{"id":180710,"date":"2026-04-30T22:57:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T22:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/180710\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T22:57:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T22:57:15","slug":"philadelphia-school-board-approves-plan-to-close-17-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/180710\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia school board approves plan to close 17 schools"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? <a href=\"#Section1\">Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>The Philadelphia Board of Education has approved the district\u2019s controversial <a href=\"https:\/\/www.philasd.org\/fpp\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">facilities plan<\/a> to close 17 schools following multiple meeting disruptions after the majority of City Council threatened to block the vote.\n<\/p>\n<p>Board members voted 6 to 3 in favor of Superintendent Tony Watlington\u2019s $3 billion plan to close 17 schools and modernize 169 others following a contentious meeting that was interrupted several times by protesters.<br \/>\n<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-740135\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/04-30-2026-k-paynter-SDP-board-school-closure-vote-3-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Protesters holding up signs to disrupt the vote\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\"  \/>Protesters packed the Philadelphia School District board meeting to convince board member to vote against closing 17 schools in the city on April 30, 2026. (Kimberly Paynter\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n<p>The vote went ahead as scheduled Thursday afternoon despite bold actions from 10 council members earlier in the day who threatened legal action and to block the reappointment of any school board member who votes in favor of the plan.\n  <\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnderstand what your vote will come with,\u201d Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, chair of the Council\u2019s education committee, said Thursday morning. \u201cWe will do everything in our legal power to put us in a position to sue you based on this decision and other issues that we know exist.\u201d<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-740126\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/04-30-2026-k-paynter-SDP-board-school-closure-vote-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"High school students holding up signs at the protest.\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\"  \/>Protesters from Lankenau Environmental High School urged Philadelphia School District Board Members to vote against closing 17 schools in the city. (Kimberly Paynter\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n<p>Watlington\u2019s plan has faced several revisions, with it initially calling for the closure of 20 schools. Critics argued that the plan <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/education\/philadelphia-school-district-building-closures-black-students-impact-20260129.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">would disproportionately impact Black students<\/a> and move <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chalkbeat.org\/philadelphia\/2026\/01\/29\/school-closure-plan-would-move-some-students-to-lower-performing-schools\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">hundreds of students to lower-performing schools.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we have seen over the past few weeks is this board, which is appointed by the mayor, is not responsive to city council and not accountable to our communities,\u201d Councilmember Kendra Brooks said.\n<\/p>\n<p>Students and teachers joined a protest organized by council members outside the school district\u2019s Broad Street headquarters ahead of Thursday\u2019s 4 p.m. vote.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[223,69,71,70,24003,1998],"class_list":["post-180710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-pennsylvania-education","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philly-schools","tag-school-district-of-philadelphia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180710","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=180710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}