More meetings scheduled on school closings

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The School District has scheduled six more community meetings around school closings for next week. These meetings will focus on individual schools or groups of schools involved in closure and relocation.

They will take place Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Feb. 11-13.

"In response to the feedback we received at community meetings in December and January, the February meeting schedule has been revised to allow District leadership to visit school communities where further input on the recommendations is needed," according to the District’s website. It adds that this schedule doesn’t mean that these are the only schools for which District officials are seeking additional feedback.

The meetings will involve several schools in North Philadelphia, including L.P. Hill and Duckrey elementary schools and Strawberry Mansion High School, and the two military academies, Leeds and Elverson, which would be combined and relocated to Germantown under the District’s proposal. There will also be meetings in Germantown to discuss the closure of Fulton Elementary, and in West Philadelphia.

District spokesman Fernando Gallard said that it is still possible that District staff may alter the recommendations sent to the School Reform Commission, which is slated to vote on March 7.

"The superintendent has stated he is not stubborn about the recommendations as they stand now. If they can get to the same end in a different way he feels is best for the community and the students, he will do that," Gallard said. But Gallard cautioned not to expect a significant retreat from the number of closures and relocations proposed — 44 — due to the need to "rightsize" and streamline the District’s operating costs.

The times and locations of next week’s meetings follow: