The School District of Philadelphia has released the data it will use to determine which school buildings it will close, rehabilitate or repurpose.
Each school building was assessed on four factors — its condition, how well it aligns with the district's desired programming, how close it is to capacity and how well the surrounding community could withstand a closure.
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While no decisions about the future of the buildings have been made, Superintendent Tony Watlington said the district's recommendations will be made public this fall and undergo an extensive public feedback period before being submitted to the Board of Education.
Dozens of community sessions, advisory group recommendations and survey responses went into building the Facilities Data Dashboard, which was released Wednesday on the district's website. It allows people to search by school.
The schools each received scores on the four factors, described more fully below:
- School building: This evaluates the safety, accessibility and technological capabilities of the building.
- Program alignment: This measures the building's ability to provide appropriate spaces for programs like art, physical education and pre-K.
- Capacity/utilization: This assesses whether the school is under or over capacity.
- Neighborhood vulnerability: This determines how well a community can withstand a school closure, and considers factors like housing, unemployment and transportation. It also considers whether the community has had a school closure in the past.
According to the district, an "unsatisfactory" score in any category does not necessarily indicate that a building will close, but it provides a "foundation for deeper analysis" for the district's short-term, mid-term and long-term recommendations.
This fall, Watlington will make recommendations to maintain, modernize, co-locate, repurpose or close each building.
Community engagement sessions are planned to be held this fall, Watlington said, and feedback can be submitted via the online dashboard.