Posted on Thu, Jun. 25, 2009
After months of weekly meetings, protests, penny drives and "burning the midnight oil," William Penn High School alumni and community members cheered yesterday when school district officials withdrew a plan to close the school next year.
More than a dozen speakers pleaded with the School Reform Commission for nearly two hours to save the 35-year-old school at Broad and Master streets.
State Rep. W. Curtis Thomas drove in from Harrisburg and gave an impassioned 20-minute appeal. "Now is the time to invest in our city's schools, not pack up and run away," he said.
Several speakers said returning career academies - in subjects such as in health, communications and the building trades - would once again draw students from all over the city.
"The systematic withdrawal of successful programs such as the one that taught broadcasting to our students has had a direct impact on the school's enrollment [decline]," said Ruth I. Birchett, a community activist.
Last week, district staffers urged that William Penn be closed, because enrollment had declined from more than 2,400 students to 641.
But Leonard Heard, principal from 1999 to 2006, made the case for renovations, saying he'd submitted more than 200 requests for building repairs that were never carried out.
In the end, Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, saying she was moved by the community's support, asked the SRC to consider one of two options: either renovate the school at a cost of $26 million or build a new school that would reopen in 2012. The current building, opened in 1974, was praised for its architecture. *
MOST POPULAR PHILLY.COM PHOTOS
Subscribe now! Daily Headlines Newsletter
Philly.com news blogs
Philly.com Promotions
