Nunery: no school closings this September
by Dale Mezzacappa on Mar 30 2011 Posted in Latest news
Deputy Superintendent Leroy Nunery said Wednesday that there will be no school closings this September, even though the District is counting on some savings next year by implementing parts of its facilities master plan.
Besides school closings, other options include school consolidation, relocation, expansion, and co-location with charter schools. Those options are still on the table for this fall, a spokesperson said.
The School Reform Commission will hold a public meeting on April 7 to reveal more details about implementation of the plan.
Comments (12)
Submitted by lcr3002 (not verified) on Wed, 03/30/2011 - 22:18.
Mouth agape. I did hear that one of the plans was to have regional Ninth Grade Centers, so maybe that is one reason why they are not closing buildings.
Submitted by SDP Teacher (not verified) on Thu, 03/31/2011 - 04:37.
The "consolidation" process should be interesting. For example, the Notebook reported the SDP pays more than $2/million a year for rent for Constitution HS and Science Leadership Academy. Meanwhile, Academy at Palumbo is about 40% capacity. So, why not have all three schools share the same building? The total student enrollment for the three schools is only about 1500-1600 - less than half the size of Northeast HS. Does the SDP have the political guts?
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 03/31/2011 - 07:33.
Small schools are effective in many ways that benefit children. Those two schools have leases and would most likely have to pay for exiting out of them. And, they are two highly successful schools so consolidating them would have a tremendous negative impact on their programs.
Submitted by SDP Teacher (not verified) on Thu, 03/31/2011 - 08:07.
Those schools - especially SLA - have huge amount of political clout from parents and local institutions. That is why consolidation won't be considered. Parkway Center City and Phila. Business High School share the same building. Why not put SLA at Ben Franklin and Constitution at Academy at Palumbo? If other schools have to sacrifice, why not magnet schools with political / social capital?
Submitted by K.R. Luebbert (not verified) on Thu, 03/31/2011 - 09:34.
Why does "rent" have to be paid for SLA when they are housed in the old SDP human resources building? Did the SDP NEVER own this building? That would have been dumb to pay rent for that all those years when there was room in the parkway building and in the old JFK building! They should definitely move them into available space and save the two million.
Submitted by Paul Socolar on Thu, 03/31/2011 - 23:30.
The School District does not own the building where SLA is located and apparently never did. It was renting space for its HR department.
According to information the District provided the Notebook on p 17 of our Feb. edition, the SLA and Constitution High leases both run till 2016. I believe the District negotiated some major improvements in the buildings that were tied to long-term leases. Paul Vallas and the SRC were responsible for those deals.
Submitted by Teacher (K.R. Luebbert) (not verified) on Fri, 04/01/2011 - 07:38.
Interesting...one has to wonder why the SDP was paying for space for Human Resources at that time when there was plenty of space in buildings the District owned outright. Just another boneheaded monetary decision that helped get us in this mess.
Submitted by meg (not verified) on Thu, 03/31/2011 - 07:31.
I may be over thinking this, but isn't a school closed, the building closed when one is consolidated with another?
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 03/31/2011 - 09:35.
Could someone please explain this? I am also confused here.
Submitted by Meg (not verified) on Thu, 03/31/2011 - 10:17.
There you go - thinking again.
Submitted by debbie (not verified) on Wed, 06/15/2011 - 20:27.
Excuse me. Nunery states there will be no school closings. The next paragraph states..Besides school closings...Poor Nunery. He must be so proud of looking like a philly school grad.
Submitted by Dale Jordan (not verified) on Wed, 06/15/2011 - 21:47.
If the PSD believes that as a "distressed school district" it has the right under state law to void existing contracts, why would it not be able to cancel these leases.
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