Chalkbeat

Racial slurs, dress codes, few Black teachers: How Black girls say Philly schools are failing them

2023-05-04T11:00:00+00:00

Black girls in Philadelphia public schools say they’re routinely subjected to racism from fellow students, teachers, and school administrators, and it colors every aspect of their school experience.

That was one of several “overarching” themes found in five student focus groups hosted by the Education Law Center and highlighted in “We Need Supportive Spaces That Celebrate Us: Black Girls Speak Out About Public Schools,” a report from the nonprofit advocacy group released Thursday. Black girls bear the brunt of systemic inequities in school and throughout society, yet they are under-represented in research and investment aimed at students of color, the center said.

How to fix a problem that’s so pervasive? Having more Black teachers and staffers in schools would make a difference, the group’s attorneys said, based on student input in the focus groups. The report also focused on the importance of using a curriculum that makes Black students feel comfortable expressing their views, as well as criticisms of certain dress codes in schools and the role of police in schools.

“We cannot create equitable education spaces without intentionally considering the needs of Black girls and addressing the interlocking systemic barriers to accessing a high-quality education,” the report said.

For its report, the Education Law Center lawyers talked to some 20 Black girls who attended public middle and high schools, most of them in the Philadelphia area. Some attended neighborhood schools, some went to charter schools, and some were in educational programs at juvenile justice facilities. In every setting, students reported anti-Black racism in practice and in policy.

The students described being subjected to racial slurs, being singled out for discipline because of their race and gender, and a lack of access to appropriate support and resources. The findings align with research showing Black girls are singled out or punished more often and more harshly than their peers for similar behaviors.

“The girls we met with spoke consistently about pervasive, anti-Black racism, which shaped all aspects of their educational experience,” Education Law Center staff attorney Paige Joki, one of the report’s authors, said in an interview.

Joki said the group focused on Black girls in its report because they are “uniquely harmed” by various prejudices and inequities in society, and also because they often get ignored by research and data-based studies. She also said that the report “really confirmed for us the importance of addressing barriers,” and that the Black girls said they had universally negative experiences regardless of school demographics.

“Black girls deserve schools that are supportive and affirming and well resourced,” Joki said. “These spaces are possible.”

Black teachers and ‘affirming’ curriculum are crucial

Research has shown Black students learn better from teachers who look like them, though some students don’t get taught by a Black teacher for years.

Black teachers have made a difference for Kerla Milius, a junior at Philadelphia’s Northeast High School.

There aren’t many of them at the school, but they have banded together to support each other and avoid being “overshadowed,” said Milius, who is outreach coordinator for the Philly Black Students Alliance.

“That’s inspired us [students] to stick together,” said Milius.

Meanwhile, the girls interviewed for the report said they felt uncomfortable, and sometimes unsafe, in classrooms with no other people of color. One said she didn’t think her school was “built” for her because “there are very few Black teachers.”

The focus groups themselves were all led by Black women, which made for an intergenerational bonding experience, said Joki. “There was a lot of discussion about when students were able to be educated by a Black teacher for the first time and how special that was,” she said.

That ties in with another of the report’s recommendations: Schools should adopt a “culturally responsive and affirming curriculum.” All the girls expressed a desire to learn about Black history, beyond the history of racism and oppression.

“It is very uncomfortable to be the only Black student in class when you are talking about slavery,” said one girl quoted in the report.

“A Black teacher often either supplements or supplants a curriculum that is problematic,” said Sharif El-Mekki, founder of the Center for Black Educator Development. Learning is “undermined” if students are taught that Black history “begins with enslavement,” he told us. “It’s important that we have people that actually know history” and can tell students about positive contributions Black people have made, he said.

El-Mekki also sharply criticized school policies for layoffs that hit the newest hires hardest, since they tend to affect teachers of color more than white teachers.

In fact, the girls interviewed noted examples of Black teachers facing discrimination, and were on the lookout for such instances, the report said.

Dress and grooming codes were another source of angst for the girls in the focus groups. “Every single student was able to share with us a way they had been harmed by their school’s dress code,” Joki said. Bans on certain hairstyles or head coverings create discrimination and make students feel unwelcome, she said.

In schools with uniforms, a Black girl may get sent home because of the way the uniform fits, the center found. One girl said her uniform made her feel “sexualized” and “grown.”

The girls said having police in schools made them feel unsafe, rather than protected. That’s in line with research showing that Black girls are more likely to be arrested or get in trouble at school than white girls, said Joki. “They were keenly aware that they would be subjected to racist stereotypes,” she said. “They were treated like Black women despite being Black girls.”

The report recommends that schools do away with discriminatory dress codes and remove police from schools.

Joki said she’s optimistic the report will help bring about “some overdue change in our schools.” It comes as Pennsylvania deals with a Commonwealth Court judge’s February ruling that the state’s school funding system is unconstitutional because it shortchanges children in low-income districts.

“I’m hopeful that will bring needed resources to our schools,” Joki said.

A week before students decide, Philadelphia’s selective high schools have hundreds of vacant seats

2023-04-06T21:30:17+00:00

A week before Philadelphia students are scheduled to decide where to enroll for ninth grade, 12 of the district’s selective schools still have a combined total of more than 700 open seats, many of which are likely to go unfilled.

The open seats, which the district reported in a statement Thursday, follow its implementation of a new lottery admissions system that was meant to bring more equity and opportunity to the process. But the system, which fully went into effect this school year, has also resulted in fewer students enrolling at many criteria-based high schools for the upcoming year. That trend has sparked concerns about forced teacher transfers, declining enrollment, and corresponding job cuts at those schools, as well as worries about some of the schools’ long-term viability.

The impact on faculty has led to several protests by students and teachers, one before the March 23 Board of Education meeting, and another on March 28 outside City Hall. The concerns are especially acute at themed and innovative high schools that serve mostly Black and brown students.

At its most selective high schools, including Masterman and Central, the enrollment historically has mostly consisted of white and Asian students, although there are signs that their demographics are changing significantly under the new system.

At its March meeting, the Board of Education announced the district would offer seats to 316 students who otherwise qualified for next year’s ninth grade in one or more of the schools but had not enrolled. The district subsequently held two information sessions to help fill those seats. But as of Thursday, just 61 of the 316 students had accepted spots.

Last month, Superintendent Tony Watlington acknowledged that the new process is flawed and said the district will try to improve it next year.

Watlington said he was reallocating $3 million from other parts of the district’s budget to minimize the loss of teachers. But he also said last month that principals ultimately make such staffing decisions based on available funding, a point the district has since reiterated.

Watlington said that only three criteria-based high schools would lose more than two teachers next year: Hill-Freedman World Academy, The Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush, and Girls High School, based on their teacher allotments and information from principals.

However, teachers from Science Leadership Academy–Beeber remain uncertain about how many teachers they could lose from their staff of 50.

Normally, Beeber would take 120 ninth graders, but for next year the projected number is about half that, said Alex Kopp, a math and computer science teacher at the school.

The lottery qualifies students based on grades, test scores (in years when they are available), attendance, and behavior. In past years, schools like Beeber were also able to interview students who came close to qualifying and appeared on paper to be a good fit for the project-based curriculum.

This year, however, they could not interview students to flesh out the class, he said. That change was part of the district’s effort to eliminate implicit bias from the admissions system.

If school staffing drops below a certain level, he might be unable to maintain his computer science and technology program.

Kopp said he respects equity as a goal for the new admissions process, especially for the most selective schools like Central and Masterman. But schools like Beeber could be adversely affected, he said, by “becoming less diverse and less able to serve students that would be highly successful” in their small, often project-based approach to learning. If that happens, “the school community suffers,” he said.

Among the 61 students among the 316 who decided to accept an offer to a selective school, the most popular were Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush, Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) High School, Franklin Learning Center (FLC), and Saul, the state’s only high school that focuses on agriculture.

Beeber was among the other schools students could choose from. Those schools included Lankenau, Motivation, Hill-Freedman, the three Parkways — Northwest, Center City Middle College, and West — and Girls High.

Students, who can apply to up to five schools, must inform the district of their decision by April 14.

Video by WHYY Movers & Makers.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Students march on Philadelphia City Hall, district HQ to protest school selection process

2023-03-28T21:45:48+00:00

Carrying signs with messages like “keep the teachers” and “save our schools,” more than 50 students from Science Leadership Academy at Beeber rallied outside City Hall Tuesday afternoon to protest Philadelphia’s revamped high school admissions process.

Two years after the district unveiled that new process, there are roughly 800 vacant spots next year at 12 of the district schools that require students to apply. Without a full complement of students, the schools could lose teachers and face cutbacks in extracurricular and other activities.

“We’re here to protest how the school system is pretty much messed up,” said Daniel Vergara, a sophomore at Beeber.

Not filling all the available seats in the school “means students are losing out on an education that they’re totally eligible for,” said Miriam Corrales, also a 10th grader. And Matthias Duncan, a senior, said that the changes could result in larger class sizes.

“Teachers shouldn’t be cut. It’s unfair,” said Jade Perry, another Beeber senior.

The ongoing criticism from students and others comes after a similar protest last week in which students and educators said that the district’s admissions lottery, which officials overhauled in 2021, is essentially endangering the survival of several themed and innovative high schools in Philadelphia.

At Thursday’s Board of Education meeting — immediately following last week’s protest — Superintendent Tony Watlington announced that the district would audit the lottery system with an eye toward refining and improving it.

The 2021 changes to the admissions system centralized the admissions process and eliminated the role of school principals in recruiting and admitting students. District leaders said the new system would make admissions more equitable for students of color. Last year, there were early indications that the share of Black and Hispanic students at the city’s four most-selective high schools increased for this year’s ninth grade class.

In a statement last month, the district said the revised system would “eliminate subjectivity and potential actions of implicit bias from the school selection process.”

Last week, Watlington said that 316 students who have qualified for admission to at least one of 12 schools but have not yet enrolled for next year would be offered a seat. He also said he would allocate $3 million to ensure that no high school will lose more than two staff members, “subject to principal discretion.”

But those changes haven’t quelled all of the anger about the system. A petition started by students to protest the admissions system, which circulated after Watlington announced changes to the lottery last week, is scathing.

“Our education is at stake!” it says. It goes on to say that having a lower enrollment at certain high schools “will cause class sizes of 35-40 students, 2-10 teachers to be lost, less funding for schools, fewer electives, and numerous other consequences. Why must the youth suffer from the incompetence of the School District of Philadelphia?”

As of Tuesday afternoon, the petition had about 250 signatures.

The students want the elimination of state standardized test scores as one of the criteria for admissions. They are also demanding “a sufficient school budget” and “adequate resources for learning.”

At Tuesday’s City Hall rally, the students heard from student speakers, as well as Councilmember Kendra Brooks, whose daughter graduated from Beeber, and state Rep. Amen Brown, a Democrat who is running for mayor.

“I’m proud to see so many young people out here rallying,” Brooks told the group. “We need the voice of those most impacted by this to stand up and fight.”

The students then marched up Broad Street to the school district’s headquarters to continue their protest.

Assistant Superintendent Tomas Hanna said the district appreciates the students’ passion and hears their concerns. He also said a committee that includes parents, teachers, and students is examining the admissions process.

Keeping a human element in school admissions

In the current system, which the district introduced for the class that is now in the ninth grade, students list five schools they want to attend, and are entered into lotteries for all of which they qualify. That means some students may be accepted to more than one school and others to none.

Watlington and the board said that the 2021 change was made in the name of equity. Yet last week, Watlington also said it is important not to “completely eliminate the human touch” from the admissions system.

Under the old admissions process, the district said in a statement last month, “Students were selected who did not meet the established criteria for the school. We also know at some schools there is not sufficient space, and students who did meet the criteria for the school were not selected.”

Tanya Wolford, the district’s director of research, told the Board of Education at its Thursday meeting that in the 2018-19 school year, 2,429 students accepted an offer to attend one of the selective schools, even though only 1,270 met the minimum admissions standards.

Board of Education President Reginald Streater cited his own experience Thursday to illustrate the perception in the community of the prior system’s unfairness. He attended Germantown High School more than 20 years ago – and had no complaints about his experience – but said that his mother told him it would be futile to apply to Central or Masterman because “you had to know somebody” to be accepted.

But the Beeber students and other critics, including some teachers, say the new system hurts those it was designed to help if it results in schools that can’t meet their usual enrollment. At Beeber, 83% of the students are economically disadvantaged and 80% are Black or Hispanic.

“We need an education that is well-funded and well-rounded,” the Beeber petition says. “Our education should not be jeopardized because the people in power will not admit that their attempt at equity failed.”

While the most selective schools have strict requirements, many smaller high schools established relatively recently, including U School and the LINC, often recruit students who don’t have stellar academic records but school leaders think could benefit. That could account for some of the students who attend these schools without meeting all the requirements on paper.

Video by WHYY Movers & Makers.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Food insecurity, literacy, and more: Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s early childhood education guide

2022-12-07T11:30:00+00:00

This story is featured in Chalkbeat’s 2022 Philadelphia Early Childhood Education Guide on efforts to improve outcomes for the city’s youngest learners. To keep up with early childhood education and Philadelphia’s public schools, sign up for our free weekly newsletter here.

As any parent, teacher, or administrator will tell you, the success of Philadelphia’s early learners depends on factors inside and outside of the classroom.

For our 2022 Philadelphia Early Childhood Education Guide, we dive deeply into areas both inside and outside the school setting as we continue to explore how to improve outcomes for the city’s youngest learners.

Outside the classroom, we’ll look at the ways hunger can disrupt the education of young children — as well as some local solutions for filling this most basic human need.

Back inside the classroom, we will take stock of the district’s push to have students reading on grade level by the time they finish third grade, an effort that started in 2015 but was interrupted by the pandemic.

Straddling home and school life is the effort to embrace students’ customs and cultural identity in the classroom, a strategy that some researchers believe will create a sense of belonging that translates into better academic performance.

Chalkbeat Philadelphia is one of more than 20 news organizations producing Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and economic mobility in the city. Read all our reporting here.

And in our How I Teach feature, we hear from a prekindergarten lead teacher about how to help youngsters who rarely left their homes during the pandemic transition to the school setting.

Check out the stories in the guide below.

Philadelphia invested in early literacy efforts. Is it working?

During November, Mayor Jim Kenney visited several child care centers to highlight what he considers one of his biggest achievements as mayor: making affordable, high-quality early childhood education available to an additional 4,300 students through PHLPreK, an initiative that supplements state and federal programs including Pre-K Counts and Head Start.

The focus on prekindergarten is part of the city’s effort to ensure that all students can read on grade level by the end of third grade. This Read by 4th campaign began in 2015, and has brought together universities, foundations, businesses, and other institutions to emphasize literacy activities in everyday life as well as in the classroom.

As a target on the road to universal proficiency, the Philadelphia Board of Education has set a goal that 62% of third graders will be proficient readers by the 2025-26 school year. Yet while many systems have been put in place to help the city achieve its goal, the results so far have been mixed — at least as measured by standardized test scores.

Read the full story, by Dale Mezzacappa.

Early childhood education programs fight food insecurity in Philadelphia and beyond

Approximately 31% of Philadelphia’s children experienced food insecurity in 2020, up from just over 24% a year earlier, according to Philabundance, which operates food banks in the area as a member of the Feeding America program.

And almost half of principals in a 2020-2021 School District of Philadelphia survey said food insecurity was a “great” or “moderate” challenge. Black and Hispanic/Latino households had higher rates of food insecurity, as did families whose children were still learning English, the district found.

This level of food insecurity can have dire consequences for early learners, who need stability at home and in school settings to thrive.

Read the full story, by Nora Macaluso.

How Philadelphia’s early childhood education programs help kids find strength in their identities

Inside Children’s Village, a 46-year-old nonprofit education center in Philadelphia’s Chinatown, preschoolers look into a mirror and create self portraits, then say which attributes they like best.

The game, called “Mirror, Mirror,” is a favorite of Sim Yi Loh, the family partnership coordinator at the center, whose families are largely first- or second-generation immigrants from East Asia.

“Children as young as six months can point out facial differences and skin color differences,” Loh said. “These activities we brought into the classrooms to boost self-confidence, and this will carry on into their learning.”

“Mirror, Mirror” is just one of several ways Children’s Village tries to embrace the culture, traditions, and customs of its early learners. And helping young children see themselves in the school setting can create a strong sense of belonging, some researchers say, that could help the early learners do better in school.

Read the full story, by Nora Macaluso.

How this preschool teacher adapted for her COVID-era students

For many parents, this year has marked a return to “normal” — with COVID restrictions largely lifted and workplaces open once again.

The transition has been harder for young children. Today’s preschoolers were babies and toddlers during the pandemic lockdowns, and some missed out on early opportunities to be around educators and peers.

“For many of my students, this is their first time in a school or care setting, or even leaving their house” for extended periods of time, said Lyssa Horvath, a lead pre-K teacher at Belmont Academy Charter School in Philadelphia.

To meet students’ needs, Horvath has adjusted her approach. “In addition to the language, math, physical, social, and emotional development that I typically do in my classroom, I’m engaged in a lot more confidence boosting and encouragement than in years before,” she said.

Read the full story, by Gabrielle Birkner.

Pennsylvania has nearly the worst education ‘opportunity gaps’ in country

2022-10-13T00:39:45+00:00

Pennsylvania ranks nearly the worst in the nation for educational opportunity gaps based on race and income levels, according to a new report finding a large difference in access to a quality education between students of color and white students.

The state also has a large educational opportunity gap between students from low-income families and their wealthier counterparts, the study showed.

“We know that even within high-poverty schools, there is a race gap,” said David Lapp, the director of policy research for Research for Action, a Philadelphia-based organization focused on issues related to equity in education that produced a dashboard showing the differences in opportunity. Such a gap is not as prominent nationally as it is in Pennsylvania, he said.

According to the group’s state-by-state dashboard and a study of Pennsylvania based on it, racial gaps loom wide here.

Researchers compiled an average opportunity score to rate access to quality education. Pennsylvania scored 65% overall — 70% for white students, 53% for Black students, and 58% for Hispanic students.

Among the 50 states, Pennsylvania ranked 49th in the Black-white opportunity gap, 50th in the Hispanic-white opportunity gap, and 49th in the gap between students from low-income families and their wealthier peers.

“White students are provided greater access to educational opportunity compared to white students in most states, and Black and Hispanics [are provided] less opportunity than in other states,” said Justis Freeman, one of the report’s authors.

What’s known as the opportunity gap widened from 2015-16, when the group released its first dashboard, to 2017-18, the latest data collected by the federal Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights.

While the concentration of Black and Hispanic students in high-poverty schools appears to be a primary factor driving gaps, “racial disparities often exist even within subgroups of schools with similar levels of poverty,” according to a report on Pennsylvania that accompanied the release of the updated dashboard.

In most areas that can be measured, “Pennsylvania is defined by educational inequity,” Lapp said.

Overall achievement data for all students put Pennsylvania among the top half of states on the dashboard, but that ranking masks the wide gaps based on race and income both in achievement and opportunity, he said. The findings “shift the responsibility to policymakers” to tackle the causes of persistent and widespread educational inequity, he said.

The findings are based on federal data collected before COVID precautions shut down campuses. “This is the final baseline for what we know about schools from before the pandemic,” Lapp said.

Nationally, the dashboard showed 63.6% of white students having access to quality education compared with only 54.2% of Black students and 59.5% of Hispanic students. While 64% of students who are not low income had access, only 57.9% of low-income students did, as measured by eligibility for subsidized meals.

Research for Action categorized quality education as having access in three broad areas — credentials and experience of educators, rigor of curriculum, and school climate as measured by data such as absenteeism and frequency of punishments like suspension.

The three areas included 14 indicators.

The Pennsylvania report cited two factors that likely contributed to the state’s wide gaps: Black and Hispanic students are disproportionately enrolled in high-poverty schools while white students are disproportionately enrolled in low-poverty schools. When white students are enrolled in high-poverty schools, those schools tend to score better on the opportunity index than those enrolling mostly students of color.

The release of the updated dashboard comes as Pennsylvania awaits a decision on a challenge to its school funding system, which currently results in the widest spending gaps in the nation between wealthy and poor districts.

Commonwealth Court judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer is expected to release a decision before the end of the year after hearing testimony from educators and experts during a four-month trial. Plaintiffs in the case include six school districts, several parents and two statewide advocacy groups.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org

A Philadelphia high school first: Black men teaching all freshman core subjects

2022-09-15T11:00:00+00:00

Ninth graders at Philadelphia’s Martin Luther King High School are beginning their high school careers with a set of teachers who look like them. That’s something Principal Keisha Wilkins thinks will give the students a boost as they prepare for the future.

In fact, Martin Luther King, where last year the student body was 92% Black and 62% male, has become the first high school in the district to have a class that has Black male teachers for the four core subjects — math, English, science, and history — according to the district.

The four teachers’ journeys to careers in education speak to the challenges the profession faces in recruiting and retaining Black men, who make up only 2% of all teachers nationwide. In the Philadelphia school district, roughly 24% of teachers are Black, and of those, just 4% are men, while just over half the district’s students are Black.

Wilkins helped recruit the four teachers — Eric Butler, Michael Flemming, Denzil Flemming, and Marsalis Chism — because she believes their presence will empower the student body.

“We have students that have gone their entire school career [from kindergarten through 8th grade] and never had a Black male teacher,” Wilkins said. “It’s definitely a space where students are going to see a reflection of themselves.”

Martin Luther King High School has become the first high school in the school district to have a class with Black male teachers for its four core subjects.

Black male teachers become ‘part of the content’

Wilkins got help with the recruiting from Stephen Flemming, a school-based teacher lead at MLK. And he, in turn, had a special advantage with one of the teachers he recruited: Stephen and Michael Flemming are brothers. (They’re not related to Denzil Flemming.)

In addition, all four teachers have known each other from church and the community for some 15 to 20 years. Michael Flemming, who had been teaching at Philadelphia’s Kenderton Elementary School, said as he decided to make the switch to MLK this year in part because of the opportunity to link up with colleagues “I’ve known pretty much my whole life.”

Stephen Flemming said that kind of close-knit support is particularly important for Butler and Chism, the two newer teachers.

“I think having people they’ve known contributes to retention,” he said, adding that, “We’re like-minded in terms of our approach. We are all about seeing, especially, Black and brown children succeed. It’s cool.”

Butler, who teaches environmental science, decided to become a teacher after volunteering with kids, and “it’s been one of the best decisions,” he said. “I feel like I’m really making an impact, even when I don’t see it that day.”

Butler, who is in his fourth year of teaching, came to MLK this year from Thomas Edison High School, a mostly Latino school in Philadelphia. While that was a positive experience, he said, “it’s just a little different” at King and he feels more at home at his new school.

“I understand my kids a little more,” he said. “They’re like me. I get them. I don’t feel like I need to code-switch when I’m talking.”

Michael Flemming, an African American history teacher at MLK, said he didn’t understand how much he would stand out until he got into a classroom full of Black students.

“Once you get up in front of a group of 30 students that look like you, you’re almost like a unicorn,” he said. “The kids look at you differently. ‘Are you from the neighborhood?’ ‘Are you real?’ These are the questions I’ve gotten.”

His students also react positively to seeing a Black male at the front of the classroom. “When they see I have a master’s degree, they’re like, ‘Oh, my goodness,’” Butler said. “When they see themselves in that position, someone who looks like them, someone that represents them, that’s more motivation for them to go on and fight against the stigma that’s against them now.”

What Butler and Michael Flemming have experienced makes sense to Stephen Flemming, who said the “collective struggles and successes” of Black males help them bring different perspectives to the classrooms.

And for the MLK 9th graders, “This may be their first encounter with Black males as teachers, and to have a whole wing of them, I think, is going to be a positive experience for them,” Flemming said.

Having Black male teachers for students to connect with might be especially important for first-year students. That’s because they are going from being the oldest in their school buildings to the youngest, from having just a few teachers to many, and from merely attending classes to realizing they need the credits to graduate, Flemming said.

Not all MLK students have father figures present in their lives, so “you become vicariously their father figure,” Michael Flemming said. “The kids want to know more about you, almost more than the content sometimes. You become part of the content.”

That mindset extends beyond the school building and school hours: Michael Flemming says it’s important to him to do things like show up to watch his student’s ball games and talk strategy with them.

“Developing relationships is a big component of classroom management,” said Michael Flemming. “It’s just constant encouragement. We’re the seed planters.”

Teachers at Philadelphia’s Martin Luther King High School (from left) Marsalis Chism, Stephen Flemming, Eric Butler, Michael Flemming, and Denzil Flemming, hold an impromptu meeting before classes begin.

Teaching not always their first career choice

But the nationwide statistics indicate that despite the appeal of such relationships, many Black men don’t see teaching as a great fit. In fact, the four Black male teachers in core subjects at MLK all started on different career paths before giving education a try.

Butler, for example, previously worked as a physical therapist after college in part because it seemed like a lucrative career, before deciding he was “bored out of his mind.”

MLK English teacher Marsalis Chism also resisted the idea of being an educator. Though he went to college and knew he wanted to do something to help people, “I was fighting the calling of being a teacher,” he said, because the idea of dealing with different personalities and behavior issues in schools was daunting.

But as with Butler’s volunteering experience, a summer job Chism took working with kids changed his outlook, because he saw how he could deal with those issues. “I love talking to students on the side so I can counsel them,” he said. “Classroom management is actually one of my strengths.”

From MLK Algebra 1 teacher Denzil Flemming’s perspective, “If you can understand the kids, that’s half the job.”

Still, their special roles as Black male educators at the school don’t mean they lose sight of the work’s challenges. There are unhelpful stereotypes, for example, that Black male educators should be disciplinarians, Michael Flemming said.

Denzil Flemming, a former engineer and an immigrant from Trinidad whose background makes him stand out among the four core subject teachers, said he feels as though the students “are not really prepared in math” and stresses that the subject is crucial to everyday life.

“I try to let them know there’s math everywhere,” he said. “If you’re traveling on a plane, you don’t want the guy who’s flying the plane to be at the bottom of the class. People who drive Teslas expect good engineers to build the cars.”

Growing the pipeline for Black men who heed the call

Wilkins said she assembled the team of four core subject teachers through word of mouth, and was intentional about attracting Black men to the school.

“Who better to teach African-American history than an African-American man?” Wilkins said. “A lot of times we forget history begins before slavery,” she said, and teaching young “kings and queens” that their heritage goes back a long way gives them a path to development.

“If you know somebody who can grow somebody, we want them here,” Wilkins said.

Michael Flemming said he wished more undergraduate programs led more people into teaching, and teaching in urban school systems in particular: “I don’t know if high school counselors even push a lot of 12th graders into education.”

At least one organization is trying to change that. Wilkins singled out the Center for Black Educator Development, which aims to get more Black students interested in teaching through the Black Teacher Pipeline Project. The project’s first fellowships were awarded in February to four Black men.

The center’s founder, Philadelphia educator Sharif El-Mekki, aims to bring 21,000 Black students into the teaching pipeline over the next 12 years in 10 communities across the country, including the Philadelphia-Camden area.

While teaching may not have been the four MLK teachers’ first choice, they all said they now view it as a calling.

“You’ve really got to want to do it,” Butler said. “If you’re trying to make an impact, you’ll figure out the younger generation is the most effective way to do that.”

New superintendent, 200 staff vacancies as Philadelphia returns to school

2022-08-29T22:30:06+00:00

Schools opened Monday for 114,000 Philadelphia students in a district still facing a staff shortage and struggling to recover from the effects of the pandemic, which resulted in closed school buildings for more than a year and student learning loss that is still being assessed.

Despite these challenges, new Superintendent Tony Watlington exuded optimism and confidence as he, Mayor Jim Kenney, and other officials celebrated the first day of classes.

“I love the first day of school,” Watlington said at the Paul Laurence Dunbar School in North Philadelphia. “We’re going to do our very best, our absolute very best, every single day, to create life-changing opportunities … so that our children can experience life-changing outcomes.”

As a reminder of the variety of hurdles schools face, Watlington announced late Monday that 100 schools would close three hours early on Tuesday and Wednesday due to concerns about severe heat.

In many ways, Dunbar represents the difficulties and the promise of the new year that will pose major tests for Watlington in particular, who took over for former superintendent William Hite in June. Located in the heart of North Philadelphia, the school has a nearly 100% poverty rate. Last year, it enrolled only about 250 students, putting it at half capacity. Enrollment declines in cities across the country have emerged as a significant concern for many schools.

Mayor Jim Kenney, left, and Superintendent Tony Watlington, second from right, stand with education and government leaders to ring in the first day of school in Philadelphia Monday at Paul L. Dunbar School in North Philadelphia.

“The pandemic has had a lingering effect on us, and may continue to present some challenges,” Watlington said.

At the same time, the district expects 350 students to enroll at Dunbar this year, an increase of roughly 40% from last year, Assistant Superintendent Ariel Lajara said. The school is reportedly fully staffed. And the school is joining the city’s community school initiative that aims to provide better services and support to students in need.

To welcome students back, Watlington visited six schools across the city, including one that became the first in Philadelphia’s history to fly the LGBTQ pride flag, a few months after it was renamed for an LGBTQ civil rights leader.

Citywide, there are still around 200 teacher vacancies, Watlington said, adding that all classrooms will be staffed this week with “credentialed” educators. He said the schools are 98% staffed, a slight improvement from the 97.4% figure he used last week.

Recruitment is continuing, he said, including through the website Teach in Philly.

“We want to really make sure to understand what our children are telling us,” Watlington said. “We’re trying to make sure that this year we attend to the learning loss they experienced and we also want to help them to reacclimate to a normal school year, if there’s such a thing as a normal school year.”

Kenney, meanwhile, praised Watlington as “the best choice” to lead the district forward.

Daniel Mina, in his second year as Dunbar’s principal, echoed the emphasis on a “fresh start” and said it is important for teachers and other members of the school community to tend to students’ emotional as well as academic needs.

“One of our school priorities here at Dunbar is joy,” he said. “We know in order for your children to love school, not only do they have to be physically and emotionally safe, but more than that, they have to feel joy at school.”

Dunbar is one of three new community schools, which work in close partnership with the city to help families receive needed social services. The community schools program, launched in 2017, is a signature initiative of the Kenney administration and City Council President Darrell C. Clarke. Along with Dunbar, Add B. Anderson Elementary and Frankford High School were added to the program this year, bringing the total to 20.

Maxwell Akuamoah-Boateng, the city’s director of operations for community schools, said that they have been working all summer to consult parents and residents, manage partnerships with non-profit organizations, and develop a plan for what would most benefit Dunbar.

An important component is “out of school time,” he said, citing the importance “of engaging kids on a social level” and keeping them “off the streets.”

His office will be working with teachers and staff “to see what they are already doing that is working and what we can do to supplement that,” Akuamoah-Boateng said.

Members of Temple University’s athletic teams welcomed Dunbar students on their first day, cheering on students as they walked on a red carpet at the school door. Temple is one of Dunbar’s partners in the community schools program.

Kensington school first to fly pride flag

Elswhere, Gloria Casarez Elementary School in Kensington made history Monday as the first district school to fly the pride flag in honor of its namesake, who was an advocate for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community in Philadelphia.

In an effort to remove the names of racist historical figures from school buildings, the Philadelphia Board of Education voted in May to change the name of the school to honor Casarez, who attended the school when it was Philip H. Sheridan Elementary School. Sheridan is considered one of the most famous Union generals of the Civil War, but is also well-known for overseeing horrific campaigns against Native Americans.

Gloria Casarez Elementary School in Kensington made history Monday as the first district school in Philadelphia to fly the pride flag, in honor of its namesake.

Casarez, who was the city’s first director of LGBT affairs, died in 2014 from breast cancer.

“Like Gloria, each of you is a leader and a change maker with the power to positively change the school and your community,” Tricia Dressel, Casarez’s wife, told students at the school Monday. “Today you walk through those doors and hallways with pride, for you are the teachers and students of the absolute best school in the city of Philadelphia.”

Watlington said the school’s renaming was a “very bold step” towards ensuring that “students and families feel empowered, valued and respected.” The current head of the city’s Office of LGBT Affairs, Celena Morrison, said Monday’s events at the school represented a monument to Casarez’s legacy.

And Casarez Principal Awilda Aguila Balbuena used the occasion to stress the importance of representation to the students: “When we are able to see people, we are better able to understand and grasp who they are.”

Like at Dunbar, the number of students at Casarez Elementary seems to be on the rise. Around 465 students were greeted by school leaders on their first day back to class, an increase from around 415 last year, according to Casarez Assistant Principal Julio Nuñez, an increase of about 12%. The play area was filled Monday morning with students lined up by grades, with their teachers in front.

Bureau Chief Johann Calhoun covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. He oversees Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s education coverage. Contact Johann at jcalhoun@chalkbeat.org.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia reintroduces test score requirement for magnet admissions

2022-08-17T12:52:36+00:00

Philadelphia school district officials announced Tuesday they will resume using state standardized test scores as a criterion for admission to the city’s most selective high schools for the class that will start ninth grade in September 2023, but the acceptable minimum scores are being reevaluated, they said.

The cutoff score on the state test — the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment or PSSA — for each magnet school “will be adjusted this year in light of the learning loss and other challenges our students have experienced,” Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. said in a letter to parents Tuesday. Historically, minimal acceptable scores for the most selective schools have been in the 88th percentile or higher.

“There is a place for the PSSA as a standardized measurement criteria for the school selection process, but we realize that it’s just one test score achieved on one day,” Watlington said. “Multiple measures of student performance are always preferable.”

The new PSSA cutoff scores for magnet school admissions — for students who took the test last spring and will be applying for admission this fall for entrance in 2023-24 — will be made public by the end of September, according to a district statement. The application window is between September 16 and November 4.

Philadelphia’s selective admissions policy that directs Philadelphia’s best students into a group of prestigious magnet schools is a hot-button issue in the city. Families of all backgrounds covet admission to these schools, and they often make decisions on whether to stay or leave the city based on expected access to selective schools like Central and Masterman. The district’s move to once again make test scores part of the admissions process will likely stir controversy among parents and educators.

The district will also continue to use a centralized lottery system for qualified students to determine who can attend the city’s most selective schools. The district adopted this system last year for the current incoming class as an attempt to increase participation among students from historically underrepresented schools and neighborhoods, and to remove any “implicit bias” in the process. Previously, principals at magnet schools traditionally made final admissions decisions.

Students qualify to enter in the lottery based on their grades, attendance, and now, their standardized test scores. Each school has somewhat different criteria.

The district’s announcement of its plans for the 2023-2024 school selection policy comes just over a week after a federal judge dealt a setback to plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit challenging the new system.

In 2020, the district removed the test score requirement for magnet admissions out of necessity: The PSSA, generally given in April, was not administered in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic. For several of the most selective schools, it substituted a controversial MiWrite writing test, but that requirement will now be eliminated.

The PSSA was administered this past spring, albeit in an environment significantly affected by COVID.

The district has not provided data on whether participation dropped. But some principals expressed concern that students may have opted out of the tests because they didn’t think they would be used in admissions decisions.

Most selective admissions start in high school, and students apply in the fall of eighth grade for high school and the fall of fourth or fifth grade for a few selective middle schools. That means seventh grade PSSA scores are used for high school admissions, while third grade or fourth grade PSSA scores are used for middle schools.

However, the district said any student who missed the 2022 PSSA could submit the results of an alternative test, such as the TerraNova and the Educational Records Bureau. These have long been used by private and parochial school students who apply to these schools.

The district plans to hold three meetings where families can get information about the admissions system. Virtual meetings will take place Aug. 25 and Sept. 1, and there will be an in-person meeting Aug. 30. The application window for admission to schools for 2023-24 opens Sept. 16 and closes Nov. 4.

Diversity in the spotlight at top Philly public schools

In a statement to Chalkbeat, district officials said the lottery system had been “successful” in meeting its goals — encouraging participation, increasing access, and removing bias — and had changed the demographics at the district’s four most selective schools.

At the four most selective of the 21 criteria-based schools and programs — Central, the Carver High School of Engineering and Science, Masterman, and Academy at Palumbo — the new policy gave preference to students residing in six ZIP codes in North and West Philadelphia with large proportions of low income students of color, which had the lowest residential representation of students attending these schools.

For those four schools, “the percent of offers that were allocated to students from the identified ZIP codes ranged from 11.1% at Central to 13.5% at Masterman,” according to a district statement. “Those same zip codes accounted for less than 10% of total enrollment at these four schools from 2017-18 through 2020-21.”

In the statement, the district also reported that under this system, 11,479 eligible eighth grade students applied to the 19 selective high schools and magnet programs located in two neighborhood schools, double the number from years prior.

The ZIP code preference also significantly increased the diversity of the qualified applicant pool for the four most selective magnets, the district said. However, district officials did not indicate whether it had studied or determined how the lack of PSSA test score requirement affected the size of the qualified applicant pool.

In his letter, Watlington said that he would appoint a group to review the selection process for the 2022-2023 class and provide recommendations going forward.

In April, three parents whose children failed to be admitted to their first-choice schools sued the district in federal court, calling the new admittance criteria “a blatantly unconstitutional race-based system,” primarily citing the ZIP code preference.

The plaintiffs, who are represented by attorneys connected to conservative causes, including the America First Legal Foundation, argued that the new policy violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well as the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause.

On Aug. 8, U.S. District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Chad F. Kenney ruled that the plaintiffs, whose children are white, Black, and biracial, denied a preliminary injunction to bar implementation of the new system. Kenney ruled that the plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed because they “have failed to show a reasonable probability of eventual success on the merits because they have not shown any evidence that the changes to the admissions policy have had a racially discriminatory impact.”

At Masterman and Central, the city’s two best known magnets, Black and Hispanic students are underrepresented while whites and Asians are overrepresented, an imbalance that drew backlash following the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

Tuesday’s selective admissions announcement represents Watlington’s first major policy decision.

“As the new superintendent, I want us to communicate clearly and take the time to engage a diverse project team in careful and thorough analysis of the school selection process,” said Watlington. “This approach will strengthen our decision making in preparation for the 2023-2024 school selection process.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Correction, 11/9/2022: A new policy gives admissions preferences to four of the district’s most selective high schools to students from six ZIP codes that currently account for less than 10% of the enrollment at those schools. Due to incorrect information provided by the school district, a previous version of this story said those students accounted for less than 1%

Advocacy group: Philly children need new wave of resources to overcome COVID

2022-08-08T23:23:34+00:00

Philadelphia’s children need a stronger public health care system, more robust government benefits, and more funding for school staff to counteract the long-term impacts of the pandemic, an advocacy group declared Monday in a new report.

Children First’s “COVID’s Impact on Philadelphia Children: The Case for an Ambitious Rebound,” reveals the setbacks Philadelphia students endured since schools were forced to shut down in-person classes in 2020, and recommended steps to remedy the damage that fell mostly on Black and Latino students.

The group, formerly known as Public Citizens for Children and Youth, also mentioned in its presentation that the pandemic’s negative effects have ranged from an increase in youth seeking suicide prevention to a spike in gun violence, which remains the number one cause of death for children over 15 in the city.

Federal policy did help lift over 16,000 children out of poverty in the city in the first year of the shutdown of in-person learning, the group noted. And Philadelphia families are vaccinating their children at a faster rate than other parents across the state.

But to counteract COVID’s effects and shield children from the next public health crisis, officials must improve the quality and accessibility of things like behavioral health services and child care, Children First said.

“COVID was a calamity and affected every one of our lives,” said Donna Cooper, the group’s executive director. “But our children continue to face persistent structural challenges to their safety, their physical well being and their mental health and well being.”

Child care, behavioral health are key

The Children First report highlighted several issues that caused acute problems for the city’s children, as well as recommendations to ameliorate the problems in light of COVID. In several instances, the group’s proposals call for government officials to prioritize children when deciding where to spend public money.

For example, as of September 2021, there were approximately 1,500 fewer child care workers in Philadelphia than before the pandemic; nearly a year ago, child care staff were earning 19% less than employees at big box retail stores or fast food franchises, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That wage gap and other factors, including the prohibitive cost for many families, led many child care centers to shut their doors.

Children First said that in response, federal and state lawmakers should provide the funding and resources necessary to make child care and pre-kindergarten affordable and accessible to more families, and to ensure families aren’t shut out of those services by inflation.

The group also wants people to pressure the federal government to reenact the expanded Child Care Tax Credit.

Children First also pointed to two K-12 issues, the teaching workforce and internet access, where more can and must be done.

The district stopped in-person classes in 2020 between March and June, and virtual learning remained in place for much of the 2020-21 school year. But district schools had neither the inventory of computers nor the technological capacity to quickly make the shift to virtual learning.

And according to a Pew Research study, about one in three students in the district — where 74% of students are from low-income households and 86% are students of color — did not have high-speed internet access, a key factor for the viability of virtual learning.

Philadelphia made some strides in providing more students with internet access during the pandemic, such as through the PHLConnectED program. But interruptions in learning driven by internet-related problems contributed to children’s academic struggles.

Children First wants state lawmakers to provide sufficient funds so that every school in the city can provide every student with a computer and, where necessary, free or affordable internet access.

But despite these efforts, the interruption of learning exacerbated the educational gaps across school districts in the state, hitting Philadelphia hard.

Once federal COVID relief funding for schools is used up in the next several years, the group said Philadelphia will likely have to boost class sizes because the district won’t have sufficient funds to hire new teachers, given the shortage.

To help undo COVID’s impact on the teaching profession, state lawmakers should provide enough funding so that each school can afford to hire an ample number of teachers, the report said.

Children First also offered proposals related to children’s mental well-being, as well as the city’s overall approach to public health issues.

For example, the city must work to close racial and economic gaps in behavioral health services

In addition, Children First said those officials should find ways to offer preventative mental health resources, mental health first aid, and therapeutic support for children in their communities.

