Only one school in the area is slated to close, the Charles R. Drew School near 38th and Powelton, in the school consolidation plan unveiled yesterday by the School Reform Commission.
Beginning next school year students at Drew, which is a K-8 school, will be spread among Samuel Powel Elementary, Martha Washington Elementary, Alaine Locke School and Middle Years Alternative school.
The plan also changes the grade configuration in the 2013-2014 school year at Alexander Wilson School (46th and Woodland), which is currently K-6, to K-5. Sixth grade students will attend Shaw Middle School. Shaw (54th and Warrington) will expand from 7th and 8th grades to include 6th grade as well. Grade changes at Comegys Elementary (51st and Upland) and Harrington Elementary (53rd and Baltimore) to K-5 will also feed Shaw’s new configuration.
Students at two other local elementary schools – Lea Elementary and Penn-Alexander – will experience no changes under the plan, which will eliminate 14,000 empty seats. The School District of Philadelphia has said that it hopes to eliminate some 70,000 empty seats over the next several years.
Under the plan, West Philadelphia High School will be put for sale sometime during the 2012-2013 school year.
The District has scheduled a series of public meetings to discuss the consolidation plan. The fist meeting in West Philadelphia will be held on Wednesday, Dec. 7 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the new West Philadelphia High School.
The full report is available for download here.
November 3rd, 2011 at 12:45 pm
Here’s the catchment maps again: http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=262a34y&s=5
Drew’s is the giant one to the right of PAS and Wilson.
There was also mention of catchments needing be redrawn but it wasn’t clear if that only referred to schools specifically impacted by the closing of other schools. Would not be mad if Lea’s catchment was expanded as right now it’s actually smaller than Powel’s (the triangular one on the top right).
January 4th, 2012 at 3:14 pm
There is an interesting article on the School District’s 70,000 vacant seat number here:
http://www.thenotebook.org/blog/113259/seventy-thousand-vacant-seats-convenient-truth
Apparently the district looked at the square footage of the classrooms and how many seats could theoretically be put in a classroom as opposed to a school’s actual space needs to arrive at that number.