $1 billion through capital bonds. The school district plans to seek additional support from the state government and philanthropic organizations to cover the remaining costs.

It’s the second time Watlington has scaled back the school closures proposed in the district’s years-long facilities planning process amid criticism from students, families and staff. The plan aims to redistribute resources across the district to deal with aging facilities and under- and over-enrollment in different schools.

“We heard the people,” Watlington said Monday.

Watlington presented an earlier version of the facilities plan to the school board in March, which included modernizing 159 school facilities, co-locating school programs in six facilities and closing 18 schools, down from the 20 closures the district originally proposed in January, which would have disproportionately impacted Black students and moved hundreds of students to lower-performing schools.