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School closure talks get heated in West Philly
Parents and community members out for a meeting on public school closures in West and Southwest Philly raised concerns over redistricting and school equality.
School closure talks get heated in West Philly
The two schools named for closing in West and Southwest Philadelphia are Drew, an elementary school, and Pepper, a middle school. While other schools — like South Philly's Stanton, the fate of which will be debated this Saturday — are seeing rallies of support, no one at a school district-run meeting last night seemed too upset at the prospect of seeing Drew or Pepper disappear as part of a citywide consolidation plan to deal with some 70,000 empty classroom seats district wide.
What they are upset about was how the distribution of the students would be managed — particularly as they'll be absorbed into other neighborhood schools such as Lea, where an active parents group has been working hard to improve programming and facilities for the past few years. And, they're worried about redistricting in the region — particularly for those who have been sticking it out in West Philly for years just to get their child a coveted spot at the Penn Alexander school, where camping out overnight each January to register children has become a loathed annual ritual.
Vicki McGarvey, who lives at 46th and Osage and has a three-and-a-half-year-old child, says, "everyone is very concerned about the redrawing of the catchment zone. Some parents are concerned about having their children assigned to different schools," she says. "The uncertainty of knowing when we'll know if our child will get a spot at a given school, it's unacceptable not to know until right before school starts." Clare Powell, who lives on the same block with her daughter and grandchild, says she is worried about both her children and her housing value. She says the school is the only reason she still lives in the neighborhood. "My husband and I are both blue collar workers, so the home value is huge. ... What am I going to do when I retire and I want to be able to sell my house?"
Superintendent Leroy Nunery said redistricting will be an open conversation and explained that schools being closed fit a number of factors, including below-capacity enrollment and a relative cost of repair that's more than 75 percent the cost of replacement, what the district terms an FCI index of 75 percent or more. (When asked about the FCI index of 98-year-old Lea school, he admitted it was 72 percent, and said "there are needs that need to be addressed.") But Nunery says the district's plan is broader than that: "We have to make sure Penn Alexander is not the only beacon on the hill. When you don't have a strategy and you don't stick to it, this is what you get: you get a lot of spotty outcomes."
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