The group said the city should craft a strategy to make sure children are better protected the next time a health emergency like the pandemic strikes. And Children First said the city must track COVID’s continuing impact on children and work to ensure they are vaccinated against COVID and other diseases.

As part of Monday’s presentation of its report, Children First invited a panel of leaders and students, including Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington and Dr. Ala Stanford, founder of the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium, to discuss what to do next.

“The biggest lesson for the children, I’ll say, is to come through on the other side [of the pandemic], as a senior as a junior, you acquired skills that you didn’t even know you had that are going to propel you stronger and further than many,” Stanford said.

Watlington said he thinks technology could be a key factor in any turnaround for students. “It’s important for us to realize that we have this once in a lifetime opportunity to totally transform how we use technology as a learning tool,” he said.

Bureau Chief Johann Calhoun covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. He oversees Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s education coverage. Contact Johann at jcalhoun@chalkbeat.org.

New to Philadelphia teacher orientation: a required session on race

2022-08-08T23:09:54+00:00

More than 600 new teachers and counselors in Philadelphia kicked off their week-long orientation on Monday, and this year, for the first time, the issue of race is a required discussion topic.

Most of the sessions for new hires are tailored to the teacher’s specialty, such as elementary school math, high school science, special education, digital literacy, art, and music. But there are also sessions on helping students deal with trauma, becoming a “culturally responsive” teacher, and on “racial equity and the history of Philadelphia.”

Within the past several years, the district created an Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to study racism on an individual and institutional level, provide training and examine current practices. Discussions in past years have dealt with race, but have always been voluntary.

The focus is designed to help teachers forthrightly deal with a subject that is often avoided: Most of Philadelphia’s teachers are white, while most of the students are Black or Hispanic.

Sia Beckwith, who works in the district’s DEI office and is one of the trainers in this new session, presents that demographic information (which dates to last February) and explores why it matters with the new hires. Beckwith said the point is not to say white teachers can’t teach students of color or vice versa, but rather to make sure teachers are “mindful of the disproportionality, and always consider what that might mean that we’re missing.”

Ryan Villanueva, also from the DEI office and another presenter, said he and Beckwith aim “to support the district in becoming more antiracist and more equitable. We felt it’s important to get in front of new teachers to support that learning and growth, because the way we’re socialized is not to have too many discussions about race.”

For the third straight year, the district’s orientation for new hires is virtual, rather than in person. For the sessions, teachers are grouped based on their years of experience, either as a novice with two years or less, or a veteran with at least three years in the classroom.

“Everyone is coming with a different background,” said Meredith Mehra, the Deputy Chief for Teaching and Learning who designs the training.

In addition to the training sessions, the new hires heard short greetings from Superintendent Tony Watlington, Board of Education President Joyce Wilkerson, and Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

“We have a couple of things in common. I join you in my new status here,” said Watlington, who took over the district in mid-June. “Sometimes it can feel like you’re drinking from a fire hose.”

Watlington, who most recently worked in a North Carolina district, confessed that on a pop quiz about quintessentially Philly words — like “jawn” — he only got two right.

“I have some work to do,” he said.

‘I love to see the children succeed’

When the district began hiring for the upcoming school year, they had to fill roughly 900 vacancies among 9,000 total positions for teachers and counselors. With roughly three weeks to go until the school year begins Aug. 29, there are 270 vacancies for those positions, and the district is 97% staffed.

This year, as in the past, the hardest jobs to fill are in special education, math, science, and English as a second language, according to a district spokesperson.

Another session for Philadelphia’s new hires about “culturally responsive” training is to help teachers “to marry inclusive and equitable practices with routines and procedures in the classroom,” Mehra said.

The session is designed to help teachers comply with Policy 252, which was adopted by the district in 2016 and focuses on “safety, equity and justice for students regardless of gender identity or gender expression.”

For instance, Mehra said, it has been common in schools to line up students for excursions outside the classroom in two lines, one for boys and one for girls.

“If it is not part of an actual instructional purpose, there is no need to separate students by gender,” she said. “If you need to split the class into two groups, you can do it based on a variety of factors outside of gender.”

One of the new recruits is Cameile Graham, who will be a life skills teacher for kindergarten through second grade students at Overbrook Education Center, where her daughter is a fourth grader. Her son, who has special needs, attends the Widener Memorial School for students with disabilities.

Graham said she taught for 20 years in her native Jamaica, and with her children in the system, she decided to reenter the education workforce.

“I am from a family of educators,” said Graham, who lives in West Philadelphia. “I appreciate the teaching and learning process and I love to see the children succeed. I share the belief of [Dr. Watlington] that all children deserve great schools, and I’m excited to be a part of that,” she said.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Philly meeting builds strategies to recruit and retain more teachers of color

2022-08-02T20:37:53+00:00

Toni Washington, 24, who is about to start her career as a physical education teacher, describes herself as a decidedly unemotional person. That’s why she surprised herself when she choked up describing an encounter with a student at Colonial Middle School near Philadelphia during her time there as a long-term substitute.

The expression on the child’s face – as the sixth grader realized that she had a teacher who looked like her – is still seared in Washington’s mind and can, as the fledgling educator discovered, still provoke tears. It was a look of “pure awe.”

The incident confirmed for Washington that her career choice was the right one.

“It was a light bulb moment,” she said. “I realized how much it meant to her to have a Black teacher.”

Washington was among more than 130 people at an event last week in Philadelphia sponsored by the Center for Black Educator Development and the Education Trust, both national education advocacy groups, called “Building A Movement: Creating & Sustaining Diverse Teacher Workforces.” Teams from seven states, including Pennsylvania, were at the conference to brainstorm strategies for luring more people of color into the teaching profession.

The teaching ranks are still overwhelmingly dominated by white educators, even though the nation’s public school population has recently become majority non-white.

The trend has persisted despite evidence that all students benefit from a diverse workforce. One 2018 study showed that Black students who have one Black teacher between kindergarten and grade three are 13% more likely to graduate high school and 19% more likely to enroll in college than Black students from the same school who did not have a Black teacher. Other research shows that white students who have had Black teachers also benefit, not necessarily academically but in terms of future attitudes and life choices, such as where to live.

The conference “centered voices and experiences of diverse teachers and recognized the fact that a quality educator workforce is a diverse educator workforce,” said Sharif El-Mekki, a longtime Philadelphia teacher and principal who founded the Center for Black Educator Development. He emphasized the need for policymakers to “keenly listen to the lived experiences of Black, Indigenous, and Brown practitioners.”

Sharif El-Mekki

Districts, states, and education leaders need to build a pipeline and take a long view of the issue, said Eric Duncan, senior policy analyst at Ed Trust, whose research and advocacy centers on equity.

“We wanted the state teams to leave with a power map, talking points, a data narrative, to form the basis of a pitch to policymakers in their states on what they need to do to increase diversity in the workforce,” he said.

The conference highlighted how policymakers need to think outside the box and develop innovative partnerships to address what El-Mekki called “the complex and entrenched barriers” to diversifying the teaching force – now about 80% white.

The barriers can be myriad for African Americans in particular to enter teaching, according to the research. Many Black students attended underfunded schools and didn’t have good experiences with their own educations, making the idea of teaching as a career unappealing.

Teaching is not a particularly high-paying profession – many students assume there is more money to be made elsewhere. Certification requirements can be onerous, and differ from state to state. Candidates must pass a licensing test called the Praxis used by Pennsylvania and several other states that, critics say, doesn’t necessarily measure the traits and knowledge that make a good teacher while showing wide gaps in passing rates among racial groups. High percentages of would-be teachers of color have difficulties passing the test and obtaining their licenses.

In addition to finding innovative ways to attract new talent, policymakers need to address teacher attrition, which is higher among teachers of color, said Ed Trust’s Duncan.

They were more likely to leave due to COVID-related issues, but also to report more political pressures around “what to teach and what not to teach” in their classrooms.”

“We have to make sure they have access to supports to stay in classroom environments that are culturally affirming,” he said.

Pennsylvania last month released a new strategy for recruiting and retaining more teachers. One of the goals is to “build a diverse workforce representative of the students we serve,” citing the research showing that students perform better when taught by teachers who share their race or language.

Students of all backgrounds who learn in diverse settings are less likely to engage in stereotyping, are more likely to live in integrated settings as adults, and are more likely to “exhibit increased intellectual self-confidence and develop critical leadership skills,” the state report said.

Pennsylvania has set a goal that by 2025, the percentage of educators of color entering the profession in the state will increase from 13% to 25%. Also last month, the General Assembly passed legislation making it easier for teachers from other states to become certified in Pennsylvania.

In the Colonial School District, covering several wealthy, mostly white towns on the northwest border of Philadelphia, just under 10% of students are Black, but hardly any of the teachers are. When Washington starts her first permanent teaching assignment later this month at the district’s 1,500-student Plymouth-Whitemarsh High School, she will be the only Black teacher on staff. She teaches health and physical education and coaches soccer.

Lisa Richardson is an English teacher at Upper Darby High School, one of the largest high schools in the state with more than 3,800 students, in a more working-class district on the southwest edge of Philadelphia. Half the student body is Black, but out of a professional staff of 236, Richardson said, just six teachers, two counselors, and one social worker at the high school are African American.

Richardson developed a course on African American literature, “which I got school board approval for,” she said. It became so popular that there are now more sections than she herself can handle.

Richardson is the only Black teacher in the English department, which means some sections are taught by white teachers. That’s not necessarily a problem – as she tells her students: “Would you say because I’m not British I can’t teach British literature?”

Still, students tell her they signed up for the course because they wanted her as a teacher.

“They want a Black teacher teaching a Black curriculum,” she said. “I can’t tell you how many 12th grade students tell me, ‘you’re the first Black teacher I ever had.’”

When Richardson started in 2013, students would stop her in the hallway and say, “You work here as a teacher?” Now, she advises a Black Student Union, a Stay Woke club for students of all backgrounds who want to unpack issues involving race, and a club on hair called Naptually Imperfect.

She loves it, but adds, “I’m at my club limit. I’m exhausted.”

Not to mention that she can “go through an entire day without seeing another Black adult, which she says is “isolating.” Teacher attrition is a problem across the board, but circumstances like that lead to higher attrition rates among the few Black teachers, she said.

Richardson was among 14 people from Pennsylvania, including at least four classroom teachers, who came to last week’s conference looking to help develop strategies for recruiting and retaining Black teachers. In Pennsylvania as a whole, 14.5% of students are Black, but just 3.8% of teachers are – and a high proportion teach in Philadelphia, where about a quarter of the educator workforce is Black, compared to two-thirds of the students. However, that percentage has declined over the past two decades.

Similarly, 12% of students but just 1% of teacherare Latinx. And 4% of students are Asian, compared to less than 1% of teachers.

In their caucus, the Pennsylvania delegation agreed that it is important to raise awareness of the issue through connections with officeholders, making sure districts have diversity officers and advisory committees, developing partnerships with outside organizations, keeping the issue in the public eye through op-eds and other media, and finding more systematic ways to recruit students when they are still in high school.

Other states at the conference were Tennessee, California, Illinois, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Texas.

The gathering included a few white teachers, including Mandy Edwards, a colleague of Washington’s at Plymouth-Whitemarsh. She teaches a hip-hop studies class, which includes “looking at injustices in the legal system.” She sponsors a Black cultural awareness group with a Black parent and community member who volunteers to help her without pay.

But Edwards said she struggles “as a white teacher to support” teachers of color “and not overstep. I felt weird coming here. We hear so many white voices.”

Washington, the physical education teacher at Plymouth Whitemarsh, is eager to start her first permanent job, but also feels the pressure.

“All eyes are on me,” she said. “I don’t want to fail myself and I don’t want to fail the kids.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Philly aims to fill jobs for bus drivers, food workers and others at job fairs

2022-07-27T23:03:57+00:00

About 300 job applicants flocked to South Philadelphia High School’s auditorium Wednesday seeking jobs with the school district as it aims to close gaps in staffing for the new school year.

Last year, a shortage of bus drivers, food service workers, and others created chaos for Philadelphia schools as buses were late picking up students and trash overflowed in school dumpsters. The district struggled with a staffing shortage exacerbated by the pandemic.

This year, the district is trying to fill vacancies earlier before students are scheduled to return from summer break on Aug. 29. Tuesday’s event was the second of four in-person events scheduled at select schools across the city. Applicants met with hiring managers and some will proceed to an exam and interview.

The district has made progress in hiring teachers, but still has to fill hundreds of jobs for nurses, building engineers, general cleaners, food service workers, and special education assistants. There’s also a need for workers who help to maintain a positive environment for students, jobs known as student climate staff and managers. School officials are adding enticements to their offers, said Larissa Shambaugh, chief talent officer for the school district.

The district is offering a $500 signing bonus for bus drivers.

If applicants do not have their commercial driver’s license or CDL, the district will pay their salary and also the cost of learning to become a bus driver and of taking the licensing test.

”You can come and apply for that position and become a bus driver as a trainee while you work on getting your commercial driver’s license,” Shambaugh said.

In nursing, Shambaugh said, the district is 87% staffed for the school year. Interested candidates may apply through the district’s job website, work@philly.com.

School nurses have reported that they have been overwhelmed and overworked. In a survey sent by the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, 28% of nurses said they lacked COVID testing supplies, 27% said they didn’t have a room in which to isolate symptomatic students, and more than half said they were conducting contact tracing without the assistance of health officials.

The district announced a student loan relief program to attract school nurses. They would receive up to $2,500 for each year of work for up to three years.

Job seekers stand in a long line leading to the entrance of South Philadelphia High School, for leading to a job fair the district hosted on Wednesday to hire support staff workers.

Braving the heat for work

On Wednesday, a long line of applicants waited outside the school at Broad and Snyder in the heat before being seated in the auditorium. They broke into groups to hear details of each career. Then they had the option of taking a test on site or at home.

Virginia Soza, a recruitment selection specialist, was recruiting for school climate staff, school climate liaison, and maintenance positions.

The district requires applicants to have at least a high school diploma and to score 75% or above on an entrance test. After the test, applicants typically know of their chances within a week, Soza said.

Adrienne Holmes, who was applying to become a lead food service worker, had worked as a district security officer but retired after 15 years. Now, she said, “I want to put my culinary arts degree from the Community College of Philadelphia to good use.”

Whitney Covington applied Wednesday for a general cleaning position. She was one of many applicants who said they would like to be closer to their children during school hours. “That played a factor into me applying. I want to be a difference with our youth.”

Jane and Zane Bailey were interested in the special education assistant positions. Jane Bailey is retired and wants to supplement her income. Her husband Zane would like to work in a classroom to be closer to the couple’s grandson who takes special education classes. ”We feel good about our chances of getting hired,” the couple both said before leaving.

Bureau Chief Johann Calhoun covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. He oversees Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s education coverage. Contact Johann at jcalhoun@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania aims to reverse decline in new teachers, diversify K-12 workforce

2022-07-19T15:16:42+00:00

Editor’s note: The article has been updated to properly attribute, reword, or remove sentences that appeared verbatim on the state website.

Addressing schools’ staffing needs and building a diverse teacher workforce are key parts of a three-year plan unveiled Monday by the Pennsylvania Department of Education to help recruit and retain educators amid major concerns about the future of the K-12 workforce.

The Foundation of Our Economy: Pennsylvania Educator Workforce Strategy is an effort to create more ways for out-of-state teachers to become certified in Pennsylvania, according to state officials. The bill would also establish a state education department committee to develop programs for high schoolers who want to become educators. And the bill would create a grant program to increase interest in the education workforce and waives some requirements for education candidates.

In addition, it puts in place a talent recruitment grant program for colleges to increase participation in the education workforce, and waives the basic skills assessment for education candidates for three years.

The plan’s goal is for the number of pre-K-12 educator candidates enrolled in approved educator preparation programs to increase from 18,000 to 21,600 by August 2025. Also by that date, the plan aims to increase the percentage of educators of color entering the profession from 13% to 25%. It remains to be seen whether the plan has staying power when a new governor and state education leadership team take over next year.

Over the last few years, amid a disruptive pandemic and declining enrollment in public schools in Philadelphia and statewide, there’s been a big plunge in the number of new educators entering the profession. Ten years ago, about 20,000 new teachers each year entered the Pennsylvania workforce, compared to 6,000 last year. Meanwhile, the rate of educators leaving the field is rising, meaning schools are struggling to fill positions

“Like other states across the nation, we have been grappling with an educator workforce shortage that would have severe and long-lasting implications for generations to come,” acting Secretary of Education Eric Hagarty said Monday.

The Philadelphia district, the state’s largest, has been notably affected by staff turnover. About 169 teachers left the school system between Dec. 1 and Feb. 15 in the last school year, double the number of teachers who resigned during the same period the previous year.

Teacher diversity, or the lack thereof, has also become a focus in Philadelphia. More than 70% of the district’s 124,000 students are Black and Latino, yet teachers are mostly white. Black teachers make up just 24.5% of the 9,100 teachers in the district, while white teachers make up 67% of the teacher population, according to district data.

According to state officials, less than 7% of teachers in the state are people of color, despite the state having higher proportions of students of color. Research has found that teacher diversity has a positive impact on all learners and that students learn best when they have teachers whose lives and backgrounds are similar to their own.

Studies have shown the positive impact of teacher diversity on all learners, and that students learn best when they have the opportunity to do so from teachers whose life experience reflects their own.

To address such issues, the Educator Workforce Strategy’s goals is to increase the share of pre-K-12 educator candidates of color enrolled in such programs from 14% to 25%, increase the number of educators of color who have access to mentoring and support programs, and increase the retention rates of educators of color from 80% to 90%.

The state released its new educator-focused plan more than a week after Wolf signed a $45.8 billion budget that increased the level of education spending by $850 million for the upcoming year.

The state developed its new plan after conducting feedback sessions and contains a total of 50 steps that the state will use to address the teacher shortage.

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, told Chalkbeat he’s encouraged that the state is taking seriously the need to recruit and retain educators. “We are at a precipice with staffing levels, and it’s leading to even more educators leaving the profession,” he said.

Bureau Chief Johann Calhoun covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. He oversees Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s education coverage. Contact Johann at jcalhoun@chalkbeat.org.

Mrs. Dee opened a Philly child care center mid-pandemic. It’s been hard.

2022-07-15T16:06:47+00:00

Last August, Adeola Ileyemi opened a child care center in a former barber shop building she found advertised on Craigslist.

Today, DeeGrace Child Care Center in North Philadelphia enrolls 29 young children and has a staff of seven. In one sense, it’s a success story: a fledgling small business forging ahead at a time when many child care providers have called it quits.

But it hasn’t been easy. Ileyemi, who the children call Mrs. Dee, has lost 10 employees in her first 10 months, and so far hasn’t paid herself a salary. Her husband’s marriage counseling work barely pays the family’s bills.

A month after Ileyemi started her center, Monique Jones closed the original location of her own child care business — Lovie Lee’s Stars of Tomorrow, a longstanding and highly rated child care program about a mile away from DeeGrace.

Jones didn’t exit the sector entirely. Her other child care center four blocks away remains open, and she holds out hope that one day she may reopen the shuttered site.

Ileyemi and Jones provide a snapshot of the child care sector’s difficult comeback after more than two years of COVID safety rules, staff shortages, and financial strain. Ileyemi is among 141 Philadelphia child care providers who opened their doors during the second year of the pandemic — 15 more than than did so the previous year. While that small bump is a good sign, the city still saw a net loss of providers in both years because more closed than opened.

Before the pandemic, child care closures often stemmed from a provider’s changing life circumstances. Perhaps a retirement, the sale of a business, or a new career path, said Diane Getzinger, an assistant director at the Early Learning Resource Center in Philadelphia, which is part of a network of centers across Pennsylvania that helps parents find and pay for child care and helps providers improve their quality.

But in the past two years, more closures are directly related to financial hardship. They feel a lot more personal.

“Now, we’re hearing from people who are struggling to hold on,” Getzinger said.

Jones, 43, is one of them. She shuttered the original Lovie Lee’s site for financial and logistical reasons. The decision was bittersweet.

Although Jones still operates the larger center, she started her career at the original location when she was a teenager and her mother ran the business.

“That is my history. That is the foundation of Lovie Lee,” she said. “That was like closing a chapter in my life.”

Dissatisfaction seeded a dream

Ileyemi, 39, is an upbeat mother of four originally from Nigeria. She immigrated to the United States when she was 26 and earned a culinary arts degree in Ohio. Until last August, she made good money working at a nursing home and delivering groceries through Instacart.

She decided to open DeeGrace because she was dissatisfied with the experience her daughter, now 6, and her son, now 5, had in child care and preschool. She also has 3-year-old twins.

It seemed to her that a lot of programs simply handed out coloring sheets and did little to engage children in early literacy and math activities. She wanted her center to be different.

“It’s all about learning and learning and learning.“ she said. “‘There’s so many ways you can do math with the kids, with toys, simple, simple things.”

After scouring online real estate ads, she found a space she liked on West Nedro Avenue, next to a stone church and across from an apartment complex. An unexpected $50,000 windfall from Ileyemi’s late father’s estate provided the funds she needed to cover start-up costs, including finishing the building’s basement so it could be used for a preschool classroom.

“I was so happy,” she said about receiving the money. “That’s God’s blessing.”

It took months for her to complete all the paperwork, including submitting a second application because she’d indicated incorrectly on the original one that she didn’t plan to use the building’s basement space.

On a recent Friday morning, Ileyemi accompanied a gaggle of 4-year-olds on a walk in the neighborhood. They talked about trees, plants, cars, and why so many trash cans were sitting in the street.

When the garbage truck lumbered by, the mystery was solved. A sanitation worker greeted the children, telling them, “I’m busy working now. I know you guys are working, too,” Ileyemi recalled.

Later that day, she planned to head to Walmart to stock up on supplies for the center, including tissues, paper towels, and picture frames for the 2-year-old class to paint.

“I love it,” she said. “You gotta love it to do it.”

Bouncing back and forth

When Jones closed the original location of Lovie Lee’s Stars of Tomorrow in September, it was more than shuttering a legacy. She was also closing down the kind of small, homey child care setting that appeals to many families.

“I thought it was more intimate for infants and toddlers,” she said. “It brings parents comfort when it’s a smaller program.”

But running two locations in the midst of a pandemic — and constantly covering for absent staff at each — was stressful mentally, physically, and financially, Jones said.

“Me, being one person bouncing back and forth at two locations was difficult, and that’s the moment I couldn’t do it anymore,” she said.

Getzinger, of the Early Learning Resource Center, said among child care programs that have closed recently, there’s a mix of long-established providers like Jones and some that “didn’t realize what they were getting into.”

New providers are also a mixed bag: Some are opening second and third locations, which Getzinger likes to see.

But she wonders about providers who are new to the field, especially because of what she described as lagging demand for care.

“It doesn’t feel like the population is there right now,” she said. “Parents are either making different choices or just not returning to care in the same numbers they did prior to the pandemic,” she said.

A constant headache

Like child care providers in Philadelphia and elsewhere, Ileyemi has struggled to find and keep qualified staff.

“I’ve lost good staff because they want me to pay them what I can’t pay them” she said. “You can only pay what you have.”

A child plays at DeeGrace Child Care Center.

A DeeGrace job posting on Indeed.com currently lists the pay range for a lead infant teacher as $9.21 to $15 an hour and the shift length as 12 hours. The statewide median wage for a child care worker is $10.69, according to a 2020 Stanford University report on the early childhood workforce in each state.

Both experts and providers say job-seekers in today’s labor market can make more doing unskilled labor at retail stores or fast food restaurants than working in child care.

Over the last year, some DeeGrace staff members simply stopped showing up for work. Others “call off all the time,” Ileyemi said.

Staff shortages can have troubling consequences. At least once, too few employees at DeeGrace led to a state violation because the center was out of compliance with required staff-child ratios. Such rules, which limit the number of children one staff member can oversee, are meant to keep children safe.

Ileyemi, who describes herself as someone who rarely sits down to relax, is frustrated by the constant staffing problems.

“It’s making me upset,” she said.

Still, Ileyemi hopes she can make the business work long-term: “I think things [are] going to get better.”

Today, when Jones has to cover teacher absences at Lovie Lee’s, it means she simply runs up or down a few steps, instead of across the neighborhood like she did when she ran two centers.

When she closed the original location, she absorbed the dozen children there into her larger center, converting a room used for staff meetings and training into a new classroom. Although that classroom boosted her total capacity to about 40 children, she can’t find enough staff for that number of kids. Instead, she has about 35 children during the school year and 25 during the summer.

When Jones thinks about closing the site where she got her start more than 20 years ago, she takes solace in the fact that COVID hobbled many providers.

It helps “me not feel I failed at something,” she said. “That’s just where the world is with this pandemic.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania budget deal hikes school spending by $850 million

2022-07-08T21:26:56+00:00

Pennsylvania’s General Assembly has approved a $45.8 billion budget that will increase spending on education by $850 million, a historic school funding increase.

In the budget deal passed by lawmakers Friday, basic education funding for school districts — the major source of state K-12 aid — will increase by $525 million. “Level Up” funding, which is for the 100 poorest school districts in the state including Philadelphia, will go up by $225 million, and there will be a $100 million increase for special education. Combined funding for basic education and Level Up districts will increase from $7.1 billion to $7.8 billion, or about 8%.

Legislative leaders hailed the 2022-23 budget as a major commitment to schools, and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s signed it Friday evening. Wolf had initially proposed increasing education aid by nearly twice as much as what was finally adopted.

“This is a comprehensive budget that puts the needs of people before the needs of government,” said Republican Rep. Stan Saylor, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

But advocates said that while the deal will help many districts and students, the aid increase will do little to correct the state’s systemic inequity in education funding, now the subject of a landmark lawsuit. Some observers also pointed out that the 8% increase for education will barely keep pace with record inflation.

As the state’s largest district, Philadelphia will receive about $93 million of the additional basic education funding, $84 million of the Level Up increase, and $12.6 million of the special education hike.

New Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr. praised Wolf and lawmakers, and called the budget “a step in the right direction.” But even though the boost in state funding for city schools (roughly $200 million in total) will be substantial, the district’s chief financial officer, Uri Monson, said it will be a smaller increase than what district officials anticipated.

That gap between expectations and the budget deal won’t have a huge effect on the fiscal 2023 budget, but will require adjustments in the district’s five-year plan, he said, primarily because the district will eventually use up federal COVID relief. Monson said he was especially disappointed that lawmakers have chosen to put more than $2 billion into the state’s rainy day fund for budget emergencies.

“It may not be raining in the fiscal sense, but it’s raining now because of all that districts are doing to help students recover from the pandemic,” he said. “It’s disappointing that they put three times as much money into the future as they did for the current needs of students.”

For Philadelphia, that may mean cutting back on extra counselors and other staff brought on in the wake of the pandemic, he said.

From a statewide perspective, the deal highlights but does not resolve the fundamental unfairness of the current K-12 funding system, said Maura McInerney, legal director at the Education Law Center, which is helping to represent the plaintiff districts in an ongoing court case where the legality of that system is being challenged.

“The significant education funding increase in this budget agreement shows that many in Harrisburg recognize the depth of the hole our legislative leaders have dug for our students,” McInerney said. “But it is not sufficient to meet the state legislature’s constitutional responsibility to fix our inadequate, two-tiered school funding system.”

Superintendents and other educators detailed vast, unmet needs in low-income districts during a four-month trial about the state funding system in Commonwealth Court that ended in March. However, it could be some time before Judge Renée Jubelirer issues a ruling, which the losing side will likely appeal.

In that case, Monson testified that as the state’s largest district, Philadelphia receives a huge chunk of overall aid, but still receives a relatively low amount from the state on a per-student basis.

The city ranked near the bottom among the state’s 500 school districts in the amount it spends per “weighted” student, a formula that accounts for not just overall enrollment but the concentration of low-income and high-needs students, Monson said.

Philadelphia, with a poverty rate of 24%, is the poorest big city in America.

Friday’s budget deal also includes a $125 million or 45% increase to the cap for a state program that provides tax breaks to corporations that underwrite scholarships for students to attend private schools. State Republican lawmakers are key backers of these Educational Improvement Tax Credit scholarships, but critics call them vouchers in disguise.

The budget does not include a provision sponsored by two Democratic legislators from Philadelphia, Sen. Vince Hughes and Rep. Liz Fiedler, that would have earmarked $800 million for upgrading outdated school facilities.

Legislators also rejected changes in the charter school reimbursement formula that would have saved the Philadelphia district more than $145 million.

This story has been updated.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Linking Philly girls of color to coding though dance reflects national trend

2022-07-05T17:55:49+00:00

Women and people of color are under-represented in science, technology, engineering, and math. But there’s an effort afoot in Philadelphia to change that through an unusual mix of dance and coding lessons.

DanceLogic, which is run by the West Park Cultural Center, is “designed to educate, inspire, and cultivate girls of color in STEM,” said Betty Lindley, the founder and executive director. Lindley started the program in 2018, teaming up with Franklyn Athias, a Comcast engineer, to offer basic coding lessons along with dance on Saturdays.

The premise: Both coding and dance use repetition and combination, so using dance as a hook to attract girls to the program could lead to an interest in coding. Proponents say programs like danceLogic and others around the country are win-win, motivating kids to enter promising fields, while also diversifying and adding to the STEM workforce pipeline. And programs that get kids interested in STEM when they are relatively young can be especially successful.

Dance, Lindley said, is “a hook” to open girls’ minds to exploring something new. “There are not that many females in technology, especially coding,” she said. “There are career opportunities that girls just aren’t aware of or don’t even think about exploring.”

Recent research bears out Lindley’s point. A 2021 National Science Foundation report found that women made up just 34% of the workforce in the four professional fields collectively known as STEM. Meanwhile, Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans collectively accounted for just 23%.

Those low percentages persist “because we’ve allowed them to persist,” said Dia Jones, executive director of the STEM Educational Institute, a nonprofit group that provides technology programs for high school students in under-represented areas.

Programs like danceLogic, Black Girls Do STEM, and the Ujima GIRL program at the University of California-Davis are a way of making inroads by reaching girls of color before they get to high school, she said.

DanceLogic students range from 12 to 18 years old. Most girls in the program participate at no cost, Lindley said. The program is funded through grants and individual donations.

Each Saturday, the girls participate in dance class from noon to 1:20 p.m., take a short break, and then go into coding class until 2:30 p.m. Sessions run from October through June, culminating with a performance at the annual West Park Arts Fest.

“Much of our dance class is centered around composition and choreography,” both of which use languages and techniques to build narratives and projects, said Cameron Bridgers, a danceLogic dance instructor who applied to teach at the program after receiving her dance degree from Temple University.

Students complete a coding exercise during the study portion of the danceLogic program in West Philadelphia.

For example, she said, the class developed a dance score using coding language to note choreography. “In the future, I hope to expand on this with the girls and see how it progresses with their understanding of both worlds,” she said.

Bridgers said that initially, she wasn’t sure what the connection was between dance and computer programming. She soon found that both are “methods of creation,” she said.

Many educators are designing STEM-focused programs for middle schoolers and younger children who might not otherwise think they can succeed in these technical fields. Reaching those students when they’re in the early grades is often crucial, and can help counter issues like a shortage of Black and brown teachers and other systemic factors.

“If you can get them early enough, when they’re talking about, ‘I want to work for NASA, I want to be an engineer or a gamer or a doctor’ — if you get them early enough, you can say, ‘You can do this,’” said Jones, who has worked with Philadelphia schools for many years. “If you have that representation, that interest, that support early, students are more likely to continue with their STEM journeys,” she said.

Helping others is also a theme at danceLogic.

Students have shown an eagerness to take charge of the choreography and exchange ideas about what the dances should be. Bridgers said she’s seen many of the girls who participate develop into strong leaders and mentors. “We make a space for these young women to expand their agency and autonomy in the field of STEM,” she said.

One danceLogic student even developed her own coding curriculum and taught younger children in her neighborhood library, said Lindley. DanceLogic also hired the student when the pandemic forced a switch to virtual learning, charging her with designing and implementing a virtual video-game design class for children, Lindley said.

One other benefit: The girls in danceLogic say the program has helped them with their math studies, Lindley said.

‘I honestly didn’t know what STEM was’

The University of Maryland, Baltimore’s CURE Scholars is another program that aims to fill and diversify the STEM pipeline by reaching out to under-represented students early in their educational journeys.

CURE pairs middle-school students from West Baltimore with mentors, guiding them year-round through high school with tutoring, hands-on activities, and opportunities to see researchers in action. The first cohort of scholars started in 2015 and graduated high school this spring. They’re headed for colleges that include prominent HBCUs such as Howard University and Spelman College.

Ayishat Yussuf is one of them. In the fall she’ll attend Spelman, where she plans to major in biology with the goal of becoming a pediatrician and health advocate.

When she applied to the program in 5th grade, “I honestly didn’t know what STEM was,” she told Chalkbeat. “I had the feeling it was health-related, but I wasn’t aware of all it consists of.”

Yussuf said giving back to the community is important to her, as she appreciates all the CURE program gave her. The program, she said, inspired her to make sure her career aspirations will make a positive impact, she said. “Coming from West Baltimore, there aren’t that many opportunities,” she said.

Jones’ group, the STEM Educational Institute, is a one-week summer program for 9th to 12th graders aimed at helping them prepare for STEM majors in college and careers in STEM fields. In addition to creating a diverse talent pipeline, the program is focused on how students can build generational wealth, she said.

Students learn from professionals “who look like them” about the mechanics of coding, but also broader life lessons, such as how to survive college, she said.

“I was raised to reach back” and help others,” Jones said. “There are things someone helped me with, so I’m absolutely going to help others and give [them] the opportunities I had — and a lot of opportunities I didn’t have,” she said.

Philly’s Black charter school leaders vow to push back after board votes

2022-06-27T22:39:55+00:00

Editor’s note: This article was updated to reword material that appeared verbatim in a Philadelphia school district press release.

The movement to preserve Black-operated charter schools won’t be deterred by the Philadelphia Board of Education’s votes last week to begin the process of closing two such charters, say members of a coalition who believe certain schools face racial bias in how they’re regulated.

The school board unanimously voted June 23 not to renew the charters of Southwest Leadership Academy Charter School and Laboratory Charter School, which both have Black leadership. Those votes followed the recommendation of the district’s Charter School Office.

The board also voted to proceed with requiring Memphis Street Academy at J.P. Jones, which is managed by American Paradigm Schools, to surrender its charter. Though Memphis Street is not considered a Black-operated charter, 96% of its students identify as Black, Hispanic, or multi-racial.

Officials said poor academic performance and other oversight issues drove their decisions, and board member Reginald Streater called charges that racial bias influenced the votes “factually false.” However, supporters of Black-led charter schools—including state and local politicians who led a protest outside district headquarters before the votes—say they’re not done fighting what they called the board’s unfair approach. The dispute comes amid an investigation into the city’s charter authorizing practices.

“We’re going to continue to stand up against any type of systemic bias, whether it affects charter schools, Black-operated district schools, private schools, bodegas, or car dealerships,” said Larry Jones, the CEO of the Richard Allen Charter School who also a member of the African American Charter Schools Coalition.

Southwest and Laboratory will remain open for now and in the fall. Charter schools can appeal to the State Charter Appeal Board if local boards vote to repeal their charters, and they can remain open during the appeals process. However, that process can take many months, or up to a year in some cases.

Leigh Purnell, the CEO and principal of Southwest Leadership, said the school plans to appeal the board’s vote. Purnell said the city’s charter schools office failed to work with Southwest Leadership to develop an improvement plan.

“I do not believe the school board received a well-rounded picture, a holistic picture, of our school,” Purnell said.

Ashley Redfearn, CEO of American Paradigm Schools, which operates Memphis Street, said in a statement that the school is currently open for summer programming and plans to be open for the 2022-2023 school year. Redfearn said her organization plans “to pursue every legal channel to continue to provide quality, well-rounded education and support” for the school’s students and community.

Closing Black-operated charters a thorny issue

The votes against the three schools come six months after the board authorized the law firm of Ballard Spahr to probe whether racial bias is a factor in the charter school authorizing process. These allegations came from the charter schools coalition, which represents 22 schools and has called for an overhaul of the district’s charter office, as well as new ways for the district to evaluate the schools.

Ballard Spahr is expected to release the results of its independent investigation this fall.

In a report to the board about schools whose charters are up for renewal this year, acting chief of the Charter School Office Pen Chao said Southwest Leadership failed to meet generally accepted standards of fiscal management and audit requirements related to short-term and long-term financial sustainability. For instance, the school was unable to provide documentation for 14 of 40 identified financial transactions, a 43% error rate, Chao noted.

Meanwhile, Laboratory Charter did not have a fully compliant enrollment process. It also failed to timely identify students as English learners; and failed to maintain and obtain FBI background and Pennsylvania criminal background checks for employees.

And Memphis Street Academy failed to meet the required academic standards set out in its charter. Chao said the school had previously agreed that if it did not meet any of those academic standards, it would voluntarily forfeit its charter.

Students, parents, and teachers spoke on behalf of the schools before the board votes.

Steven Bilksi, assistant principal and ESL coordinator at Memphis Street said that families served by his school have benefited from the “transformative initiatives” his school has put in place, in accordance with its charter.

“These initiatives have allowed us to provide all of our scholars and families with the necessary work to succeed academically, socially and emotionally,” Bilksi said.

And Jae Strothers, who works at Laboratory Charter, said that she loves “the work that we do at Laboratory, as well as the children’s parents.”

Local and state politicians, including members of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus, addressed the board in support of the three schools before the votes. In addition, state Sen. Anthony Williams and City Councilman Isaiah Thomas denounced the anticipated votes during a protest outside district headquarters.

“If they decide to ignore the state legislators who fund the school district, and to ignore the city council members who fund the school district, and still move in the way that they want to, it’s time for us to wage war,” Thomas said.

Bureau Chief Johann Calhoun covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. He oversees Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s education coverage. Contact Johann at jcalhoun@chalkbeat.org.

Philly adds community schools to connect more families to social services

2022-06-21T23:14:14+00:00

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney and City Council President Darrell Clarke announced Tuesday that the city is expanding its Community Schools program, which brings social services and other supports directly into school buildings.

Next year, the initiative will include 20 schools, up from 17 this year and nine when the program was launched in 2017. City funding will also increase from $9.8 million to $11.2 million, Kenney’s office said.

Community Schools, one of the mayor’s signature initiatives, seeks to make schools neighborhood service hubs in an effort to remove barriers to learning that children face in their everyday lives. Social services provided at these schools include trauma counseling, health screenings, family counseling, and referrals to city agencies and nonprofit groups. Staff at the school also try to help boost student attendance.

At a press conference, Kenney said the program is designed to “meet the needs of the whole child” and enhance community services in general.

Clarke recalled the time he and Kenney traveled to Cincinnati, which pioneered the concept. Inspired by what they saw, Kenney and Clarke came back to the city and started their own version.

The council president said the program builds connections between communities and their schools. “It made all the sense in the world,” he said.

Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr., in his first public appearance since his swearing-in ceremony last week, emphasized the importance of partnerships and cooperation between the district and the city.

“Schools are more than brick and mortar,” he said. “They are a vital part of their communities and the fabric of this city in bringing families and communities together and expanding opportunities. For schools to help students thrive, we need to work with partners to address the struggles and challenges our students face inside and outside the classroom.”

Principals from the three schools that are being added — Frankford High School, and Add B. Anderson and Paul S. Dunbar elementary schools — said that the need to address student mental well-being, especially trauma, has never been greater.

“Gun violence affects us almost daily,” said Frankford Principal Michael Calderone, citing students who witness it or are directly affected because their family members and friends are victims. At the same time, he said, “safe spaces … seem to dwindle by the day.”

And Principal Laurena Tolson of Add B. Anderson School in Southwest Philadelphia said the program helps remove inequities and ensure success for all children.

“I don’t subscribe to the belief that opportunities depend on ZIP code,” Tolson said.

The three new schools, like the others already in the program, will have case managers for social services and attendance, as well as after-school activities. A coordinator at each school tracks whether the services offered meet the local community’s greatest needs.

Program coordinators plan events and activities to help families understand attendance policies and make children more excited about coming to school.

Over the past year, the city has expanded case management services for social services and attendance in the community schools, along with activities outside of school hours, including arts and STEM programs.

The role of community schools “is to alleviate barriers that prevent students from coming to school,” said Maxwell Akuamoah-Boateng, the operations director for the Community Schools initiative in the city’s Office of Children and Families.

The program is paid for through the city’s tax on sweetened beverages. The city is tracking data about the initiative, and hopes to publish an evaluation in 2025 about its effects on attendance, students’ social and emotional health, and their academic performance.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Philly forging new bonds between students and jobs: ‘Every weld is a challenge’

2022-06-14T18:58:09+00:00

Ahjhané Blackwell prepared herself for a big speech marking the start of a career in welding that, a few years ago, she had no idea she’d want.

It was signing day, and she was among 11 graduating seniors from Philadelphia district schools, and 200 from southeastern Pennsylvania, who were committing to their future employment with local industries in a ceremony at the Independence Seaport Museum.

All of them landed apprenticeships or jobs right out of high school through the Talent Pipeline Project, a partnership between Pennsylvania school districts and the local defense industry that has a huge presence in the Philadelphia region.

The project is part of a concerted effort to more precisely tailor the school district’s extensive career and technical education program — in which students can choose from among 43 specialties — to both local workforce needs and student interests. The heir to “vocational education,” which often became a dumping ground for less academically able students, many CTE disciplines today are highly rigorous and in demand among students seeking good-paying jobs while avoiding college debt.

“It was always viewed as a program for those who ‘can’t, won’t, and don’t,’ for those not going to college and don’t want to,” said Michelle Armstrong, executive director of CTE at the district. “But what has transpired through the years is a recognition that this is not what this is. We view CTE as giving our young people options.”

