Schools

A Potential School District Makeover: Share Your Thoughts

The district could close 40 schools by the end of next year.

News broke Tuesday that the School District of Philadelphia is planning to start doing business in a much different way than it used to.

Chief Recovery Officer Thomas Knudsen said, according to Philly.com, that 40 schools would be slated to close by the end of the 2013 school year and that the district's headquarters would be broken up and decentralized. You can read more about that here.

(We want your input. Is this plan necessary? Or is it totally misguided?.)

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Mayor Michael Nutter praised the plan, saying it was necessary to get the financially unstable district back on track.

But others disagreed. Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan, for one, said students will suffer because of it.

Find out what's happening in Chestnut Hill-Mt. Airywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“This is a cynical, right-wing and market-driven plan to privatize public education, to force thousands of economically disadvantaged families to select from an under-funded hodge-podge of EMO- and charter-company-run schools and to convert thousands of professional and family-sustaining positions into low-paying, high-turnover jobs," he said.

The district didn't yet announce which schools might close. That will likely come later. It plans to close 64 schools by 2017.

District schools in Chestnut Hill and Mt. Airy escaped the axe in 2012 in this year's round of closures, although will next school year.


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