PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Twenty schools would close, including several middle schools that would be phased out, and others would be modernized and reconfigured under a sweeping and long-awaited facilities plan released by the School District of Philadelphia on Thursday.
The 10-year, $2.8 billion plan would expand access to academic programs while modernizing many of the district’s aging buildings. It also addresses overcrowding in some areas of the city and under-enrollment in others.
“We must find ways to more efficiently use all of our resources so that we can push higher-quality academic and extracurricular programming and activities into all of our schools across all the neighborhoods in Philadelphia, while at the same time addressing under- and over-enrolled schools,” Superintendent Tony Watlington told reporters at a press briefing…