Students in CTE specialties graduate at higher rates than non-CTE students, according to the most recent Philadelphia data. At same time, getting on the CTE track is far from a guarantee of well-compensated employment right out of high school, according to student surveys.

In a survey of all seniors who graduated in 2021, fewer than one-fifth of those in CTE reported going directly to a job, similar to the number for non-CTE students. And many students aren’t sure if their CTE pathways have led to the right certification for immediate employment.

Welding “came naturally to me,” Ahjhané told the gathering of dignitaries from several companies, the school district, and the military at the Seaport Museum. The ceremony, complete with color guard and singing of the national anthem, was meant to mimic signing days where star high school athletes announce their college choices.

Like the athletes, some of these students received offers from several companies, and this was their chance to commit. As each student’s name was called, their name and company flashed across a big screen.

Upon graduation later this month, she is headed for a job with Rhoads Industries, which does industrial fabrication, installation, and maintenance, especially for ships. At Rhoads, she hopes to be a torch welder, which relies on heating metal to meld pieces together.

“I’ve always been a hands-on person. I never did anything that required more concentration, perseverance, and patience,” she said.

A steady expansion of CTE offerings

Ahjhané studied welding at Randolph Skills Center, although that wasn’t her plan at first. She previously wanted to be a dental assistant. And she had no female role models for welding.

But the welding teacher at the time, Joe Williams, laid out clear benefits of entering that line of work.

“For one thing, I wouldn’t make nearly as much as a dental assistant,” she said he told her.

She developed her skills despite having to spend an entire school year without any hands-on experience during the pandemic. Instead, she watched YouTube videos to help her visualize the process.

Ahjhané developed her welding skills even without hands-on experience, learning much of the process from YouTube videos during the pandemic.

The 43 CTE pathways students can pursue in Philadelphia district high schools are divided into 10 career clusters. These pathways include everything from automotive repair, baking, and carpentry, to early childhood education, graphic design, and precision machine technology. They’re available to students in both dedicated vocational schools and many neighborhood schools.

The district’s CTE offerings, said Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite at the signing ceremony, “provide a direct link between what they are learning in the classroom and the needs of the labor market.”

The most popular programs in the district are health-related technology, digital media production, sports marketing, and culinary arts.

The concerted effort to align what is taught in CTE programs with industry needs has not always been a district priority; historically, there were times when the auto shops, for instance, had students working on obsolete engines. District officials told City Council members last month about their plan to conduct an outside evaluation of all CTE programs in the 2022-2023 school year to make sure they are up to date, attract student interest, and teach the skills local companies want.

That review will take place as opinions about career training and education continue to evolve. For a long time, students in “voc-ed” tracks were not required to take rigorous courses – instead of algebra, for instance, there was “construction math.” But about two decades ago the Board of Education required CTE students to take all the same academic courses as other students. And since then, more CTE programs and concentrations have been added, such as advanced manufacturing and precision machining at Benjamin Franklin High School.

“We made the decision that if a student chooses to have a CTE pathway, they don’t get a lesser education than their colleagues,” Armstrong said. “They have the same exact graduation requirements, and they take the same classes. They are prepared to go to college, if they want to. They can go into the world of work. Or they can do both.”

Recent data shows that local students on the CTE pathway are more likely to graduate high school than their peers. In Philadelphia district schools, 93% of students who take CTE courses from 10th through 12th grades graduated on time in the 2020-21 school year, compared to 80% who did not take any CTE courses, a district report found. In many of the trades offered, they can earn industry certifications that make them job-ready. And they are still prepared for college if they so choose.

“You can see evidence of the shift in the growth and investment post-secondary institutions are making in CTE,” Armstrong said.

Community College of Philadelphia, for instance, is scheduled to open an entire new advanced technology center in West Philadelphia this fall.

CTE students get certification in their specialties by taking the so-called NOCTI (National Occupational Competency Testing Institute) exam, which are offered in a range of CTE specialties. Overall, 60% of district students who take the tests passed them, according to district data for the three years prior to the pandemic. Some students take multiple certification tests; welding has five, for example.

‘You have to be way smarter’

One of the smallest and newest CTE programs in the district is precision machine technology, which has a program at Benjamin Franklin High School.

Warren Crosby originally wanted to go to an academic magnet school, but says that learning advanced machining at Franklin was a great decision. He and his classmates take pride in their knowledge and ability to help construct essentials that people need and use every day, from bridges and buildings to airplanes and toasters, all of which need to be correctly made in order to be safe.

“Precision machining in its own way is not a bad route at all. I can make almost anything in the world,” Crosby said. A graduating senior, he is headed to an apprenticeship at the Naval Foundry and Propeller Center.

His classmate Caleb Matthews, headed to the same company, is equally enthusiastic about his choice.

“We have to be more educated at an academic level to learn CTE. You have to be way smarter,” Matthews said. Once they complete their apprenticeships by passing several tests of their skills, they will be able to earn more than $30 an hour.

Mastbaum Area Vocational Technical School, located in Frankford, is one of the three original vocational high schools in the city; it historically focused on the construction trades. But it has branched out to offer other specialties, including graphic design, nursing, and culinary arts.

(From left) Mastbaum Area Vocational Technical School student Justin Brown with Principal David Lon. Students at Mastbaum choose a specialty and spend over 1,000 hours learning that craft.

All students are required to choose a specialty once they sample different options during ninth grade. Then they focus on that specialty for the next three years and 1,080 hours of instruction, in addition to a regular academic course load. There’s no more “construction math.”

“It’s intense. We have the same expectations of them” as other students, said David Lon, principal of Mastbaum and a former English teacher.

When he worked at neighborhood high schools, Lon said, “I would see well meaning kids, good kids, sitting at graduation who couldn’t see a path forward. They never had a focus in high school, a discipline they studied.”

One other benefit for students who go straight from the district’s CTE path into the labor force: They avoid accumulating college debt.

“Our alums come back, they are working jobs at PECO (Philadelphia Electric Company, the local electric utility), and at 20-21 years old are buying their first house,” Lon said.

Finding direction and full employment

Not every student who focuses on a trade in one of the district’s CTE programs follows through and gets a job in their specialty.

In the survey of the 2021 graduating seniors, about a quarter of the district’s students identified as CTE students, and most of them, like their peers, said they planned on continuing their education.

Only 17%, compared to 15% of non-CTE students, said they planned on going straight to employment. And 55% of the CTE students said they weren’t sure whether they had earned an industry certification in their field while in their respective programs.

Yet statistics don’t always capture the ways students feel they benefit. Justin Brown is a Mastbaum senior who benefited from the program’s rigor. Also a welder, he said he chose to travel to Mastbaum from Juniata, at least a half-hour trip, because an older sibling went there. Taking up a trade gave him some direction, he said.

The requirement to focus on a trade or specialty “is really preparing you for the outside world,” Justin said.

He has an apprenticeship lined up at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard which, like Ahjhané, he accessed through the Talent Pipeline Project.

Ahjhané will work at Rhoads Industries as a welding apprentice upon her graduation from Randolph.

Rhoads, where Ahjhané will work, is one of 50 companies that are involved in the partnership. Its experts work with teachers to make sure students have the right skills. It hired five apprentices from Philadelphia this year, including Ahjhané.

“It’s a symbiotic relationship,” said Trish Conti, a Rhoads spokesperson.

Ahjhané hopes to test out of the apprenticeship at Rhoads to full employment within two months. Normally, it would take two years. Her teacher, David Poe, said he would not be surprised if she was able to do it, and called her a natural.

In her speech before the signing day crowd, she demonstrated the cool demeanor that welding demands.

“Every weld is a challenge,” Ahjhané said. “And every challenge is an opportunity to grow.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

After COVID slowdown, Philly’s free preschool program plans modest expansion

2022-06-03T11:00:00+00:00

Philadelphia’s free preschool program doesn’t offer the 6,500 seats city leaders envisioned when it launched more than five years ago, but a modest expansion planned for the coming school year could bring the number to 4,300.

Slowed initially by litigation over the sugary beverage tax that funds the PHLpreK program, the pandemic also took a toll. Revenues from the beverage tax declined about 15% in the first two years of the pandemic, and stalled a 1,700-seat expansion. This school year, the city did not fill all 4,000 seats funded through the program.

Sean Perkins, Philadelphia’s chief of early childhood education, said city officials try to be strategic in deciding which parts of the city to put PHLpreK seats in, but supply and demand don’t always align.

“We have more families who have completed applications than there are seats … but we still have vacancies, too,” he said.

Mayor Jim Kenney’s proposed budget for the coming year includes about $3.9 million in additional PHLpreK funding, which will help pay for 300 new seats. The City Council is expected to approve that expansion when it votes on the upcoming budget later this month.

Currently, the city spends about $41 million a year on the preschool program. Increasingly, cities and states are offering tuition-free preschool as a way to prepare children for kindergarten and provide key learning experiences during a critical period of development.

PHLpreK, which began in 2017, provides 5.5 hours a day of free preschool to 3- and 4-year-olds in Philadelphia. Although PHLpreK serves children regardless of family income, about 70% come from lower-income families, Perkins said.

Ebony Baggett, who owns the Bright Minds, Bright Beginnings Early Learning Center, is hoping to add six additional PHLpreK slots for the next school year. The 26 slots she has now — some at her Cobbs Creek center and some at her Strawberry Mansion site — always fill up fast.

Compared to Pre-K Counts, the state-funded preschool program for low-income families, she said the city’s program is easier for families because there’s no income verification requirement — just a residency requirement.

“It’s easier for the parents and they’re more likely to enroll,” she said.

Adelaida Gutierrez, a mother of four who works as a home health aide, has a 5-year-old daughter who’s just finishing two years in PHLpreK at Bright Minds, and a 3-year-old daughter, who will start in the fall.

“With the pre-K being free, it is helpful,” she said. “How would I be able to afford full-time child care?”

Gutierrez’s 5-year-old daughter Skyliss has struggled at times with preschool, crying at drop-off and mostly preferring to play alone. Guiterrez suspects she may be on the autism spectrum like her older brother, and has an appointment to have Skyliss evaluated in August.

But Gutierrez has also seen signs of progress for Skyliss at Bright Minds. Skyliss has learned to write her name, doesn’t “baby talk” as much as she used to, and cries less often since she began carrying a photo of her parents to preschool.

Finding solutions for initiative’s roadblocks

City officials say PHLpreK’s biggest challenge is the chronic shortage of qualified preschool staff. Part of the problem is the industry’s low pay, but the job also entails long hours and, at times, stressful conditions.

“Philadelphians have an increased level of poverty and have experienced various traumas … and that costs a lot and it actually takes a lot of energy and training for the teachers and the support staff,” Perkins said.

Naimah Humpert, a preschool teacher at Bright Minds, Bright Beginnings, works with children on a coloring sheet.

To help address such challenges, the city last year launched the SPARK Quality Support Center, an effort that provides free training, coaching, and support to PHLpreK providers. While most PHLpreK providers already have one of the top two ratings in the state’s four-star quality rating system, SPARK staff also work with lower-rated providers to help them improve.

“All of the work that they do with providers is 100% catered to what the provider needs,” said PHLpreK Director Denise Bermudez. “It’s an amazing opportunity for them.”

Jessica Munoz works at Bright Minds and sends her 5-year-old son Damir there through PHLpreK. Damir, who enjoys dancing, playing with Transformers, and watching Paw Patrol, suffers from anxiety. But Munoz said he’s learned a lot during his two years in the program, including how to identify his name, letters, and numbers.

In the fall, he’ll head to kindergarten at a charter school in the Juniata section of lower Northeast Philadelphia. Although PHLpreK doesn’t run in the summer, Damir will get a little more time at Bright Minds if Munoz, who earns $15 an hour, is granted child care subsidies to cover summer tuition there.

Baggett wishes the city’s preschool program ran year-round so all participants would have a safe place to go in the summer.

“Ten months is a huge challenge,” she said. “Our program is in a high-need area so … a lot of times there’s violence happening outside our four walls. As a provider, it gives me anxiety.”

Baggett said a full-year schedule would also help financially and prevent reduced staff hours in the summer.

But it’s not clear if PHLpreK will ever grow to a full-year program, or when it will reach the mayor’s goal of serving 5,500 children annually — a number revised down from the original 6,500 estimate.

While revenues from Philadelphia’s sweetened beverage tax have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels — the tax brought in about $77 million this year — city officials estimate proceeds from the tax will peak at $79 million in 2024 and then fall back to about $77 million by 2027.

City officials say such a decline wouldn’t negatively affect the program.

“Overall, these fluctuations are minimal and will not hinder the administration’s plans to expand PHLpreK nor the other core programs funded by the tax,” city spokesman Mike Dunn said in an email.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania is increasingly underfunding special education, report finds

2022-05-27T21:25:00+00:00

The state of Pennsylvania has paid a decreasing share over the last decade of what it costs to educate students in special education, putting a heavier burden on local districts to make up the difference, according to a new report.

In the new analysis by the Education Law Center and the advocacy coalition PA Schools Work, Pennsylvania paid 32% of school districts’ special education costs in 2008-2009. In 2019-20, that figure had dropped to 22%.

In that period, students identified as needing special education grew by 14%, “due in part to increases in autism eligibility and other specific developmental disabilities,” the report said. But as special education costs rose from $3 billion to $5.2 billion, state aid for special education grew by only $156 million to $1.1 billion while local districts doubled their own contributions, from $1.8 billion to $3.7 billion. The relatively small federal contribution also flatlined at around $400 million.

“The story of state special education funding is one of indifference,” said Sharon Ward, senior policy adviser at the law center and the report’s author. “Special education costs have risen substantially but state support has barely grown at all.”

Overall, the report concluded, the inattention to special education costs has a disproportionate effect on low-wealth districts. The stagnant special education funding compounds the overall resource gap in Pennsylvania, which is now being challenged in a landmark court case.

Philadelphia, the state’s largest district by far, is among the hardest hit. Over the 10-year period studied, special education costs rose by $347 million while state funding increased by just $27 million. Philadelphia’s enrollment is predominantly Black and Hispanic and low-income.

“Districts are supposed to provide students with what they need, if they don’t, parents have to fight,” Ward said. She said parents told her that, among other problems, they have had trouble even getting their children evaluated and assigned an Individualized Education Plan, or IEP, that determines their services. If a district fails to provide the services mandated in the IEP, parents can sue for so-called “compensatory education” awards so the students can access the required services, such as tutoring and therapy, outside the district.

Cecelia Thompson, a Philadelphia Board of Education member, has a 21-year-old autistic son who graduated from the district. During his school career, he got three compensatory education awards, she said.

“That may be seen as a victory, but my son is not a winner due to lack of funding,” she said. He should have received the needed services in school, she said.

“I’ve been advocating for 20 years assisting families, and many of them become frustrated because of the lack of support and services.”

She said it is crucial for Philadelphia and other districts to get more funding to lessen the need for compensatory education awards. “We want children educated the first time, not after the fact,” she said. “You cannot redo time lost when you don’t have the funding necessary to give our children…what they desperately need.”

While overall K-12 enrollment in Pennsylvania has dropped since 2009, special education enrollment has increased and now stands at 18% of students.

“The lens through which we looked at this, is what happens if a district is already underfunded and can’t raise enough money to pay for classroom costs,” Ward said. “That is compounded in low-wealth districts that also have to pay for special education costs and are unable to adequately do both.”

In addition to letting its overall investment lag behind actual costs, the General Assembly has done nothing to revise an “antiquated” formula for providing aid to districts, the report said, especially in payments to charter schools.

In 2014 the General Assembly revised its system for disbursing special education money to districts by splitting the aid into three tiers depending on the severity of the student’s disability. The aid supplement can range from about $10,000 to $50,000.

However, the legislative committee did not apply the change to charter schools. They continue to get the same amount for each special education student regardless of the nature and cost of the student’s disability, which the report called “the charter school loophole.” Depending on the district, that formula gives charter schools as much as three times as much for each special education student as for regular education students.

In Philadelphia, for instance, the district pays $10,639 for each regular education student in a charter school and $31,100 for each student in special education. And according to the charter school law, there is no requirement that the charter school spend all the subsidy on the student’s education.

That formula “incentivizes the systemic exclusion of certain groups of students with disabilities from charter schools,” while “providing charter schools with funding that far exceeds the charter’s actual spending on special education programs, even while school districts are scrambling to provide funding for students with disabilities who are served in their schools,” the report said.

In 2019, the Education Law Center did a report that found charter schools in Philadelphia have a higher share of students needing lower-cost services such as speech and language services than district schools while enrolling very few students with higher and more expensive needs, such as autism or intellectual disabilities. Another report by Education Voters of Pennsylvania found a similar pattern statewide.

In his proposed fiscal 2023 budget, Gov. Tom Wolf has asked for a $200 million increase in special education funding, which Ward said represents the average year-to-year increase in special education costs over the decade studied. That is the minimum that the General Assembly should approve, she said.

“At the very least, we shouldn’t be digging a bigger hole,” she said. The goal of those who prepared the report is to increase the state share of special education to one-third of costs in five years, she said, and eventually to 50%.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Want to know the condition of a Philly school building? New map to help.

2022-04-27T20:44:50+00:00

Editor’s note: This article was updated to reword material that appeared verbatim in a Philadelphia school district press release.

Parents and teachers have complained for years about crumbling and unsafe Philadelphia school buildings, and have called for greater transparency about problems and repair efforts. Now the district hopes a new website will help address those concerns.

In a move to provide solutions to its facility challenges, the district unveiled a site Tuesday specifically for its Facilities Planning Process aimed to inform the public on how it is managing its aging infrastructure. Visitors will be able to use an interactive map to access information about each school building’s condition, as well as facility assessments conducted by third-party industry professionals.

“Ultimately, what’s going to happen is we’re going to look at this information, along with some other extra experts in the district, and we’re going to come up with a series of options that we think will help solve the unique challenges that the schools are facing,” said Vanessa Benton, deputy chief of school planning and space management for the district.

Concerns about the state of Philadelphia K-12 facilities stem in part from the fact that the average Philadelphia school building is 75 years old.

The district launched the Facilities Planning Process last month to identify the challenges district school buildings are facing and provide recommendations to address them as part of the district’s long-term facilities master plan. The school board approved $1.3 million to fund it.

The district plans to evaluate all school buildings over the next year or so.

“We’re really excited about what the end result will be in around the spring of 2023, so that we will have a comprehensive, holistic plan on how we’re going to change the education landscape across the school district of Philadelphia,” said Reggie McNeil, chief operating officer for the district.

The district is inviting members of the community to participate in discussions from May 10-25, where residents can learn more about the process. To participate, residents can register online.

Funding for capital improvement projects have been in the works for some time.

Superintendent William Hite announced last fall that the district planned to spend some of the district’s roughly $1.1 billion in federal coronavirus relief on building repairs and upgrades. Chief Financial Officer Uri Monson subsequently said $325 million of that federal COVID aid would be spent on facilities improvements. The district plans to spend $2 billion total on improving its aging infrastructure over the next six years.

“Some of our schools were built in the 19th century, and we know that these buildings cannot meet the 21st-century learning needs of our students,” Hite said.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan, who has been critical of the district in its handling of ventilation and crumbling facilities, said Tuesday that “while we do not have enough details about the plan, any effort to improve transparency and engagement is welcome.”
“Let’s also be very clear: the district must address the facilities crisis through transparency and actual meaningful investments. School closures must not be part of this process,” Jordan added.

Bureau Chief Johann Calhoun covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. He oversees Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s education coverage. Contact Johann at jcalhoun@chalkbeat.org.

Lessons in the laundromat: Philly initiative promotes literacy in everyday spaces

2022-02-08T19:31:49+00:00

On a recent cold Saturday afternoon, Iris Hernandez and Carmen Colon were helping six Morales children through the letters, sounds, and words in the book “DJ’s Busy Day” about a bunny and his fun-filled adventures in ordinary places – the grocery store, on the bus, in his home.

“This is fun,” said Jeremiah Morales, 8, as he paged through the book, which is in both English and Spanish.

The group was ensconced in a cozy reading nook, with round yellow tables, child-sized chairs, and a fireplace, surrounded by colorful pictures and alphabet posters on the wall.

And washing machines. And dryers.

They were in a laundromat.

Hernandez and Colon are reading captains working with Global Citizen, which has been leading a community mobilization in partnership with the Philadelphia Public Library’s Read by 4th initiative, a citywide drive to help all children read proficiently by the end of third grade. Some research shows that early reading proficiency is linked to high school graduation.

The city still has a long way to go toward its goal. Before the pandemic, standardized tests showed that only about a third of children in district schools read at grade level by fourth grade.

The goal of Read by 4th is to help children reach reading proficiency by the end of third grade.

And the Laundry Cafe, at 4th St. and Allegheny Ave. in Kensington, one of four in Philadelphia owned by entrepreneur Brian Holland, has been enlisted in a nationwide effort to promote early literacy by harnessing the time that families, especially those in low-income neighborhoods, spend on workaday tasks.

Jenny Bogoni, the executive director of Read by 4th, said that she fears the already low rate of fourth graders reading at grade level has declined from its peak of 41% before the pandemic.

“We assume that the number has fallen,” she said. “I think the story here is that we are trying to physically transform everyday spaces in Philadelphia and families’ experience of raising a reader. To do that requires more than just changing teaching in the classroom, although that is critical. It’s doing things like this.”

Brian Holland has worked to make his laundromats as welcoming as possible for families.

Holland is from Chester, one of Pennsylvania’s poorest cities. He opened his laundromats after a long, successful career in the pharmaceutical industry.

For his “second act,” as he put it, he was looking for an interesting business opportunity that had the potential to have an impact on families in the kind of hardscrabble neighborhood that he grew up in.

And he landed on laundry. For many families, it is a weekly if not daily routine, with hours spent washing and drying their clothes in these community mainstays. Often, they bring their children with them, who either help out or must otherwise keep themselves occupied.

From the start, Holland worked to make the laundromat as welcoming as possible, with massage chairs and other amenities. He would give away diapers and men’s clothing to people in need, and occasionally hold seminars that helped people enroll in insurance programs.

He also put out a few children’s books, and he noticed that sometimes they would disappear. “I thought that was a good thing,” he said, “that the children wanted the books.”

He understood the impulse, and he wanted to do more. “I remember growing up, I had pride in my first book, it was mine,” he said. “The younger the better, the earlier you can get kids’ attention, the better off they are.”

Then, through the Coin Laundry Association, a nationwide industry group, he became aware of Too Small To Fail, an initiative of the Clinton Foundation that is focused on the well-being of young children.

The program was launched in 2015 with the realization that “more than half the kids in the country are unprepared for kindergarten, are lagging behind in critical language and literacy skills needed for school and for life,” said Jane Park, the director of Too Small To Fail.

At the same time, she said, since there were already a lot of organizations focused on early literacy by working with educators, the foundation looked for “a unique role we can play in supporting families.”

Children spend 80% of their waking hours outside school environments, so we “talked to parents, partners and others about the places they are going on a daily basis,” Park said. “The mission is to surround families with learning opportunities in the everyday places they go together.”

With children spending the majority of their time outside of school environments, reimagining spaces like the Laundry Cafe provide an extra learning space for children.

The laundromat was one. With willing participants like Holland, they went about thinking “how we could reimagine the space.”

They found out that, among other things, the typical laundromat had a lot of “no” signs around, a turnoff for children, she said.

“We talked to owners, we asked what their challenges are when it comes to kids and families in the stores,” said Park. They talked about “kids running around, slipping and falling, playing with laundry carts.”

So they created a “Family Read, Play & Learn” space with comfortable chairs and couches, tables, a box of manipulatives, and many books. The publisher Scholastic donated books, and KABOOM, a national organization concerned with playspace inequity, provides manipulatives and other materials and helped with design.

They festooned walls with posters in English and Spanish. “Let’s Use Our Imagination!” proclaims one poster that has pictures of animals in their natural habitats. Multicolored letters and numbers cover the sides of some washing machines, and a hopscotch grid is in one aisle. Small footprints on the floor urge children to explore.

The William Penn Foundation, which invests heavily in early literacy, helps underwrite the program. (William Penn is a funder of Chalkbeat.)

Reading captain Iris Hernandez helps 5-year-old Avianna read “DJ’s Busy Day”.

“We underestimate the power and potential of informal learning spaces, especially in environments where school systems have trouble getting resources,” Holland said.

In addition to creating a congenial space that encourages reading and other learning activities, once or twice a month, they also bring in reading captains from the citywide Read by 4th campaign, like Hernandez and Colon, for more formal activities.

Kyshia Roberto and Tyrece Morales are the parents of Jeremiah and his siblings, who range in age from 5-year-old twins to 12 years old.

“This is great for the kids,” said Roberto, who comes to the laundromat every week.

Margarita Davila was there with her daughter Aishah, 7, who was also sitting in the reading nook with her own book.

“This is pretty cool,” she said of the idea that her daughter, who attends Esperanza Cyber Charter School, could be encouraged to read even at the laundromat. “I never knew they had this.”

Family members and reading captains speak at a Read by 4th event at the Laundry Cafe.

Colon, who works as a paraprofessional in several schools in the district, said she became a reading captain because she came to recognize the urgency of getting children to read early. “I’m a community person,” she said. “I could see how children became more engaged because of reading.”

Hernandez, who works with Philadelphia Virtual Academy, the district’s cyber school, agreed. She has four children who either graduated from or currently attend schools in the city. “It is so important for parents to be involved and do volunteer work,” she said.

Holland said he would host these events several times a week if families would come.

“You do as much as you can,” he said. “If you can help one kid in 10, you can change the slope of their lives. The goal is to have impact.”

New Philly high school admissions process, meant to increase equity, leads to pleas for a redo

2022-02-01T23:12:13+00:00

At 5 p.m. last Friday, thousands of Philadelphia eighth graders learned whether they were admitted to one of the city’s most selective high schools.

It’s an annual ritual, but this year, with a major difference: In October the district overhauled the process by putting the names of all qualifying students into a lottery instead of letting individual school leaders shape their incoming classes.

Now, several parent groups are asking for a redo, saying the new system – meant to remove bias in admissions decisions and increase diversity at the city’s most elite public schools – has unfairly left some high-achieving students wait-listed at all their choices and without any offers of admission. Each student could list up to five schools on their application.

Parents scheduled two meetings on Tuesday to discuss ways to advocate for amending the process and a Change.org petition started last Friday night had almost 1,500 signatures by Tuesday. The petition asked for a “re-selection phase,” and the development of “a new and improved method that helps everyone involved.”

The district rewrote the selective admissions rules in October, right before the application window opened. In moving toward a lottery system, officials said they wanted to avoid “human judgment” and remove implicit or overt racism from the process.

The goal of the new system is to make the demographics at the most prestigious schools, particularly Central High and Julia R. Masterman, more reflective of the district’s as a whole. While the district is 80% Black and Latino, enrollment at these schools is predominantly white and Asian American.

Along with the lottery, officials also said they would give preference to students from five city ZIP codes that historically have sent few students to selective schools. All students who qualify from these ZIP codes and choose Central, Masterman or Academy at Palumbo, or Carver High School of Engineering and Science automatically get accepted.

District leaders and the Board of Education are still analyzing data to see if the new system is having the desired effect. At Thursday’s meeting, officials said that this year 62% of the students who qualified for criteria-based school are Black and Latino, up from 40% last year and surpassing a board goal.

The number of Black and Latino students who qualified jumped from 768 in the 2020-2021 school year to 3,584 in the 2021-2022 school year.

However, in presenting the data Superintendent William Hite stressed that this is based on the minimum standards for the least selective of the 19 schools – all As, Bs, and Cs and good attendance.

“More eighth grade students met qualifications in 21-22, across student groups and all types of schools,” Hite told the board. He also attributed this to the elimination of the state standardized test, the PSSA, which hasn’t been administered for two years due to the pandemic. In past years, the selective schools had cutoff scores on the test.

Hite did not say how many of these or other qualified students actually applied to the selective schools, nor did he provide the number of Black and Latino students who met the criteria for the most selective schools, including Central and Masterman.

But some parents of students who struck out in the lottery this year, who are largely white, expressed dismay about the new system.

“I’m happy for other children to be given opportunities they were never given before,” said one parent who asked to remain anonymous and whose daughter – a straight-A student with a long list of middle school extracurriculars – was wait-listed at all of the five schools to which she applied. “But this is coming at the cost of other children.”

She agrees that the district needs to improve neighborhood high schools so that all students get a high-quality education, but she said that hasn’t happened. Her neighborhood school is Horace Howard Furness, but based on a lot of things – low reading and math scores and the need for $32 million in repairs to the building – she doesn’t see it as a viable choice for her daughter.

“There’s a whole systematic shift that needs to happen and there’s a need to prioritize schools like Furness,” said another parent who lives in its catchment and whose child did not get a placement. “My heart goes out to families who have to put their child in that situation every day. But right now it is not somewhere I feel my child would thrive.”

Saida Nhari said her daughter, an eighth grader at Masterman, did not get into either of her top choices, Central or Masterman.

“My daughter stressed herself out to get straight As and got up in the early morning to get to school on time,” said Nhari. “All that effort was in hopes to get into the high school. But two weeks before the applications opened, they decided to change everything.”

Masterman starts in fifth grade, but students have to reapply to the high school, which is smaller. Before this year, almost all those admitted to Masterman’s ninth grade had come from the middle school.

However, this year the high school opened up to all qualifying eighth graders in the city.

Nhari’s older daughter, a college student and Masterman and Central alumna, started the Change.org petition.

“I know [the district] did it in the name of equity, and I agree that’s an issue, but they rushed in with what they did and lowered standards,” said the eighth grader, who did not want to be identified. “That’s a bad idea in itself.”

But groups who advocated for reform of the process aren’t sympathetic to the complaints. Black students and alumni at Central and Masterman called for changes, forming groups in the summer of 2020 after the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis.

The “Black at Central” and “Black at Masterman” groups highlighted implicit bias and other issues at both schools, and the district changed the admissions process partly in response to their activism.

“Supporters of the [Change.org] petition are complaining that the new system is unfair because they ‘worked so hard to get into the best schools,’ one post on the “Black at Masterman” Instagram page said. “It must be hard for those living a life of privilege when the oppressive systems in place begin to work against them.”

There are 19 so-called “criterion-based” schools, but some are harder to get into than others. Masterman and Central have the highest standards, with the requirement of all As and Bs, and a 21.5 score on a machine-scored writing test introduced into the process this year.

Palumbo, Parkway Center City, and Carver require all As and Bs, but a 16.5 score on the writing test. Five others – Science Leadership Academy, Science Leadership Academy-Beeber, Girard Academic Music Program, or GAMP, Creative and Performing Arts High School, and the Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush – allow one C and have either an audition or portfolio or both. They do not require the writing test.

Nine other schools require all As, Bs, and Cs. Students must also have at least 95% attendance.

Use of the writing test as a substitute for the PSSA to determine admission eligibility to the five most selective schools created controversy since it is machine-scored and its manufacturer has specified that it was not designed to make placement decisions.

A 2017 report by the Pew Charitable Trusts Philadelphia Research Institute found that in the prior admissions system students who are white, Asian American, female and from relatively affluent families are more likely to get into selective schools than those who are Black, Latino, male and low-income. It also found that qualified Latino students were less likely to apply to these schools and less likely to attend if they were admitted.

The report also found that 11% of those who were admitted didn’t have the minimum test scores necessary, while many students who did were not admitted. In this group, there were significant differences based on race, gender and socio-economic circumstances, the Pew study found.

The big jump in the pool of eligible students and the use of a lottery reduced the chances of any one student, regardless of qualifications, to be accepted to their school of choice and opened up the possibility that they could be accepted to none.

Parents and students who received no offers are now anxiously awaiting the next phase of the process. Students who received offers have until this Friday to make their choices, which then opens up waitlists.

Said another parent whose daughter is also a straight-A student who didn’t get into any of her choices: “My concern in the name of increasing diversity, equity and inclusion, a lot of people from all sorts of backgrounds are going to be very, very hard hit by this.”

Constant cutting is ‘heartbreaking,’ testifies Wilkes-Barre leader in Pennsylvania school funding case

2022-01-27T00:48:54+00:00

The petitioners in Pennsylvania’s landmark fair education funding lawsuit wrapped up their case Wednesday with testimony from Brian Costello, the superintendent of schools in Wilkes-Barre, a small city in which 70% of the students are Latino and Black, 82% are economically disadvantaged, and nearly one in eight are English language learners.

Wilkes-Barre, with an enrollment of 7,300, is the second largest of the six petitioner districts, which range from Lancaster, with more than 10,000 students, to Shenandoah Valley, with about 1,000.

Like educators from the other districts who testified before him, Costello said that Wilkes-Barre lacked enough resources to provide a quality education to its students, many of whom have high needs. Pennsylvania has one of the largest spending gaps between rich and poor districts in the country, and it also ranks low in the percentage of education dollars that come from the state compared to the local contribution.

Petitioners want the state to invest more in education aid and distribute the money more fairly, saying that the current system violates Pennsylvania’s constitutional mandate to provide a “thorough and efficient system of education.”

Costello said that the district had to take austerity measures in order to avoid running a deficit. “Through draconian measures, we have been able to achieve [a] fund balance,” he said.

Among those measures: the elimination of all K-8 art classes, a loss he called “heartbreaking,” adding that students, including his own daughter, were motivated in other courses because of the opportunity to take art.

“Cutting programs that you know are going to affect children is extremely difficult and it makes you question, you know, ‘What are we doing?’” he said.

The district also furloughed 37 teachers and cut all its librarians. Michael Horvath, a recent graduate of the district, testified on Monday about how his lack of experience in library research led to difficulties for him in college.

Through these and other austerity measures, Wilkes-Barre improved its bond rating enough to build a new $80 million high school because it was less expensive than repairing its three existing buildings that housed high school students, he said. Those buildings had deteriorated to the point of danger, with sheds outside of some entrances to shield passersby from a crumbling parapet.

During cross-examination, as they did with other witnesses from plaintiff districts, attorneys for Republican legislative leaders sought to highlight Wilkes-Barre’s achievements, including the new high school, to build a case for Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer that existing conditions and programs meet the constitutional requirement.

At one point, plaintiffs showed pictures of poor building conditions, including a room in which two students were wearing coats because of the cold.

But other students are in shirtsleeves, and Costello sparred with attorney Patrick Northen, representing Senate President Jack Corman, who suggested the students had no coats because it wasn’t really cold in the building.

“I was in the room, I know it was cold,” Costello said, adding that the reason the students were in shirtsleeves was because they were too poor to afford appropriate clothing.

In building their case, the plaintiffs brought a total of 29 witnesses, most of them educators from the plaintiff districts, as well as Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite and Chief Financial Officer Uri Monson. Philadelphia is not a plaintiff – it was under state control when the case was originally filed seven years ago – but supports the goals of the case.

Plaintiffs also brought in state Secretary of Education Noe Ortega, who testified that the state needs to invest more in education for it to give all students equal opportunity. Ortega and Gov. Tom Wolf are technically defendants in the case, but they support the need for more education spending by the state.

Other witnesses included economists and researchers who testified about the magnitude of the spending gaps among districts, as well as delineating the long-term costs of not investing now in education. Economist Clive Belfield cited higher health and welfare costs, more crime, and lower taxes paid by workers relegated to low-wage jobs because they didn’t finish high school.

The witnesses all went under intense cross-examination by attorneys for the legislature, who sought to undermine the contention that more money leads to higher student achievement.

The plaintiffs’ case took almost nine weeks. Legislators will begin their case on Monday, with a witness list that includes economists and academics who question the relationship between per-pupil spending and student achievement, as well as educators from charters and private schools, including cyber charters. Republicans in Harrisburg have long promoted school choice in the form of charters and vouchers as their main education reform strategy.

The first witness will be David Donley, the executive director of the Republican House Appropriations Committee. Also on the list is Aaron J. Anderson, a psychologist who heads Logos Academy, a faith-based private school, and Christine Rossell, a professor of education who argues that school desegregation is a better approach to inequity than more spending.

‘Pennsylvania is forgoing resources’: Economists say school funding matters

2022-01-21T23:47:08+00:00

Two prominent economists testified this week in the landmark Pennsylvania fair school funding case that research shows increased resources, if properly targeted, can improve academic achievement and life success for traditionally underserved students.

Both Rucker Johnson, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and Clive Belfield, a professor at Queens College, held fast under intense cross-examination by attorneys representing Republican legislative leaders, who have been trying to undermine the relationship between school funding and student outcomes.

This lawsuit, filed in 2014, is the first of its kind to go to trial in Pennsylvania, which has some of the widest spending gaps among wealthy and poor districts in the country, even though its overall per-pupil spending is in the top ten among the states. Pennsylvania also contributes less as a state to overall education spending, 38% compared to a national average of 47%, putting more of a burden on local property taxes. The trial is will be entering its ninth week.

Johnson, who specializes in education finance, has studied the impact of California’s so-called LCFF, or Local Control Funding Formula, an infusion of $18 billion in education dollars in 2014 that reshaped how school districts in the state are funded. The formula for distributing the dollars took into account the factors that Johnson said made it “progressive,” emphasizing each district’s need, demographics, and taxing capacity.

Using student-level data, he showed that younger students who benefited from increased spending “had a whole grade level acceleration of learning than previous cohorts from that same school prior to the funding increase,” translating into eight to 12 months of learning gains.”

Johnson emphasized that for the additional funds to be effective, they have to be predictable, recurring and sustained over a long period of time. This allows districts to make long-range investments and study their impact.

Year-to-year political haggling over education spending – the norm in Pennsylvania and many other states – creates uncertainty and inhibits educators’ choices, he said, limiting the potential benefits.

“When we don’t do sustained investments, we see evidence of fade out,” he said. Occasional bumps in funding “don’t translate to significantly improved outcomes.”

Johnson said that new investments in K-12 and preschool programs together show the greatest gains. This was shown both in California and New Jersey, where courts in several cases going back to the 1990s have ordered increased spending in the state’s poorest districts while also mandating universal prekindergarten.

“We see the effects double when preceded by access to quality pre-K,” Johnson said.

On cross examination, attorney Patrick Northen, representing Republican House Speaker Brian Cutler, emphasized that Pennsylvania’s average per-pupil spending is high compared to other states. Northen said that the district gaps occur because Pennsylvania, unlike some other states, does not put a cap on what local governments can spend.

But Johnson said that using the average per-pupil spending “masks the variation” among districts. That variation “is pertinent to the achievement gaps,” he said.

Northen presented school-level achievement data that showed a decrease in test scores after California put more money into education. Johnson pushed back on that point.

“I wish it was that easy….I wish that’s the proper conclusion I could draw, but I cannot,” Johnson said. That kind of aggregate data doesn’t account for other factors, such as an influx of immigrant students, that could have influenced the results. He said his analysis was more precise, looking at individual student data and charting achievement growth over time.

Belfield catalogued the overall economic benefits to Pennsylvania of higher educational attainment by calculating “post-secondary parity,” or what would happen if economically disadvantaged students graduated high school and attended college at the same rate as other students in the state.

Fewer than 47% of disadvantaged high school graduates in Pennsylvania enroll in college, compared to 69% of non-disadvantaged students, he said.

“In economic terms, this low level of attainment is inefficient in the sense that the investments in education yield extremely high benefits,” Belfield said.

He estimated the gains if both groups graduated at the same high rate as $18.56 billion, in the form of lower spending later on welfare, health and prisons, coupled with higher productivity by adults with higher levels of education. In addition, with better paying jobs, the graduates would pay more in taxes and buy more, he said. He said he based that number on the size of the state’s economy and its state budget.

Northen questioned the analysis, disputing that he could isolate the effect of schooling on life outcomes compared to other factors including family circumstances.

But Belfield said that by not investing more in education, especially the education of economically disadvantaged students, “Pennsylvania is forgoing resources.”

Pennsylvania doesn’t spend enough on schools, state education secretary testifies

2022-01-19T00:44:33+00:00

Pennsylvania Secretary of Education Noe Ortega testified Tuesday at the fair funding trial that the state cannot reach its goals for post-secondary enrollment and completion without investing more in K-12 education.

He also said that wide gaps in post-secondary attainment between students of different racial and socio-economic groups are due to inadequate investment and inequitable distribution of resources.

Attorney Dan Urevick Ackelsberg of the Public Interest Law Center presented Ortega with data showing that while nearly half of white high school graduates from the class of 2011 – 46.3% – attained a college degree within six years, that number dropped to 19.9% for Black students and 20.7% for Hispanic students. For economically disadvantaged students, the number was also 19.9%. Overall, just 42% of Pennsylvania high school graduates attained a college degree.

“Can these disparities in college attendance and attainment be overcome without increasing investment in K-12 education? Ackelsberg asked.

“It would be difficult,” Ortega responded.

Karen Molchanow, executive director of the state board of education, testified earlier that Pennsylvania has an undereducated workforce, with just 50% having post-secondary credentials, putting it behind 29 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The state board has set a goal to reach 60% by 2025.

Ortega said that at the current rate for recent graduates, the state would not reach that goal, even when adding the 3% who achieved industry certifications.

The department believes “insufficient numbers of working-age Pennsylvanians have industry certification, insufficient numbers graduate from college, and there are significant disparities in post-secondary outcomes” depending on race and socio-economic status, Ortega said.

The historic case, which could reshape how education is paid for in Pennsylvania, was brought by six school districts, three families, and two statewide advocacy groups. It was originally filed in 2014 and is the first in a series of such cases to go to trial in Pennsylvania, where gaps among rich and poor districts are among the largest in the country and where the state share of total education spending ranks 47th.

Attorneys for Republican legislative leaders sought to exclude from evidence the post-secondary achievement data presented by the plaintiffs, which comes from the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit that works with states, school districts, and colleges to match student records and create data sets to highlight workforce and education trends.

Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer, who is hearing the case, allowed the testimony to proceed and said she would rule later on the admissibility question.

