04/26/2017
I'm writing on behalf of the Save Smith School Committee, a group of parents and neighbors in the Point Breeze neighborhood of Philadelphia working together to prevent our neighborhood school from being turned into market-rate housing. We are reaching out to folks who may be able to work with us by supporting our upcoming March/Rally on Thursday, April 27, 2017 at 4:00pm. We plan to gather at the Municipal Services building (1401 JFK Blvd) and March to Philadelphia School District (440 N Broad Street), where we plan to hold a rally.
The rally is titled "Education -NOT- Gentrification" because we think the school district is fundamentally changing our neighborhoods through the decisions of which schools to close, who to sell the properties to, and what kind of contracts to negotiate. In the case of Smith, the sale to a market-rate developer will hurt our most vulnerable residents and take away one of our neighborhood anchors.
Stand with us if you think...
•community should have a seat at the table for how to utilize public spaces.
•decisions need to be informed by neighborhood data and re-evaluated if new information comes to light.
•public spaces should be used to benefit the public.
To give you some background, the Smith School property was closed in 2013 by the School District, sold to a private developer (Concordia) along with four other schools district properties.
Schools in Concordia Sale
1. Charles Carroll High School
2. Robert Fulton Elementary School
3. Germantown High School
4. Walter G. Smith Elementary School
5. Abigail Vare Elementary School
The
se schools are slated to be turned by the developer into market rate housing. After local residents attempted to bring a court challenge to stop the sale, the Court of Common Pleas ruled that it could not approve the sale of the five properties, due to inconsistencies between the estimated and sales values of certain properties. At that point, the School District could have pulled out of the deal but it became obvious to community residents that the School District did not care about the low-income communities by pursuing another appeal to a higher court. The School District appealed this ruling to the Commonwealth Court. On March 7, 2017, the Commonwealth Court approved the sale to the developer.
We want to express our disapproval of such disrespectful actions and how the community residents have been excluded from the decision process regarding the sale of Smith School. Not to mention, how this sale will knowingly impact and push out many low-income families, if the developer turn these schools into market-rate housing (condos).
The Save Smith School Committee wants the district to breach the contract and prevent Smith School and other buildings from being turned into market-rate housing. While re-opening Smith as a neighborhood public school would be our first choice, we are open to other community benefit usages or combination of both.
Once again, we are asking for your support of our Rally/March and would like you and your members to stand with us.
If can find more information about the rally/march and our committee on Facebook. Search “Save Smith School Committee” or visit www.savesmithschool.com.
