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The Philadelphia school board voted Thursday night to spend up to $7 million on rental space to house a district high school in Center City<\/a>.<\/p>\n The four-year agreement \u2014 the district will pay $1.7 million annually for two years, then $1.8 million and $1.9 million in the final two years \u2014 covers classrooms and related spaces at 18 S. Seventh St., the longtime home of Constitution High School.<\/p>\n The move comes months after the district voted to close 17 schools, in part because it has 70,000 empty seats in schools across the city. The school system will also merge some schools \u2014 like Overbrook<\/a> High and the Workshop School \u2014 as part of its $3 billion facilities master plan, to be enacted over the next decade, but it opted not to move Constitution High into any school with empty space. <\/p>\n Board members voted unanimously to pass the resolution, which noted the district \u201ccontinues to work through the completion of the Facilities Master Plan to properly identify appropriate space for our students.\u201d<\/p>\n Officials will \u201creview the opportunities that may exist in the coming years that would cause us to re-evaluate the current necessary decision to remain at this location, which accommodates the needs of the students within this program. If the opportunity arises for the school district to consider relocation, the community and stakeholders will become aware and involved in this process.\u201d<\/p>\n Constitution, a citywide admissions school, has been located at its current building since the school opened in 2006 as part of Philadelphia\u2019s small-schools boom. The school was designed with a civics focus, and deliberately located near the National Constitution Center.<\/p>\n The district has moved other schools out of rental properties. It relocated Science Leadership Academy, which had been in rental space near the Franklin Institute<\/a>, into Benjamin Franklin High. District officials have pointed to that colocation as a model.<\/p>\n Charter renewals, but no mention of missing PSSAs or Kensington asbestos relocation<\/p>\n The board also voted Thursday night to renew two charters: YouthBuild Philadelphia Charter, on North Broad Street in North Philadelphia<\/a>, and Inquiry Charter, on Belmont Avenue in West Philadelphia<\/a>.<\/p>\n Both schools received five-year renewals.<\/p>\n YouthBuild\u2019s renewal came with conditions: agreeing to submit a student attendance plan, tracking students\u2019 daily attendance, and divulging supports offered; and promising to ensure the school\u2019s suspension rate is at or below the district\u2019s suspension rate.<\/p>\n No district official addressed two brewing matters: either the asbestos-related relocation of Kensington<\/a> High students to the former Meehan Middle School building in the Northeast, more than seven miles away, or the district\u2019s missing PSSA scores.<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: A Lincoln High parent and Mayfair resident want a judge to halt the move of Kensington HS students to a Northeast Philly school<\/a><\/p>\n Earlier on Thursday, a Lincoln High parent and a Mayfair<\/a> resident were attempting to block Kensington\u2019s move to Meehan, a closed district school currently used as swing space to house school populations that need a temporary home.<\/p>\n Meehan shares a campus with Lincoln and Northeast Community Propel Academy, both of which are overcrowded. Parent Harold Brown and Peter McDermott, a former Philadelphia teacher who\u2019s active in Mayfair civic life and city Democratic politics, say moving Kensington onto the campus will harm students.<\/p>\n They also say placing 400 Kensington students and 90 staff at Meehan violates a Community Benefits Agreement signed in 2019, when neighbors OK\u2019d building Propel to ease overcrowding at other Northeast schools.<\/p>\n No mention was made, either, of the lack of data around Philadelphia students\u2019 PSSA and Keystone exams. <\/p>\n District officials said they won\u2019t release the scores of students\u2019 spring tests \u2014 which district officials have access to \u2014 because of a delay in Harrisburg. <\/p>\n Though the district did receive preliminary student-level scores, and released limited data to some teachers and administrators in order to correctly roster a limited number of students, they have walled off the data from the vast majority of educators. <\/p>\n