"We need to do more," acting Chairman Wendell Pritchett said.
With a student population now less than 150,000, the district has lost more than 50,000 pupils in the last decade, many to a growing charter-school movement. Officials have estimated there are 70,000 empty seats citywide.
The schools slated for closure are: Levering, Harrison, Sheppard, Drew, and E.M. Stanton elementaries; Pepper Middle School; and FitzSimons High, Sheridan West Academy, and Philadelphia High School for Business.
Most would close at the end of this school year, but FitzSimons, Sheridan West, High School for Business, and Pepper would be phased out.
If the SRC adopts the recommendations next year, these would be the first large-scale school closings in the district since 1981.
Each closing would save the district between $500,000 and $1 million. And while the cash-strapped school system does need to find savings, Nunery said, the decisions are being driven by educational needs.
Also on the table are more than a dozen grade-configuration changes that would take place over the next few years. There are 25 different grade configurations, and officials want to move to standardize them to just four - kindergarten to grade five, K-8, 6-8, and 9-12.
Officials said they hoped to bring most schools to a recommended range of between 450 to 800 students for elementary schools, 600 to 800 for middle schools, and 1,000 to 1,200 for high schools. Some exceptions would remain.
Combined with grade changes and consolidations made this school year, the moves announced Wednesday would shed 14,000 seats. The district had said it wanted to cut 35,000 seats by 2014.
That would put the district at a utilization rate of 71 percent. Its stated goal was 85 percent.
"There are multiple stages to this," Nunery said. "This is not one-and-done."
