Schools

Meeting On Future of Northwest Philly Schools

The meeting took place Thursday evening at Germantown High School.

GERMANTOWN — It's true, according to Tracy Richter, that enrollment in Philadelphia public schools has dropped significantly throughout the past decade or so.

As a result, the school district has about 70,000 empty seats in all the buildings it owns.

But Richter said at a public meeting Thursday at Germantown High School that things could be stabilizing somewhat on that front.

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The reason enrollment has gone down, he said, is based in a combination of factors, such as the success of charter schools and a general decline in the birth rate in the 1990s. During the past five years or so, though, he said, the first- and second-grade enrollment at schools in Northwest Philadelphia is expected to go up—from 2,203 first-graders in 2010, for example, to 2,344 in 2015.

Richter, who is the CEO of DeJong Richter, a firm that is working with the school district in its Imagine 2014 five-year plan, said such numbers can help determine whether the district should consolidate or close schools in a particular area. A leveling off, regardless, is a good sign for the district.

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"That's what's happening in the lower grades," he said.

School district officials also heard from a large crowd at the school about issues that are most important to the public. Attendees were broken up into small groups, and within those groups they discussed some of what they had heard from Richter and other school district individuals.

One thing is for certain—changes could be coming to the district. With 70,000 open seats, something needs to be done, Richter said, and Deputy Superintendent Leroy Nunnery said that could potentially involve closing and consolidating some schools in areas where it makes sense to do so.

It also could mean establishing a plan for its surplus real estate—the district has a variety of closed buildings—that could allow groups to take them over in a neighborhood like Germantown and use them for community activities.

And when the district has to decide which buildings it wants to potentially fix up, and which buildings it wants to close, it needs to look at what is called the building's facility condition index (FCI), a number that determines a particular school's condition.

Nineteen schools in the Northwest have a low FCI and don't need much work done. Twenty-four have a medium FCI, and seven have a high FCI—including five elementary schools.

The district, on average, utilizes about 67 percent of its building space. The standard best practice is 85 percent.

But if a building is underutilized and has a high FCI, it doesn't necessarily mean that it will be closed immediately.

"It's not the ending game there," Richter said.

Schools that offer the right programs for students in a particular neighborhood could be kept open if it makes sense for that to happen. Richter said the district needs to make it a priority to offer good programs to students at schools close by, and if a particular school fits that mold, it may remain open even if other factors indicate that it makes sense for it to close.

"It could be one of the best schools in that spot for the demographic," he said.

During the breakout sessions, those in attendance said they wanted to see even more meetings like the one Thursday happen in the future.

Ahmad Rashid and Romond Pickett have been going to a variety of different school district meetings in an effort to participate as much as possible in the decision-making process.

It's important, Rashid said, for the district to keep things in perspective as it carries out its five-year plan. It shouldn't, according to him, expand things too rapidly and shouldn't, at least initially, set its sights too high.

"Don't go beyond where that school is ever going to be able to get to," he said.

Pickett, on the other hand, said the district needs to listen to the public as much as possible.

In suburban school districts, he said, parents often have a lot of clout in terms of what gets done. The same thing, he said, needs to happen in Philadelphia, and parents need to be more involved in what goes on.

"Without us," he said, "the kids have no future."


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