Superintendent Tony Watlington unveiled his revised, finalized plan on Monday morning via Zoom. He said the changes reflect public feedback.
Monday, April 20, 2026 9:32PMis drawing renewed concern from teachers and parents, as district officials scale back closures while increasing the overall cost. Superintendent Tony Watlington unveiled his revised, finalized plan on Monday morning via Zoom.
He said the changes reflect public feedback.The updated plan removes Ludlow Elementary School from the closure list and raises the projected cost from $2.8 billion to $3 billion. It now calls for closing 17 schools, down from 20 proposed in January, modernizing 169 schools and merging six others. "This is the final, final recommendation or set of recommendations that I'm presenting to President Streater and his Board of Education for consideration," Watlington said during the virtual presentation.Parents, students criticize School District of Philadelphia's facilities plan at final town hallDespite the revisions, the plan continues to face pushback. The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers said it has not been fully briefed on the details and warned of potential consequences if funding falls short. "Students and staff are gonna leave, so it's gonna exacerbate the educator shortage, and then when you lose more students, you're gonna lose more funding," said Arthur Steinberg, president of the union."My great fear is the closures will go ahead because they're in place and they're scheduled. You get three or four years down the road, and they'll say, 'Oh, well, we don't have the money, we're gonna have to stop here.' So you'll be left with some of these educational deserts," he said.At Lankenau Environmental High School, which is set to merge with Saul High School, parents and teachers say they are frustrated and anxious about the future. "It's devastating. It's wrong. That school is needed. It has so much potential for our present and future students that want to go into the agricultural world," said parent Noel Alford. "We need to fight to keep Lankenau open.""Who's running this environmental center? We have an environmental center, Lankenau Environmental High School. So why are you eliminating a high school? It basically tells the teachers we care about the environment, we just don't care about you," said teacher Jonathan Hoffmeier."We have children who are sitting here in 9th, 10th grade, and they hear they're going to Saul. Our students, if they wanted to go to Saul, they would have applied to Saul," Hoffmeier said. "This is not a plan; they're throwing ideas at a wall, and it's not sticking.""Since they made the change to say that we're going to merge with Saul rather than merge with Roxborough, we haven't had another community meeting to discuss what that will look like for our students," Szymanski said. "What's the cost of keeping this building open as an education hub versus an environmental education magnet high school? Now they're voting? What could they possibly vote on? They better vote no cause they have no ethical boundary if they don't," she added. District officials said they conducted a comprehensive review of all schools considered for closure, including Ludlow Elementary. "It's a very prominent property in the city of Philadelphia, and to the extent that we could keep it in the footprint we thought was appropriate," Watlington said. The Board of Education is expected to take up the plan at its meeting on Thursday, where the board president is anticipated to call for a vote. To fund the proposal, the district plans to borrow $1 billion through capital bonds, with the remaining funds expected to come from the state and philanthropic organizations.
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