Ortega and Gov. Tom Wolf are also respondents in the case, but are not mounting a defense of the current funding system, unlike the GOP leaders.

Ortega also testified that, according to data collected under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act), the percentage of “highly effective” teachers declines in school districts as the percentages of Black, Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students increase.

In wealthy, white districts, 97% of teachers are highly effective, compared to 79% in poorer districts with more students of color. “As the share of students of color increases, (the percentage of teachers rated ineffective) becomes higher,” Ortega said.

In William Penn, the largest of the plaintiff districts, a quarter were rated ineffective – 116 of 447 teachers.

The trial is in its eighth week.

Hite testifies lack of resources holds back Philly students

2022-01-12T01:29:08+00:00

Philadelphia school superintendent William Hite spent Tuesday testifying at the school funding trial in Harrisburg, reiterating several times that he believes a lack of resources is the main reason that more Philadelphia students do not achieve academically at high levels.

Hite, who is leaving the state’s largest district in August after a decade as superintendent, said he agreed to testify in the trial “in order to make sure that in the future, whoever comes in after me … should not face the same types of circumstances I’ve had to face in trying to educate children without sufficient resources and support to do so.”

The trial, before Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer, comes in a case that seeks to overhaul the state’s school funding system. Pennsylvania has some of the widest spending gaps in the nation between wealthy and low-income school districts, and ranks 45th in the nation in the percentage of education costs borne by the state as opposed to localities.

This case, originally filed in 2014, is the latest in several such cases in Pennsylvania, but it is the first that has made it to trial. Previous judges have ruled that the issue of school funding is a matter for the legislature, not judicial intervention.

Philadelphia, the state’s largest district by far, was under state control at the time the suit was filed and is not a plaintiff in the case, which was brought by six districts, three families — including one from the city — and two statewide advocacy groups. The Philadelphia Board of Education has passed a resolution endorsing the suit and expressing hope that it will result in more revenue being available to educate city students.

The plaintiffs sued the governor, legislature, and Pennsylvania Department of Education, but only the Republican legislative leadership is mounting a defense.

Under questioning from attorney Kristina Moon of the Education Law Center, which is helping represent the plaintiffs, Hite painted the picture of a district in the nation’s poorest big city with increasing needs and insufficient funding to meet them.

For instance, 12% of students in district schools are English language learners, with more than 100 languages spoken as first languages by its families, and 17% percent of students have disabilities. Both are higher than the state average. Additionally, thousands of students experience homelessness or are in the foster care system, Hite said.

“Are you sufficiently staffed to meet student needs?” Moon asked.

“We are not,” Hite answered.

Most of the district’s students are low-income, so many that the district simply provides free breakfast and lunch to all students because it is cheaper that way rather than doing the paperwork to determine who exactly is eligible. All but three of the district’s 216 schools have a student body poor enough for the whole school to qualify for federal Title I funds, which targets low-income students.

The English learner population grew from 8% to 12% in less than a decade. But due to budget constraints and other limitations, the district has been unable to hire enough teachers of English as a Second Language or Bilingual Counseling Assistants to work in schools, Hite said.

In other states where he has worked, including Georgia and Maryland, school funding made an effort to keep up with needs, he said. Districts there “all had budgetary challenges,” he said. But in those places policymakers saw to it that “funding caught up with expenditures moving forward,” especially after federal stimulus money from the 2008 recession ran out.

In Philadelphia, however, “the experience was very different.”

Hite became superintendent in 2012. With federal funds expiring, then-Governor Tom Corbett, a Republican, slashed state aid to schools, with Philadelphia losing a quarter of a billion dollars. Some of Hite’s first acts were to lay off nurses, counselors, and other school employees not strictly mandated by state law, and to cut extracurricular activities. Many schools opened with just teachers and a principal, and hardly any other staff. Within his first few years, he also closed 24 schools.

Gradually, the district regained its financial footing, but it came at great cost.

“It doesn’t instill a lot of trust in an educational entity when you talk about opening schools with just teachers and principals and without extracurricular activities and other things that for families and children would represent what schools are,” he said.

Moon led Hite through a comparison of Lower Merion and Overbrook high schools, which are barely three miles apart, but which have vastly different demographics and student outcomes.

Overbrook’s student body is almost entirely Black and low income, and its performance on the state Keystone exams is low, with just 6% of students scoring proficient or advanced. At Lower Merion, which is mostly white and affluent, 94.9% of students are at least proficient.

High percentages of the relatively low number of economically disadvantaged students at Lower Merion score proficient on the tests, 80.6% in English, 87.5% in algebra, and 72.2% in biology. That contrasts with figures in the low single digits for economically disadvantaged students at Overbrook. Not one low-income student scored proficient in the biology test at Overbrook, Hite said.

“Is there any reason Overbrook’s students or any Philadelphia students are not capable of reaching Lower Merion’s level of achievement?” Moon asked.

“Other than funding, no,” Hite said, “and making sure young people have access to the type of resources Lower Merion enjoys.” Lower Merion spends nearly $27,000 per student, among the highest of the state’s 500 districts, compared with less than $20,000 per student in Philadelphia.

Moon also led Hite through the story of how Mitchell Elementary School in West Philadelphia improved its test scores when it got additional resources as part of the district’s acceleration network, formerly called the turnaround network, that focused on improving schools with very low achievement.

From 2015 to 2019 Mitchell got extra staff positions, including reading and math coaches, a counselor, and an assistant principal. It showed big jumps in reading, math, and science scores from 2017-18 to 2019-20, although overall achievement levels still remained low. “The overall progress was trending in the right direction,” Hite said.

Mitchell improved enough that it exited the acceleration network, and lost its extra funding — other schools needed it more. “I am concerned about that, but it’s an unfortunate product of having to triage resources due to the availability of funds,” he said.

Overall, Hite said, “we are not graduating children who are college and career ready” based on the results on standardized tests and other measures. “Every day I walk into a school and see what’s there and what could be done [with sufficient funds] and it becomes discouraging, unfortunate, and sad for me personally.”

Attorney John Krill, representing Senate President Jake Corman, started his cross examination of Hite, pressing him to quantify how much more in personnel and resources it would take to bring all Mitchell students to 100% proficiency on math and reading.

Hite avoided giving a specific number. “When you have schools with low proficiency, two significant things should happen: sufficient resources to meet whatever needs of those children are, and those resources need to be sustainable, predictable and recurring,” he responded.

There will be no public court session Wednesday. Krill will resume cross examination of Hite Thursday. Attorney Patrick Northen, who is representing House Speaker Brian Cutler, will not participate in cross examination because his law firm, Dilworth Paxson LLP, does work for the Philadelphia district.

Other planned witnesses from Philadelphia include Chief Financial Officer Uri Monson and a school principal and counselor.

Pennsylvania fair funding trial resumes: ‘We have done great things … but we don’t have the funding we need.’

2022-01-07T14:14:02+00:00

Nearly two months after it started, the landmark fair funding trial underway in Harrisburg is shaping up as a battle over defining educational “must-haves” vs. “nice-to-haves.”

The trial, which has the potential to overhaul how education is paid for in Pennsylvania, resumed Thursday after a two-week holiday hiatus. Jane Harbert, who retired in 2020 after seven years as chief of schools and four years as superintendent of the William Penn School District, spent the entire day on the stand.

Six districts, including William Penn, along with three families and two statewide advocacy organizations, have sued the state alleging that its system of funding education is discriminatory and unconstitutional. The state has among the widest per-pupil spending gaps among wealthier and poorer districts in the country and ranks 45th in the percentage of education costs paid by the state.

Harbert, like educators from other plaintiff districts called as witnesses before her, was compelled under cross examination by attorneys for Republican legislative leaders to defend achievements in her school district. Attorney Patrick Northen, representing House Speaker Brian Cutler, cited many – including a debate team that has bested those from more affluent areas, a host of middle school sports teams, and a national award for increasing Advanced Placement offerings – as evidence that the district is doing fine with current resources.

Harbert repeatedly said she believed although the district had its share of success stories, many students are being denied the opportunities they deserve. Despite being able to offer many AP courses, she said, without early intervention and extra services when they are younger, many students cannot access those courses.

“We have done great things, but the reality we face on a regular basis is, we don’t have the funding we need,” Harbert said.

This is despite having the highest local tax effort (as measured by the amount raised compared to total property values) of any district in Delaware County and the second highest in the state, Harbert said under questioning by Public Interest Law Center attorney Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg. Mandated costs, such as pension contributions and charter school reimbursements, far outrun the available resources or the ability to tax residents, she said.

In William Penn, which encompasses six towns on the southwest border of Philadelphia, four of five students are low-income.

“Our students come in with learning gaps, those need to be addressed at a very early age,” she said, but the district doesn’t have enough funds to apply the needed interventions.

Northen highlighted William Penn’s accomplishments and sought to get Harbert to acknowledge there is a difference between what educators would like to have in their districts and what is constitutionally required. Urevick-Ackelsberg objected, saying Harbert is not an attorney, and she didn’t answer.

The Pennsylvania constitution, like those in several states, mandates a “thorough and efficient” system of education “for the good of the commonwealth.” How to define that is at the core of what Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer must decide.

The trial, expected to last a total of eight to 10 weeks, resumed after a break that saw an exchange between a prior witness and attorney John Krill, who is representing Senate President Jake Corman, have its moment on social media.

During the cross examination of Matthew Splain, superintendent of the rural 600-student Otto Eldred school district and board chair of the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, Krill suggested that many activities offered by school districts, including arts and music, are not required under the “thorough and efficient” definition. He criticized the state’s proficiency standards in math and reading, which apply to all students, questioning why a carpenter needed to know biology, or why someone on “the McDonald’s career track” needs to learn algebra.

“Lest we forget, the Commonwealth has many, many needs,” Krill told Jubelirer after a plaintiff attorney lodged an objection to his line of questioning. “I think there is a need for retail workers, people who know how to flip pizza crust. My point is, do these proficiency standards actually in any way imaginable serve the needs of the Commonwealth such as they should be mandatory across the board? I think the answer is no.”

In response, Splain described a high school band where high achievers and special education students played together.

“Tell me that’s not a must-have, that those kids don’t need that,” Splain told the court, a catch in his voice.

Urevick-Ackelsberg picked up on that thread during Harbert’s testimony Thursday, asking her if she thinks all students, regardless of any future career, need critical reading, writing, and math skills.

“We are not the sum of the career that we choose,” she said. “Everybody needs critical thinking skills so they can read a novel, make good decisions about health, good decisions about where they want to work, where they want to be. They need critical thinking, writing, math and reading skills for all careers and for their personal life, too.”

Harbert’s cross examination continues Friday.

With COVID surge in Philly, educators call for temporary return to remote learning or stricter health protocols

2021-12-21T22:15:49+00:00

Amid a rise in COVID-19 cases, eight schools in the Philadelphia school district have closed temporarily because of positive cases.

The closures come amid an outcry over the recent death of an unvaccinated student at Olney Charter High School and data showing only about 21% of eligible children in Philadelphia have received the vaccine. Some educators are pushing for classes to go remote ahead of the holiday break, which begins Dec. 24, and for stricter health and safety measures for schools.

Before the recent closures, the district had only temporarily closed five schools this school year, said district spokesperson Monica Lewis. She told Chalkbeat the district has no immediate plans to go virtual amid this recent COVID spike. “We remain confident in our efforts to keep positive test rates relatively low considering the size of our student population,” she said.

Five schools, which serve early learners, have closed for a 10-day period, including Ethan Allen, Abram Jenks, John Welsh, Pennypacker, and Sullivan. Allen’s 10-day period ends Dec. 24, while Jenks, Welsh and Pennypacker’s ends Dec. 27. And Sullivan’s period ends Jan. 4, a day after district staff are scheduled to return. (The schools will reopen after the scheduled winter break.)

Three more schools — Kenderton Elementary School, Waring Middle School, and Penn Treaty High School — also have been closed for 10-day periods, according to the health department. They will reopen Jan. 4.

Another school, Randolph Technical High School in Nicetown, closed for a 48-hour investigation due to positive COVID-19 cases. The closure affected all classes and grades, though its ninth grade was already under quarantine until Jan. 4. The 48-hour closure ended Dec. 21, according to the school district.

“We are very much aware and encouraging people to be mindful to take care of themselves and loved ones, wear your masks and get tested,” Lewis said, adding that the district encourages eligible people to get vaccinated for “an additional layer of protection.”

The district also has six schools where COVID testing is offered to families, she said.

To date, 2,260 students and district staff have contracted the virus this school year— with 258 since Dec. 5, according to the district’s COVID dashboard. The district has more than 120,000 students and about 20,000 staff members.

Under district guidance, whole schools are only closed if 3% of the school population tests positive for the virus. That’s less strict than the previous guidelines, which closed buildings when there were six COVID cases regardless of the size of the student population.

The city health department released numbers Dec. 20 showing a spike in COVID cases. Philadelphia has averaged 641 new cases of COVID-19 per day over the last two weeks, an increase from about 254 per day around the Thanksgiving holiday.

The spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus has some educators in Philadelphia questioning whether students should continue learning in person ahead of the holiday break, which starts Dec. 24 and runs until Jan. 4.

Robin Cooper, president of Local 502/CASA, the principals union, told Chalkbeat that all schools should be virtual for the remainder of the week.

“We’ve been polling members, and about 80% are for virtual,” she said, adding that the omicron variant and a lack of cleaning in some schools has caused concerns.

“It’s just a mess,” she said.

Though he disagrees with the prospect of schools going remote, Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, raised concerns about contact tracing of positive cases in schools.

“The teachers are very concerned and the contact tracing seems to be taking a longer period of time. And as a result of that, that causes a tremendous amount of anxiety among the members in our schools,” he said. “The nurses are so overworked that they cannot do the contact tracing.”

Some districts across the country are adjusting winter breaks or considering remote learning in January amid the omicron wave. But James Garrow, communications director for Philadelphia’s health department, said in an email that the city wants to keep schools open. “In-person education is beneficial to students in so many ways, we are committed to keeping students in school.”

He also said there are no imminent plans to alter school health protocols. “We believe that, so long as everyone follows the guidance of getting everyone vaccinated and boosted, wearing a mask whenever they aren’t eating or drinking, and staying home if they feel the slightest bit sick, we can help keep cases down,” he said.

Teachers at Olney called out of work Dec. 20, causing the school to go virtual, after the death last week of senior Alayna Thach from COVID. Educators at the charter school have been protesting what they say are inadequate health and safety protocols. The charter high school is run by ASPIRA Inc. of Pennsylvania, which operates in primarily North Philadelphia communities, including Hunting Park, Olney, and Kensington.

The school has offered vaccine clinics, and Thach’s family said she had planned to get vaccinated in January.

Philadelphia Parking Authority’s demand for a refund could have big implications for district, CFO says

2021-12-21T02:14:27+00:00

School officials say they are seeking more information and weighing their options after the Philadelphia Parking Authority claimed that it overpaid the district by $11.3 million in 2020 and wants a refund.

The district’s chief financial officer, Uri Monson, said that while the amount may seem small compared to the district’s $3 billion annual budget, the PPA’s move could have big implications for the district’s future planning if it is allowed to stand.

Monson said that money from the PPA, given annually as part of a longstanding revenue-sharing arrangement, is “recurring money” and adds up over time. If the annual amount can’t be predicted with some certainty, “that significantly affects how we make investments in schools,” he said.

The $11.3 million is 77% of the $14.7 million the PPA paid the district last year.

As far as Monson can tell, the PPA is recalculating what it should have paid the district in the 2020 fiscal year based on new estimates of its future liabilities, he said.

PPA’s latest action “has raised questions,” he said. “We don’t understand all the numbers and are not convinced all the things they’re putting in are supposed to be counted” as part of the state’s revenue-sharing formula.

The PPA told Monson it “does not have any supporting documentation to provide” to back up its claim of overpayments, according to an email obtained by Chalkbeat through the office of City Council member Helen Gym. But emails between Monson and the PPA’s chief financial officer suggest that the overpayments had to do with miscalculations relating to debt incurred as a result of its obligations to retirees.

The PPA also did not explain why those funds were tied to payments to the school district and not another part of its budget.

Monson has been aware of the claim since October. The issue became public after the school district presented its quarterly report to the City Council.

Gym organized a protest Monday outside the PPA office, where people go to pay and contest parking tickets. She was joined by leaders from the district’s two major unions, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators. Also, there were advocacy groups, including Children First and the faith-based organization POWER.

“The PPA wants to siphon millions of dollars from our schools where every single day students and staff … endure conditions that would never be tolerated in a wealthier, whiter school district,” said Hillary Linardopoulos, representing the PFT.

The amount that the authority wants back is equivalent to the cost of 100 teachers, counselors or nurses, or could be used to remove a lot of asbestos, mold, or lead pipes in the district’s aging schools, Gym said. She called the PPA’s action “an outrage.”

A PPA spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

In 2004, Republicans in Harrisburg engineered a takeover of the PPA, which not only hands out the tickets when meters expire but also runs the Philadelphia airport, operates parking garages across the city, regulates taxis and limousines, and manages red light cameras.

As part of that deal, some of the revenue PPA collects from parking tickets is supposed to be paid to the school district. It was expected to yield $45 million a year for schools. However, that much money has never materialized, and in some years, there have been no payments at all.

In 2014, parking fines nearly doubled, which PPA justified as a way to send more money to the schools. But after that, money sent to the district declined until the City Council held a hearing in 2016, drawing attention to the issue again.

A blistering 2017 audit by then state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale found that PPA potentially shortchanged the district by $77.9 million.

Since 2015, revenue from the PPA to the district totaled $53 million, meaning that PPA is seeking the return of more than 20% of its payments since then. The district got nothing in the 2021 fiscal year due to the pandemic, said Monson, but it had been counting on returning to annual PPA payments of about $15 million a year in its future projections.

Monson said that PPA has promised additional answers in January.

Philly school enrollment continues decline, while cyber charters see surge

2021-11-24T15:52:36+00:00

Philadelphia’s overall public school enrollment has dipped by about 4,300 students compared to the 2020-21 school year, falling from 202,944 last school year to 198,645 this year.

This amounts to an overall drop of 2% as district-run schools, brick-and-mortar charters and alternative schools all saw declines. But enrollment in online options has surged as families remain wary of sending their students back into buildings after nearly a full year of virtual learning due to the pandemic.

According to a Chalkbeat analysis of preliminary data provided by the district, enrollment in district-run schools declined by 4%, from 119,492 to 114,902; in charter schools by 2%, from 68,364 to 66,890; and in alternative schools, which mostly enroll those in danger of not finishing high school, by 6% — from 2,925 to 2,750.

Enrollment in the district’s small virtual academy, however, has tripled since last year, from 637 students to 1,925. The category that includes cyber charter enrollment rose by 16%, from 12,132 to 14,087. (Special education students attending approved private schools at district expense are counted in the same category as cyber charters.)

Virtual schools account for only a small fraction of the district’s total enrollment, and their gains weren’t enough to offset the district’s enrollment declines in nearly every grade. Pennsylvania’s cyber charters, which have low overall records of student achievement, are chartered by the state; the district has no control over them but must pay for any city students who enroll.

Earlier grades were the hardest hit, with elementary schools accounting for more than 80% of the drop. Every grade from first through fifth lost more than 700 students compared to last year.

The biggest enrollment decrease during the pandemic was in kindergarten, which saw a 30% drop last year compared with the 2019-2020 school year — three times the nation’s average decline in kindergarten enrollment. A Chalkbeat analysis of the data shows that kindergarten enrollment went up by about 1,100 students for the 2021-22 school year, but it is still below pre-pandemic numbers and district projections.

Diane Castelbuono, the district’s deputy chief for early learning, said she was encouraged by the increase and said kindergarten is now at 91% of capacity.

“I think we’re bouncing back,” Castelbuono said. Pre-pandemic, she said that between 95% and 96% of available kindergarten seats were normally filled.

She added that while the district is still doing outreach, “most of the families that want to send their kids back have sent their kids back” by this time in the school year.

At a Board of Education meeting last week, Superintendent William Hite said that this year’s kindergarten enrollment “is still lower, not as much as a year ago, but still lower than what has been anticipated.”

The only other grade where enrollment increased this year over last year is ninth grade.

Hite also said that school officials are working on a plan to find any missing students — those who were enrolled last year but can’t be accounted for this year.

The district has been going through a series of engagement and re-engagement activities with city agencies like the Department of Human Services, or DHS. While it is possible to track students who move from district to charter schools, or vice versa, those who move to other districts or enroll in non-public schools are harder to trace.

Johann Calhoun contributed reporting

For this West Philadelphia teacher, racial justice is at the core of her work

2021-11-16T11:00:00+00:00

Last year the country was rocked by mass protests sparked by fatal police encounters with unarmed Black people, most notably, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

This week, two court cases involving race and racial profiling lead the news. In Georgia, three white men are on trial for killing a Black man, Ahmaud Arbery, as he was jogging in his neighborhood. And closing arguments are underway in the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, a white teenager who killed two people and wounded another amid racial unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

For Abigail Henry, a ninth grade African American History teacher at Mastery Charter School — Shoemaker Campus in West Philadelphia, discussions about racial justice — about these and other incidents, historical and contemporary — are central to her work.

Henry, who was born in London, has an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia, and master’s from University College London, recently received a Pulitzer Center grant to incorporate into her lessons The New York Times’ 1619 Project, developed by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones.

An expansion of Hannah-Jones’ work will be featured in new books, titled “The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story” and “The 1619 Project: Born on the Water.” (Some conservative lawmakers have sought to ban the teaching of the 1619 Project in schools.)

“I am more than excited to discuss the book release and the conversation around [“The 1619 Project; A New Origin Story”] and how it should be taught in classrooms because, in the United States, we should not ban books,” Henry said.

She noted that what happened in 1619, when a ship carrying enslaved people arrived in North America, is history and that to ban any book about that history “feels unconstitutional.”

Henry spoke recently to Chalkbeat about her favorite days in the classroom, the challenges of returning to in-person learning, and the power of simply showing up.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What makes your teaching experience unique?
My teaching experience is unique because of the content I teach and the racial population of my students. I teach African-American History to predominantly all-Black classes. My No. 1 goal is to develop positive racial identities in my students.

What’s most gratifying about your work?
In my classroom, we do frequent mock trials. On these days, I always drive home smiling. Students are lawyers and witnesses. I play “Law & Order” music, and they argue and get so into it, they cheer when the jury makes their decision. I love these days because it allows students of all levels to participate. I can have a student with an IEP who rarely talks in class take the stand and surprise everyone with a creative and amazing ceremony. On these days, I am more of a facilitator than a teacher. Students hold each other accountable.

Why is it important to discuss racial justice issues in your class?
Well, I’m teaching [overwhelmingly] Black students. The first thing I do is ask them to write me a letter if they’ve experienced racism. It depends on the year, but literally, 30% to 40% of kids say they’ve never experienced it, which is crazy to me because they have experienced systematic racism, given them being at an urban school with little funding. Part of my job is to educate them that racism exists because they live in an all-Black community and to prepare them for life outside high school because some of our students just move on to go to [disproportionately white] colleges and don’t succeed.

What was your biggest misconception that you initially brought to teaching?
I didn’t realize in the beginning how long it takes to truly be the content expert required for a rigorous and engaging lesson.

What has been your biggest hurdle returning to in-person learning?
The biggest hurdle is that expectations for teachers have not changed despite the pandemic and the trauma that has been experienced across all members of the school’s community. I currently teach ninth grade, but the students I have, have not been in school since seventh grade. During that time, they have lost friends and family members, experienced loneliness, depression, and worse. When students returned, they were more than excited to see each other. Yet, the challenges of managing a classroom after such a global event have been extensive. The day-to-day operations of a teacher’s life are more demanding than prior to the pandemic, and we are exhausted.

How have you helped your students adjust?
I give them frequent reminders on the purpose of their learning. Students need to be reminded daily not only about the lesson’s content but also the skills they are developing. In my class, we take notes almost every day. After a year of being on a computer, it took a lot of coaching, explanation, and positive praise to get students into the importance of daily notes.

Tell us about a memorable time — good or bad — when contact with a student’s family changed your perspective or approach.
The beauty of teaching for more than 10 years is that you get to know entire families. This year, I have a student who is the younger sister of a student I taught three years ago. This student was so incredibly withdrawn that I grew concerned about her mental health. Because I taught her older brother, I felt comfortable sharing with Mom my concerns. We had a productive conversation, and I found out that during the pandemic, her best friend moved away. This student has been struggling for social belonging due to the pandemic and loss of someone close to her. Without that conversation with Mom, I would not have known this.

What’s the best advice you’ve received about teaching?
From the school social worker: Just by showing up every day, we, [teachers], are doing our jobs. I feel this more now than ever. There have been so many reports in the news lately about teacher shortages, substitute teacher qualifications being lowered, and more — just because so many teachers are not returning to the classroom. Even if every single lesson is not perfect, I know just by showing up and being a consistent teacher for my students, I am positively contributing to their experience at school.

Inequities ‘devastating the lives of children’: Pennsylvania fair school funding trial begins

2021-11-12T23:53:00+00:00

Thousands of students across Pennsylvania are being denied their basic right to a quality education because of inadequate and unfairly distributed state funding, plaintiffs argued Friday in Harrisburg at the start of a long-awaited and potentially historic trial.

At the beginning of her opening statement, attorney Katrina Robson pointed to the superintendents in the courtroom, who represent the six school districts that are plaintiffs in the case.

“They are here today because of systemic widespread failure that is devastating the lives of the children they are charged with educating, the teachers they are in charge of supporting, and the communities they serve,” she said.

Robson, from the law firm O’Melveny & Myers, wove history, statistics, and heart-tugging stories of teacher sacrifice and student deprivation into a 90-minute opening statement to dramatize stark inequities among rich and poor school districts in the Commonwealth, where spending disparities are among the highest in the country.

“It’s easy to get caught up in numbers, but this isn’t a case about numbers,” she said. “It’s a case about people, about children struggling to overcome circumstances they can’t control. It’s about children who see what other schools have, and walk away believing somehow they are worth less than their peers, about educators who day after day have been struggling to educate students in oversized clases and crumbling classrooms.”

The plaintiffs, who also include three families, the Pennsylvania chapter of the NAACP, and the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, say that the system violates the state constitution’s mandate for a “thorough and efficient system of education” as well as its equal protection clause. The wide gaps in education spending discriminate against those who live in the underfunded districts, they say.

But attorneys representing Speaker of the House Brian Cutler and Senate President Jake Corman took a different view. Such stories of hardship “are red herrings,” said attorney Patrick Northen, representing Cutler, in his opening remarks. They are designed to “elicit sympathy or promote a generic notice of fairness.”

This case, he said, “is about constitutional law, not public policy.’’

All the plaintiff districts have basic educational amenities like desks and textbooks, he said, and some have more than that. He noted that Wilkes-Barre, one of the six districts that brought the suit seven years ago, has a brand new, state-of-the-art high school building.

The key question “is not about whether educational opportunities are uniform among all school districts or subgroups of students,” Northen said. Nor is it about “whether more funding could help some students.” Rather, it is about “whether the system that currently exists is so defective it reaches the point of being unconstitutional.”

Anthony Holtzman, representing Corman, said in all districts, “the constitutional minimum is being exceeded by a wide margin.”

Robson acknowledged that some of these districts have been able “to overcome inadequate funding” to offer advanced classes, focus students on their successes, and even save up for a new building. But doing this, she said, makes “heroes” of educators and administrators. “It doesn’t make the schools adequately funded,” she said.

She told the story of the athletic director in the William Penn school district who traveled to Ohio to get castoff equipment to set up a weight room for his team members. Robson showed a picture of the room, set up in the high school’s abandoned shower.

“Is not having an adequate weight room a violation of the Pennsylvania constitution?” Northen countered. “You cannot conflate things that are nice to have with what the constitution requires. Not funding a weight room is not unconstitutional.”

At the heart of the case, first filed in 2014, is Pennsylvania’s system for funding education — the amount of state aid it sends to its 500 school districts, and how that money is distributed. In Pennsylvania and elsewhere, state education aid is meant to make up the difference in local property wealth and taxing capacity.

Northern and Holtzman stressed that, on average, Pennsylvania ranks in the top 10 of states on what districts spend per pupil on education when state and local dollars are combined.

But, said Robson, “that ranking is based on an average, and that average hides what the Pennsylvania Department of Education has self described as one of the largest gaps of any state in the country in per child spending between the Commonwealth’s poorest and wealthiest districts.”

The Commonwealth also ranks 45th in the percentage of education costs picked up by the state compared to the local districts, just 38% compared to a national average of 47%.

And some districts tax themselves at far higher rates than others, but raise far less money.

“Taxable wealth varies dramatically among school districts,” Robson said. If the small rural Shenandoah Valley district, one of the plaintiffs, levied taxes at the highest local tax rate in the state, it would only raise $4000 per student. By contrast, if New Hope-Solebury in Bucks County charged the state’s average rate, it would raise $21,000 per student.

“There’s no doubt that there are strong public policy disagreements relating to the manner in which citizens should be taxed and the way in which education should be funded,” Northen said. “But can it be said that the petitioners’ view of the world is objectively correct, and that anybody who disagrees with them, including the majority of the General Assembly, is unreasonable or irrational?”

He and Holtzman said education is a matter of local control, and that it is reasonable to expect residents in wealthier districts to want to raise revenue for the benefit of their own students. Pushing equity could lead to a “race to the bottom,” Northen said.

The plaintiffs are also being represented by the Public Interest Law Center and the Education Law Center, or ELC. At a press availability after the arguments, ELC Executive Director Deborah Gordon Klehr said it was evident the two sides “have different understandings of what the legal standard is here. The reality is that we are not living in a thorough and efficient system of education, and the state is discriminating in the manner in which they fund schools.”

Christopher Lewis is representing Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and the Pennsylvania Department of Education, who are also among the defendants. But he took a different tack than attorneys for the General Assembly, acknowledging “decades of systemic inequity in the nation’s public education system.” His witnesses “will testify the way schools are funded has a bearing on the educational outcome of students. One of the reasons there are gaps in achievement is gaps in resources.”

During a lunch break, more than 100 advocates rallied on the Capitol steps, including students, parents, educators, teachers union leaders, school board members, a representative of the state organization of school business officials, and clergy. In English and Spanish, they said that providing enough resources to educate all students in the Commonwealth is a matter of justice.

“One of the most important messages for all of us here today is to make sure that sisters and brothers in this Commonwealth watch this [trial] every day. The whole world is watching,” said Donna Cooper, executive director of Children’s First, formerly Public Citizens for Children & Youth.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan argued students in Philadelphia have been short-changed and stripped of essential resources that in wealthier, whiter school districts would be seen as non-negotiable. He used the case of Laporshia Massey, 12, a Philadelphia student who died in 2013 after suffering a severe asthma attack at a school without a nurse; the district cut its nurses when the state slashed its education aid. Philadelphia is not among the plaintiffs, but Superintendent William Hite is expected to testify.

“And yet, we continue to prove why our young people and their educators deserve to learn in buildings free from deadly toxins like lead and mold. We live in those conditions when there is a rainy day fund in this building,” Jordan said to the crowd in front of the Capitol.

Thaddeus Peay II, chair of the Greater Norristown NAACP education committee, said “this lawsuit is long overdue, our students have suffered for too long. Taxpayers have had to carry the weight that the state has refused to pick up. It is time that they’re held accountable for their unconstitutional actions. Our young Black and brown students need Pennsylvania legislators to not post Black Lives Matter, but actually live like they do.”

Because education is so important, “What’s on trial is the future of this Commonwealth,” Cooper said.

The trial will resume Monday with the plaintiffs calling their first witnesses.

Johann Calhoun contributed reporting.

Landmark Pennsylvania fair school funding case set for trial

2021-11-09T23:05:23+00:00

After seven years, Pennsylvania’s landmark school funding case is set to go to trial on Friday, giving educators and parents in low-wealth districts the opportunity to tell the court how students are harmed by a system that has resulted in some of the widest spending gaps among better-off and poor districts in the country.

“The case is important because the Pennsylvania legislature has for more than a generation been ignoring its duty to make sure students have the resources they need to learn and be effective citizens of the Commonwealth,” said Michael Churchill of the Public Interest Law Center, which along with the Education Law Center and the private firm O’Melveny is arguing the case. “On their own, the legislature will not take care of the most basic needs that Pennsylvania has.”

The case was originally filed in 2014 on behalf of six school districts — urban, suburban and rural, including the William Penn district that abuts southwest Philadelphia. Three families, including one from Philadelphia, are also plaintiffs, as are two statewide advocacy groups – the Pennsylvania chapter of the NAACP and the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, or PARRS. It will be tried before Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubeliler in Harrisburg.

At issue is whether the state is providing enough money to adequately educate all its students and whether the funds are distributed equitably based on the needs of districts.

“We are asking for substantial new investments in state funding for public education, distributed based on need, so that local wealth will no longer be what determines if Pennsylvania students can receive a quality public education,” said Deborah Gordon Klehr, executive director of the Education Law Center. “The specifics of this new system will be up to the state legislature to determine, under the oversight of the court order. We are not seeking a specific dollar amount or method of funding schools.”

The School District of Philadelphia is not part of the case – it was under state control when it was filed – but Superintendent William Hite is expected to be among the witnesses in a trial predicted to last eight to 10 weeks. Hite and other District officials have said that they are counting on this case to bring more money to district schools, which struggle to educate some of the state’s neediest students with a per-pupil expenditure that is far below its many of its wealthier suburban neighbors.

Besides William Penn, the plaintiff districts are Lancaster, Wilkes-Barre, Greater Johnstown, Panther Valley, and Shenandoah Valley. They have diverse student populations that are mostly low-income, and limited taxing capacity of their own to raise sufficient funds for schools.

The plaintiffs argue that the current funding system violates the state constitution’s mandate for a “thorough and efficient system of education,” as well as its equal protection clause. They say the legislature’s own analysis shows a statewide adequacy shortfall of $4.6 billion.

“In the six-plus years since the Petition was filed, Respondents have done nothing to turn around what is indisputably a failing system,” the plaintiffs’ pre-trial brief says. “Instead, Respondents have exacerbated or ignored the endemic funding shortfall and entrenched inequities, with disastrous results for Pennsylvania’s children.”

The brief notes that 44% of third graders fail to meet state proficiency standards in math, and 38% fall short in English. High school achievement in math and English, as measured by state tests, show more than a third failing to meet standards.

And the results in poor districts are worse.

“By every measure, the results are far more disastrous for low-wealth school districts, and the economically disadvantaged children they educate,” the brief says. “Compared to their more fortunate peers, those children are less likely to be proficient on state exams from the first moment they are tested to the last.”

In their pre-trial brief, attorneys for House Speaker Brian Cutler argue that school funding is a matter of public policy, not judicial interference.

“Petitioners’ grievances consist primarily of public policy disagreements with the decisions made by Pennsylvania’s elected representatives. In an effort to elevate these routine policy disputes to constitutional significance,” the plaintiffs “misleadingly attempt to create a dystopian view of Pennsylvania’s education system,” the brief says.

Cutler’s attorneys say that on average, Pennsylvania’s students outperform peers in most other states and have a high college completion rate. Citing census data showing that the state ranks sixth in total per-pupil revenue, Pennsylvania “outspends most of its sister states,” and “districts are clearly providing opportunities for their students,” the brief says.

While acknowledging that there are spending gaps among districts, and that the current system “isn’t perfect,” the brief says that the state constitution “does not require a public school system that is beyond criticism. Nor does it require the General Assembly to cure all of the economic, social, community, family, and personal factors that cause students – and subgroups of students – to succeed at different rates.”

In their pre-trial brief, attorneys representing Senate President Jake Corman downplayed the role of funding in assuring a quality education.

“This case is replete with social issues and murky questions of how to determine if a school is doing a good job,” and “whether the school’s performance is tied to its funding,” the brief says. “Moreover, there are significant problems with Petitioners’ theory of causation, which rests on the belief that simply providing more money to schools will lead to greater academic success.”

Plaintiffs “ignore the reality that student results are not the same as student opportunities, and assume that school districts are spending their funds in a wise and efficient manner.”

Most states fund schools primarily through local property taxes, which gives an advantage to richer districts. State dollars, and some federal aid through programs like Title I, which provides funding for low-income students, are meant to compensate for inequities. But these dollars rarely make up all the difference.

Over the years, similar legal challenges have been brought in about half the states with varying results.

Pennsylvania “has long been one of the least equitably funded state school finance systems in the country,” said Bruce Baker, a professor of education at Rutgers University and a national expert on school funding. And Philadelphia “has been one of, if not the, least adequately funded major urban district.” Baker has testified in other states’ funding cases, but is not involved in this one.

The average per-pupil expenditure across the Commonwealth puts Pennsylvania in the top 10 among states, he noted. “But a lot of that is driven by the relatively high expenditures in the Philly suburbs in particular.”

He also said that while student test scores across the state are good on average, “the inequities are huge, and they have systematically fallen on certain types of districts over time.”

According to an interactive tracker that Baker helped create, some of the most underfunded districts in the country compared to need are small Pennsylvania cities, such as Allentown and Reading, which fare even worse than Philadelphia, he said.

“We should be funding at a higher level places with greater needs,” Baker said. But that is not, for the most part, how the state-based system in the U.S. works. “Instead of having more, in Pennsylvania in particular they have a lot less,” which impedes students’ ability to succeed, he said.

This is not the first case in Pennsylvania brought by advocates seeking to overturn the funding system – PARRS filed a case 30 years ago, and Philadelphia filed its own lawsuit several years later.

In those cases, Pennsylvania’s courts ruled that school funding is a matter for legislators, not judges, to decide. That stance contrasts with other states, including neighboring New Jersey, where the courts have ordered the legislature to direct more money to poor, underfunded districts in cases starting with Robinson vs. Cahill in 1973, and culminating with the state Supreme Court decision in Abbott v. Burke.

In that case, the court ruled in 1990 that its method of funding schools violated its “thorough and efficient” clause in its state constitution and ordered more funds sent to 28 poor urban school districts, including Camden and Newark.

“While courts in the rest of the nation have been wrestling with this problem since the 1970s, and have had great results as seen in neighboring state of New Jersey, Pennsylvania courts refused to look at this question for many years,” Churchill said.

That changed in 2017, when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed itself and said that this case could go to trial.

The defendants include the General Assembly, Gov. Tom Wolf and the state Department of Education. But only the Senate and Assembly leaders are mounting a strong defense of the current system in court.

Wolf, a Democrat, campaigned in 2014 on the platform of sending $1 billion more in state aid to schools, but the Republican-controlled legislature never agreed to hikes that big. And while lawmakers revised the formula for distributing state education funds in 2016 to account for special district circumstances, including poverty, the legislature has not applied the new formula to most of the aid, only to new dollars.

Philadelphia schools honored for work in preserving green space

2021-11-04T22:49:05+00:00

Friends Uani Robinson and Jocelyn Martinez, both 9, bent over to peer at the grass and underbrush near a fence in the schoolyard of Southwark Elementary, where they are both fourth graders. They had helped plant seedlings in their school’s new combination playground and green space and wanted to show off the fruits of their labor.

The seedlings had not yet sprouted anything they could recognize, but another seed had been planted in them that educators and officials hope will grow as they get older: a mission to protect our natural world.

“We’re learning we can help our environment by taking care of our plants,” Uani explained. “It’s very important. It helps our nature and helps us have very good air and water.”

“Nature can do many things for us,” added Jocelyn. “It helps us with our food.”

The green area outside the school, in the heart of crowded South Philadelphia at Ninth and Mifflin streets, is meant to reduce stormwater runoff and reduce pollution in the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is part of a 25-year city and Philadelphia Water Department initiative called Green City, Clean Waters to expand green spaces in non-residential spaces around the city. As part of the initiative, which started in 2011, the district has committed to creating green spaces on school grounds while integrating environmental awareness into the K-12 curriculum.

“As one of the largest landowners in the city, we are committed to bringing more green spaces to our schools and raising awareness about green infrastructure,” said Superintendent William Hite. “We have a mission that every student will have access to outdoor learning environments like this one that integrates stormwater management, play areas, learning areas, passive and active recreation and community resources into green spaces.”

Hite said the district now has 38 schools with green stormwater infrastructure with five more being added each year.

Philadelphia Water Commissioner Randy Hayman presented Hite and Southwark Principal Andrew Lukov with plaques recognizing the district as a “stormwater pioneer,” with special honors to 13 of the 38 schools, including Southwark, for their “exceptional commitment” to the maintenance, education and community engagement around green stormwater infrastructure. “The district’s commitment to greening schools contributes a great deal to the sustainability of our city,” said Hayman

Many of the schools receive grants from the water department to do this work.

Hayman gave a shout out to Homeroom 207 — Uani and Jocelyn’s class — for being present.

“This is a great program for you to be a part of,” he said. “As children you often look at things on the news, and they talk about climate change and environmental sustainability, but you’re dealing with it right here. You are looking at it the same way as the adults and the scientists look at it...what you’re learning now is going to make you a better citizen going forward.”

The district has also been partnering with Fairmount Water Works, which is developing a K-12 curriculum on “understanding the urban watershed.”

It is important that students learn in school that they all have a role in preserving the environment, said Ellen Schultz, director of education partnerships at the Water Works. “We want this embedded in every classroom... this is something they should experience during the school day.”

Green schoolyards like Southwark’s “allow students to learn hands-on about their watershed and green infrastructure,” she said.

Uani and Jocelyn and the other students in Room 207 are among those piloting the Water Works’ fourth and fifth grade curriculum. “They are learning that it’s really important to have safeguards to keep our water clean,” said their teacher, Joseph Ulrich. And they’re learning that they need to do something about it themselves, if they want a livable environment “when they’re my age.”

Lukov, the principal, noted that Southwark has been around for 112 years — it was built in 1909.

“For 111 years, our students did not have a playground nor green space to call their own,” he said. With the added feature that it is environmentally friendly, Lukov said, “now they do.”

