This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.
Notebook news partner NewsWorks covered Thursday night’s community meeting on the facilities master plan at King High School, where the hottest topic was the proposed move of AMY Northwest to the Levering School in Roxborough, which is proposed for closure.
by Karl Biemuller for NewsWorks
How kids will get to school was the top concern expressed by parents whose children attend a Mt. Airy middle school that could be moved to a site in Roxborough.
"I don’t want my son to take three buses to get to school," said one of more than 50 parents and students at a meeting Thursday night at Martin Luther King High School. It was called by the School District of Philadelphia to give an overview to the community about to the District’s proposal to move AMY-Northwest Middle School to Ridge Avenue (map).
Under the District’s Facilities Master Plan, students at AMY NW, 6611 Ardleigh Street, would move into what is now Levering Elementary School, 6000 Ridge Ave. Levering is scheduled to close June 2012, and its 185 students will be sent to other elementary schools in Roxborough.
The proposed move, designed to save the District money, has raised many questions, but transportation was at the top of the list of parents’ concerns voiced to School District officials William Montgomery of the District’s Office of Grade and Space Planning and Jennie Wu, deputy for Strategic Planning. They presented the case for moving AMY’s 250 students from East Mt. Airy to Roxborough.
According to Montgomery, the District currently pays $205,000 in annual rent to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for AMY-NW’s building, the former home of the Archdiocese’s St. Therese of the Child Jesus elementary school. "It’s a nice facility but there’s no gym or auditorium, and the library is small," he said.
The Levering building has an auditorium, gymnasium, full cafeteria, plus an up-to-date and fully wired science room and music and art rooms, none of which AMY-NW has now, he said.
To continue reading this story, go to the NewsWorks site.
Check out the Notebook’s compilations of all its coverage of the facilities master plan and of the community meetings being held to review the recommendations.