Point Breeze Neighbors Make Last-Ditch Plea To Block Sale Of Shut Down Elementary School
By Pat Loeb
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Point Breeze neighbors, today, appealed to Philadelphia Orphans Court to block the sale of the shuttered Walter Smith Elementary School, at 20th and Wharton Streets, to a Maryland developer, in case that combines anger over the mass public school closings of 2013 with anxiety about gentrification.
Smith was one of 24 schools closed to save money, chosen, school officials said, because it was only half full. But community activist Claudia Sherrod says it still meant displacing 423 students and left the immediate neighborhood without an elementary school.
She predicts the need for one will grow because of all the development in the area, including, ironically, the redevelopment of Smith as housing.
"They're trying to put properties in Smith school; half a block away (developer Ori) Feibush is trying to put 22 properties; next to him, a gentleman wants to put 50," she said.
" Where are the kids going to go to school? Where are they going to school?"
Councilman Kenyatta Johnson joined Sherrod's appeal.
"If there's not going to be a school, there should be a proposal to focus on some level of affordable housing, or senior housing, that would provide a level of balance for the development that's taking place," he says.
But the district argued the sale is part of a package deal that includes sought-after sites such as Smith and less desirable property, such as Germantown High School. District spokesman Fernando Gallard says it will bring in 6.8 million and allow the district to realize some savings from the school closings.
"The district does not want to be managing buildings that are empty," he says, adding students could go to Childs Elmentary, three blocks east of Smith.