Philly parents start petition asking for delay in new special admissions process

2021-10-22T13:46:26+00:00

A group of Philadelphia parents has started a petition asking the school district to delay an overhaul of the admissions process for the city’s most selective schools, saying that the changes were unveiled without adequate notice or meaningful input from families.

The petition, on Change.org, had gathered more than 900 signatures by Friday morning.

Earlier this month, on the day that the selection process opened for students seeking admission in fall 2022, district officials announced that they were revising the process to make sought-after magnet schools, such as Central and Masterman, more accessible to those who have been traditionally underrepresented, especially low-income Black and Latino students.

Instead of allowing school principals to pick from among qualified students, which has historically meant those with the highest grades and test scores, the district said it would now put all applicants who meet basic requirements into a lottery, with preference given to those in certain ZIP codes — presumably the city’s poorest — where students have traditionally been at a disadvantage.

The authors of the petition, who identified themselves as parents of children in the public schools, said that they “strongly share” concerns about equity and “fully recognize the need for proactive change to dramatically improve equity for all Philadelphia school children.”

However, they added, they said the changes were “unduly rushed” and, as a result, “we are very concerned that the entire process is fundamentally flawed.” They are asking that any changes in the process be paused for one year while the district listens to those that the changes will impact most. The petitioners also say that no major changes should be made until the district chooses a new superintendent. (Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite has announced he will leave at the end of his contract in August.)

The opportunity to attend the city’s most selective schools plays a large role in the decisions of many middle-class and affluent families who otherwise might decamp for the suburbs. Past superintendents have tried to make the system more equitable, but quickly retreated in the face of opposition.

Since the announcement of this year’s policy change on Oct. 6, the district has not revealed what ZIP codes will be given preference or how that preference will be applied. Students have until Nov. 21 to complete their applications.

Hite appeared at an event Thursday morning celebrating the 40th anniversary of one of the city’s selective, or “criteria-based” schools, the William R. Bodine High School of International Affairs. Bodine and other specialty schools, including Carver High School of Engineering & Science and the High School of the Creative and Performing Arts, were established when the district was under pressure from the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission to create more desegregated schools.

Hite said he wasn’t aware of the parents’ petition and wasn’t sure whether the district’s new admissions process will result in a more equitable process. But, he added, “Not understanding what the outcome will be shouldn’t stop us from making changes.”

He said that officials are still studying school-by-school data and that an update with more specifics, such as the ZIP codes that will get preference. When announcing the changes, district officials said that the process would continue to evolve as they learn from this year’s experience.

Not all parents think the petition is a good idea. Jennifer Byiers did not sign it.

The district’s change in policy “is a step in the right direction,” said Byiers, whose son is a sixth grader at C.W. Henry elementary school in Mount Airy. “Whether you are happy or unhappy by the way it was executed, it is a more equitable system.”

Byiers points out that students in different neighborhoods have disparate school experiences. The criteria over the years have been test scores, attendance, punctuality, and a clean discipline record, which Byiers said often correlates with privilege. Due to the pandemic, there have been no state standardized tests given for the last two years. Test scores will not be a part of this year’s process, but no decision has yet been made whether to permanently eliminate such scores.

She understands that “everybody is trying to do what’s best for their own kid. It’s hard to argue that it’s not the most important thing. At the same time I think that people say they want the best for every kid, but not at the expense of their own.”

Her son passed on the chance to attend a special admission school to stay at Henry.

Students at Bodine come from all over the city, lured in part by the chance to travel abroad, a mainstay of sophomore year, and by the chance to learn with students unlike themselves, not often possible in Philadelphia’s segregated neighborhoods. The school’s 628 students are just over half Black/African-American, 22% Latino, 12% Asian and Asian American, 9% white, and 6% multiracial — figures close to the district’s overall ethnic and racial makeup.

“Diversity,” said Saniyyah Coley, a Bodine senior, when asked why she chose Bodine. She travels every day from Germantown to the school in Northern Liberties.

“Diversity,” said Mariam Kendeh, who comes from Southwest Philadelphia and whose family hails from Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Councilmember Helen Gym, who is Korean American and started her political career as an educational activist, also attended the event to celebrate the Bodine’s milestone. “Your commitment to a truly international, diverse, multilingual, multicultural, racial, multidimensional world, is one that will change America and this world for the better,” she said.

She said she is committed to fighting racism and exclusion in the admissions process, but she’s not convinced the new process will result in greater equity.

Hite said the admissions changes are matter of starting somewhere. “We also know the process we had didn’t yield equal opportunities for children, so we have to do something different,” he said.

A possible transit strike could force Philadelphia schools to go remote

2021-10-19T21:46:58+00:00

After pushing to get most students back in person this year, the Philadelphia school district might be forced to return to remote learning if a SEPTA strike shuts down the region’s buses, trains and trolleys.

In a letter sent to parents Monday, Superintendent William Hite warned that it’s a real possibility if students and staff members can’t get to school buildings.

A strike “would have a devastating impact” on the district and imperil its ability to keep all schools open for in-person learning “five days a week for all students — something we all worked extremely hard to make happen for all students this school year,” he wrote.

Hite said that Transit Workers Union 234 met Saturday on whether to authorize a strike. Their contract expires on Oct. 31. Nearly 60,000 students use SEPTA each day to get to school, as do many staff members.

Hite urged parents to make sure their students’ laptops and internet access are working in case individual schools need to revert temporarily to virtual learning.

The school district already has struggled with transportation issues because of staffing shortages, with parents sharing stories of their children not getting home for hours or being left at the wrong bus stop.

“In the midst of a national driver shortage that is already disrupting our District operations, providing student transportation support to all students who would need it during a strike would not be an option,” Hite said.

The district also asked principals to take surveys in their schools of how many staff use SEPTA to get to work, said Robin Cooper, head of the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators, which represents principals.

Cooper said that the schools already are suffering critical shortages of staff, even without a strike. Continued vacancies in all areas, including teachers, “have taken a tremendous toll on staff members,” she said. According to its website, the district still has 673 non-teaching vacancies and nearly 300 unfilled teacher positions.

Shakeda Gaines, president of the city’s Home and School Council, said that she is hearing fewer complaints about the district’s own transportation system. To cope, the district offered parents $300 a month to get children back and forth from school on their own, or $150 a month if they can manage at least one way.

On a potential SEPTA strike, she said that “we hope that this deliberation is conducted quickly and carefully so that union workers feel heard and appreciated and families across our city are not left in yet another traumatic experience.”

Hite noted in his letter that the city and families are suffering from “increasing gun violence and... many other traumas” as a result of the pandemic.

“Our schools are a safe haven for thousands of Philadelphia’s young people. We are advocating relentlessly with City leaders for a non-strike resolution to SEPTA negotiations.”

Philly needs more Black teachers. A new report shares insights on how to retain them.

2021-10-14T13:10:20+00:00

In a city where 80% of students are Black and Hispanic, only 24.5% of Philadelphia’s teachers are Black and around 5% are Latino. Less than 5% of teachers are Black men.

While Superintendent William Hite has said he wants to have 1,000 Black male teachers in the district by 2025, a new national report says schools and districts need to make significant changes to recruit and retain teachers of color.

The report, from the Center for Black Educator Development and Teach Plus, a nonprofit that works to create teacher leaders around equity issues, says districts need to reassess curriculum, have honest discussions about race and racial issues in schools, and make sure civic leaders and community groups are committed to diversifying the pool of teachers.

“When teachers of color thrive, so do students,” said Lindsay Sobel, Teach Plus Interim CEO.

Numerous studies have shown that Black students are more likely to graduate from high school if they have at least one Black teacher in kindergarten through eighth grades.

Currently, about 350 of the district’s 8,000 teachers are Black men, a decline from 2001 when about a third of city teachers were Black. The percentage of Black teachers in the city has plateaued over the past several years at just below the quarter mark. That is better than the country as a whole, and far better than Pennsylvania, where less than 6% of all teachers are Black.

As part of its Goals and Guardrails focus on anti-racism, the Philadelphia Board of Education wants to increase teacher diversity.

The district has created several teacher residency and fellowship programs geared towards people of color. It is working on helping paraprofessionals in schools, many of whom are from the community, to earn teaching credentials, said Sharif El-Mekki, founder and executive director of the Center for Black Educator Development and a former Philadelphia teacher and principal. A teacher academy at Science Leadership Academy-Beeber helps high school students pursue a career in education.

The district has also recently created an Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion focused on rooting out racist practices and changing policies to do so.

Several Black Philadelphia teachers said that they believe conditions in city schools have improved over the past several years, but much remains to be done.

“It’s about not just recruiting Black teachers, but creating a school culture that celebrates and confirms Black identity,” said Abigail Henry, a social studies teacher at Shoemaker Mastery charter school. She was one of 105 teachers nationwide who participated in a focus group that formed the basis for many of the report’s recommendations.

Henry is also among three city teachers who won a grant to incorporate The New York Times’ “1619 Project,” which reframes American history around slavery, into a curricular unit.

“Schools need not only Black teachers, but anti-racist curriculum that doesn’t sugarcoat our history,” Henry said. At the same time, “conversations about race and racism should be happening in all classrooms.” In 2005, the Philadelphia School District became the first big city to require students to take an African American history course in order to graduate.

Isaac Dunn, who teaches history at Edison High School, said he only had two Black teachers in South Jersey.. “As a young man, it is difficult to take pride in yourself and your work if in everything you see the ethnic group you come from is historically castigated,” he said.

He says it’s important not only to have more educators who reflect the students they’re teaching, but also to reframe pedagogy to put “education and racial justice together and have a community of educators and policies to support you.”

Sam Reed, an African American history and English teacher at the U School, has taught in Philadelphia for 24 years. He said that groups of teachers, including the Caucus of Working Educators, have already been holding meetings, discussions, events, and actions around promoting anti-racism in schools and “incentivizing folks of color.”

The district leadership, he said, “should lean into that work, replicate things that are successful and go from there.”

Philly overhauls selective admissions policy in bid to be antiracist

2021-10-06T20:14:23+00:00

As part of an effort to be an “antiracist institution,” the Philadelphia school district is changing its school admissions process to make the city’s most coveted magnets more accessible to those who have been traditionally underrepresented — primarily low-income Black and Latino students.

All students who qualify, based on criteria including their grades and attendance, will now be selected from a lottery, rather than giving principals the final say from among a larger pool of eligible students. For five of the city’s most selective schools, preference will be given to students from zip codes that historically have sent few students to them.

The district’s most selective schools, Central and Masterman, have long seen overrepresentation of white, and more recently, Asian American students, and underrepresentation of Black and Latino students. But the severity of the imbalance has fluctuated. Last year, students, faculty and alumni at both schools pointed with alarm at the shrinking proportion of Black students compared to earlier eras and demanded change.

“We will continuously look at our practices so all students in the city of Philadelphia have equal access,” said Karyn Lynch, the district’s chief of student supports, whose office oversees the process.

School selection for the 2022-23 school year was due to open at 4 p.m. Wednesday and will run through midnight on Nov. 21. Now called Smart Choice, it is entirely online and centralized. The application will be available in nine languages.

The changes were made after talking to hundreds of teachers, administrators, principals, parents and students, district officials said. “Our central objective is to make systemic change, and to align ourselves with an equity focus,” said Sabriya Jubilee, director of the district’s new Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

As officials continue to “delve deeper into the equity lens process,” more changes are likely in the future, Lynch and Jubilee said.

The schools for which a zip code preference will be applied are Central, Masterman (which admits students starting in fifth grade), Carver High School of Engineering & Science, Academy at Palumbo, and Parkway Center City Middle College.

These schools will also now require a writing sample, but those essays will be digitally scored. “We worked hard to avoid data points that involve human assessment,” Lynch said. The process will be entirely centralized, she said.

For the second year, scores on state standardized tests, the PSSA, will not be considered. Due to the pandemic, the tests were not administered in the spring of 2020 or 2021. It will also eliminate from the requirements interviews or letters of recommendation.

Test score cutoffs have historically contributed to Central and Masterman admitting a disproportionate number of white and Asian American students. Some neighborhoods and elementary schools rarely send students to those schools. About a third of admitted students come from private and parochial schools outside the district.

Whether test scores will permanently be eliminated is still under consideration, officials said.

The changes are likely to be controversial, as parents and some officials, including former Governor Ed Rendell, have made the argument that access to the city’s flagship schools is what keeps many middle class families, particularly those who are white, in the city. Past attempts to make similar changes, most recently under Superintendent William Hite’s predecessor Arlene Ackerman in 2010, have failed. In the 1990s, Superintendent David Hornbeck tried to implement a similar policy, but clashed with Rendell, then the city’s mayor.

“We recognize that there will be people that are uncomfortable, but we’re leaning into that discomfort, and we’re going to do what we need to [in order to] do right by our students,” Jubilee said. “It’s our responsibility, our duty.”

The district has three tiers of high schools. The selective admission schools traditionally have had test score cutoffs at least above the 88th percentile as well as stringent grade, attendance, and discipline criteria. Citywide admission schools include the city’s longstanding Career and Technical Education centers like Dobbins and Mastbaum, but also a group of specialty schools created over the last two decades like the Workshop School, Robeson, and U School. And the third category are the traditional neighborhood schools, some of which contain magnet programs that have admissions requirements, like Northeast’s Aeronautical Academy.

In addition to the zip code preferences, the district plans to look at curricular offerings in schools in all neighborhoods to make sure that more students are adequately prepared to meet the selective schools’ criteria.

But the policy changes go beyond affecting the most selective high schools. Parents have the opportunity to choose a different school for their children than their traditional neighborhood catchment starting in kindergarten.

“I want to stress this is a K-12 process,” said Lynch.

Historically, under a court-ordered voluntary desegregation plan that was in effect for close to three decades starting in the 1980s, parents could choose elementary schools outside their catchment if their child’s presence would improve the receiving school’s racial balance.

But Lynch said that in this new plan, the goal is primarily to give parents choice, not to promote a larger goal of diversity or integration.

“The opportunity for families and parents to have choice is important,” she said.

Outside of that desegregation process, there was always a mechanism for parents to request that their child attend another school, sometimes for reasons of convenience, such as a different school being closest to a workplace or to the home of a caregiver, such as a grandparent.

Stephanie King, a white parent with two students in Kearny Elementary, a predominantly Black school in Northern Liberties, has long argued that white parents in gentrifying neighborhoods like hers use the selection process to avoid largely Black neighborhood schools. She questioned how allowing parents to do this would promote the goals of equity.

“How is this actually going to feed into equity plans, when the process has historically favored more privileged students?” she said. She requested a list of kindergarten students who sought transfers this year — 534 out of more than 12,000. More than 200 were white, a percentage out of proportion to their numbers in the district, about 14%.

Some of them, King said, are people in her neighborhood who apply to send their children to Adaire, Hackett, or Moffett — nearby schools with larger percentages of white students.

But Lynch said that the district’s analysis showed that parents of all races and ethnicities sought transfers for a variety of reasons and sees little evidence that parents seek to avoid schools with certain demographics. There are parents who want to transfer into Kearny, Lynch said.

Behind the patterns and practices and expectations today, both on the part of parents and people who work in the schools, is a long history that needs to be studied, Jubilee said.

“In order to undo the patterns,” she said, “we have to understand them.”

‘Alarming’ shortage of child care workers in Philadelphia prompts recruitment event

2021-10-05T13:52:36+00:00

Early childhood education providers are holding a site-by-site job fair on Thursday in a concerted attempt to counteract a staffing shortage that one state child care advocate has called “alarming.”

More than 300 child care programs in Philadelphia signed up as of Monday for the event, called “ECE Day of Hire.”

“Basically, for lack of better words, we’re not getting the response and we’re not getting qualified candidates,” said Kelli Jackson, head of human resources at Porter’s Child Care Center in North Philadelphia.

Porter’s, which has been in the neighborhood for 40 years, is trying to hire at least three classroom aides so it can open two more classrooms. With a capacity of 230 children, it now has 150 and a waiting list, Jackson said.

The shortage of child care workers is so stark that directors could not leave for a centralized hiring event because they are needed to help staff classrooms, said Jackie Groetsch, the public policy field organizer for the early childhood advocacy group First Up.

“That’s the severity of the problem, the directors, the owners, they don’t have the ability to leave their programs,” Groetsch said, because of the ratio of adults to children required by state standards. “They’ve been covering in classrooms.”

According to a July survey by the advocacy organization Start Strong PA, 93% of Philadelphia child care providers said they had lost workers since the pandemic started. The 147 centers that responded said they closed 322 classrooms total, but had more than 1,800 children on a waiting list. If they were fully staffed, they could accommodate nearly 4,800 more children.

The picture is similarly bleak statewide, with 92% of providers reporting an inability to hire enough workers, according to the survey.

“They have lost staff. Child care workers have chosen to leave the industry at alarming rates and chosen to work for other sectors that are offering higher pay,” Groetsch said. Employers like Amazon, Walmart, Target, even McDonald’s, have increased wages to $15 and, in some cases, as much as $20 an hour, while the average hourly wage in the child care industry in Pennsylvania is about $11.

“Right now we have families ready to go back to work, but the programs have to say no, we don’t have enough staff,” Groetsch said.

The participating centers in the daylong event will decorate their entrances with something yellow — balloons or ribbons, most likely — because that is the color used by the state’s Keystone Stars rating system for early childhood education. To earn up to four stars, centers must meet standards for staffing, operations and curriculum.

Child care centers can’t afford to increase wages for workers due to what Groetsch called a “broken” funding system. The sector “is underfunded by state and local governments,” she said, resulting in a situation where costs for parents are high at the same time that pay for workers is relatively low.

That could change if President Biden’s $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act is enacted with the $450 billion he proposes to include for child care over 10 years. First Up is among the advocacy organizations saying this could enable programs to raise salaries to levels that are more competitive with other industries.

Passage of the legislation would be a “game changer,” Groetsch said. A federal investment could “ensure that parents are paying less for child care but that programs are receiving funding to cover the full cost of providing care,” Groetsch said.

The child care industry in Philadelphia and around the region is sprawling and diverse, run by a mix of government entities and private businesses. It is paid for by a combination of private tuition payments and public subsidies, many of which target the neediest families.

Even before the pandemic, the industry was struggling. When schools and child care programs were forced to shut down in March 2020 due to the pandemic, the state used federal rescue funds to continue to pay subsidies to the centers based on their enrollment. This allowed them to pay employees, even though the centers were closed.

But state aid was gradually cut back starting in September 2020, and staffers began looking for other employment.

Without the ability to raise wages, competing in this job market is daunting, and Groetsch and others aren’t sure who will show up at the recruiting event for the wages being offered.

She said possible recruits would include mothers with young children who want to return to the workforce, and would accept the wage because it would save them as much as $300 a week in their own child care costs. Another source of labor, she suggested, could be people who “may have had a past career and are looking to make a difference and have work to do that is rewarding and joyful.”

“Don’t get me wrong, it is hard work, but you can help shape young brains and interact with children,” she said. “If you want to work where you can get hugs and have little people happy to see you and who don’t want to leave, that’s the child care industry.”

Jackson said that the minimum requirement for her center to keep its top rating from Keystone Stars is a high school diploma with two years of experience or a child development associate credential, or CDA, which can be obtained online and is the equivalent of nine college credits toward an early education degree.

“Our qualifications are somewhat higher than some other centers in the city,” she said.

Porter’s houses a Head Start program and a Pre-K Counts program in partnership with the city and school district. She hopes there will be a good turnout on Thursday to fill their open slots with qualified people. They have tried to increase the hourly wage to make the positions more attractive, she said, but still can’t compete with companies like Target and Walmart.

Plus, she said, a lot of people found employment during the pandemic that allowed them to work from home. Child care doesn’t provide that option.

”In some ways, the pandemic brought to the forefront issues of work-life balance,” she said. “If you can stay home and get paid, you can work from home two or three days a week; with those scenarios, the need for child care is a little less as well,” she said.

Jackson hopes that the Day of Hire brings some serious candidates. She intends to advertise it on social media and update the website and the entry on Indeed, a jobs website, to emphasize that “there is no appointment needed, just come.” Given the need for workers, she said. “We’ll give it a shot.”

Philly equity coalition ‘has ignited a new vision of bringing change,’ superintendent tells community in progress update

2021-09-17T18:06:29+00:00

Strawberry Mansion is in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Philadelphia, the poorest big city in the country.

In the summer of 2020, the Philadelphia school district sought to become an antiracist organization and end discriminatory policies and practices. The district created an “equity coalition” of staff, parents, teachers, and community members to meet over the next year and recommend policy changes.

“I have students who live in shelters, who have been homeless, who are dealing with all kinds of trauma,” said Barry Wilkins, a math teacher at Strawberry Mansion. “They don’t have time to advocate for what they don’t get. Reaching out to them is a hallmark of our work. Now, they don’t have a voice. And our work doesn’t make sense if their voice isn’t driving the conversation.”

On Wednesday, Superintendent William Hite and other coalition leaders updated the community on the progress of the initiative and offered a look at next steps.

The work of the coalition “has ignited a new vision of bringing change to our district,” Hite said.

For the past year, the wide-ranging group divided into subcommittees and studied historical and demographic trends in schools and neighborhoods, held focus groups with stakeholders inside and outside the district, and began the serious work of helping people in schools view their practices through an equity lens.

“The coalition was started as a way to reshape the organizational structure and give space and place to individuals who don’t often get a seat at the table to talk about what it means to be an equitable and anti-racist school district,” said Sabriya Jubilee, the district’s deputy chief of equity.

But much of the most difficult work lies ahead, as the self-examination tackles long-standing and troubling trends, such as disproportionate discipline of Black and brown students, as well as their underrepresentation in honors and Advanced Placement classes and in the city’s most selective public schools.

That will require teachers and others who work with students to go deep into their own attitudes and behaviors.

“Equity means every student is afforded the opportunity to be in an exceptional learning environment,” said Estelle Acquah,executive director of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. “One of the things that is critically important is how we think about the mindsets of all the stakeholders, and what we are working to do is to ensure that we are putting in place the conditions for everyone in our district and our schools to really think a little bit differently about our young people and what they’re capable of.”

Part of that is “to ensure that every single person in our district is able to engage in anti-racism training, and that is going to be critical in ensuring that we are starting to shift the mindsets in our schools.”

Accomplishing this will require more than one-day professional development sessions, she said, but a “multi-year, multi-pronged” plan that will be tailored to every school.

“We’re working across the district to make sure that students understand the cultural shift going on in classrooms and in instructional practices,” Acquah said. This means examining the “intersection of equity and instruction” and making sure students “are taught in ways that are culturally affirming for them...and making sure we are celebrating the cultures of all students in a systematic way.”

It is still too early to determine how this might look in individual schools.

“How it impacts my school, we haven’t gotten quite there yet,” said Wilkins, who is on a coalition subcommittee dealing with external partnerships, mostly with organizations, advocacy groups, and corporations that work with students. Going forward, he said, the initiative “will help school leaders drive the equity conversation and give staff and teachers the tools they need to provide an equitable educational experience for young people.”

Philadelphia has a poverty rate of more than 25% and a child poverty rate above 50%. In the district, more than 70% of the enrollment is Black and Latino. In some schools, the poverty rate is close to 100%. Many of the surrounding districts are mostly white and affluent, a demographic reality that is a result of systemic racism over generations that limited housing and other opportunities for Black people.

The district is also underfunded compared to most of the surrounding suburbs, even though, on average, students have more needs.

Conditions at a school like Strawberry Mansion are the result of “systematic and institutional racism over generations,” Wilkins said. “We will not have solutions in one year. But, in a year, we will have more concrete things to show you. This is an iterative process.” And, issues faced by our students and their families “have to be front and center with our work.”

Another Philadelphia school temporarily shut due to COVID cases

2021-09-16T00:39:31+00:00

The Philadelphia school district sent a letter Wednesday to parents of students at Richmond Elementary School in Port Richmond informing them that it is temporarily shutting the school down due to COVID cases.

In the two weeks since schools opened, Richmond is the second district school and the fourth school in the city to shut down over an outbreak. Emlen Elementary and Pan American Charter School in Fairhill closed Monday. Lindley Academy, a charter school in Logan, closed last week.

“Due to multiple positive cases of COVID-19 in our school, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health has determined that our school building will temporarily close from Sept. 15, 2021 to Sept. 25, 2021 to help stem the spread of the virus. Students and staff may not return to our school building during this time,” the letter said.

Richmond parent Aileen Callaghan told Chalkbeat Wednesday that her son doesn’t have COVID, but she wants to see a change in COVID safety protocols, including more frequent COVID testing in schools. The district is testing only symptomatic students this year, a change from last year’s testing plan.

“It’s really hard that there were only six in-person days of instruction and we had six COVID cases,” she said. “We need to demand for every child to get tested in the schools and prepare for teachers to get tested on both Wednesdays and Fridays, the lives of our children and elders are at risk right now.”

The district opened its schools to some 120,000 students on Aug. 31 after more than a year of disrupted schooling during the pandemic. District officials have said it’s important for students to return for in-person learning, though Philadelphia is one of the few large urban districts to have a virtual option available to families.

The district is advising that if a child has shared a classroom with any student or staff member who has tested positive for COVID-19 they will be contacted directly by the city’s health department or the school district with next steps, including whether the child needs to be quarantined.

“If your child did not share a classroom with a student or staff member who tested positive for COVID-19 that means your child does not need to quarantine while at home,” the district advised in its letter Wednesday.

The schools guidance from the city health department requires schools to be closed if there are six or more cases within 14 days or “multiple COVID-19 clusters across grades.” A grade is required to quarantine if there are three or more cases in one grade, not concentrated in one classroom.

The city health department is currently not recommending that all students get tested regularly, except athletes and those participating in arts activities, such as band or singing. The district already is doing that.

Richmond parents are organizing an event from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Sept. 22 at the Cohocksink Recreation Center, 2901 Cedar St., to discuss plans for a safe return to school.

Dana Carter, policy advisor for the Racial Justice Organizing Committee, said the district needs to improve its parent and school notification protocols.

“Parents can better prepare for school closures if given the notification of COVID-19 positive cases in schools in a timely manner,” she said.

I’m a Philadelphia principal. Here’s how we have prepared for a year like no other.

2021-09-03T18:42:12+00:00

“Sofía is not returning,” reads a text from one of my teachers four days before the first day of school.

Three months prior, in mid-June, one of our parents, a single mom, informed us that she was moving out of state. It would be the last day at Sheridan for her three daughters. Her message to me: “Kensington is not good for their mental health. It is not a safe place to raise children anymore. It is not good for my mental health.”

Over the summer, we received similar messages from families. We love your school, they told us, but the area has gotten unlivable. The downward trend in enrollment has accelerated, despite the outsized efforts of our staff to convince families to stay.

In the last three years, nearly 300 students and their families have chosen safer grounds. We don’t blame them. The safety concerns are present in our families’ minds due to the historic level of gun violence and the propagation of open-air drug markets and public drug use and abuse.

So how does one teach and lead and prioritize student well-being knowing this disheartening fact? Perhaps more pressing, how does one prepare to welcome students back after nearly 18 months out of the building?

Julio C. Nuñez

We do it by narrowing our focus while widening our aperture, by immersing ourselves in what we do best: teaching young minds. This time, however, we do so with a heavy emphasis on their stories as a basis for planning. Morning meeting topics, for example, are centered around issues that affect our students, and questions and discussions draw from the perspectives and experiences they bring into the classroom.

At the same time, we deliberately seek to learn as much as possible about the neighborhood, its residents, and community assets, such agencies providing vital support. We work to engage public officials and enlist them in neighborhood revitalization efforts. We believe this is part of our role as educators.

A common misconception is that schools begin preparing for the new school year a week or two before students return. In my experience, school leaders and teachers have always started planning for the next school year in the spring — looking at projected needs, resources, talent, and facilities. In the age of COVID, schools have additional safety concerns and need additional contingency plans.

During the latter part of the summer, we discuss more granular matters of school operations, such as how to prepare for an open house in the middle of a partial building renovation and neighborhood public works. We considered questions such as, Should kids keep masks on during recess? What will be the best foot traffic flow during arrival, dismissal, and lunch? The questions we wrestle with have become best friends with our insomnia. The safety of students and staff weighs on us in normal times, but the pandemic has significantly increased the burden.

A week prior to students returning, school leaders prepare to welcome staff. This is the week when the imbalance between the number of tasks due and the time to complete them becomes evident. We do this work in the often sweltering heat, as air conditioning remains elusive.

We push through. “Why hasn’t the trash been picked up?” “We have an open house in just 24 hours.” “It won’t be picked up tomorrow!” is the chatter over the walkie. The morning of the open house, the city’s electric grid tried to shake our “game on” attitudes. After several rounds of power outages during the early morning, the power decided to stick around.

Teachers remain focused on their intellectual preparation and their teaching spaces. At our school, they are introduced to newly culturally responsive English language arts and math curriculums. A great first draft. Enduring Zoom meetings in classrooms that are 90 degrees or hotter are evidence of teachers’ commitment to their profession. They get through them and in the best of cases, loud fans roar in the background.

In our staff trainings, we have added what we feel is missing from our district-wide professional development, not just topics of race and equity, implicit biases, and empathy expansion, but more importantly, how to turn that knowledge into action. This work is a matter of survival for our school. If educators do not learn to operationalize the new knowledge, schools will continue to fail the most marginalized students.

There is an infectious level of excitement among the team. The alternative is not acceptable or sustainable. We know the level of trauma we are going to encounter could bring even the strongest to their knees. We have mastered the art of compartmentalization.

As our school gets ready to embrace new strategies with the goal of becoming more racially equitable and responsive, we are in the process of changing the school’s name to something that more closely reflects the community’s identity and spirit. Philip H. Sheridan serves more as a reminder of historical transgressions against people of color. We are adding a dual-language program to keep the connections between our students and their heritage, and, of course, growing from a K-4 elementary to include fifth grade and serve those students who travel far to get to other schools that offer it.

The challenge that remains for educators in my school, and those in the area, is in managing to keep the spirits up when we all see the community burning and hear the pain Kensington residents endure daily. Sofía’s parents, as all parents in our community, want the same things parents elsewhere want: a safe place to live and opportunities for their children to thrive. The word “Kensington” is an antonym to those ideas right now.

The steep decline in enrollment that my school has experienced over the past decade is not because we were not teaching, strategizing, preparing, adapting, and changing. Rather, it is because the rest of the city, including its leaders, was not fully engaged. Being present at community meetings and really listening to the concerns goes a long way, even when residents know the resources are scarce. Declaring an emergency for an emergency situation is not overreacting; it is being responsive.

We’ll know that our community’s plight has the right priority when Norris Square is given the same importance as Rittenhouse Square. School leaders often hear, “The answer is in the room.” I say that the answer is in the city. But only if we all have the courage to seek it.

Julio C. Nuñez has taught and led schools in Philadelphia for the past 12 years, He is the founding principal and CEO of Independence Charter School West. He currently serves as assistant principal of Philip H. Sheridan in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia district, teachers union reach tentative agreement

2021-09-01T01:27:30+00:00

Two hours before their contract was to expire, the Philadelphia school district and its teachers union have reached reached a tentative agreement.

The union’s president Jerry Jordan informed his members at 10 p.m.: “It’s a deal I’m proud of and one I’m looking forward to bringing you tomorrow.”

Jordan said he will share details with his membership at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

The union’s one-year pact with the district expired at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday.

After tough talk during the day about a possible strike vote by membership Tuesday evening, Jordan postponed a planned press conference from 8:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. and then canceled it altogether after informing members at a virtual meeting that he was hopeful of reaching an agreement.

Earlier in the day, the union, which represents 13,000 district teachers, nurses, counselors, secretaries, and paraprofessionals, said on its Twitter account that “if the district is committed to a contract that values their educators, a fair contract can absolutely be reached today. If they are not...then we will be discussing our next steps with our membership.”

Last year, as the same Aug. 31 deadline loomed, the two sides agreed to a two-week extension to resolve outstanding issues. But they did not reach an agreement until Oct. 21, a one-year pact in which members received a 2% raise, plus step increases based on years of experience and advanced degrees.

That agreement included a safety plan to regulate conditions for a return to in-person learning, which district leaders at the time forecast would begin on Nov. 30.

The safety plan was not part of the main contract but was included in a separate “memorandum of agreement,” or MOA. As it turned out, concerns about adequate building ventilation and other COVID-related safety issues kept students learning from home until March, a full year after school buildings closed due to the pandemic. In-person learning was phased in, starting with the youngest grades and continuing with sixth to ninth grades in April. Tenth, eleventh and twelfth graders didn’t learn in school buildings last academic year. Throughout the spring, only about a quarter of eligible Philadelphia public school students chose to return in person.

Last year, in announcing the one-year extension, Jordan said that in the next round of negotiations, he would seek a four-year contract with significant raises.

This year, the PFT and its other unions are again negotiating COVID safety procedures separately, including the terms of a vaccine mandate, which the Board of Education has voted to impose.

Between 2001 and 2018, when the district operated under the control of the state-dominated School Reform Commission, the union couldn’t strike. Under the Board of Education, it regained its right to strike. (Aside from a weekend walkout in 2000, the last time Philadelphia teachers went on strike was 1981.)

While under state control, the union went five years without a contract, during which members received no raises or step increases. Once among the highest-paid teachers in the region, Philadelphia teacher salaries fell behind surrounding districts. In the current contract, salaries now range from around $45,000 a year for new teachers with a bachelor’s degree to close to $90,000 for those with doctorates and at least 11 years of experience.

The Philadelphia school district has long faced fiscal woes, but its financial picture has improved considerably with the influx of more than $1 billion in federal COVID relief money. However, that money must go toward non-recurring expenses such as personal protective equipment, facilities improvement, trauma support, and academic recovery programs. Those funds cannot be used for ongoing expenses such as salary increases.

The five-year budget plan adopted by the Board of Education in May will not start running shortfalls until 2026 under current spending and revenue projections. After that, the district will need additional funds from the state and city to maintain its current programming.

Last year, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney floated the idea of a small property tax increase to help fund the schools, but the City Council did not bite. On the state level, the legislature adopted a fair funding formula in 2016 but has not applied it to most of the education aid it distributes to districts. The Board of Education has no taxing power of its own.

A landmark fair funding lawsuit, seeking to force the state to increase its education aid and change how it is disbursed, is scheduled to go to trial in October. Several school districts, civil rights groups, and individual parents originally filed the suit in 2016.

Philadelphia is not a plaintiff, but its Superintendent, William Hite, plans to testify.

Most City Council members back Philly teachers union’s call for wider student COVID testing

2021-08-23T23:13:03+00:00

cNine members of the City Council have joined the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers in calling for the school district to continue testing for asymptomatic students as part of its COVID plan this year.

In a letter sent Friday to Superintendent William Hite and Board of Education President Joyce Wilkerson, the members said that “screening testing” — regularly testing all or a sample of students — is a “key prevention strategy” identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop the spread of the virus.

Such testing can find positive cases early or catch asymptomatic cases, in which those who are infected show no signs of it, according to the CDC.

Last school year, when some students returned to in-person classes, the district pulled out 20% of students each week in each school for COVID testing. But Hite said at a school board meeting last week that it was disruptive to learning, with students needing to leave class for the rapid testing for at least 15 minutes at a time. Instead, the district plans to only test symptomatic students this school year.

The CDC does say that, in schools without routine screening, rapid testing of symptomatic students can help identify those who are ill or have been exposed to COVID.

The council members said they “appreciated” the district’s other safety measures, including mandatory masking for all teachers and students and weekly COVID testing of employees. But they said that the screening testing of students “helped establish a baseline safety standard that was clear and reassuring to families as well as mitigated the spread of the virus.”

The letter didn’t mention the proposal to require vaccinations for all school employees, which the Board of Education will consider Tuesday at a special meeting.

The pending resolution authorizes Hite to “develop and implement a mandatory vaccination plan” for all employees and specially identified contractors and service providers, while negotiating “appropriate requests” for exemptions based on “certain documented medical circumstances or sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Hillary Linardopoulos, a spokeswoman for the PFT, said that the district and the union have been talking regularly about the terms of such exemptions. “We’re late in the game, but we’ve definitely seen some discussions and activity” in the last week, she said. There are four other unions that represent school employees that must also reach agreement on the terms of any mandate.

The teachers union said earlier this month that they were open to a negotiated mandate.

Teachers returned to buildings Monday and students are scheduled to return Aug. 31.

New York City and neighboring New Jersey both announced the terms of vaccine mandates for school workers on Monday.

Philadelphia school employees were offered the vaccine from Feb. 23 to April 3 in a partnership between the city health department and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. A study done for the CDC found that 46% of the district’s nearly 23,000 employees received both doses of the vaccine through the program.

Linardopoulos said that many union members were vaccinated elsewhere, and she believes up to 90% of members have received the vaccination.

The study also found that in subsequent testing of school employees for the virus during a period of “relatively high community transmission...there were “significantly fewer infections among vaccinated school staff members compared with those who were unvaccinated.”

The nine council members who signed the letter are Helen Gym, Cindy Bass, Kendra Brooks, Jaime Gauthier, Katherine Gilmore Richardson, Derek Green, Bobby Henon, Kenyatta Johnson, and Maria Quiñones-Sanchez.

COVID safety tops Philly students’ concerns before return to school: ‘I’m a little nervous’

2021-08-23T21:36:48+00:00

Jemille Duncan, a senior at Philadelphia’s Multicultural Academy Charter School, will be glad to finally see his classmates when school starts next week, but he worries about the spread of COVID with so many students returning to in-person learning.

“The district is in a really hard predicament because they are facing a lot of backlash from parents, and even some students who want to go back in person. And for good reason, lots of people perform better in person and teachers teach better in person,” said Duncan, who heads advocacy and policy for the student-run UrbEd Advocates. “However, I just don’t think we are prepared.”

Duncan was among a group of student leaders from a variety of schools and organizations who met with Chalkbeat to discuss issues, including safety plans for the 200,000 district and charter students showing up for class next Tuesday. Student representatives from The Bullhorn, UrbEd Advocates, Philadelphia Student Union, and Philly Black Students Alliance participated in a roundtable discussion on Friday evening.

To prevent the spread of COVID, the district announced plans last week to rely on “multiple layers of safety,” including universal masking, weekly testing of all staff members, on-site testing of symptomatic students, air purifiers in classrooms and other spaces, and regular deep cleaning. Philadelphia’s Board of Education also plans to hold a special meeting Tuesday “to consider a resolution to mandate COVID-19 vaccination for employees and all contractors” who work in district facilities, as New York City did on Monday.

“We have more than 2,000 students, and we do not have enough space (for social distancing),” said Vincent So, a senior at Central High School. “We’re about to move this six-foot distance to three-foot distance between students, but even that’s not possible when our school is so small. I just don’t think it’s good enough what we are doing.”

When it’s difficult to maintain distance, as it is in Philadelphia, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends “screening testing” — random testing of all students, not just those with symptoms, as a virus mitigation strategy in K-12 schools.

“Going to classes in the hallways, there’s plenty of students walking by and walking past you. And we’re all packed in the lunch lines like sardines, just to get some curly fries,’ said Kara Butler, a 12th-grader at Lankenau High School, who is the chief editor of The Bullhorn. “I don’t know about that. I’m a little nervous.”

The district created a remote option for families who still felt uneasy about in-person learning. The deadline to apply through the Philadelphia Virtual Academy has passed. It has been reported that the number of students registered for the remote option is 2,600. None of the students who participated in the roundtable enrolled to stay in virtual learning.

Ellie Zdancewic, a junior at Masterman High School and a member of UrbEd, said she’s torn about returning. “Going back to school will be my biggest risk throughout the entire pandemic, because in the beginning when we were at home, I wasn’t going anywhere. And then mask wearings became prevalent, and then I got vaccinated, and so I felt safer. But then the delta variant hit and now I’m going to school with many other people — it’s uncharted waters for me.”

Sophia Roach, a senior at the Creative and Performing Arts High School, said with virtual learning students could control their exposure to the virus. “But now in person we can’t control if we’re exposed to someone who maybe had a really large party and got COVID and we wouldn’t know until after the fact.”

Another safety concern for school officials is protecting students from the gun violence that has occurred in Philadelphia this year. City officials laid out a series of steps with the district’s safety department to ensure students get to and from school safely after a summer of gun violence. Philadelphia police said last week that 137 victims under the age of 18 have been injured in gun violence this year. Thirty-two of those were homicides.

“It is the district’s problem because the sad reality is, every time I turn on the news, it’s a teenager being shot and teenagers go to school,” said Nevaeh Sullivan, a freshman at Central High School. “If there were more counselors, better administrative teams, better programs for these teenagers to look forward to. I feel as though there would be less killings.”

Last year, student leaders called on their representatives on the city’s school board to have the right to vote on policies affecting them, such as safety procedures. That effort fell flat due to a need for a ballot initiative to change the city charter and changing the state school code that requires board members to be at least 18 years old.

The students said the push to give students a vote on the school board should continue.

“When you put the students on the board, but you don’t give them any sort of real power, it’s tokenism,” Butler said. “Why don’t they have a voice? The decisions you’re making are affecting them directly. So why not hear what they have to say about those decisions?”

Despite their uneasiness with COVID safety, the students who participated in the roundtable were unanimous in the sentiment that what they most look forward to as they return to in-person learning is interacting with classmates they haven’t seen in more than a year.

“I am looking forward to seeing everyone again, because I honestly forgot what most of my classmates actually look like,” said Abir Alikerar, a junior at the Academy of Palumbo and secretary for the Philly Black Students Alliance. “But I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to handle my time management after virtual learning.”

32 teens died from gunfire this year in Philadelphia. The city and school district are seeking a safe path for students.

2021-08-19T00:18:22+00:00

With the first day of school less than two weeks away, Philadelphia officials laid out a series of steps to ensure students get to and from school safely after a summer of gun violence.

