In an effort to gather feedback from some of the people most impacted by any changes to the city’s school facilities, the School District of Philadelphia has launched a new survey that focuses on finding ways to better use the district’s stock of aging structures.
Called the “Facilities Planning Process Emerging Themes Survey” the new survey asks those with students in the district, as well as teachers, faculty and others with connections to school facilities, to provide input on four “themes”:
Strengthening Pre-K through eighth grade programming through better use of space.
Reducing unnecessary school transitions for students.
Reinvesting in neighborhood high schools as community anchors.
Expanding access to grades five through twelve criteria-based schools.
The district operates more than 300 buildings, and through this survey, school officials said in a statement, the district is hoping to “increase access to high-quality academic and extracurricular programs, recognizing that many of the District’s aging and unequal facilities are either under- or over-enrolled.”
In a statement on the release of the new survey, School District of Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington said that responses received in the survey will become part of a set of recommendations for each facility that the district plans to share with the state’s Board of Education early next year.
But, before then, he said, the district plans to share a summary of the feedback next month, as well.
“We will share a summary of your feedback in December, and we will use that feedback to inform the full list of facilities recommendations that we will share with the Board this winter. Then, in early 2026, we will share the recommendations, scenarios for each school, and host another round of community conversations, in order to gather more of your feedback before we submit the final plan to the Board,” Watlington said in a statement.
The effort is all part of an ongoing facility planning process that could see schools throughout the city shuttered, renovated, repurposed or co-mingled.
The survey will close on Thursday, December 11, 2025 and, officials said, that summary of feedback should be made available sometime later in the month.
To complete the survey, click here.
And, for more information on the overall facilities planning process, click here.