Penn-partnered high schools still set to close despite Philadelphia School District plan revisions

The School District of Philadelphia recently released a revised facilities plan that would shut down two high schools associated with Penn. 

The two schools set to close — Paul Robeson and Lankenau Environmental Science Magnet high schools — maintain various partnerships with the University, including through the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, School of Social Policy & Practice, and the Water Center at Penn. The Lankenau property will become an environmental education center, and the district will seek community input on repurposing the Robeson site.

The April 20 plan called for merging Robeson with Motivation High School and Lankenau with Walter B. Saul High School.

In a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian, Philadelphia Councilmember Jamie Gauthier — who represents Penn and parts of University City — called for keeping Robeson open.

“Robeson High School belongs in University City, where young people are a stone’s throw from the University of Pennsylvania and other world-class institutions,” she wrote. “Robeson is the last public school in the heart of University City. The opportunities that come with proximity cannot be replicated at Motivation or Sayre.”

A request for comment was left with the School District of Philadelphia.

Gauthier acknowledged the “poor condition” of the school’s facilities, but added that moving the school entirely would continue the “shameful legacy of displacement and erasure" in University City.

“I welcome transforming Robeson to meet this moment and to maximize the advantages and opportunities that come with being surrounded by some of the world’s top STEM institutions,” she wrote. “But that is not the proposal in front of the board. What the Board of Education is being asked to do is repeat the trend that began when government and institutions razed the Black Bottom to make way for University City.”

State Rep. Rick Krajewski (D-188) echoed a similar sentiment in an April 20 social media post, writing that Penn “has driven intense gentrification and displaced thousands of working-class Black families for decades.”

He also described Robeson as the “last public-school standing in the neighborhood.”

In a separate statement to the DP, Krajewski urged wealthy Philadelphia institutions — such as Penn — to offer support to the schools slated to close.

“Instead of closing yet another successful public school, and pushing working-class Black families even further out of the neighborhood, I’m urging our city and state lawmakers to make the wealthiest pay their fair share,” he wrote to the DP. 

Krajweski added, “That means putting some pressure to chip in on massive corporations that headquarter themselves in our city like Comcast, billionaires sheltering their wealth in the suburbs like Jeff Yass, and yes, multi-billion-dollar private Universities like Penn.”

A request for comment was left with a University spokesperson.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker — who graduated from the Fels Institute of Government in 2016 — defended the plan before the Philadelphia City Council last week. 

“Rightsizing buildings is not about abandoning communities. It is about strengthening them,” she said in the April 22 testimony. “Let me be clear: the school facilities plan is not about the value of the buildings. It is about giving students more resources and more opportunities in better buildings than the ones that will close.” 

A request for comment was left with a spokesperson for the Office of the Mayor.

Both high schools set to close currently have partnerships with Penn. Lankenau — an environmental science magnet school — works with Penn’s Water Center on an initiative that gives students access to the center’s labs. The University also offers a program that allows graduate students studying at SP2 to visit Lankenau to provide counseling for students.

Robeson collaborates with Penn’s Netter Center through Penn’s University-Assisted Community Schools program. Penn students perform community service-related tasks at the high school through the program. 

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