Proposed Philadelphia school closures could threaten high schools that partner with Penn through internships, community service, and dual enrollment programs.
The School District of Philadelphia announced a $2.8 billion “Facilities Master Plan” last month, recommending a sweeping overhaul of district facilities, including plans to close four high schools. The Daily Pennsylvanian spoke to teachers, administrators, and Penn liaisons at two of these schools — Lankenau Environmental Science Magnet High School and Paul Robeson High School — which maintain various partnerships with Penn, including through the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, School of Social Policy and Practice, and The Water Center at Penn.
The school district’s proposal, set to be presented to the school board on Feb. 26, outlines a new plan to reorganize Philadelphia’s elementary, middle, and high schools. Along with modernizing 159 schools, the plan would also close 20 schools across the area. The district argued that closing smaller magnet high schools — some of which they described as having unsatisfactory enrollment — would allow them to allocate resources elsewhere.
A University spokesperson declined to comment. Requests for comment were left with the Netter Center, SP2, The Water Center at Penn, and the School District of Philadelphia.
Lankenau Environmental Science Magnet High School is an environmental science magnet high school in Northwest Philadelphia. One of its partnerships with the University allows classes to participate in labs with The Water Center at Penn. The center travels to Lankenau, which is located in a large wooded area.
According to Lankenau principal Jessica McAtamney, the school’s unique location is a key reason administrators and teachers value the campus.
“I am not sure how that [partnership] would carry on if we’re not on campus,” McAtamney told the DP.
Lankenau teacher Meredith Joseph also said partnerships might wane with teacher turnover.
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“The environmental partnerships that we have with Penn and with other community partners are relationship-dependent,” Joseph explained.
Lankenau outputs 7% of Pennsylvania’s Career and Technical Education students in the environmental field, according to Joseph. The school is also the state’s only environmentally focused three-year technical education program.
“The experience of interacting with a school with the reputation of Penn for any student, for any student, is absolutely invaluable in a way that just visiting the campus isn’t,” Joseph added. “It really allows our students to see themselves in those spaces.”
Joseph also stated that the choice to close Lankenau was an unfair interpretation of enrollment data. The report pointed out that the school's junior class only had 30 enrolled students, describing the small size as inadequate.
She refuted this argument, added that “every small to medium-sized school has their junior class as their smallest class.”
Because the lottery was in such disarray, there were schools with waiting lists of 300 and 400 and there were schools that didn’t have kids to fill their seats,” Joseph said.
Penn social work graduate students also provide counseling to Lankenau students through the high school’s partnership with SP2. Joseph said the program makes students “feel seen, feel heard, and overall, makes for a better student and better access to curriculum.”
“Those social workers are absolutely invaluable to our student population,” she said.
Paul Robeson High School — located in West Philadelphia — would also close under the new plan. Penn’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships partners with the school for its University-Assisted Community Schools program. Through the program, Penn students perform community service-related tasks in the school.
William Kebbe, who leads Penn’s Nutrition Education program at Robeson, emphasized the site’s accessibility for Penn students, telling the DP that “it’s a very easy walk that’s maybe max 15 minutes from the furthest point on campus.”
If the school closes, students and programs will be merged into the larger William L. Sayre High School, which is located further from Penn’s campus. When asked if the new location would disrupt partnerships, Kebbe expressed concern.
“They’ll have to form new partnerships with schools and with principals and teachers, and that can be difficult, because it’s not inherent that as soon as Penn walks into a school that we have this amazing partnership,” he said.
Kebbe emphasized how the partnerships are mutually beneficial for both Penn students and Robeson students.
“It’s a transformative experience for [Penn students] to be in a high school, to interact with the kids and realize that their world is guarded from the ills of the outside world and the issues that are going on in West Philadelphia, namely poverty.”
Kebbe also highlighted that one of the factors that attracts students to Robeson is its “intimate learning environment.”
“Teachers know essentially everyone’s names, Students can forge really deep and trusting bonds with the teachers and the adults there,” he said. “I think there’s something to be said about that experience when you compare it to a larger high school experience.”
“Paul Robeson is a safe haven,” he added. “The school is an identity that [Robeson students] wear. When you close down part of a person’s identity, that can be really disorienting.”
Penn Urban Studies professor Julia McWilliams, who studies education issues in Philadelphia, also said the consolidation could negatively affect students’ experiences.
“It means less sleep, less free time for kids, and higher costs for the district to bus kids,” she said.
McWilliams stated that the change aligns with a trend of “chronic disinvestment in school facilities.” In 2013, the school district closed and consolidated 24 schools — a pattern she has examined in her research.
“We’re leaving closed buildings to go to other schools, and now those buildings are being closed,” McWilliams said.
She spoke about how Penn has a responsibility to uphold the institutions it partners with, adding that the University often has “an extractive relationship with West Philadelphia.”
“It ends up being quite performative to not have policies that actually ensure that those Partnership Schools have what they need to function,” McWilliams said. “This is the long-term outcome to that kind of extraction where there’s no investment in the educational institutions in the city.”
Kebbe similarly suggested Penn’s “responsibility to engage with schools like Paul Robeson, because they’re so close, and because of the gentrification that Penn assumes around them.”
“The Netter Center wants Penn students to leave feeling and realize that their education is taking place in the larger context of West Philadelphia, and the impact Penn has can only be observed through these experiences,” Kebbe said.
