{"id":131849,"date":"2026-03-07T01:40:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T01:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/131849\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T01:40:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T01:40:06","slug":"philly-schools-have-tough-choices-to-make-superintendent-says-nbc10-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/131849\/","title":{"rendered":"Philly schools have \u2018tough choices\u2019 to make, superintendent says\u00a0 \u2013 NBC10 Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The facilities master plan proposed for the Philadelphia School District<\/a> will \u201crequire some sacrifice,\u201d the district\u2019s superintendent said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe school district of Philadelphia and the city have some tough choices to make,\u201d superintendent Dr. Tony Watlington said in an interview with NBC10.<\/p>\n

The interview with Watlington is in a new episode of Battleground Politics with Lauren Mayk<\/a> and will be featured on NBC10 @Issue this Sunday, March 8 at 11:30 am.<\/p>\n

Watlington submitted a revised plan to the school board last month that included modernizing 159 schools and closing 18 schools \u2013 down from 20 closures in the original plan. <\/p>\n

It also invests in career and technical education programming, pre-K and provides algebra across the district.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that while there is some short term sacrifice \u2013 and I don\u2019t want to hide from it, I want to be very clear, I recognize it, we care about our families \u2013 I think this plan will give our children and families more,\u201d Watlington said.<\/p>\n

Some parents, council members and the teachers union have advocated against parts of the plan but Watlington said he\u2019s not planning to suggest any additional changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my final recommendation to the board of education,\u201d Watlington said, labeling the plan good but not perfect.<\/p>\n

Still, the head of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers said he is urging the school district to pause the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are requesting of the district is, since next year is a planning year anyway, hit the pause button and provide data so all the stakeholders can understand why it was determined that their school would be closed as say opposed to another one,\u201d PFT president Arthur Steinberg said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Asked whether all students who move schools would end up going to a school in better shape than the one they left, Watlington said \u201cthe lion\u2019s share will.\u201d <\/p>\n

A spokesperson later followed up with a statement saying the plan would \u201censure that 100% of impacted students are reassigned to schools with comparable or better academic outcomes and\/or building conditions.”<\/p>\n

The plan is slated to cost $2.8 billion with $1 billion coming from the district and the remaining $1.8 billion from the government and philanthropic funds. <\/p>\n

Asked what the deadline would be to secure that additional $1.8 billion, Watlington didn\u2019t offer a specific date when money had to be committed but said that the district would move forward \u201cas early as fiscal year 2027-2028 with a list of prioritized projects given the resources we can commit from the district.\u201d<\/p>\n

Subscribe to Battleground Politics anywhere you get your podcasts:\u00a0Spotify<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Amazon Music<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Apple Podcasts<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0RSS<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The facilities master plan proposed for the Philadelphia School District will \u201crequire some sacrifice,\u201d the district\u2019s superintendent said.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12665,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-131849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-battleground-politics","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}