Philadelphia police said 137 victims under the age of 18 have been injured from gun violence this year. Thirty-two have been homicides.

As the first day of school approaches on Aug. 31, these numbers are cause for concern for city and school officials as they seek volunteers to help with programs and initiatives aimed at keeping students safe.

During a virtual press conference Wednesday, officials from the city, police department, and Office of School Safety outlined ways in which the public can help protect students, among them the neighborhood watch program Safe Corridors.

The announcement came as Mayor Jim Kenney faces criticism for his decision not to declare a state of emergency over the city’s recent gun violence crisis. The number of deaths in the city stands at 339, up 22% from last year.

“[Safe Corridors] is similar to a neighborhood watch program where volunteers can opt to patrol routes around schools at the start and end of the school day, or to keep watch from their homes or businesses,” Kenney said. “Volunteers often work in teams sharing information, reporting any suspicious or unusual activities.”

Another initiative is the Out-of-School Time program, which provides learning opportunities for students before and after school hours and is also offered during holidays and the summer. There’s also a component for early learners, according to Waleska Maldonado, chief of prevention of the city’s Office of Children and Families.

OCF funds more than 50 community organizations that will provide programs to 6,100 students in 128 schools this fall.

The city’s new anti-violence community expansion grants are also available to organizations that provide safety programs for students. Funds ranging from $100,000 to $1 million will be given to community-based organizations with annual operating budgets under $15 million that have a proven track record working in neighborhoods vulnerable to gun violence, Groups may apply for grants from the $22 million program by the Sept. 3 deadline.

“It’s been a difficult 17 months, as we all know, for our young people, particularly with the increased level of violence in the city, which is impacting our students,” said Kevin Bethel, chief of police for the school district. “I can’t emphasize more that when we have a city of this size, and the number of streets and corridors that we have, we have to have community engagement to help us support our kids.”

Bethel said his department will host meetings in six divisions in which stakeholders can express their concerns.

The department is working with the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, to ensure students get to school safely on mass transit, and with Operation Town Watch Integrated Services, which trains volunteers to patrol areas and document suspicious activity.

“We will be using school resource officers to ensure increased physical presence, particularly during student arrival times and dismissals,” Kenney said. “We know that the hours after school are also critical times for students who are at greater risk for unsafe behavior.”

Students returning Aug. 31 will see an increased level of counseling support to help them cope with personal setbacks due to the pandemic, according to Superintendent William Hite.

“We will be providing a much-needed infusion of social-emotional support and services to our students, with an emphasis on students who have been heavily impacted by rising violence in our city,” said Evelyn Nuñez, district chief of schools. Funding for the added support will come from the COVID relief money the federal government has allocated for K-12 schools across the U.S.

Officers present during Wednesday’s press briefing connected the city’s gun violence and its impact on area youth.

Joel Dales, deputy commissioner for the Philadelphia Police Department noted that a 15-year-old girl who was playing basketball was shot twice in the head on Tuesday in the 1900 block of West Ontario Street at the Jerome Brown Playground in the Tioga-Nicetown section of the city.

“Another child who was out enjoying the summer evening playing a game, hanging out, doing what kids are supposed to do, was shot twice in the head,” Dales said.

“There are too many people out there committing careless acts of violence like this on a regular basis. When will enough be enough?”

Here’s what we know about Philadelphia’s remote school option

2021-08-11T23:20:41+00:00

Philadelphia officials plan to open school buildings for all students on Aug. 31 for the first time since March 2020. But there is an option for families that still feel uneasy about in-person learning due to the coronavirus.

Enrollment is open for Philadelphia Virtual Academy — the district virtual school — until Friday, so it’s unclear how many families will take advantage of this option. The availability of a remote option makes Philadelphia a bit of an outlier among large districts. Others, such as New York City, are not planning to offer a means for students to learn virtually.

“We surveyed families in the spring and 8,000 families responded, and the response was that a virtual option would be important,” said Superintendent William Hite in explaining the decision.

Since it started in 2013, PVA has been open for sixth through 12th graders. For the coming school year, it will be expanded to include kindergarten through fifth grade as well.

On Monday, Hite would not say how many students so far had filled out intake forms to enroll in the virtual academy for the coming year or how many students were enrolling in the newly added lower grades.

Parents have been active on social media expressing interest in the virtual academy, especially since the rise of the COVID-19 delta variant and increased case counts in Philadelphia. Parent advocate Anna Perna, who sent out a survey to Asian American families of students with disabilities, said that 80% of the 40 respondents were wary of sending students back to school because of the delta variant.

According to the district’s website, for the 2020-21 school year, 637 students attended PVA, a 20% increase from the year before, when 507 students were enrolled. (There was an even bigger jump in enrollment of students in one of the state’s 14 privately run but publicly funded cyber charters. For the 2020-21 school year, 10,874 Philadelphia students were enrolled in the cyber schools, a 37% jump from the year before.)

The overwhelming majority of students who have enrolled in PVA have been in grades 10 through 12; there are only a handful in grades 6-9.

The district’s School Progress Report, or SPR, which evaluates schools based on achievement test results and other indicators, has limited information about PVA and could not give it an overall score. But during last year, the profile reported that 28% of PVA students were proficient in English, and 10% in math. It also reported a 54% graduation rate.

Here’s what we know so far about the virtual option for Philadelphia students:.

What is the remote option?

Students in grades K-12 can enroll in Philadelphia Virtual Academy, a program that has existed for about a decade for students in grades six through 12. The academy is expanding to also accept students in grades K-5.

Will students who choose this option remain in the district?

Students who choose the virtual academy will remain in the district, but they will have to leave their current school. This includes special admission schools, to which students would have to reapply if they leave to attend PVA. This means they won’t be instructed by teachers at that school or be able to participate in extracurricular activities there. K-5 students who want to return to their home school later will have the opportunity at the end of each quarter, depending on the school’s capacity.

Will there be live instruction?

No. All learning will be asynchronous, meaning students will learn independently and on their own schedules. They will receive coursework aligned with the state’s Common Core standards from assigned online teachers, who are state certified. For the K-5 program, students will learn from a combination of district teachers and others from Brandywine Virtual Academy, provided through a partnership with the Chester County Intermediate Unit.

The courses will be available at any time, and teachers will provide feedback and assessments. Students must have a designated “home learning coach” to help them throughout the day.

What technology is needed?

Students who already attended a district school can use their existing Chromebook, while new students will be provided a device. Students will also need access to high speed internet and can explore district options if their home isn’t equipped. The academy says it will reimburse families $35 per month at the end of the school year for enrolled students.

What’s a typical day like?

An advisor runs a daily homeroom meeting to answer questions. Students will be responsible for completing and uploading assignments from workbooks and filling out reading logs, among other activities. The school measures attendance through daily logins and students are expected to work 5.5 hours a day. The student’s home learning coach will receive a weekly progress report that includes attendance.

What other supports are available?

Students are able to schedule one-to-one sessions with teachers in advance, and a virtual office will be available from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays for personalized or small group academic support. Families will also have a grade level advisor to answer programming questions or solve issues. Counselors will also be available. There is also a weekly town hall with the principal or an assistant principal.

Are there any enrichment opportunities?

Academy staff are in the process of setting up clubs and activities for younger students. Older students had access to clubs such as chess and online gaming.

What special education services will be provided?

PVA will have full-time special education teachers who will “work with...teachers on any modifications necessary” to a student’s individualized education program, or IEP. However, while speech therapy is adaptable to an online format, physical and occupational therapies are not. According to the district’s website: “For those instances we are working currently with all the offices involved to develop a plan.” The district is also still finalizing its plan for providing support services for students with autism. Enrollment figures show that 12% of PVA students have IEPs.

What will the student-to-teacher ratio be?

Officials caution that parents cannot think about student-teacher ratio in the traditional way: one teacher with 20 to 30 students in a classroom. “In an asynchronous online educational environment, ‘class size’ doesn’t really apply,” the website says. But the district plans to have two or three teachers available for each grade level, anticipating enrollment of 60 to 100 students. Students will have the opportunity to work with teachers in small groups and one to one.

Are intake forms available in languages other than English?

The district will use its translation services to translate any documents for parents who don’t speak English.

Will there be any English as a second language instruction at PVA?

The district does not answer this question on its website and did not make anyone available to Chalkbeat to answer this question. Enrollment figures show that just 2% of PVA students are English learners. It did say that the principal is bilingual and indicated it is seeking a bilingual counselor for the younger students.
Carrie Melago and Dale Mezzacappa contributed to this report

Philadelphia teachers union favors vaccine mandate

2021-08-09T21:31:13+00:00

With the opening of school just three weeks away and concerns growing about the COVID delta variant, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers will support “a negotiated vaccine mandate” for its members, a union spokesperson said.

The statement from Hillary Linardopoulos came a few hours after Mayor Jim Kenney and Superintendent William Hite strongly urged all city and district employees to be vaccinated and said they are still exploring if they can impose a mandate. The union sent an email to all members on Monday.

The union “continues to push vaccination and other mitigation strategies to ensure a safe reopening of schools for in person learning. Expect more from us on vaccination in the coming days,” Lindardopoulos said in a statement to Chalkbeat.

On Monday, the city announced that last week 5% of COVID-19 tests came back positive, a big jump from June when the positivity rate had been just 1%. Kenney noted that Philadelphia is the first big city to have 70% of its residents vaccinated.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said on Sunday the spread of the delta variant is “alarming,” and called vaccinations “a community responsibility.” Weingarten said she favors changing a policy the AFT adopted nearly a year ago that encourages vaccination, but left it “volitionary” on the part of members.

Circumstances have changed, Weingarten said.

“As a matter of personal conscience, we need to be working with our employers, not opposing them, on vaccine mandates and all their vaccine policies,” Weingarten said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

At their morning press conference, held to celebrate the first stop of a new back-to-school bus tour, Hite and Kenney cautioned that any such mandate on unionized workers is a delicate issue that needs to be carefully talked through “with our labor partners.”

“Everybody should be vaccinated,” Kenney said. But mandating anything “is an HR issue,” using the shorthand for human resources. “You don’t just tell people to do this or that.” He said talks are ongoing and vowed, “We’ll get there.”

Hite also said that district officials were talking to union leaders about the issue and “working through the details.” Without a mandate, Hite said he has no choice but to allow unvaccinated teachers and other workers into schools.

“Until we mandate the vaccines, we have to allow them to be in the classroom,” he said. “That’s why we’re testing and requiring everybody to wear masks.”

Linardopoulos, in the statement, said the surge of the virus has the union “very concerned, especially given the fact that tens of thousands of students are not yet even eligible for the vaccine. Recent information indicates spread amongst young people at higher rates than previously thought, with some becoming very ill. As such, the PFT will continue to follow the science.”

Hite said the district plans to require everyone to be masked in school, test all adults once a week, and test students who show symptoms. He also noted that the district has installed purification devices in all classrooms and common areas.

Those mitigation strategies, he said, follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control, or CDC, “which has also indicated that the most important thing now is to get children back into school.”

At the Jardel Recreation Center on Cottman Avenue in the Northeast, families lined up all the way down the block to register for school, if they haven’t already, and to pick up school supplies being handed out by district officials.

“Everything is so expensive,” said Bridge DeVito, who brought her grandsons Jackson and Myles Gnoza for their backpacks, pencils, crayons and other supplies. Jackson is entering kindergarten and Myles is in preschool.

While she is concerned about the new virus surge, DeVito said the boys are “anxious to be back. They spent a whole year in virtual learning, they need to know what it’s like to be part of a group.”

Dior Alston came with her son Senon, who is entering fifth grade at Carnell Elementary.

“This will cut down the costs for a lot of families. And it’s convenient that we didn’t have to go far,” she said. After a year and a half at home, “I’m excited he’ll be able to socialize and see his friends and meet new friends.”

District launching citywide bus tour prior to opening of school

2021-08-05T20:50:41+00:00

The School District of Philadelphia is launching a bus tour over the next three weeks through which students and their families can register for school, pick up backpacks full of supplies, and have questions answered about the planned return to full in-person learning for the first time since March 2020.

Two specially decorated buses, with district employees who are being called Street Team Ambassadors, will make 31 stops across the city between Aug. 9 and Aug. 27. At four of the locations, all Shop-Rite stores, students will be able to receive vaccinations that are required for school attendance. Eligible students can also get information about receiving a COVID-19 vaccination.

School is scheduled to start on Aug. 31.

The tour is an effort to build excitement for the reopening of school as well as allay any fears or concerns parents and students have, said Superintendent William Hite at a press conference at school district headquarters. The tour was conceived in response to a survey last spring of parents, who said that they needed better communication from the district regarding basic information about returning to school.

The bus tour, said Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite, “will give us the opportunity to meet parents where they are.”

“Some people are a little leery of COVID, as they should be,” Hite said. Officials decided it would be better to go into neighborhoods where people might be less likely to go online or get information through other channels, he said. The Back-to-School buses, he said “will give us the opportunity to meet parents where they are,” adding that information will be available in Spanish and other languages based on the community being visited.

The tour is being financed through a $150,000 grant from the Independence Blue Cross Foundation, the nonprofit philanthropic arm of the health insurer Independence Blue Cross.

“We’re excited today to help Philadelphia kids and families get back on track for a happy and healthy school year,” said Lorina Marshall-Blake, the foundation’s director.

The first stop will be the Jardel Recreation Center in Northeast Philadelphia at 10 a.m. Aug. 9. The vaccinations will be available on Aug. 8, Aug. 10, Aug. 18 and Aug. 24, each at a different Shop-Rite located in the city.

Despite concerns about new start times for schools, Hite said that they will not be significantly changed at this point. The new schedule calls for three different start times — 7:30 a.m., 8:15 a.m. and 9:00 a.m., which has been criticized by some teachers and parents, especially since most high schools are starting earlier and elementary schools later. Ten Philadelphia state legislators sent a letter to Hite questioning the new schedule and are set to meet with him next week.

Hite added that all schools that need them will have expanded before- and after-school care.

Arrangements for starting or expanding such programs are being worked out by each school individually, he said, and paid for with federal COVID funds. Pennsylvania’s plan was approved Thursday by the U.S. Department of Education.

“Resources are being provided to all schools,” Hite said. He said some schools might utilize “community resources,” while others might create new programs and pay staff members overtime.

Hite said that the district is still considering whether to mandate that all staff members be vaccinated against COVID-19, calling it a “complex” issue. He reiterated that all staff members, vaccinated or not, will be required to wear masks, and that all adults will be tested weekly. Children will be tested if they are symptomatic. Students participating in contact sports and in activities like band and choir will be tested once or twice a week. They can opt out of testing if they show proof of vaccination.

Parents have until Aug. 13 to sign up for the district’s fully online option, the Philadelphia Virtual Academy, which will be expanded from grades 6-12 to include students in kindergarten through fifth grade. He did not have information about how many parents are choosing this option.

After kindergarten enrollment plummeted last year, more students have registered for it this year, he said. The district is working on finding students in all grades “who are still in the community and should be attending schools...It will take awhile to re-engage all the individuals who were lost.”

Just 32% of Philadelphia third graders read on grade level. Freedom Schools Literacy Academy could be a model to change that.

2021-08-05T14:16:37+00:00

Editor’s note: This article was updated to properly attribute material that appeared in a Johns Hopkins University press release and to remove language that appeared in a Temple News article.

Philadelphia Councilman Isaiah Thomas was a prolific reader as a kid.

Reading became routine for the councilman growing up in Northwest Philadelphia, mostly because his father was a teacher. It was also at Philadelphia Freedom Schools where Thomas enhanced his ability to read — noting authors such as Bob Moses, who wrote “Radical Equations” and Randall Robinson of “The Debt.” He read both books at Freedom Schools.

Thomas visited the Freedom Schools Literacy Academy, or FSLA, at Mastery Harrity Elementary School in West Philadelphia on Tuesday to engage with students on the importance of reading.

The councilman, who was a Freedom Schools student in the 1990s, believes the literacy program can be a model that could help the city with its youth literacy numbers — and its lack of Black teachers.

“When you’re talking about learning and content, the foundation of that is reading,” Thomas said. “It’s tough to be a good math student, if you don’t read; it’s tough to be a good science student, if you can’t read. So the foundation is reading.”

A report this year revealed only 32% of Philadelphia third graders read on grade level, a number that angered members of Philadelphia’s Board of Education.

“These trends are not surprising to any of us, now we have to talk about what we can do about it,” said school board member Mallory Fix-Lopez.

The report showed gaps among racial groups and low scores for students with disabilities and English language learners. It also showed that regardless of overall achievement at all schools, there were racial achievement gaps, with Black and Latino students scoring below whites and Asians.

Black and Latino students in the top-tier schools are on track to reach the goal of 62% proficiency by 2026, with about half reaching the mark now. But two-thirds of white and Asian students in those schools are already there.

“We definitely find that about 60 to 70% of the students who come to our program are not reading on grade level,” said Erika Asikoye, director of FSLA. “We know that we’re going to get a range of children who just finished kindergarten, first grade or second grade who could benefit from our help.”

The literacy program focuses on “phonemic awareness, reading comprehension and positive racial identity” and spends a lot of time on letter sounds, Asikoye said . This awareness is a critical development skill for children and is linked to early reading success through its association with phonics.

In its success, the academy links reading with cultural awareness.

The Freedom Schools movement began during the civil rights movement and Freedom Summer of 1964. The original Freedom Schools were proposed by Charlie Cobb, a member of the Student Non-Violence Coordinating Committee (SNCC), to focus on literacy, positive racial identity, political education, and empowerment of Mississippi children who were suffering from “sharecropper” and “Jim Crow education.” SNCC recognized that the oppressive state of education in Mississippi was “geared to squash intellectual curiosity and different thinking” of Black children – the children and grandchildren of the adults SNCC was there to help.

City Councilman Isaiah Thomas listens attentively during a third-grade reading class at Freedom Schools Literacy Academy.

SNCC leaders envisioned Freedom Schools as a model that could support Black children “to articulate their own desires, demands, and questions” and “to find alternative and ultimately new directions for action.”

In the late 1980s, civil rights attorney Marian Wright Edelman, who founded the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF), rebooted Freedom Schools through community-based organizations across the country. Philadelphia’s Freedom Schools can trace its roots to the CDF model.

Philadelphia Freedom Schools was founded in the 1990s by a coalition of Black educational leaders; Dr. Greg Carr, Erika Asikoye, and Dr. Ayesha Imani, who worked in the School District of Philadelphia, found support from David Hornbeck, former superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia. They would later form their own version of Freedom Schools, Philadelphia Freedom Schools (PFS), adding a high school component to bolster the inter-generational model.

Sharif El-Mekki, former teacher, principal, and founder of The Fellowship: Black Male Educators for Social Justice, draws much of his educational framework from his elementary school, Nidhamu Sasa, a small African Freedom School in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, started 50 years ago by Black activists and parents. His experiences at Nidhamu Sasa and in literacy classes as one of the many Black 4-year-old children who learned phonics on the indoor porch of his cousin, Dr. Suzette Abdul-Hakim of West Philadelphia, continue to inspire El-Mekki decades later.

These informed El-Mekki’s desire to use the Freedom Schools model to develop a national Black teacher pipeline – a model that provides Black high school and college students the opportunity to teach literacy and positive racial identity to first-third graders.

El-Mekki, founder of the Center for Black Educator Development, told Chalkbeat that using a community-based approach, one that involves an intergenerational model, adds capacity and strength in teaching youth how to read. It’s also linked to recruiting more Black teachers through the Black Teacher Pipeline.

“We need to double down on these efforts to use the science of reading and youth leadership to solve the complex issues that we face as a city and country,” El-Mekki said. “We’ll know we’re serious about the success of our future as a city when we hold ourselves accountable for the literacy rates of our youth. You can’t have a world class city without a highly literate citizenry - and all really does mean all.”

A group of third-grade students patiently wait for their turn to speak during reading class at Freedom Schools Literacy Academy in West Philadelphia.

According to studies like those led by Constance Lindsey of the University of North Carolina, Black students do better when they have Black teachers.

A separate study from John Hopkins University found that Black students with at least one Black teacher are more likely to graduate high school and enroll in college, and if they have one Black teacher by the third grade, they are 13 % more likely to go to college. The percentage increases to 32% if they have two Black teachers.

“I think of literacy in terms of a human right - something that warrants our best efforts, investments and commitments,” El-Mekki said. “When we see countries that America loves to disparage, Cuba and Iran for example, but see how they prioritize literacy amongst their children and citizens we have to wonder, who actually has it backwards and is Third World?”

Though school board members vowed to make improvements to students’ reading skills, Thomas thinks the government should contribute in some form.

“Spend the money on programs that work,” Thomas said. “Even in the case of the school district, the federal government has allocated a significant amount of money to address the learning gap. So it’s up to the school district and the city to spend money on quality programs that do just that.”

Kristina Wilkerson, a parent of an academy student, said she’s pleased with the progress her son Dominic has made.

“Dominic loves to read. During the pandemic school year he would get off his regular school work to read books. So this program has helped to elevate that. He also gets to see teachers who look like him and says,. ‘Mom I can be whatever I want to be.’”

Pennsylvania court to allow some evidence of racial disparities in landmark school funding case

2021-07-29T21:34:18+00:00

With the trial date looming for a landmark school funding case in Pennsylvania, a Commonwealth Court judge ruled Wednesday that attorneys can present some evidence that disparate funding for school districts across the state has a negative impact on Black and Latino students.

Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer will allow fair funding attorneys to present information on racial disparities in the education system, including achievement gaps and variations in graduation rates, but not “background evidence” on housing and employment discrimination or rates of incarceration, saying it’s not necessary for the case.

The decision comes in response to Republican legislative leaders, Senate President Jake Corman and Speaker Bryan Cutler, whose attorneys argued in a July 7 hearing that evidence of racial disparities in this case is not relevant because the plaintiffs are not claiming the state intentionally discriminates against students of color.

A spokesperson for Cutler said after the ruling that “because the petitioners did not plead a racial argument initially, they are not in a position now to base arguments around racial discrimination.”

Six school districts, along with many parents and education advocacy groups, filed suit in 2014 against Pennsylvania, alleging that the state’s school funding procedures violate its state constitutional mandate to ensure a “thorough and efficient” system of education for students from all socioeconomic statuses. Currently, a large part of school funding in Pennsylvania comes from local taxes, leading to significant funding gaps between high- and low-income districts.

Jubelirer spelled out several reasons why presenting evidence of racial disparities could be relevant to the case. A trial is scheduled to begin in September.

Both sides conceded at the hearing that data on educational outcomes broken down by race or ethnicity could be presented at the trial, meaning it “must not be irrelevant,” Jubelirer said.

Courts in other states have also considered racial disparities in achievement when presiding over school funding cases, Jubelirer said. She cited cases in New York and Kansas, where courts considered evidence that Black and Latino students had lower standardized test scores and graduation rates. Those data points, she said, are similar to fair funding attorneys’ claims that students of color in Pennsylvania are “more likely to be served by unqualified,

inexperienced, or out-of-field teachers, principals, and support staff.”

Black and Latino students are roughly 25% of Pennsylvania’s K-12 population, but the plaintiffs said half of Black students and 40% of Latino students attend school in the poorest 20% of the state’s districts.

Jubelirer also emphasized that the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is a plaintiff in this case.

“Given the NAACP-PA’s party status and stated interest in ensuring equality in education for its members and children...it is not unreasonable that evidence related to the effect on minority students may be introduced,” she said.

NAACP-PA president Kenneth Huston said the organization is pleased with the court for making a decision “we thought was obvious.”

“The NAACP will not rest until every child, of every race and ethnicity is able to access the education they deserve,” Huston said. “Pennsylvania’s educational system as it currently exists must be transformed into one that provides equal opportunity for all.”

There have been several delays in the case, including attempts by legislators to have the case dismissed. Many fair funding cases in Pennsylvania have been introduced in the last 30 years, but so far no other case has made it this far.

“We are grateful that the Commonwealth Court agreed with us,” said attorney Claudia De Palma, who argued on behalf of fair funding advocates. “The existence of these longstanding racial inequities, and the General Assembly’s insistence on ignoring their effects, is relevant to establishing that Pennsylvania’s school funding system is irrational and unconstitutional.”

More should be done to help get Black male students through college, educators say

2021-07-28T23:30:37+00:00

Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite joined community college leaders Wednesday to discuss the long-term educational impact on students of color whose final years of high school were disrupted by the pandemic.

The Center for Community College Student Engagement, or CCSSE, at The University of Texas at Austin released details from a survey about the impacts of COVID on the student experience at the onset of the pandemic in March 2020. According to the survey, Black students, particularly Black males, experienced the most challenges with accessing technology and or just having enough food for themselves and their families.

During the virtual discussion, the four panelists said more should be done to help get Black male students through college.

“We are focused intently on trying to come up with a way to think about education, the broader landscape of education, as a K-16 cycle where we know young people will need some form of postsecondary education in order to be successful,” Hite said.

The problem starts before students ever get to college.

The Philadelphia school district classifies its schools based on state standardized tests, rating them as schools on track, near track, and off track. Out of 57 high schools, only seven are considered on track. Those seven schools have the lowest percentages of Black or Latino students enrolled.

In contrast, the enrollment of off-track schools is 58% Black, 25% Latino and 7.8% white.

“How can we get them to the finish line If they’re not even here?” asked Guy Generals, president of the Community College of Philadelphia, or CCP. “How can we help them be successful if they’re not at college?”

Before the pandemic only 15% of CCP’s entire population were Black men, said Generals. Students of color struggle more upon enrolling, too. The retention rate for Black students at CCP is 30%, compared to 45% for white students. A great percentage of Black students take remedial courses in reading, writing and math; 27% of Black students compared to 13% of white students, according to Generals.

Finances, preparedness and community support are some reasons that Black male students don’t succeed, CCP’s president said.

“Those of us who are in higher ed know that even prior to the pandemic, there were equity gaps as relates to students of color versus, you know, the quote unquote, traditional or white students. And of course, this is pervasive not just in education, but in terms of job outcomes, you know, medical provisions, economics,” Generals said.

“The pandemic has exacerbated problems profoundly,” he said.

The center released a separate report on the impacts of COVID-19 on entering students in community colleges. About 5,100 first-year students from 30 colleges nationwide participated in the survey. In the survey 57% of the respondents said they didn’t know about content support services to help them cope with stress related to the pandemic. Twenty percent had had trouble accessing the internet, because it was not reliable or they just did not have it at home.

And 23% said they changed their plans about college. Maybe they planned to attend a different community college, or they originally planned to attend a four-year college or university or they just had no plans at all to attend any college or university.

“What we see with our particular students is that the majority of our students are prepared to enter college, but they’re not prepared to complete college,” said Derrick A. Perkins, director of the Center for Black Male Engagement and I Am More: Reentry Engagement program at CCP.

Kenneth Ray, Jr., vice president of Student Services and Enrollment Management for Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida, said struggling students from this past year fall into four categories: problems with finances, hard time navigating the system when campus is closed, an unwillingness or inability to take courses online, or dealing with personal issues related to the pandemic, such as illness.

“We’re doubling our efforts right now to attract low-income first-generation students. We hope to expand on these things as we move forward in recognizing how the pandemic has really impacted particularly our Black male students,” Ray said.

Perkins said in addition to programs it’s also about creating safe spaces.

“It’s important that our students in particular see the president of the institution, taking the opportunities to talk with them, particularly without the role of a president, but just as another Black male in the room and talk about those particular experiences,” he said.

What’s at stake in Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race? Educators say teaching race, racism in schools.

2021-07-26T15:01:09+00:00

Pennsylvania is poised to become another battleground in the growing fight over teaching race and racism in public schools.

Two Republican state lawmakers have introduced legislation that would constrain how schools teach the concept of race — and the conflict over critical race theory, or CRT, will likely become a key part of the upcoming Pennsylvania governor’s race.

That has a coalition of educators and politicians who oppose the efforts to put limits on teachers sounding an alarm. They worry that replacing Gov. Tom Wolf, who is considered a liberal Democrat and is term-limited, with a conservative could be the difference between such a bill passing and being vetoed.

“My fear is that Republicans have already stated publicly that this is what they’re running on in the 2022 campaign,” said Tamara Anderson, one of many local educators organizing against these attacks with Black Lives Matter Week of Action-Philly. “So this isn’t going to just go away, it’s going to continue. How prepared are we on this side, not just to go into battle, but to protect our teachers and our students’ rights? Because that is who they are threatening.”

Most K-12 schools are not actually teaching critical race theory — an academic framework for examining how laws and institutions perpetuate systemic racism. But the term has become a catchall among those who want to limit how schools teach about America’s legacy of slavery and segregation.

House Bill 1532, sponsored by two Republican state representatives, Russ Diamond and Barb Gleim, is the latest attack by conservatives on what they argue is critical race theory being taught in schools. Chalkbeat has tracked at least 27 state-level efforts attempting to restrict educators from discussing systemic racism, critical race theory, and The 1619 Project, which was published by The New York Times and developed by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones.

The Teaching Racial and Universal Equality (TRUE) Act, as the Pennsylvania bill is called, would limit how schools teach concepts related to racism. In their memorandum, the two lawmakers say schools “should be teaching that every individual is equal under the law and that no individual should ever be labeled superior or inferior simply due to their race or genetic makeup.”

Democrat State Rep. Chris Rabb argues that if Democrats do not have a solid gubernatorial candidate going into the March primary, the debate around teaching race in schools will be a major issue in the race for governor, tilting swing voters.

Wolf, whose term ends January 2023, would turn down such legislation, according to fellow Democrats. But the state has bounced from red to blue leadership — and back — over the last 20 years, so anything is up for grabs next year, including language surrounding teaching race in the classroom.

“If we have a conservative who replaces a liberal Democrat, which I would call Gov. Wolf, then this has the ability to become state law,” Rabb said.

Names floated as possible Democratic candidates for governor include Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro and Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney. On the Republican side, former congressman Lou Barletta, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Gale and former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain top the list.

Bartletta and Mastriano, who are staunch supporters of former President Donald Trump, have said publicly they do not support what they believe is critical race theory being taught in school.

“We will never, ever, ever teach critical race theory in Pennsylvania while I’m governor,” Barletta said earlier this month. “We are not going to teach children to hate each other. In fact, we are going to teach them to learn our history and be proud of our country we live in.”

Anderson, the teacher opposing the bills banning CRT, fears the mislabeling of critical race theory by conservatives will ultimately affect curriculum. She says school districts across the state could adopt language from the legislation and ban any teaching of race, including topics such as segregation, redlining, or Juneteenth.

Anderson mentions two events where concerned educators can get involved. National Weekend of Action to Teach Truth is Aug 27-29, led by the Zinn Education Project, Rethinking Schools and Black Lives Matter at School. And Oct. 14 is the national day of action, organized by the National Black Lives Matter at School. The date is George Floyd’s birthday and will address the targeting of teaching about race, Anderson said. Organizers are asking teachers in Philadelphia and across the country to “decolonize their curriculum” — by starting Saturday schools and freedom schools on the weekend, including in states that have banned CRT.

Conservatives pushing anti-CRT bills paint the framework as a threat of sorts against white Americans, said Rabb. Others have raised concerns that, without the proper guidance, academic leaders and politicians can adopt simplistic views of what it means to teach in “culturally responsive ways.”

In Rabb’s view, that is just a ploy to distract voters from other issues such as voter suppression, increasing the minimum wage, and climate change.

“This is a very sexy boogeyman because it hits all the buttons,” Rabb said, adding that the more attention the issue gets, the more likely a critical mass of Americans will believe “critical race theory is divisive as opposed to the racism and sexism that is divisive that critical race theory seeks to address in good faith.”

It’s a bitter irony, said Rabb, “because by embracing critical race theory and embracing diversity perspectives and contributions related to these matters, we can have difficult conversations in good faith to move us forward together as a society.”

But Jay McCalla, a well-known political commentator who served in the administrations of former Democratic mayors Ed Rendell and John Street, told Chalkbeat he doesn’t think critical race theory will be a big issue and will not drive Black voters in Philadelphia, who traditionally vote Democrat.

“I think it matters very much in the Republican Party who beats the drum loudest to back critical race theory, but I don’t think it’s an animating principle for Black voters,” said McCalla, who also served as former managing director for the city “We’re going to be focusing on the Democratic candidate who talks about violence and how he’s got a plan to curb gun violence.”

Pat Christmas, policy director at the Committee of Seventy, an election watchdog group in Philadelphia, says Trump and his politics will also impact the dynamic of the governor’s race.

“I think it’s fair to say his politics are very attractive to some Republican voters across the state of Pennsylvania, but very unattractive to others,” Christmas said. “Whether it’s critical race theory or education funding or election reform and voting rights. All these issues are going to be quite important.”

In the meantime, the local coalition opposing the anti-CRT legislation is also seeking to get Philadelphia’s Board of Education to take a stand, said Adam Sanchez, who teaches social studies at Central High School.

“We want the board to say that regardless of what happens in the legislature, we’re going to continue to encourage our teachers to teach about racism and teach about the truth and the past of this country,” Sanchez says.

The School District of Philadelphia is the only district in the state that requires students to take an African-American history course to graduate.

“These issues will not go away,” Rabb said. “We have to have these earnest discussions because if people think critical race theory is talking about victimization and talking about how white people are inherently bad, that is our point of reference, we’ve already lost the argument.”

Pennsylvania districts should use federal stimulus to improve teacher racial diversity, educators say

2021-07-20T22:15:07+00:00

A coalition of educators and advocates urged school districts across Pennsylvania on Tuesday to use federal stimulus money on initiatives to boost racial diversity among the state’s teaching ranks.

Coalition member Sharif El-Mekki, founder of the Center for Black Educator Development in Philadelphia, recently began a national campaign to improve the number of Black teachers after finding only 2% of U.S. teachers are Black men.

“All students benefit from increased teacher diversity,” El-Mekki said Tuesday during the group’s virtual news conference, sponsored by the ESSA Leadership Learning Community, or ELLC. “They are better prepared to participate as informed and engaged citizens in an inclusive national civic culture and increasingly complex world. Pennsylvania’s teacher pipeline begins at the K-12 level and extends through college, certification, and entrance into the teacher profession. The pipeline ends at teacher retention. We must examine all levels of Pennsylvania’s teacher pipeline as it loses teachers of color at each stage.”

The host of Tuesday’s virtual event, Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh President and CEO Esther Bush, said the Pennsylvania coalition seeks more funding in three areas: building lasting and equitable systems of teaching and learning; safely reopening schools for all students; and addressing pre- and post-pandemic unfinished learning.

Bush noted that 184 school districts in Pennsylvania have no teachers of color.

According to the group, Pennsylvania has one of the highest disparities in the nation between students and teachers of color. For almost a decade, the percentage of teachers of color has been below 6% while the percentage of students of color has increased from approximately 30% to 36%. Also, male teachers of color comprise only slightly more than 1% of Pennsylvania teachers.

School District of Philadelphia Chief Talent Officer Larisa Shambaugh and Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Anthony Hamlet said their districts are committed to using American Rescue Plan funds to continue to build programs and partnerships to prepare more diverse students to enter the teaching profession.

In March, Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite announced plans to spend nearly $1.3 billion from the relief money on building repairs and upgrades, academic recovery programs, and programs and personnel to help students deal with trauma resulting from the pandemic. He called the money “unprecedented,” but cautioned that the district is limited in what it can do with the funds, which will run out in three years.

When the district later announced that it was seeking to recruit up to 900 teachers, school officials said they would like to see their teacher workforce mirror the district’s student demographics. More than 70% of the district’s students are Black and Latino, yet district teachers are predominantly white. Black teachers make up 24.5% of the district’s 9,100 teachers, while white teachers make up 67% of the teacher population, according to data on the district’s website.

Studies show that having culturally relevant educators improves scholastic outcomes for all demographic groups while also alleviating teacher shortages. But leaders who spoke at Tuesday’s news conference said targeted funding is critical for that to happen.

“The American Rescue Plan for Education offers an incredible opportunity for schools and districts to invest in education diversity efforts as school leaders can use these funds to recruit and hire educators of color and mentor students of color as they consider becoming educators,” said Pennsylvania Deputy Secretary of Higher Education Tanya Garcia. “The Pennsylvania Department of Education is working with educators and partners across the commonwealth to support this work and the development of competencies needed to provide culturally relevant and sustaining instruction.”

Cheyney University, a historically Black university in Delaware County, is partnering with PDE and Community College of Philadelphia under a statewide initiative called Aspire to Educate. In Cheyney’s version, students can attend community college for two years and then transfer to Cheyney for their final two years to earn their degree.

“The idea is to get teachers of color back into the pipeline,” said Cheyney President Aaron A. Walton. “We are also attracting people who left college before graduation and may want to come back and switch to a teaching career. In both cases, we are reestablishing the pipeline. These partnerships among educational institutions make this program work.”

Pennsylvania Association of Colleges and Teacher Educators (PACTE) President Gwen Price cited programs at Temple, LaSalle, Edinboro and Slippery Rock Universities that have formed teacher development partnerships, including dual enrollment programs, with area school districts.

“We must find ways to recruit candidates that are representative of a student population that will endeavor to serve,” Price said. “The recruitment must start early, defining the pivotal role that educators play in the development of young minds, redefining the perception of public education as a career, finding financial incentives and support to make the pathway to becoming a teacher more enticing and removing the barriers known to disproportionately keep underrepresented groups from entering the field.”

All of the speakers at Tuesday’s virtual event are members of the Pennsylvania Educator Diversity Consortium. Speakers represented the following agencies and organizations: Pennsylvania Department of Education, Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh, Center for Black Educator Development, School District of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, and the Pennsylvania Association of Colleges and Teacher Educators.

“We need to take seriously the implications of our diverse students never seeing a teacher who looks like them in their schooling experience,” said Valerie Kinloch, the Renee and Richard Goldman Dean at the University of Pittsburgh. “We can’t take for granted that because you are a person of color means that you are innately culturally responsive, and since our white teachers are in the majority, we need to ensure that they have the tools they need to educate students of color and white students for a diverse world.”

District extends deadline for Philadelphia students opting to repeat a grade

2021-07-16T00:28:15+00:00

The Philadelphia School District will give families more time to request that their children repeat a grade, Superintendent William Hite announced at a Thursday Board of Education meeting.

The new deadline to complete the necessary paperwork will be announced soon. Hite said the district is “continuing to accept forms from families.” Previously, the deadline to submit the paperwork was Thursday.

On June 30, Gov. Tom Wolf signed Act 66, which let parents opt for their children to repeat a grade following two school years disrupted by the pandemic. The law also allows 21-year-old students with Individualized Education Programs one extra year of instruction before they age out of the system. The extension will only apply to Philadelphia, although other Pennsylvania districts are permitted to grant extensions.

Act 66, which passed the General Assembly unanimously, granted families just over two weeks to return the paperwork. But forms didn’t become available on the state and district websites until July 6, narrowing the window. And translations of the form — for the 13% of students in the district who are English language learners — didn’t go up until Tuesday. (Families who need translations can click the gray “Translate” button at the top right corner of the webpage.)

Many families also had trouble filling out the form, which must be printed out, filled out by hand, scanned, and emailed back to the district. To address parent concerns, the district began offering print copies at district headquarters — 440 N. Broad St.

Officials and special education advocates have made extensive efforts to reach families who are most likely to benefit from the law but are the least likely to know about it. The district sent out texts, emails, and robocalls to inform them about the new legislation. And activists such as Anna Perng, a co-founder of the Chinatown Disability Advocacy Project, have been fielding calls, helping families understand the pros and cons of repeating a year.

Perng commended the district for granting families more time.

“The district’s decision to provide an extension is the right call, especially since normal retention policies would not apply to students with disabilities who aged out of the education system,” Perng said. “I hope all 499 other Pennsylvania school districts will follow Philadelphia’s lead.”

No more window fans: District unveils air and surface purifiers for Philadelphia classrooms

2021-07-15T21:08:40+00:00

Following a contentious year where Philadelphia teachers threatened to strike over ventilation problems in school buildings, Superintendent William Hite announced Thursday that all classrooms will have air and surface purifiers when school starts in the fall.

The safety of the city’s aging buildings became a key issue earlier this year in the debate about students returning to school for the first time since March 2020. After the district bought 3,000 window fans to improve air circulation, parents and teachers widely criticized the move on social media. Some even suggested that the fans were dangerous.

District officials said Thursday the fans won’t be used anymore. Instead, the district will use $4.5 million in COVID relief money to pay for air and surface purifiers.

“When students return to in-person learning our families, staff and students can be confident that we are taking the necessary steps to prioritize their health and well-being,” Hite said at a press conference at Juniata Park Academy in the lower Northeast. “These air and surface purifiers will be at every school and every instructional space, as well as larger spaces that accommodate people.”

Chief Operating Officer Reggie McNeil said the air purifiers can eliminate 99% of the virus “within three minutes.” A Texas company manufactures the purifiers, using technology “originally developed for NASA,” according to a press release.

Hite also noted that a virtual, asynchronous schooling option will be available for families who are not comfortable with in-person instruction. He said parents will be given the chance to choose that option later this summer.

The superintendent was also joined by union leaders representing the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, Local 634 and 32BJ SEIU. PFT President Jerry Jordan appeared pleased with the new devices, though teachers were not made aware of them.

“It is going to solve any dispute about the need for ventilation in our school buildings for the children and for the staff,” Jordan said. “It also is something that the parents and the local community will see as another layer of support in mitigating the virus.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released updated guidance last week for grades kindergarten to 12th, which prioritized the safe return of all students to in-person learning and said vaccinated students and staff members don’t need to wear masks. But district officials said the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health are currently reviewing the latest guidance, along with local COVID-19 conditions, and will issue any new updated safety guidance to schools soon.

Monica Lewis, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia school district, shows how the district’s new air and surface purifiers will work in classrooms.

