School Reform Commission Takes Steps To Speed Up Closures
By Mike DeNardo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The School Reform Commission has taken a step to speed-up the process of closing nine public schools in the city.
The state school code requires 90 days notice between public hearings on closing a school and the actual vote to close it. The School Reform Commission this week okay-ed suspending that three-month window to allow the SRC to hold hearings March 3 on nine schools slated to close -- and then take a vote at the end of the month.
"This is not an intention to sort of truncate the process we've laid out," says SRC chair Pedro Ramos.
The SRC did hold a series of public meetings on the closures over the last several months.
"What we want to do is to provide notice as soon as we can on final decisions."
But there was no advance notice of suspending the school code, and that item did not appear on the agenda posted on the web before Thursday night's meeting.
