Philly Unpacked: What’s going on with Philly’s Schools?

In this latest edition of “Philly Unpacked” host Jordana Rubenstein guides us through the proposed closure of more than a dozen Philadelphia public schools.

This episode was published online April 11, which was before the Philadelphia School District reduced the number of schools to be closed to 17, down from an original 20.

In the episode, you’ll hear from students, teachers and a parent from Lankenau Environmental Science Magnet High School. The school is still on the closure list to be considered at the April 30 meeting of the school board. However, the district has reversed course and says after closing Lankenau, it will not sell the property. It promises to eventually put it to community or student use. 

In this episode, in addition to hearing from members of the Lankenau community, Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s Rebecca Redelmeier breaks down the entire school closure plan, including how it has changed since it was first proposed.

Here is an outline of what you’ll see in the program:

01:34 Introduction

04:38 Meet Lankenau High School

07:38 Rebecca Redelmeier on what we know about the “Facilities Master Plan”

19:48 Hear Lankenau voices on the impact of it’s closure

21:52 What kind of impact can we expect closures to have on the district as a whole?

Some resources for further reading:

School District of Philadelphia Resources Announcing the Proposed Facilities Master Plan: https://www.philasd.org/blog/2026/01/…

Facilities Master Plan Recommendations: https://www.philasd.org/fpp/#fppoptions

If you want to browse other episodes of “Philly Unpacked” you can find their YouTube playlist here.