The federal agency is continuing to recommend physical distancing of at least three feet, though if that’s not practically feasible, officials say that shouldn’t get in the way of fully reopening school buildings. Children not yet old enough for the vaccine should wear masks, according to the guidance.

Hite said the district will continue to follow CDC protocol and “will still require face masks for all entering schools” for in-person learning in the fall.

Teachers protested in February and argued they didn’t want to return until they were convinced the buildings were safe. They said the use of window fans was not enough. School officials, however, defended the fans and stressed the measure was just one of several being taken to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

About 9,000 students from pre-kindergarten through second grade elected to attend in-person school two days a week starting in March after a third-party mediator determined the city’s schools were safe.

District officials said Thursday that other improvements have been made to aging schools.

“Since last summer, we have removed the equivalent of more than 20 miles of asbestos containing material from our schools,” McNeil said.

Philadelphia school officials face community questions over school start time upheaval

2021-07-15T16:24:26+00:00

Before the pandemic, Philadelphia schools had 28 different start times, Danielle Floyd, general manager for transportation, told parents and community members at a district webinar Wednesday.

Student rides could be as long as 90 minutes, and late buses were common, she said. During the last full in-person school year, the district transported 41,000 students — from district, charter and private schools, as required by state law — on 2,000 routes to 500 different locations in Philadelphia and surrounding counties.

In 2019, officials began the complicated process of standardizing times into a more manageable order.

But, the pandemic disrupted all of it. More than 300 bus drivers retired or resigned in the last 19 months, Floyd said.

“With significant reduction of staffing, we simply did not have enough personnel to operate at a pre-pandemic level without increasing ride times for students,” she said.

Last week, the district unveiled a new bell schedule with three main start times — 7:30 a.m., 8:15 a.m., and 9:00 a.m. The blowback was immediate from parents, principals and teachers.

Wednesday, Floyd and Evelyn Nuñez, Chief of Schools, answered community questions via two webinars.

“What this model allows is using a vehicle up to three times daily,” Floyd said. In cases of breakdown or unexpected driver absences buses not on a regular route can be quickly dispatched, she said. The new schedule will also allow for consistent cleaning of high-touch areas on buses between runs.

In the face of the complaints about the start time changes, the district presented the new policy as “an effort to create experiences that best meet the educational needs of all students and efficiently address our operational needs.”

Nuñez said they realized the new schedule presented problems, not the least of which is starting most high schools at 7:30 a.m., but they said it is the best they could do this year.

More frustrating for some parents, most of the students the district transports by bus, van or cab don’t even go to district schools.

Of the 41,000 students the district transports every day, only 13,500 attend district-run schools district officials confirmed. The rest attend charter and private schools.

“They are rearranging the whole schedule for a tiny minority of students,” said parent Stephanie King.

Under state law, the district must transport students from grades one through six to schools up to 10 miles outside the city. Eligible students must live more than a mile and a half from the school they attend. Older students get free SEPTA Key cards to use public buses, trolleys and trains.

State law requires school districts to provide transportation for charter school students who meet the criteria. It does not require districts to provide transportation for its own students, but if it does, it must also transport private school students, the law says.

Floyd and Nuñez said that the bell schedule changes were made in consultation with principals and school communities, although the head of the principals’ union, Robin Cooper, said that the school leaders were “blindsided” by the decision to offer just three main start times to schools - resulting in many schools changing their starts.

Many complaints centered on the earlier start times for high schools, most of which are scheduled to start at 7:30 a.m. This goes against the advice of the American Association of Pediatrics, which calls lack of sleep for adolescents a “public health problem.”

Nuñez said the long-term goal for the district was to “follow the science” for optimal learning conditions in setting schedules, but explained that this year it was not possible.

Most high school students do not ride yellow buses, so several participants in the webinar asked why they needed to start so early. Floyd said that this was due to Philadelphia having a “transient” population.

“Students may enroll at any given time at a later date during the course of the year that may require transportation, and it would be challenging to change the schedule mid-year,” she said.

Officials were also cognizant that many older students had jobs after high school and were responsible for picking up younger siblings, Nuñez said.

“We have made these changes for the upcoming year, but beginning in late September we will continue to have forums like this with various stakeholders to start planning early for the 2022-23 school year,” she said. “If we work collaboratively, we can figure this out.”

Schools are scheduled to start on Aug. 31. Start times were posted on the website last week and then removed. As of Thursday morning, they had not been updated.

Effort widens in Philadelphia to inform families about option for students to repeat a grade

2021-07-14T00:48:14+00:00

With Thursday’s deadline looming for families to decide whether they want their children to repeat a grade after the pandemic stunted learning for so many students, the Philadelphia school district and others are scrambling to inform parents about their options and help them complete the necessary paperwork.

Advocates for non-English-speaking parents are working tirelessly to reach families who are most likely to benefit from the new state law, but the least likely to know about it. These efforts come despite unanswered questions about how student retention will affect enrollment for the upcoming school year, which is scheduled to start Aug. 31.

On June 30, Gov. Tom Wolf signed Act 66, which gives parents until July 15 to make what could be a life-changing decision. But full information and forms didn’t go up on the state and district websites until July 6, essentially making that two-week window even tighter.

In Philadelphia, where 13% of students are English language learners and they and their families speak 166 languages, the district recently launched large-scale outreach efforts and addressed barriers to accessing the necessary paperwork.

“The School District of Philadelphia has worked to ensure our families were informed of this law and are aware of their options,” district spokesperson Monica Lewis said. “Information was posted on the district website and social media platforms, as well as each school’s website.”

Lewis said the district has also partnered with more than 200 organizations to get the word out — though she did not provide a list of those organizations.

Parents like Syrita Powers, who has three daughters with disabilities, had trouble last week accessing the online form, which must be printed out, filled out by hand, scanned, and emailed back to the district.

“I’m computer illiterate,” Powers said, adding that she doesn’t own a printer.

To accommodate parents like Powers, the district on Monday made print copies of the form available at district headquarters, 440 N. Broad St. It has also sent texts, emails, and robocalls citywide to inform parents about the new law.

As of Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Department of Education had translated the form into 100 languages. (Families who need translations can click the gray “Translate” button at the top right corner of the webpage.)

Advocates have applauded the new law and the district’s recent efforts to promote it, but caution that the outreach efforts don’t go far enough to ensure that the city’s most vulnerable students are able to take advantage of their new options.

Anna Perng, the co-founder of the Chinatown Disability Advocacy Project, has been on the front lines trying to raise awareness about the law. For the past two weeks, she’s fielded calls from families who have struggled to fill out the forms online, or couldn’t understand the law because their first language isn’t English.

“I was very concerned about how we would reach some of the students and families who would most benefit from this law,” Perng said.

Perng hosted a trilingual webinar — in Mandarin, American Sign Language, and English — to inform parents about their expanded options, and discuss the pros and cons of having their children repeat a year.

It’s a tough decision for many families, Perng said. Although the district is spending millions in COVID-19 relief money to address pandemic-related learning losses through enhanced summer programs, tutoring and additional after-school activities, Perng said some students fell so far behind — due to spotty or no internet, lack of special education services, and the demands of making a living during the pandemic — that repeating a year is their only chance to catch up.

For Megawati Jennings, opting to have her son repeat ninth grade was an easy decision. Jennings said she would help her son, who has an intellectual disability and requires specialized support services, get situated every morning before virtual school started. But with a full-time job, she couldn’t watch him all day.

“Once you leave them alone, they might be doing something else,” Jennings said. “They’re watching TV, playing games.”

Like Powers, she had trouble filling out the form when it became available last week, and sought Perng’s help.

Perng commends the district’s effort to reach families, but says more could be done. She said she would have liked the district to host a publicly available webinar for families to learn about their options. And she’s concerned that, although families can fill out Act 66 forms at district headquarters, officials don’t mention that on the website.

The district’s website does say, however, that neighborhood schools at capacity might not be able to accommodate students who repeat a grade, so some students may have to switch schools. And students at citywide admission schools who decide to repeat a year will need to either switch schools or reapply to their current school.

Perng said the lack of clarity on those issues has created a lot of stress for families already making a time-sensitive decision.

“While I am glad that the School District and PDE have made changes day by day, I think it is important for the education community to really reflect on what we learned from COVID-19 and apply those lessons to what’s happening now,” Perng said. “We cannot build back better education systems when we continue to design processes that exclude historically excluded communities.”

Suburban Philadelphia district’s equity initiative provokes anger over critical race theory

2021-06-17T23:20:10+00:00

Bessie Cunningham is 99 years old, and it is still painful for her to talk about why she never got beyond the sixth grade.

“I blocked it out of my mind. I didn’t want to remember nothing about it,” she told local historian Bertha Jackmon in an interview recorded May 25.

Between 1932 and 1934, Cunningham was among more than 200 Black children in the suburban Philadelphia townships of Tredyffrin and Easttown (yes, that Easttown) who were kept out of school by their parents to protest a board of education decision to segregate schools that until then had been integrated. The board denied them the chance to attend a newly built school that had been paid for in part with their tax dollars, declaring that students would be better off taught by a Black teacher “with their own kind” in the old building.

The so-called Berwyn School Fight was a defining moment in the area’s history, hailed as helping to lay the groundwork for Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed school segregation 20 years later. Last November, it was commemorated with a historical marker at Mt. Zion A.M.E. Church, which served as a meeting place for the Black parents organizing the boycott.

The present-day Tredyffrin-Easttown school district — affluent, mostly white and Asian American — has sought to grapple with its past and present, embarking on an equity initiative in 2018 to retrain teachers, reframe curriculum, and promote classroom discussions about race and racism. Now, that effort is being attacked by some parents and community members as promoting critical race theory, an academic framework that studies how policies and the law perpetuate systemic racism. Conservatives have recently associated the term, as well as efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, with leftist political indoctrination.

Like in most school districts, data show that the district’s Black students (2.6% of the enrollment, according to state data) are more likely to be disciplined than their peers and less likely to be in advanced courses, among other troubling markers.

Historical marker stands in front of Mt Zion AME church, noting the Berwyn School Fight. The church is where Black families met to fight segregation efforts by the Tredyffrin and Easttown school districts in the 1930s.

“Every person’s authentic identity should be valued,” said Board of Education President Michele Burger at the unveiling of the historical marker, drawing direct ties between that fight and today. “We must eliminate barriers to racial equity.”

Monday night, as the board was scheduled to vote on an appropriation to continue the equity effort, more than 100 people jammed into the Conestoga High School auditorium at its first in-person meeting in more than a year.

“The fundamental mission of our school district must remain the success of all students,” said Superintendent Richard Gusick to open the meeting, discussing an equity statement adopted unanimously last October by the board. “When families and students express that their experiences... are at times negatively impacted due to race, I must remain committed to listening and being open to the fact that my own lens as a white male is broadened through hearing multiple racial perspectives.

“We must all be willing, myself included, to look with a critical eye how racial differences play out in our schools.”

Gusick’s statement was greeted with prolonged applause, but a vocal minority of the 29 people who spoke said the initiative was dividing the community and damaging children.

A few said that systemic racism doesn’t exist.

“I haven’t seen it,” said Gene Tompkins, who said he lived in the district for 40 years. “Quite the opposite. I don’t think you have proof of what you say. Show me the proof.”

Several parents, who are immigrants from China, compared the district’s equity initiative with the political indoctrination and violent persecution of the decade-long Chinese Cultural Revolution, from which they fled many years ago.

“Based on my personal and family experiences, there’s no systemic discrimination against any race in the states,” said Ying Yayne, who has lived here for 20 years.

Pennsylvania is among the more than 20 states that has introduced legislation limiting the discussion of race or bias in classrooms. In five states the bills have been signed into law. The bill was introduced by Rep. Russ Diamond of Lebanon and Rep. Barbara Gleim of Cumberland, both Republicans, who declared that “teaching our children that they are inferior or inherently bad based on immutable characteristics, such as race or sex, can be extremely damaging to their emotional and mental well-being.”

Many of the speakers, even some who acknowledged that racism does exist, raised questions about the Pacific Educational Group, the outside organization running the district’s antiracism initiative. They said they were being denied access to curricular materials.

“We are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to teach racism,” parent Alicia Geerlings told the board. “It’s wrong. Our kids are afraid, they are anxious. If you have somebody in kindergarten that learns you’re the oppressor or the oppressed based on your skin color, how are they going to make friends?”

But several speakers described their own experiences with racism and discrimination.

“Before you adopted this amazing program...my children were called the N-word every day,” said parent Anita Friday. “There were scars they continue to experience. I truly applaud the work you’ve done so children who look like mine don’t have to cry, don’t have to feel ‘less than.’”

Friday’s children attended schools in the district years ago, but Un Kyong Ho described something that happened this month, at Valley Forge Middle School’s graduation. Her daughter, who is Asian American and white, she said, was sitting among “a group of white boys who spent the ceremony making fun of their peers with South Asian, East Asian, African and Middle Eastern and other non-western names, as well as their trans and LGBTQ peers.”

Opposing the district’s initiative, she said, “is protecting the right of your children to diminish and dehumanize their peers who they perceive as different from themselves. I commend the district for this commitment...I personally have been waiting my whole life for this.”

Rising junior Anish Garimidi said that he and his friends “have experienced racism from students and from teachers. The diversity work has been a boon for students of color like me who want to have these conversations...systemic racism is real and plain for all to see.”

Amer Sajet, a board member of the state American Civil Liberties Union, urged the accurate teaching of history. “When I grew up in Pakistan, all we learned about was what a great job Pakistanis are doing, we never learned about India. We were brainwashed by what we were taught in public school.”

Dante Coles, a former student and now a parent, referenced the 1619 Project, which reframes American history from the time the first enslaved Africans were brought to colonial Virginia. “Now, people are taught only certain things about history, things chosen by people who don’t look like me...a lot of white people really don’t want to learn the truth about America.”

Burger, the board president, calmly quelled occasional outbursts from those in the crowd. “You may not shout, you may not get up and yell,” she said at one point. At the end, she reiterated that the board, as part of its consent agenda, would be “approving workshops to continue our equity initiative. We are doing nothing that addresses critical race theory.”

Bertha Jackmon stands inside the sanctuary of Mt. Zion AME Church, which was the center of a desegregation fight in the 1930s. She is the church’s historian.

She added: “What’s dangerous is when we stop listening. That is the work that is taking place in classrooms, having conversations, showing respect for each other, and trying to understand someone else’s experiences.”

Rev. Scott Dorsey, one of the two Black members of the board, drew a direct connection from the meeting to the district’s past.

“Tonight’s conversation, though it may be uncomfortable, was well needed,” he said. “As a matter of fact, it’s eighty years too late; 1932 is real. You don’t have to go through the history books to see racism in other places, we had it right here.”

Cunningham and Esther Long, 97, are the only known student survivors of the 1930s school boycott, according to Jackmon, Mt. Zion’s historian. Staying out of school for so long “had a terrible impact on my life,” Long said in an interview Tuesday, although she is proud that she managed to catch up, graduate high school, and become a nurse.

She feels that she and the other students “paved the way” for others to have more opportunities. “We laid the foundation so that things could be better for them,” she said.

The Black parents during the school fight ultimately prevailed, with the help of the NAACP and famed Philadelphia attorney Raymond Pace Alexander. Though it would seem that the law was on their side — the state school code clearly prohibited school districts from making “any distinction whatever” due to race — the case dragged on for two years, during which many parents were fined and jailed for truancy.

Still, they held out. Finally, the state attorney general, who was running for governor, agreed to settle in a bid for Black voters. Students could resume going to school with white students.

But many, like Cunningham, never went back, embarrassed to be put in classes with much younger children. “Not that I couldn’t keep up,” she said. “But they wouldn’t let me.”

And at the age when she should have been reading books and doing her arithmetic, making friends and being a girl, she was instead “on my hands and knees,” scrubbing the cement floor in a white woman’s house down the street for 25 cents a day.

“I didn’t play with nobody,” she said. “I worked.”

Despite that, she says her life has been blessed. She raised five children and for many years worked for the Burroughs Corporation, which had three local plants for the manufacture of early computer systems.

Cunningham said the experience of the boycott, and how it made her feel eight decades ago, still resonates inside her. “I don’t know whoever started that ‘You’re Black and I’m white.’ I’m a person, so are you. God created all men equal, it’s what the Bible said.”

Said Jackmon, the historian: “Even with the advances, institutional and structural racism is still in place. I would say the school fight continues.”

Pennsylvania used to reward child care workers for furthering their education. The pandemic changed that.

2021-06-15T21:33:31+00:00

For years, around 9,000 Pennsylvania child care workers received money from the state in recognition that they’d earned additional credentials. The award — the median amount was $1,500 — was a bonus of sorts, meant to keep qualified early childhood workers in a field marked by low pay and high turnover.

But during the pandemic, the “education and retention awards” disappeared when the state reallocated the funds to give $600 relief payments to a much larger pool of child care workers.

Some early childhood leaders and former award recipients are frustrated by the move, saying the shift hurt child care teachers and directors who worked hard to further their education and marks a retreat in the state’s efforts to boost child care quality. While state officials argue that the $600 relief award benefited many more workers during a time of great need, advocates say the amount was meager — in some cases amounting to only $320 after taxes.

Now, as Pennsylvania officials decide how to divvy up more than a billion in federal aid for early childhood efforts, many in the field want the education and retention awards restored. A new report by a coalition of early childhood groups notes that providers at all 12 of the group’s recent public forums spoke about wanting the awards to continue.

“It just goes to show this is an issue that’s really important to the workforce right now, at a time when labor shortage is the main story on every newspaper page,” said Mai Miksic, early childhood policy director for Public Citizens for Children and Youth, a coalition member.

Samantha Rodriguez, originally a teacher and now the director at The Children’s Playhouse Early Learning Center in Philadelphia’s Newbold neighborhood, first got the education and retention award after earning her bachelor’s degree in 2019. She said the switch from awards based on education to awards that went to almost everyone felt unfair.

“So many years of schooling and this is what I get?” said Rodriquez, a single mom who attended classes at night to earn her degree.

In fiscal year 2019-20, about 9,200 child care teachers and directors across Pennsylvania received education and retention awards, in amounts ranging from $290 to $4,120. Recipients could apply for the awards annually for earning certain kinds of credentials, such as an associate’s degree, a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree in early childhood education.

The amount of the award depended on their role, hours, level of education, and their facility’s state rating. Employees were eligible if they worked for child care providers with one of the top three state ratings — Star 2, Star 3 or Star 4. They also had to have worked at their child care job for 12 consecutive months and couldn’t earn more than $40,000 a year as teachers or $50,000 as directors.

Diane Barber, executive director of the Pennsylvania Child Care Association, said the awards — often called ERA — have been tweaked over their 17-year-history, but “were always there to help acknowledge people staying in a field that was underpaid but also for achieving educational milestones.”

She called the elimination of the awards during the pandemic “demoralizing” and said by taking money from one group of workers to spread more thinly among a larger group, “it pitted the industry against itself.”

Officials from the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services declined an interview request from Chalkbeat to discuss the education and retention award program, but provided written answers to some questions.

They said they haven’t analyzed whether the program helped stabilize the early childhood workforce and reduce staff turnover, but have heard anecdotally from providers that those goals were met.

Asked if the program will be reinstated, they wrote “Plans for next year have not been finalized” and that efforts to recruit and retain child care workers will be priorities as the state spends $1.2 billion in early childhood funding from the federal American Rescue Plan pot.

While it’s clear that the $600 relief payments helped more child care workers — about 38,000 — compared with the education and retention awards, what’s fuzzier is whether those smaller payments made a difference in recipients’ lives.

Barber said after taxes, the relief payments may not have even covered a month of auto insurance in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, she estimated that some child care employees lost 9% to 14% of their annual income by not receiving their usual education and retention awards.

Both education and retention awards and the $600 relief payments are considered taxable income, according to state officials.

Asked if the $600 awards had the desired impact, state officials wrote, “We are grateful to have had the funding available to distribute to all eligible child care workers who, while experiencing a pandemic and its economic impacts, showed up daily to provide care for children.”

Mary Graham, executive director of the top-rated Children’s Village in Philadelphia, said typically, more than half of her 44 staff members qualified for the education and retention awards.

She said the program was an incentive for staff to seek more training: “Hey, go back to school. You’ll get a raise here and you’ll be eligible for the ERA award.”

Graham believes the awards reduced turnover at Children’s Village, where some staff members have stayed on for decades. Teachers there were “very disappointed” when the awards were eliminated this year, she said.

“If your goal in the state is to have high quality, why would you take away the supports for high quality?” she said.

Reopening plans, antiracism, and mental health: Philadelphia students discuss education issues with superintendent

2021-06-10T21:36:12+00:00

As high school students during the COVID-19 pandemic, Nia Weeks, Kara Butler, Kaitlyn Rodriguez, and Shamir Britt-Holmes had to acclimate to virtual learning like all of their peers. But as student journalists during the historic school year, they also chronicled the struggles of their classmates, teachers, and administrators — many of whom they’ve never met in person.

At a Chalkbeat Philadelphia virtual event Wednesday night, the students turned their questions to Superintendent William Hite. They asked about a variety of topics, including summer learning, vaccine requirements, antiracism and equity initiatives, and ongoing issues with building conditions throughout the district.

With Friday marking the end of a landmark school year, Hite reflected on 15 months of uncertainty caused by the pandemic and discussed plans for the next academic year.

Listen to their in-depth discussion here or view below.

Here’s a recap of Hite’s remarks:

Vaccines and Personal Protective Equipment

District officials announced three weeks ago that they’re planning full-time in-person learning in the fall for all students who choose that option. (The district will also offer an all virtual option). Hite said Wednesday night that, currently, vaccines are not required for teachers or students because the district cannot compel individuals to get a vaccine approved specifically for emergency use.

“We don’t have any information yet that that is likely to change” by the fall, Hite said.

The district will still require all students and staff to be tested for COVID-19 on a regular basis until the “vast majority” of students and school personnel are vaccinated, Hite said Wednesday.

Teaching staff will also have a substantial number of masks available at each school in the fall and when summer school starts June 28, Hite added. Masks will be required in Philadelphia schools until the CDC loosens its guidelines.

Summer Learning

The district has introduced an especially robust summer learning program this year to provide enrichment to K-12 students who fell behind during the pandemic. There will be two main options: a fifth marking period for students who either didn’t pass at least one quarter or failed to meet graduation requirements, and a variety of targeted enrichment programs.

Areas of study this summer will range from foreign language to math to special programs for students with disabilities, Hite said.

Based on grades, 14,000 students are eligible for the fifth grading period, and Hite expects up to 20,000 students to enroll in the district’s summer enrichment programs — four times the enrollment of previous years.

Still, he said, “we’re not gonna make up for the time that we lost over the last year and a half over the summer or even over a year.” The district plans to use coronavirus relief money from the federal government to “recover some of the lost and interrupted learning” from the pandemic over the next three years. That money will cover before- and after-school care, and various other enrichment programs.

Antiracism

The district has introduced a number of equity-focused initiatives after the police killings of Walter Wallace and George Floyd, which Hite said “brought to light work that we need to do more broadly in the district to ensure that we were not operating as a racist institution.”

The district created an equity coalition in September to examine district policies, ensure that the district has appropriate data to evaluate those policies, and communicate findings and policy changes to the public.

The district also introduced eight equity fellows, four of whom are students, to work with officials to ensure that all of their policy prescriptions are antiracist.

Ventilation and building conditions

The district has made significant investments in facilities upgrades since school buildings emptied last March due to COVID-19, Hite said.

Throughout the past 15 months, district contractors have removed 250,000 feet of asbestos and remediated other hazards, including lead paint and mold. Moving forward, Hite said, every classroom will be measured for ventilation to ensure that appropriate air quality standards are met.

The district plans to spend $325 million of its $1.3 billion in federal coronavirus relief money on facilities work, and Hite said the district will release information about those remediation efforts to the public.

“One of the things we’re trying to do is make sure that we make public information that’s helpful to the public,” Hite said.

Mental Health

Between losing loved ones and being isolated from their friends, many students have struggled with their mental health since the pandemic began last March.

“I’ve had so many mental highs and mental lows even to the point of breaking down,” Rodriguez said.

The district has introduced a number of behavioral and mental health interventions. Starting this year, Hite said the district is taking an approach to student mental health called “healing together,” where students have gotten the chance to talk about their emotions and feelings of isolation.

That approach extends to teachers as well.

“Educators were also experiencing trauma,” Hite said. “Some severely missed young people.”

Council members push agenda to stem gun violence among Philadelphia youth

2021-06-02T00:30:43+00:00

Calling gun violence among youth in Philadelphia an epidemic, seven city council members urged Mayor Jim Kenney to treat the problem as a public health crisis and use at least $50 million of the city’s federal stimulus funds to significantly increase spending and coordinate programs for young people.

At a press conference held at the Hawthorne Recreation Center in Queen Village, council members, clergy and advocates repeatedly called addressing the city’s escalating gun violence a matter of racial and social justice, and said the city wasn’t investing enough.

“This anti-violence agenda makes clear, we are targeting resources where they are needed the most,” said Council member Helen Gym, chair of the City Council Committee on Children and Youth, which spent months meeting with young people as well as educators, policymakers, community leaders and medical professionals before issuing a report called a “youth-powered anti-violence agenda.”

In these meetings, young people made clear “we are not reaching them where they need to be,” she said — in programs run by people they trust that offer conflict resolution strategies, deal with trauma, and provide employment.

“Meaningfully addressing gun violence requires us to center the voices of those with direct experience,” said Gym. “Those who live in the most impacted communities know what they need best.”

The committee’s report said that with $1.4 billion coming to the city through the American Recovery Act, gun violence should be treated as “an epidemic that demands an emergency response.” The $50 million is a “minimum,” Gym said.

“We have a historic opportunity with the American Recovery Act to make meaningful investments in these life-saving initiatives,” said Council member Jamie Gauthier. “I hope we use this infusion of funds as an opportunity to reflect the fact that eradicating gun violence is a public safety priority, a public health priority, and a racial justice priority all wrapped into one.”

The report said that the city’s attention on stemming violence among youth should be addressed through “a trauma-centered public health and community-building lens, not through punishment and surveillance.”

The $50 million in federal funds should be used to expand programming for youth, fund more trauma counseling, guarantee summer jobs, and provide stable funding for community groups that have a track record of stemming violence through conflict resolution and restorative justice approaches. The city should also keep open recreation centers until midnight and staff them with trained counselors, the committee said.

Money should be targeted to the 10 zip codes and 25 schools in the city that are most affected, according to the report.

The $50 million would cover the council committee’s youth-focused agenda. A coalition of faith-based communities also are calling for a $100 million investment in anti-violence programs generally. “We cannot let the gun violence epidemic rage out of control,” said Rev. Robert Collier, president of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia, noting that there have been 500 gun deaths this year in the city and 2,249 shootings.

“Nothing is more important to the mayor and this administration than reducing gun violence and saving lives – especially the lives of innocent children,” said a statement from Kenney’s office. Many of the committee’s recommendations are already in the proposed budget, particularly those to increase summer job opportunities for youth, it said.

“We’re also working on a citywide, interagency response to deploy trauma supports for victims of violence, expand grant funding for anti-violence youth programs run by community partners, and much more,” the statement said. The mayor and council are currently in negotiations to finalize next year’s budget and five-year spending plan.

In its report, the council committee also urges rejection of Kenney’s proposal in his next budget to cut wage and business taxes. They noted that the budget for the Parks and Recreation Department has been cut over the past several years.

Since January, 2020, 822 people under the age of 21 have been injured or killed by gun violence, and half those incidents involved youth connected to 25 high schools in the city, according to district data. Eight are district-run neighborhood high schools, six are charter schools (including one cyber school), and 11 are alternative schools, most run by private providers, for students who have fallen behind academically for disciplinary or other reasons.

Of that group, two-thirds were not actively enrolled in school, either because they graduated, dropped out, were sent to placement, transferred, “or were otherwise disconnected,” Gym said. “That’s why we are focused on schools and institutions and unpacking exactly what it is we must do to coordinate among schools most deeply involved as well as finding strategies to re-engage with youth.”

The impact on schools can be devastating, said Le’Yondo Dunn, principal of Gratz High School in Nicetown, a former district school now run by Mastery Charter.

“In one terrible week this year two months ago, my school community lost two students within a 24-hour time period,” said Dunn. “In that same week, a recent alumnus was killed, and another student was injured by gun violence. Can you imagine that week for my students, my staff, my families? It was a heart wrenching experience...this should not be the lived experience for our students and their families.”

Council member Kendra Brooks, who lives in Nicetown and, like Gym, started her public life as an education advocate, described a night not long ago when one of her daughters came to tell her something.

“She said ‘you remember such-and-such, whose son’s birthday party was Saturday?’...She said, ‘he was killed last night’….when the shootings happen down the block, I know the faces on both sides.”

Funneling more resources into law enforcement and incarceration is not the answer, she said. “Time and time again, hundreds of millions of dollars does nothing for Black and brown communities most harmed by gun violence.”

Two members of the Board of Education, Angela McIver and Reginald Streater, gave brief remarks. After reading a statement from the board, McIver noted that last week she was the lone vote against the district’s budget because it was spending only $9 million on athletics and $30 million on school safety officers. “How we allocate our resources says everything about what we believe about our children, what we believe about who they are and what they deserve,” she said.

Philadelphia board and superintendent vow to combat racist practices in schools

2021-05-28T20:05:23+00:00

Superintendent William Hite told the Board of Education Thursday that embedded racist practices in schools are holding back Black and Latino students.

Black and Latino students are far less likely to qualify for admission to the district’s most selective schools and far more likely to be suspended for disciplinary infractions, Hite told the board. In the district’s most racially and economically segregated schools, far fewer students of all backgrounds meet special admissions standards.

“The district does not provide equitable opportunities for students to access academic rigor in the early grades and be prepared for secondary and postsecondary success,” Hite said in a presentation to the board as part of its effort to focus its attention on the quality of its academics, called “goals and guardrails.”

The meeting focused on the fourth guardrail, “addressing racist practices,” and looked at two areas: the admissions process for magnet schools and disciplinary practices.

“Acknowledging and addressing structural racism and holding individuals accountable to their implicit and unconscious biases have not been historically addressed and prioritized by the district,” the presentation said.

Hite said his administration plans to develop an “equity lens” by next month through which “to examine our systems and policies and ensure they are anti-racist.” Actions will include training staff members to recognize “implicit bias” and ensure that “all staff make decisions aligned with anti-racist practices and policies.”

In addition to raising awareness, the administration and the board are looking for ways to direct more resources to schools that serve the students with the greatest needs, such as by reducing class size and providing more counselors and other services.

Now, he said, “our system sets up the expectation that some schools can and do offer their students more opportunities to excel.” And those schools, by and large, enroll more white and affluent students than the district as a whole.

Board members repeatedly expressed the sentiment that students were being held back by schools that did not serve their needs.

While not every student needs to attend a selective school to do well, “the bigger issue has to do with the racist practice of how we allocate resources to schools that have high populations of Black and Hispanic/Latinx students,” said board member Angela McIver.

The superintendent presented data showing that the percentages of students who meet the special admissions standards differs markedly based on the demographics of the school they attend.

In the 58 elementary schools that are most racially and economically isolated – with 90% or more Black and Latino students – small percentages of students meet the special admissions standards, regardless of their racial and ethnic background: just 5.6% of Black and Latino students, and 8.3% of the other students in those schools.

Those schools, which Hite said were mostly located in Southwest, West and North Philadelphia, tend to have less experienced teachers, more turnover, and older facilities.

In contrast, a greater percentage of Black and Latino students who attended wealthier, less segregated schools, met special admissions standards. Of students of color at those 22 schools, mostly in Center City and the Far Northeast, 30% met the standards, Hite said.

Despite the disparities, last year the proportion of Black and Latino students who qualified for selective admissions schools grew from 33% to 40% of the applicant pool, largely as a result of revised admissions criteria brought about by the pandemic – the use of grades and standardized test scores from earlier grades, and the use of two years of data instead of one. This growth put the district ahead of the board’s goal that 52% of those qualifying for special admission schools will be Black and Latino by 2026.

With the new requirements, more students from all racial and ethnic groups qualified, but the disparities among them grew wider. The qualifying pool grew more diverse because Black and Latino students comprise 70% of the district’s enrollment.

For the 2022-23 school year, the district has decided to drop the use of standardized test scores entirely and is asking the public for input on what other criteria should be prioritized.

Hite said the decision has not yet been made on whether to drop use of the test permanently. At least one board member, Mallory Fix-Lopez, an educator, said she favors that approach.

“We don’t need standardized assessment to determine who can be admitted into our schools,” she said, adding that other factors about students are much more revealing of their potential and achievements.

Board members were particularly upset that the district’s single most selective school, Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School, had a high school admissions policy that requires students to have at least one year of Spanish or French. Masterman offers those language courses, but most of the city’s elementary and middle schools do not.

But almost all the students who are admitted to Masterman’s high school come from its middle school, which starts in fifth grade; very few students from other schools are admitted.

Board members did not question that exclusion. But they insisted the language requirement be dropped nonetheless, viewing it as a blatant example of inequity. There should be no such requirements — for languages, art, music or any other such courses — unless all students have access, Fix-Lopez said.

Hite agreed. In dropping the use of standardized test scores, the district will examine “what criteria are appropriate for special admission schools. Many on their own created criteria on their own to be very exclusive, and we understand that, but they do operate within a system, and we have to look at that system to ensure it is fair.”

At least one parent who spoke at the meeting expressed doubt that things would change. Parent Stephanie King berated the board for what she called a “laughably scant” plan to address racial inequities in the system.

King, who is white, has a child at Masterman, which is predominantly white and Asian American, and another at Kearney Elementary in her Northern Liberties neighborhood, which is predominantly Black.

“Half of Masterman’s admits are from private schools or from a handful of the whitest, wealthiest schools in the city,” she said. “This is not about ability. This is about where the students are. No amount of entrance interviews can overcome the fact that you have put the responsibility for adequately staffed and funded elementary schools back onto neighborhoods.”

She said the board should stop “making every decision out of fear that white parents would move to the suburbs if you don’t roll out the red carpet for them on the way to select schools. Dropping the [standardized test] is great, but I haven’t heard any proposals for real structural change that acknowledges your role in creating the problem.”

Philadelphia plans full in-person learning in the fall, will also offer remote option

2021-05-19T21:38:09+00:00

Philadelphia schools will open for full-time, in-person learning in the fall for all students who choose it, assuming that the Centers for Disease Control relaxes its three-foot social distancing requirements for schools, Mayor Jim Kenney and Superintendent William Hite announced Wednesday.

Hite and Kenney said that schools can reopen safely. And they have the backing of the district’s labor unions, including Jerry Jordan of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, who joined them on stage at a press conference in the stately, 90-year-old Spring Garden Elementary School.

“All along we have shared the belief that children learn best alongside their peers in classrooms led by caring teachers,” Hite said. “The goal for the upcoming ’21-22 school year is to safely welcome all of our students back to school for full in-person learning for five days a week beginning on Tuesday, Aug. 31.”

While the district will not offer hybrid learning — Hite called it “not ideal or a sustainable instructional option,” based on educator feedback — it will provide the option of fully virtual learning for families who want it.

Students who choose virtual will work with teachers “exclusively assigned to this learning model,” he said.

Hite cited the low and declining rates of COVID cases in Philadelphia, the ongoing relaxing of COVID-related restrictions, the growing number of vaccinated people, and the ability to vaccinate 12-to-15-year-olds as reasons that contributed to the decision. “Most importantly, the rate of positive COVID cases within our district has remained well below 1%,” he said.

A year of virtual learning due to COVID-19 has led to “devastating impacts,” including emotional trauma; physical separation from friends, teachers, and family members; the loss of loved ones; increased gun and domestic violence; and learning loss, Hite said. (The district began phasing students back to school two days a week in early March.) He believes that fully reopening schools is the best way to help students heal and recover.”

Kenney agrees. “After a long year of isolation and uncertainty, students will get to connect with their friends and their teachers. Because students will be safe and supervised in schools, our entire city will benefit as more parents and caregivers return to in-person and full-time work.”

Mayor Jim Kenney on Wednesday at the school district’s announcement of fully reopening schools in the fall.

Jordan said the PFT endorses the return to in-person learning. “We believe it’s important for children to have in-person instruction,” Jordan said.

For most of this school year, the PFT fought district plans to reopen schools due to concerns about building safety, especially regarding ventilation. Last week, the union issued a report showing that many district buildings are still plagued with potentially toxic conditions including peeling lead paint, mold, and damaged asbestos.

Those problems predated the pandemic, Jordan noted. As far as ventilation concerns in classrooms next fall, he said that the union will also keep tabs on conditions in schools and classrooms.

The PFT was certifying buildings as “safe” before they reopened for the hybrid model. “We will reassess buildings if the CDC guidelines change,” Jordan said. “We believe staff and kids should return to buildings that are safe.”

Hite said he expected new guidance from the CDC on social distancing and other conditions in a few weeks. Currently, students and staff must wear masks and are tested periodically for COVID-19. District spokeswoman Monica Lewis said they will follow CDC guidelines on those practices.

If the CDC maintains the three-foot requirement for schools, the district will have to rethink the plan, since maintaining that distance will be difficult if not impossible in many schools and classrooms.

The district wants the public to weigh in on the reopening plans through an online survey and a series of focus groups. The 10-minute survey can be completed before 5 p.m. on May 28.

Damaged asbestos, peeling lead paint, and mold still in some Philadelphia schools, says teachers union

2021-05-12T22:13:39+00:00

Dozens of Philadelphia public schools continue to have serious environmental hazards, including damaged asbestos, peeling lead paint, and mold, according to an analysis by the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

The union’s report, based on inspections of school buildings and district records largely unavailable to the public, outlines the scope of facilities problems that plague Philadelphia schools, which have an average age of 70 years. In the report, union officials identified six main hazards in the city’s aging buildings: lead paint, lead in drinking water, asbestos, lack of ventilation, mold and roofing issues.

In a statement released Monday afternoon, teachers union officials urged the district to invest in facilities upgrades and remediate “toxic conditions” for teachers and students. They also asked for improved transparency about environmental hazards in schools.

Remediating the most pressing environmental concerns would cost about $200 million, according to the report, and simply maintaining all public school buildings would cost billions more. According to the district’s 2017 Facilities Condition Assessments, the district has a 25-year deferred maintenance backlog of needed work, which would cost an estimated $4.5 billion to complete.

Several Philadelphia City Council members asked Superintendent William Hite at a Tuesday hearing about his plans for fixing the district’s aging buildings. Hite said the district will spend $325 million of its $1.1 billion in federal stimulus funding on facilities improvements.

In response to the union’s report, district spokesperson Marissa Orbanek issued a statement Wednesday morning, saying the district has spent $250 million on remediating buildings in the past year and plans to invest $2 billion in capital improvements over the next six years.

“These investments will be an important step toward improving the quality of our facilities, but this does not eliminate our need for long-term federal and state funding for continued infrastructure support,” Orbanek said.

PFT representatives did not testify at Tuesday’s hearing.

Elementary school students returned to buildings in early March after a contested reopening effort between the union and the district. Many teachers, parents and union officials argued that Philadelphia’s school buildings couldn’t safely reopen in part because they didn’t have adequate ventilation to curb the spread of COVID-19. A third-party mediator ultimately decided that students could return to buildings in phases, and the district installed air purifiers in some classrooms to mitigate virus spread.

Most high schools reopened Monday under the district’s plan, bringing back ninth graders and 10th through 12th graders with disabilities.

But ventilation issues in school buildings remain, the union’s report said. Many air handling systems are decades out of date and need to be replaced.

“The lack of adequate [ventilation] is a major, recognized contributor to increased illnesses and respiratory symptoms...that adversely impacts student and staff’ health and safety, contributes to absenteeism and lost time for both students and staff from school, and compromises educational achievement and opportunity,” the report said.

Short-term fixes for ventilation systems would cost tens of millions of dollars, whereas major upgrades, which many schools need, would cost hundreds of millions, the report said.

The report also highlighted issues with asbestos, a cancer-causing substance common in pipe insulation and floor tiles. Under the federal Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act, or AHERA, the district must fully inspect schools every three years and complete walkthroughs every six months to find loose or flaking asbestos that can pose a health risk.

The most recent round of walkthroughs was delayed due to the pandemic, but the union’s report said there was another problem: the six-month inspections completed in December 2019 “were so poorly done … that the process was stopped and a full review and new effort had to be restarted.”

Asbestos in schools has been a major point of controversy for years. A botched asbestos abatement effort at Benjamin Franklin High School in 2019 sickened multiple people and forced students and staff to temporarily relocate. Ten schools were forced to temporarily close during the last school year due to asbestos concerns, the report said.

Hite said that the district has removed 250,000 feet of asbestos since abatement projects kicked off at the start of the pandemic, but he has not provided a list of remediated schools.

There’s an “ongoing lack of specific and granular collaboration, coordination, and cooperation” between the district and the PFT surrounding facilities issues, the union said in its report. District officials have not responded to pressing issues reported through the PFT Healthy School Tracker App, where teachers and students can report environmental hazards in their buildings.

Of the 281 issues reported since schools reopened in March, the district has not responded to any of them, according to the report. There are close to 1,500 outstanding problems reported through the app that the district has not addressed. The district should address issues marked “Immediate” within a day, issues marked “Urgent” within three days, and issues marked “Important” within 14 days, the report said.

But Hite said Tuesday that the district doesn’t have access to those app submissions, and officials only receive information about the submissions through the PFT.

The district provides some building condition reports on its website, including the 2017 Facilities Condition Reports, and the most recent inspections for lead paint, lead in water and asbestos. The most recent six-month walkthroughs that document asbestos hazards have not been digitized or uploaded to the website.

“The urgency of addressing the facilities crisis cannot be overstated,” the report said. “This work can be done and it can be done well.”

