Closings

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia's announcement that it plans to close 49 schools in June not only produced anger and grief, it spawned rumors and misinformation. Some of the errors causing the most consternation centered on school appeals and the hiring process for displaced elementary school teachers. According to some accounts circulating over the weekend, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput had changed his mind and would not review cases where schools believed that the recommended closing was based on factual errors.

General Motors Corp. chairman Roger Smith said yesterday more assembly plants could be closed if economic conditions became unfavorable and if the government's fuel-economy standard continued to be increased. At a four-hour annual shareholders meeting, Smith also gave the first indication of how his successor would be chosen. The chairman, who retires in July 1990, said a committee of GM's outside directors would begin meeting this fall to pick a candidate. Smith told the shareholders that no executive had an inside track on becoming his replacement.

Faced with a critical budget shortfall, the Philadelphia School District will unveil the draft of a plan next week to close and consolidate schools to deal with 70,000 empty seats. The meeting, scheduled for 5 p.m. Thursday at the district's headquarters at 440 N. Broad St., is the next step in a process the district calls "right-sizing" that will include six community meetings later in the month. While some changes will be implemented in the fall, district officials said no closings or consolidations would occur until the 2012-13 academic year.

A federal prosecutor said during her closing argument yesterday at the fraud trial stemming from the 2006 death of Danieal Kelly that Danieal's condition at the time she died was proof that the defendants "didn't do their jobs. " Danieal, 14, who had cerebral palsy, died on Aug. 4, 2006. She weighed just 42 pounds and had bed sores that were bone deep. Four employees of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health - co-founders Mickal Kamuvaka and Solomon Manamela, and caseworkers Julius Juma Murray and Mariam Coulibaly - are charged with billing the city for in-home visits to at-risk families that were never made under a $3.7-million contract.

The Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia fighting proposed closings and mergers have held candlelight vigils, organized rallies and marches, and served up spaghetti dinners. As part of their fund-raising campaigns, they have created Facebook pages, set up Twitter accounts, and sold everything from T-shirts to hair tinsel in school colors. They also have made presentations with enrollment data and financial projections to archdiocesan officials. Now, they await word of their fates.

The Philadelphia School District will massively restructure itself in the coming months, fundamentally altering the way it is organized and run - and possibly closing 40 low-performing, underused schools next year and shifting many more students to charters. The district faces a $218 million shortfall for the coming school year, more than previously stated and subject to rise if Mayor Nutter's proposed city tax plan does not materialize or if a recent charter school ruling is not altered.

Many Philadelphia businesses shut down by early afternoon yesterday to conserve electric power in response to Gov. Casey's declaring a state of emergency. Some Center City office buildings reported temporary power outages yesterday morning that disrupted operations and caused computer systems to crash. And retailers were hard hit by a lack of customers, who heeded warnings to stay off icy roads. But many manufacturing plants continued operating, often with fewer workers and less than full power, or by running their own generators.

Shouting, waving signs, and drowning out officials, hundreds of students, parents, and community members angry at plans to shut 37 Philadelphia schools lashed out Thursday night at the School Reform Commission. "I have never been more disappointed in this city as a whole," said Naeemah Felder, parent of a daughter at Pepper Middle School, one of the schools slated for closure in June. "I want to stay in my neighborhood, because McCloskey is closest to where I live," fourth grader Lamar Robinson said.

Here's a depressing update: Due to an "administrative misstep," most of the 10 new security guards promised to the city's short-staffed library system have not been hired yet. As a result, library branches throughout the city have continued to operate with unscheduled closings and reduced hours, and will do so for at least a few more days. In December, the Daily News reported that many of the Free Library of Philadelphia's 54 branches were not open as scheduled. For several months, numerous closings had been announced each morning on the library's Web site.