Philly Teachers Union Offers Alternative to School Closures
Philly Teachers Union Unveils Alternative to Planned School Closures
Philly Teachers Union Unveils Alternative to Planned School Closures
The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers is escalating its fight against the School District’s controversial facilities plan, arguing there is not enough public evidence to justify closing 17 schools and promising an alternative proposal aimed at preserving campuses rather than shuttering them.
The union on Tuesday released school-by-school analysis challenging the district’s rationale and questioning whether students forced to relocate would actually end up in better conditions. PFT President Arthur Steinberg said the district has failed to provide the kind of detail needed to support closures of that scale.
“Despite patiently awaiting answers and additional data from the School District that never arrived, the PFT has been able to use publicly available information to conclude that the District itself lacks an educator-informed, data-driven rationale for closing nearly 20 public schools,” Steinberg said.
Speaking at Overbrook Elementary, one of the schools slated for closure, Steinberg was even more blunt about the district’s broader proposal. “The plan that the district came up with is inherently a flawed plan,” he said. “It’s a half plan at best.”
The district’s $3 billion facilities plan, approved April 30, calls for closing 17 schools, merging six others, and modernizing 169 buildings. District officials have said the moves are necessary because the system has roughly 70,000 empty seats and cannot afford to maintain its current building footprint.
But the union says some schools marked for closure, including Overbrook, appear to be candidates for repair and modernization rather than elimination. Its analysis argues that the public record does not adequately explain why certain schools should close, especially when repair costs may be modest compared with broader district needs.
Opposition is also widening beyond the union. City Council members and other local officials have continued to criticize the closures, with some threatening legal or budgetary action to block them. Councilmember Jamie Gauthier described the plan as “decisions being made for our neighborhoods without our neighborhoods, and we will not stand for it.
In a statement to NBC10, the school board defended the plan, saying facilities are “foundational” to academic outcomes and that the strategy will allow the district to invest more deeply in the schools students attend.
The closures are not yet final. Under state law, each proposed school closure must still go through its own hearing process.
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Philly Teachers Union Unveils Alternative to Planned School Closures was originally published on rnbphilly.com