School board will investigate claims of bias against Black-run charter schools in Philadelphia

2021-05-12T21:09:21+00:00

Less than a month after the Philadelphia Board of Education decided not to renew two Black-led charter schools, its members said Tuesday they will look into claims of systemic bias made by a coalition of Black charter school leaders.

Some members of the board, along with city council members, pledged Tuesday to address the allegations during the school district’s annual budget hearing before council. The board will be seeking an independent entity to investigate the claims, a board representative told Chalkbeat Tuesday.

The African American Charter Schools Coalition is calling for an overhaul of the district’s charter office, demanding fairness, transparency, and equity when it comes to evaluation, oversight and expansion of charter schools. The group’s call to action comes after the majority of the board voted to follow the recommendation of a hearing officer to not renew Universal Bluford and Universal Daroff schools. Only board members Lisa Salley and Cecelia Thompson voted against the non-renewals.

“While we believe that we do this in a fair and equitable manner, concerns have been raised that our practices have discriminated against African American founded and led charter schools,” said school board member Salley. “We take all allegations of discrimination seriously and are working now to provide these schools with an independent entity who can unpack and investigate these allegations.”

Attorney Rudy Garcia, whom the school board hired to review the two schools, cited low proficiency rates in math, English language arts, and science, and failure to comply with other applicable laws, such as maintaining Pennsylvania child abuse clearances, and state and federal criminal backgrounds.

Black and Latino charter leaders operate 19% of the charters in the city, but account for 87% of those recommended for closure or nonrenewal over the past several years, according to the coalition.

Board member Julia Danzy said the board has high expectations for all schools. “Many of our charter schools, which serve approximately one-third of the public school students in Philadelphia, are doing phenomenal work; but for schools that are not serving students well, it is our responsibility to hold them accountable.”

But Councilmember Isiah Thomas criticized the board’s presentation saying “it was like a gloomy cloud came over when Black charters came up” with talks about accountability reports and “making sure you bring the hammer down” when the board’s expectations are not met.

“That’s the exact issue we’re trying to communicate, the tone, the perception,” Thomas said. “The statement made today is another example exactly of what we’re talking about.”

He pointed to the schools’ role in promoting “equity and inclusion,” as well as acknowledgement of the importance of “the images young people see every day,” the importance of role models, and opportunities for international travel.

Thomas also raised the issue that the Black-led institutions have suffered from some kind of “retaliation,” which he did not explain in detail.

School board president Joyce Wilkerson denied Thomas’ accusations thrown at the board.

“I know of no effort made to retaliate against any institution that spoke to this alleged discrimination,” Wilkerson said. She requested any specific allegation to be forwarded to her office.

State Sen. Anthony Williams and Council members Maria Quiñones-Sánchez and Curtis Jones Jr., were also a part of the virtual news conference held by the coalition Tuesday. They expressed concerns over the allegations made by the coalition.

The district evaluates charter schools based on academic, operational, and financial measures. Charters recommended for closure or nonrenewal often have not met state standards regarding student proficiency in reading and math, which is mostly measured by standardized test scores. For high schools, graduation rates are also considered.

Philadelphia has more than 80 charter schools, with a total enrollment of more than 75,000 students, or about a third of those enrolled in the city’s publicly funded schools. The school district, through its office on charter schools, is the sole authorizer.

Bluford Principal Crystal Gary Nelson appeared on WURD 96.1 FM Tuesday and said the board’s renewal process is flawed and her office “did not have any input in the final charter renewal report.”

Penny Nixon, superintendent and CEO of schools at Universal, said students at Black-led charters are learning. “This notion that we cannot educate our children is false and must be addressed.”

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, if a charter agreement should be revoked, the charter is dissolved. Students attending a dissolved charter school are able to apply to another school in their district of residence and normal application deadlines will be disregarded, the department’s website states. Charters, however, have a right to appeal to the Pennsylvania Charter Appeal Board before being dissolved.

“If you look in terms of diversity and equity of staff, the Black-operated charter schools almost double the percentage of minority teachers compared to traditional charters and the school district,” said Larry Jones, the CEO of Richard Allen Preparatory Charter School in Southwest Philadelphia.

Studies have shown that having just one Black teacher between third and fifth grade significantly improves a child’s chances of graduating high school and attending college.

Ninety seven percent of the students at Daroff are Black and less than 1% are Latino. At Bluford, 98% of the students are Black and the remaining 2% is split between Latino and Asian American students.

“But the real impact is the impact having leaders and teachers and decision makers of color have on students,” Jones said. “If you see all of the schools operated by Blacks and educating Black students being closed, it’s a difficult situation that is hard to explain.”

Food insecurity seems to have risen during the pandemic. Why that’s critical for Philadelphia’s early learners.

2021-05-04T21:45:08+00:00

One year before the pandemic, Camille Bell, a North Philadelphia mother of two, applied for food stamps and was denied because she was making more than the household limit.

A veteran on disability and a fixed income, Bell said she could have used the extra benefits to support her and the family’s two children, now ages 2 and 8. Their situation got worse during the pandemic, especially when the father of her second child was cut from his job.

“I basically have to really budget the money that I do have left over after paying bills to really manage us having food in the house or I’m very open to being able to receive food through community programs to carry us through the month because it’s not that we are having to go completely without, but there are times that I have to stretch the food out,” she said. “I probably can see it coming, kind of planning in a way where maybe over that week I see the need to make more of a budget meal that’s going to last for a few days.”

Bell is one of thousands of parents in Philadelphia with early learners who are dealing with some degree of food insecurity, especially as the pandemic has left people without regular work and a steady flow of income.

Felice Le-Scherban, assistant professor of epidemiology at Drexel’s Dornsife School of Public Health and the principal investigator for the Philadelphia site of Children’s Healthwatch, said higher levels of food insecurity can affect early learners’ development.

“Food insecurity among young children is associated with poor overall health, putting them at developmental risk. It’s also associated with more hospitalizations, and also, this may seem counterintuitive, but with a higher risk of obesity,” said Le-Scherban. “And this can be because sometimes food insecurity can lead to needing to prioritize just having enough calories and purchasing less nutritionally dense food with fewer vitamins and nutrients, which can be more expensive, as opposed to less expensive food that may be higher in calories but don’t provide as many nutrients.”

Local health and hunger experts say that while exact numbers have yet to be reported, the pandemic has most likely worsened what was already one of the highest child food insecurity rates in the country. According to Feeding America, Philadelphia’s 2018 child food insecurity rate was 24.2% and the projected 2021 rate is 28.6%.

Le-Scherban said their preliminary research shows a growing pattern. A network of pediatricians and researchers, Children’s Healthwatch (Philadelphia) surveys the caregivers of young children under the age of 4 while they are in medical center waiting areas, waiting for pediatric care.

In 2016, among families surveyed at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, 11.8% reported that their children were food insecure. Now preliminary research, which is still ongoing, shows a sharp shift.

Recent surveys of families that Children’s HealthWatch (Philadelphia) previously spoke to between 2018 and 2020 indicate “striking increases in food insecurity,” said Le-Scherban. She added that although the research is “preliminary” and was conducted mainly on North Philadelphia families, it can be applied generally.

“We do have information on child food insecurity in our COVID survey but have not analyzed it yet. However, based on the preliminary numbers that we have already seen with pretty dramatic increases in household food insecurity, I think it is very likely that child food insecurity is at least as high or higher than it was before the pandemic,” she said. “What we can absolutely say is we have seen increases in household food insecurity.”

The School District of Philadelphia hasn’t surveyed families about how food insecurity is affecting them during the pandemic, but in the 2018-19 school year, 22% of parents responded to a districtwide survey, “Understanding Food Insecurity in the School District of Philadelphia.”

Of parents who responded, 13% said they worried about having enough food for their family in the past 30 days. Of the principals who responded, 32% said food insecurity was a “moderate” or “great” challenge to learning in their school.

“Most people, whether they are children or adults, if they are hungry, it’s going to be hard for them to focus,” said Principal Shakeera Warthen of Bregy Elementary School. “It is important for our students to be fed so they can participate in learning. What’s going on with the pandemic and everything else in the world has been hard for us as adults to deal with, it’s very hard for little people to deal with. Even if they don’t know everything that’s going on, they see how it’s impacting people around them, so they have to take on that stress.”

Monica Lewis, a district spokeswoman, said an assessment might be conducted after the end of this school year to measure how issues during the pandemic affected early childhood learning.

“When school starts next year, we’ll figure out a way to see where our students are and what needs to be done to make sure that they have what they need to continue to thrive and that goes well beyond access to food but to make sure they are supported as best as possible,” she said.

Bell said in her experience, it may have affected her son’s attitude at home.

“I can’t say for sure. It would be like us experiencing issues at home because I have, for a long time, had issues with my oldest son at school. He is diagnosed with ADHD, I don’t completely subscribe to that. I just think he is a busy 8-year-old, but he’s definitely been detached from school. It does in some way have something to do with what we experience in the house. I try to have conversations with him about his feelings and emotions,” she said.

“He’s constantly asking for food - being at home, it’s a real strange area where I noticed I wasn’t having to go out so much compared to now during the pandemic. I will give him a morning snack just to kind of stretch things out and then I would give him a bigger lunch meal but he’s like disconnected in between that time. He might still be asking me for something else to eat.”

Malika King, a single mother of eight children, said access to food has been a struggle, especially during the pandemic when her food stamps were taken away.

“I’m a single mom, I don’t have the help from my children’s father. So, it’s been a little struggle. I do stretch my food…I have to make sure I have enough to go day by day and I have to be specific. [But] I make sure they have food on the table,” said King.

“No one is going starving, but we are not rich. I make sure they have a three-course meal, if they like it or not. We can’t say ‘I want this, I want that.’ We have to eat whatever I cook. They recognize I’m trying really hard to provide food and we shouldn’t waste food because there are people out there that have less than we have.”

Since last March, when schools shut down, the school district has given out more than 8 million meals through their Grab-N-Go Meals program. They started distributing meals five days a week at schools, but now give out seven-day meal kits on Fridays.

Wayne Grasela, senior vice president of Food Services, said the program is the only one of its magnitude that he’s seen in his 34 years with the district.

“We knew from the very beginning that we were going to be front-lined, we feed the children day in, day out, every day, summers, sometimes on Saturdays, after school...We knew we needed to step up right from the very beginning,” he said.

Many organizations in Philadelphia also give out food boxes and or meals. Philabundance and Share, two large-scale food programs, both reported a 60% increase in the food they’ve distributed during the pandemic.

Le-Scherban believes that the country needs to address some of the systemic roots to food insecurity. She noted that the child tax credit, which passed as part of President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, is estimated to temporarily cut child poverty in half.

She would like to see that kind of change made permanently.

“When the same population and the same families are encountering hardships like food insecurity over and over again, generation after generation. At that point, we really need to start to think about what are the large systems that we have that are creating those inequities over time, over generations,” she said.

Bell, the North Philadelphia mother of two, has accessed the North Philly Peace Park, which offers free access to a garden of fresh produce and teaches her family how to grow their own food.

After the public school nearest her stopped giving out food during the pandemic, it became a key part of helping feed her children.

“They were one of the first organizations I know that started going hard — like giving out food at the onset of the pandemic,” she said. “Once the pandemic started, wanting to give my child balanced meals [and] really trying to make sure we include vegetables and especially to have locally grown vegetables - [being] able to access that garden definitely helped for me not to put thought into where I was going to get these things from.”

King has gotten some food for her family from local food programs and a community organizer she used to work for, but she said those aren’t sustainable. She observed that the increased pressure from the pandemic has made her look inward.

“I think that it’s a push for me not to rely on others and a push for me to do for myself. It’s been quite a struggle,” she said. “But I have no other choice but for it to be okay. It’s a push for me to make it my own way.”

District touts success with Philadelphia’s first college-degree granting program

2021-04-29T22:19:11+00:00

Elijah Robinson, a senior at Parkway Center City Middle College, is the first in his family to pursue higher education, thanks to a degree program offered by the Philadelphia school district and Community College of Philadelphia.

The initiative, which began in 2017, allows district students to earn their high school diploma and associate’s degree in liberal arts. It’s the first of its kind in the city and the only high school program in Pennsylvania devoted to earning college credits. This year’s class is the first to graduate from the program.

When Robinson graduated at the top of his eighth-grade class, he chose Parkway over Central High School for the opportunity to get a college degree. “Me graduating with a high school diploma and an associate’s means a lot to me. It’s going to put me in a good situation, in terms of colleges, they will give me scholarships.”

The students enrolled in the program attend a combination of rigorous high school courses and college courses within four years. It begins in the summer before high school with the Summer Bridge program, where students take their first college course at Community College of Philadelphia, or CCP.

In admitting students to the program, school officials don’t necessarily look at grades, said Parkway Center City Middle College Principal Anh Nguyen.

“Our criteria for admissions is not as high as people think,” she said. “All students have to have A’s and B’s and then one C in their primary core courses. Attendance is key, you have to be present and have to participate … and also PSA test scores.”

Nguyen said the program gets at least 2,100 applications every year and they look to “possibly up to 60 percentile” on the state aptitude test for students to be admitted.

During the ninth and 10th grade, most of the courses are at the high school with one or two courses at CCP. When the students get to their junior and senior years, they then become fully immersed at the college.

When Elijah Robinson graduated at the top of his eighth-grade class, he chose Parkway over Central High School for the opportunity to get a college degree.

The students then graduate high school earning an associate’s degree in liberal arts through the completion of a minimum of 48 college credits, or industry certification in computer programming or entrepreneurship.

“This unique program is empowering for our scholars, giving them a head start on pursuing their future goals by equipping them with a degree while simultaneously removing the potential financial barriers,” Nguyen said. “And while we may not have seen each other in person for this school year, I look forward to safely celebrating each of their accomplishments on our graduation day, which is June 9.”

Annissa Wheeler White, a senior at Parkway Center City Middle College, told Chalkbeat the program experience has been “surreal.”

“I was 13, 14 going into college, walking through community college buildings that I normally drove past on my way to high school,” she said. “I genuinely think that if I had not been in this program, I would not have had the confidence to put myself forward and really push myself to go to apply to an Ivy League school.”

District and community college officials want to better prepare district students for college. In 2019, only 22% of 12th grade students achieved the college readiness benchmarks on either the SAT or the ACT tests.

Donald “Guy” Generals, CCP’s president, wants to help improve those numbers.

“The college degree is no longer an option in today’s economy,” Generals said. “We know that by the year 2025, anywhere between 60% to 70% of all jobs will require some level of post-secondary credential. So this fits right into that narrative, the importance of stressing college education and our post-secondary degree education.”

Part of President Biden’s massive American Families Act plan announced to Congress Wednesday night focuses on investing in community colleges, making it free for U.S. citizens. Generals said Biden’s plan is on par with the mission of the program.

Generals said he has had conversations with Superintendent William Hite about the public education system being “more of a K-16 or K-14 model.”

Next year Robinson plans to stay local and attend Chestnut Hill College, while Wheeler White is committed to attend the School of Art Institute in Chicago.

“I am so, so, so excited,” Wheeler White said. “I’ve also been accepted to the honors program, where I’ll be able to study abroad and do more interdisciplinary work.”

New school board member talks goals for Philadelphia students, lawsuit by former affiliate group ACLU

2021-04-13T20:07:17+00:00

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to properly attribute language that appeared on aft.org.

Reginald Streater was picked by Mayor Jim Kenney to sit on Philadelphia’s Board of Education, one of three new board members to join in December.

Streater attended two district schools that have since been closed, Leeds Middle School and Germantown High School. It’s that familiarity and his legal background he thinks will help make a difference sitting on the board.

“I truly believe that public education should be considered not only a civil right, but also a human right,” Streater said. “To serve Philadelphia in this manner is something I do not take lightly.”

Streater is an attorney at Berger Montague, PC, and served as the vice president of the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.

The ACLU, however, has joined other groups, Offit Kurman P.C., UrbEd and the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, or APPS, in a lawsuit against the school board, saying its new policy limiting the number of public speakers at board meetings violates the Sunshine Act.

Streater talked with Chalkbeat about his mission for district students, the lawsuit by the ACLU, and why he chose to attend Germantown High School.

This is the first of three interviews with the new school board members. It has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

You are not originally from Philadelphia. Where did you grow up?

I was born in Columbia, S.C., and went to public school in the South. For my first and second grade years I moved to Philadelphia and then from that point, I went to private schools and then went on to finish my grade school education at Leeds Middle School and then Germantown High School.

Why did you decide to attend Germantown as compared to a magnet school?

It’s funny, because I actually got into Dobbins, which was a special-admission school. I do sometimes think, ‘What would my life have been like had I attended Dobbins?’ I thought I wanted to be an architect and Dobbins had a great architectural program at that time. I visited Germantown and remember saying, ‘I don’t want to get up at 5:30 in the morning to catch the train and the bus over.’ So while I was at Germantown making my decision, a brother walked up in an Air Force uniform and recruited me to Germantown’s Junior Air Force ROTC there. At that time I was looking for structure. The program entailed two days a week of full uniforms, military ranks, and drill team and color guard drills. And that is what sold to me to attend Germantown. I don’t regret it at all.

As a writer for the American Federation of Teachers wrote, “lessons Black male teachers bring to the classroom go far beyond academic content and pedagogy.” Do you agree?

100%. I do think, especially in the school district, that is becoming even more diverse. And young people, who may not come from our communities, may also not look like us. I think it would benefit us all for young people to see an iteration of a Black man who breaks a lot of the cultural norms. A lot of the stereotypes that have been put forth, growing up, you hear Black men are hyper-masculine and hyper-violent. It’s beneficial to all to see a Black man who is both caring and nurturing. That is a lesson that can be taught that can have profound impacts. Impacts that can be life saving. For example, somebody who was taught by a Black male may grow up to be a police officer, and perhaps they may make a different decision informed by the humanization via a memory of having a Black man as a teacher. I had four Black male teachers in my formative years in my school. I’d like to think that they made a huge impact on my life.

Talk about having to resign from the ACLU board and your thoughts on limiting time for public speakers at board meetings. Doesn’t that go against freedom of speech?

Without additional facts, I do not believe it goes against the constitutionally protected freedom of speech. Well, the lawyer in me is like, ‘I’m going to be careful about what I say’ because as a board member, I am one of the nine members of the board, which is the named defendant in current litigation related to this question, but I’ll talk about it as an individual who happens to be an attorney. Yes, I resigned as a member of the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the Pennsylvania ACLU board. I did not have to resign, nor was I forced to. Also, the ACLU is representing two nonprofit organizations in a lawsuit against the board, in which I’m a board member.

From my personal understanding, the board is being sued for a violation of the Sunshine Act, not for a free speech violation.

After reading the complaint filed in this matter, I did not locate any arguments or counts as to an alleged free speech violation. From my reading of the complaint, the [basis] of the litigation is based on an argument as to one, the reasonableness of the opportunities that the board gives individuals to speak at action meetings, and two, whether the restrictions are so restrictive that it is no longer reasonable under the Sunshine Act.

From my personal understanding of free speech, I tend to think of what recognizes as “viewpoint discrimination.” For example, if a litigant were to allege that one, the board doesn’t want to hear from individuals because they don’t like the political or religious content of what the speaker has to say, and two, that the board is using the content neutral speaker policy as pretext for viewpoint discrimination, then maybe a free speech argument would be triggered.

In the most recent complaint filed, I have not seen this argument and I have not seen free speech expressly alleged by the litigants. From my understanding, the government may implement permissible time, place and manner restrictions so that it can conduct its business.

The district plans to spend nearly $1.3 billion of the relief money on buildings, academic recovery programs and personnel to help students deal with trauma from the pandemic. Is this the correct route?

If I could wave a magic wand, things such as ventilation and overall safety of buildings would be a reality, now. That stuff needs to be taken care of. As well as the other items you mentioned. Other than this, I’m not sure, because we haven’t really gotten the itemized portion of the budget. I don’t know the answer to that yet.

What’s your goal in coming on the school board?

So my goal was one to look at things from the diversity, equity and inclusion lens. I am particularly excited about the board’s goals and guardrails — as they provide our North Star for a school district that works for all of Philadelphia’s children. I’m looking forward to the prospect of the school district having a DEI officer who has some sort of semblance of independence to root out problematic practices within the district and at our schools. I also want to bring my perspective as a Black man, parent and lawyer to help problem-solve and get us from “no” to “how” as a village and district.

Students in grades six to nine can return to Philadelphia schools in May; seniors to get outdoor graduations

2021-04-12T21:30:33+00:00

Philadelphia students in grades six through nine can return to some in-person learning this year, the school district announced Monday, unveiling the third and last phase of its hybrid learning plan for the 2020-21 school year.

Students who opt in can return on May 10 for two days a week. With the last day of the school year on June 11, that means just 10 days of in-person school spread over five weeks.

Students in grades 10-12 will not return to school buildings at all this year, except for those with complex needs. But the district will allow outdoor graduation ceremonies for seniors and said that it will pay for all caps and gowns. Those who have already bought them will be reimbursed.

“We are excited to offer more students the opportunity to engage in-person learning and other activities that will allow for them to safely connect with their school communities,” said Superintendent William Hite in announcing the plan.

Families of eligible students will have between April 20 and April 27 to decide whether to return to school buildings. With this final phase, all school district personnel not already back in buildings will return on April 26, unless they have an approved accommodation or leave.

Under the district’s hybrid plan, half the students who elect in-person learning attend on Monday and Tuesday, and the other half on Thursday and Friday, with Wednesday all-virtual.

Hite has said that his goal is for all students to return to full-time in-person learning in September. He said continuing to expand the opportunities for in-person learning during this school year is a step in that direction.

In addition to schools being able to prepare for outdoor graduations, Hite said that schools can also schedule “move-up day” ceremonies, which mark significant transitions, such as middle school to high school. Those and any other traditional end-of-year ceremonies will be permitted, “as long as they are held outdoors and strictly follow safety guidelines provided by the Philadelphia Department of Health, including universal mask wearing, self-screening of attendees prior to the event and social distancing.”

The district has announced that it will conduct standardized testing this spring. The federal government has required districts to administer the tests, although it has removed any high-stakes consequences and mandated participation rates. The tests must be conducted in person.

Parents have expressed concerns about using limited in-person learning days for testing. But Hite has said districts must make a good faith effort to administer the tests in order to remain eligible for federal funding. The U.S. Department of Education has taken the position that the tests, however limited, will still provide valuable information on how students have been impacted by the year of virtual learning.

Hite pointed out at his press briefing last week that parents and students will be able to opt out of the tests.

Philadelphia launches COVID-19 dashboard to monitor cases at schools. But some groups question its accuracy.

2021-04-09T01:07:52+00:00

A month after the first group of Philadelphia students returned to their classrooms, district officials launched a dashboard late Thursday to help monitor COVID-19 cases in schools.

“We understand that having access to real-time information about COVID positivity rates in our schools is important for our families and community, and we are happy to provide this new tool,” said Superintendent William Hite.

The dashboard includes information on the number of tests performed and positive cases in schools, as well as cases confirmed off site that have been reported to the district. It lists all schools, including campuses that have not opened.

But Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan, who called for the creation of a public dashboard after Mayfair Elementary School in the Northeast temporarily shut down last month, said Thursday that the district’s dashboard has errors. He said a “cursory review” found errors in the number of cases reported at Mayfair and Edward Gideon School in North Philadelphia.

This dashboard displays information about COVID-19 tests and positive cases for both district students and staff. Groups are questioning its accuracy.

“We have been insistent on a dashboard, but unfortunately it clearly falls short in terms of accuracy,” Jordan said. “The data on this dashboard is critically important, and it is urgent that the district share accurate information with the public.”

According to the district’s site, the tests and positive cases include both self-reported results and the results of district testing. Out of 10,337 students and staff tested, 64 cases have been confirmed since the reopening of schools last month through April 3, according to the dashboard.

“As the data shows, the positivity rates in our schools are very low,” Hite said Thursday. “We hope this helps to build further confidence in the safety of our schools as we plan to welcome more students back for in-person learning.”

Visitors to the dashboard can find out the percentage by weeks and the number of students and staff who have tested positive. The dashboard also provides a map of positive cases by school.

Up until Thursday, the only updates provided to the general public were weekly reports given by Mayor Jim Kenney and the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas Farley, every Tuesday. The weekly reports are also on the city’s website.

In the absence of a district dashboard, two groups, Parents United for Public Education and the Caucus of Working Educators, or WE caucus, had created their own public tracker to provide teachers and families with information.

Both groups Thursday also raised doubts about the accuracy of the district’s tracker.

“While we’re glad to see the district has finally published an initial dashboard, what we’ve seen so far falls short of the full transparency and accuracy that parents need and deserve,” Parents United for Public Education said in a statement Thursday. “As with many other issues, we feel that this represents a missed opportunity for a partnership with families and staff to ensure that the product meets the needs of those who are closest to the day to day operations of our schools. As we’re seeing again with this dashboard, when that collaboration and communication is not present, the results miss the mark.”

The tracker created by the two groups currently shows nine confirmed COVID-19 cases since Monday and 95 positive tests total since schools reopened at the beginning of March — including a few more days than the district’s dashboard. The two groups said they verified the information in the dashboard using COVID-19 exposure letters, which go out to staff members and families after positive cases are recorded.

In a statement Thursday, the WE Caucus said there were “many questions about the accuracy, reliability, and methodology” of the district’s data. Like Jordan, they also said the new dashboard appeared to be missing positive cases from schools.

“We will need much clearer explanations of where this data is coming from and how it is being calculated before we can trust the information,” the statement said.

In Philadelphia, education secretary says schools can open safely

2021-04-06T22:27:08+00:00

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona visited Philadelphia and Upper Darby Tuesday, declaring that schools can safely reopen for in-person schooling and offering the help of the federal government to make it happen soon.

“That’s the message we want to get across the country, that we can safely reopen schools if we follow certain steps and we can do it quickly,” Cardona said on a visit to Olney Elementary School. “Because everything that happens when children are sitting at home and that’s the only option for learning, we know it’s not the optimal.”

Cardona’s visit was part of the Biden administration’s Help is Here tour, which kicked off in Boston on March 31 and is designed to monitor the progress of the president’s goal to reopen kindergarten to eighth schools within his first 100 days in office. And it came on the heels of district Superintendent William Hite’s announcement Monday that schools would open for third to fifth graders who elect to return starting on April 26, and for students in sixth through eighth grade who have complex needs.

Cardona, who started his career as a teacher and principal in his home district of Meriden, Conn., was commissioner of education for that state when tapped by President Joe Biden to become education secretary.

During his time in Connecticut, he pushed for all school districts to open for in-person learning, and all but one did, even as teachers resisted.

On Tuesday, Cardona visited two second grade classrooms at the annex of Olney Elementary School. Hite and Olney Principal Michael Roth accompanied Cardona during the classroom tour before sitting down for a roundtable discussion with several district staffers and a parent and teacher from the school.

“I look forward to opening conversation about what’s working, what’s not working, and what we need to know to support you,” Cardona said during the roundtable discussion.

“For me, their health and safety is something I take very seriously,” he said, noting that his wife teaches middle school and he has two children in high school in Connecticut

About 80 of Olney’s 232 students in kindergarten through second grade have elected to return. Under the school district’s hybrid system, half the students attend on Monday and Tuesday and the other half on Thursday and Friday. Wednesdays are all virtual.

Inside teacher Jennifer Grunmeier’s second grade classroom, seven students sat at desks with plastic dividers while 22 more attended remotely.

Cardona elbow bumped Grunmeier, nodding as she moved around her classroom.

“It’s like magic, what you’re doing,” Cardona told Grunmeier.

The district’s attempts at reopening schools for in-person learning were delayed three times before a gradual reopening began March 8, after a mediator helped to resolve a dispute between the teachers union and the district around adequate ventilation and other safety issues. The average age of Philadelphia’s school buildings is 70 years. Health concerns over mold, lead, and asbestos in aging buildings have plagued the district for years.

“Not every school is the same, not every district is the same, and I understand the infrastructure needs here are great,” Cardona said. “I understand that your buildings are a little bit old. So, I’m very interested in hearing how you navigate that and what we can do as an administration to support you moving forward.”

Later, during a stop in Upper Darby, Cardona said he learned of Philadelphia’s problems with ventilation and said it was useful to learn about the steps it took.

“That’s why it’s important for me to be on the ground and hear what the unique challenges are,” he said. “One thing that I saw there is that they partnered with a third party to do air quality assessments and ensure that the number of students in the classroom is limited to the number based on the air quality.”

The district is slated to receive nearly $1.3 billion through Biden’s American Rescue Plan. District leaders said they would devote $345 million to infrastructure needs.

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, also met with Cardona at Olney. He said that while the union is still carefully monitoring conditions in schools, he supports the district’s reopening efforts, especially since all teachers in Philadelphia have the opportunity to be vaccinated.

“It’s obviously good to give children the opportunity for face-to-face instruction,” he said.

The U.S. Department of Education has also mandated standardized testing this year, declaring it necessary to assess how the pandemic has affected student learning. It gave states the option to extend the time for the testing, which usually occurs in the spring. Pennsylvania has extended the testing window until September. The state’s acting secretary of education, Noe Ortega, who also met Cardona at the Olney stop, said the tests will not be used this year in a “high stakes” fashion to pass judgment on schools and districts.

“The rationale is that we really do need to know what has been lost but also what has been gained. There might be circumstances where things have been working, and these are things we need to find out,” Ortega said.

Cardona reinforced that idea in his interview with reporters.

“Using statewide assessments to assess where students are is one indicator of how we can make sure that the $130 billion in the American Rescue Plan is going toward those students that have the greatest need,” he said. “We know that reopening schools is not one size fits all.”

While it “makes no sense” to bring students to buildings just for assessments, he added: “If we don’t know where our students are, in terms of how they’ve accessed learning over the last year, we’re missing an opportunity to really make sure that our recovery is aimed at addressing achievement disparities that have plagued our country for years and have been made worse this past year.”

Hite said that Philadelphia had not yet finalized its plans for testing students, but noted that it must do so in order to continue eligibility for federal funding. Since the tests must be given in person, only some students will take them. Many teachers and parents have complained that they will be a diversion from more important student needs as they return to in-person instruction.

“We’ll make a good faith effort, probably in late spring,” he said. “Every time we get information about where students are, it is important.”

Cardona said that the department will be looking at new data to inform recommendations on when middle and high school students should return to school.

“We need to try to reopen schools as quickly as safely as possible. Our students can’t wait until the fall. If we can safely reopen now. We should be doing it now. They deserve it.”
Johann Calhoun contributed to this report. Some material was used from pool reporter Kristen Graham of The Philadelphia Inquirer

Trial date set for landmark school funding case in Pennsylvania

2021-04-02T23:04:16+00:00

Pennsylvania students, school districts, and their advocates will soon have their chance in court to prove that education across the state is unfairly and inadequately funded.

On Thursday, Commonwealth Court set a tentative trial date of Sept. 9 in a case originally filed nearly seven years ago by several school districts, individual parents, the state chapter of the NAACP and the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools against the governor, legislature, and the Pennsylvania Department of Education. The suit seeks changes in a funding system that has resulted in some of the largest gaps in spending among wealthy and poor school districts in the nation.

The School District of Philadelphia, the state’s largest district, is not among the plaintiffs. The district was under state control at the time the suit was filed because of “fiscal distress” that Harrisburg failed to address.

The current system in Pennsylvania is “unpredictable and irrational,” said Maura McInerney, legal director of the Education Law Center, an advocacy group focused on equity for all students. “At trial we will show that Pennsylvania’s constitution requires that our public school system works for all students, regardless of where they live, their skin color, how much money their family or community has, or what language they speak at home.” The constitution requires the state to provide a “thorough and efficient” system of education to all students.

The case will be going to trial as the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the stark gaps in resources among school districts in the state, and as the nation grapples more forthrightly with the effects of systemic racism.

While the disparities have always been obvious, the pandemic has put them “in plain sight,” said Michael Churchill, of the Public Interest Law Center, which is representing the plaintiffs along with the ELC and the private law firm O’Melveny Myers LLP.

When schools were forced to close a year ago, the Shenandoah Valley school district, one of the plaintiffs, was thoroughly unprepared to make the pivot to online learning.

Superintendent Brian Waite said many students and teachers in his Schuylkill County district didn’t own computers and didn’t have reliable internet connectivity, while the district lacked a management system for online learning. The 1100-student district is about half white and half Latino, with 13% English learners.

Even so, the district taxes itself at a high rate — fourth highest in the state — to raise its budget, because of its low relative wealth measured in terms of property values and personal income, he said. As the state’s share of education spending has declined as a percentage of costs, more burden has been put on local districts. At 38%, Pennsylvania’s state share of total education costs ranks 44th among the states.

“We gave students paper packets,” Waite said. “We didn’t have those simple things many of the districts that are fairly funded do have.”

The story was similar in Lancaster, also a plaintiff, where 90% of students live below the poverty line. When schools closed last March, “less than a third of our students had access to a device,” said Superintendent Damaris Rau. The district has only five librarians for 11,000 children, and to save on transportation costs students have to live more than two miles away to ride a bus. Many walk.

“We often have to triage how we spend our resources. Do we buy up-to-date textbooks, or do we provide after school programs? Do we reduce class sizes...or do we provide additional summer school opportunities?” When the poorest students are making the greatest sacrifices to access education, “it is not a just system,” she said.

Skylar Armstrong, a recent Philadelphia graduate whose mother Sheila joined the case when he was 13, described how his elementary school was filled with mold that triggered his asthma. In high school, his biology class had no lab and the teacher wasn’t certified. There were too many students in the class and few computers. “Teachers tried their best, but there were too many problems for them to fix,” he said. For too long, he said, “the system has hurt too many kids like me.”

Data amassed by the plaintiffs have shown that the current funding system disproportionately impacts Black and Latino students. Half of the state’s Black students and 40% of Latino students attend schools in the bottom quintile of districts based on what they spend per pupil.

Prior fair funding cases in Pennsylvania, which go back to the 1970s, never got as far as the trial stage as courts repeatedly ruled that allocating dollars for education was a political matter to be handled by the legislature and governor, not one for judicial interference. What constituted a “thorough and efficient system of education” is entirely up to them, a succession of judges declared. That changed in 2017, when the state Supreme Court ruled that this case should proceed.

In 2008, the state did a costing-out study that found districts in the state needed $4.4 billion more to provide all students with an adequate education, but state officials declined to fund it. Then, when the recession hit in 2009, things got worse. Harrisburg used federal stimulus funds to replace, rather than supplement, state aid, resulting in deep cuts in revenue to districts when the stimulus money ran out. This was especially true in Philadelphia, which felt the impact for years afterwards.

In 2015, a year after this lawsuit was filed, the legislature did come up with a fair funding formula that takes into account a district’s poverty level, taxing capacity, and other factors in allocating per pupil state dollars. But again, it declined to use it, deciding to funnel only new educational dollars through the formula, not the entire pot. Today, just 11% of basic education aid is allocated based on the formula while all districts are guaranteed to get at least as much as they received in 2014-15, even if enrollment declines.

McInerney said that 80% of Black and Latino students attend a district that receives less basic education funding than they would if all the money was allocated under the formula.

This time, however, circumstances are different. Plaintiffs argue that the state government has now essentially defined minimum educational standards by rating districts based on student performance on state tests and requiring high school students to take exams in Algebra, biology and English Language Arts before graduating.

While Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, is among the defendants, he has largely backed away from active participation in the case. His proposed 2021-22 budget proposes driving all basic education aid through the fair funding formula and adding $1.4 billion to the pot, enough to prevent any districts from losing money as a result of the redistribution.

The defense is now being handled primarily by the leaders of the Republican-controlled General Assembly.

“Most of our evidence actually come from state documents and state witnesses themselves,” Churchill said. “It will be interesting to see what kind of defense they will mount.”

Even as it has determined what is necessary to adequately educate all students and devised a formula to allocate funds based on student needs, the legislature has repeatedly declined to raise taxes for education. This is so even though many rural Republican areas, like Schuylkill County where Shenandoah is located, are among those most adversely affected by the current system.

More dates on how the case proceeds will be set at a pretrial conference on June 21.

Educators and advocates fear pandemic will widen Philadelphia’s literacy gaps

2021-03-31T19:23:48+00:00

In Valerie Haley’s kindergarten class at Rowen Elementary in West Oak Lane, the shift to virtual learning affected students differently: The students who have parents at home, have materials at their disposal, those are the ones who seem to be more engaged than others.

Across the city, at McCall Elementary, Iwa Cliggett and her team of English as a second language teachers noticed that students who already struggled in the classroom were the ones most affected by remote learning. Students with attention issues had a harder time focusing. Students who were easily frustrated became more so, and students who were just beginning to learn English were increasingly isolated.

Educators and literacy specialists have been worried that the pandemic and the resulting shift to virtual learning could exacerbate existing gaps in literacy rates, largely along socioeconomic and racial lines. That’s one reason Superintendent William Hite wanted to get the district’s youngest students, most of whom are learning to read, back in school buildings this spring.

“We know that children, especially our youngest learners, and those with complex needs, learn best in person,” Hite said earlier this year, noting particular concern about children learning to read.

The abrupt shift to remote learning a year ago has raised concerns about the long-term effects on early childhood literacy rates, particularly in a city where only 17% of public school fourth graders read at or above “proficient” standards, according to 2019 test data from the National Association of Educational Progress, or NAEP.

“Our students were already being underserved in their literacy instruction. And so now with the pandemic, it’s only gotten worse for many students,” said Sharif El-Mekki, CEO of the Center for Black Educator Development.

Data on the effects of the pandemic still are limited, but there is some evidence that the pandemic has not yet had the disproportionate effect on already disadvantaged students that many fear.

District officials released a report in January that found a significant decline in internal reading assessments for grades one to five between the winter before the pandemic began and the fall of 2020. (No tests were given last spring.) Students who were in kindergarten last year and first grade in the fall had the most dramatic drop, of 15 percentiles.

Most racial groups, however, were affected about the same: Black, white and Asian students all saw scores decline by about 6 percentiles, while Latino students dropped by about 5 percentiles.

Similarly, students considered “economically disadvantaged” dropped about the same as their wealthier peers. The testing, which was done on the same group of students from one academic year to the next, provides a small window into the pandemic’s effects.

Nyshawana Francis-Thompson, executive director of the district’s Office of Curriculum and Instruction, said the limited data the district has so far has not seemed to show that disparities among groups have worsened, but they also haven’t improved. Wide pre-pandemic disparities in early literacy rates across these groups combined with across-the-board learning loss is a significant cause for concern, she said.

“The achievement gap is not new during the pandemic,” said Francis-Thompson, adding that early literacy has become an area of particular focus for her office beyond the immediate effects of the pandemic.

Board members discussed literacy rates at a meeting on Jan. 28 in which district officials noted that nearly 72% of first graders scored either “below average” or “well-below average” on the district’s reading assessments this fall. Additionally, only 32% of third graders were reading at grade level.

The report, prepared for the Philadelphia Board of Education’s “goals and guardrails” initiative, starkly outlined how the largest disparities in early literacy break down on racial and socioeconomic lines, though all students were far from the district’s final literacy goal. The few schools where most students are at grade level enroll fewer students and are disproportionately white.

“I think it’s those who work in literacy and education are pretty certain that children, while they’ve been given education this year, it’s different,” said Jenny Bogoni, executive director of Read by 4th, a coalition working to ensure that Philadelphia students are reading on grade level by fourth grade. ”They’ve likely not absorbed the same level of instruction as they would have in a normal year.”

Bogoni noted that the toll the pandemic has taken on literacy is expected to affect communities experiencing poverty “at a much higher rate or in a much more negative way” than others.

Students living in poverty are more likely to have parents who had to juggle jobs while finding child care, lack internet connectivity in their households, or may not have materials in the home to promote reading. They are also more likely to live in communities that lack resources and experience instability.

“You’re talking about the racial stress, the racial injustice, the educational injustice that’s been heaped on these communities for generations,” said El-Mekki.

Even before the pandemic, a recent Temple University study showed that 72% of teachers felt unprepared to work in urban classrooms, while 62% felt unprepared to teach “culturally diverse” students.

“Now we’re talking about literacy on top of that?” said El-Mekki. “This is a double whammy that is very hard for children to just ‘overcome’.”

Both the district and Read By 4th believe that more data is necessary to fully understand the ways in which student learning has been affected by the pandemic.

According to district data, Black, Latino and Native American students are the racial groups farthest from the district’s literacy targets. Only 31% of Black students, 23.5% of Latinos, and 22% of Native American students in kindergarten through third grade are at or above grade level in reading. Similarly the report found that only 20% of English learners, 26% of students in special education, and 30% of economically disadvantaged students were on grade level in reading.

Failing to reverse this trend can have lifelong consequences.

“There’s tons of data and research that supports that early literacy is connected to students’ outcome with graduating. And post-secondary,” said Francis-Thompson. “So we need to get our youngest people back in front of us so that we are addressing their needs.”

Beyond the pandemic, she said that her office is looking at several strategies. First they are transitioning early literacy instruction to be more focused on the “science of reading.” But Francis-Thompson said that is not enough to address the disparities.

The district also is writing new curriculum units designed for early grades that center the experiences of students of color. The Philadelphia school district is predominantly Black and Latino.

“There is a need to look at the identity of Black and brown children,” she said.

By fourth grade, students are less likely to get targeted reading instruction and instead start to be given material to read for learning.

“Not only is your reading skill going to be behind and you’ve got less of a chance to make it up,” said Bogoni, “but it means when you’re sitting in science class and asked to read a paragraph about whatever the science lesson is, or reading a math problem or reading your social studies material, you get behind in all these other subjects because you’re behind in reading.”

For El-Mekki, the solution is multi-faceted. Not only does he think there needs to be a shift in the way teachers are trained to teach reading, they also need to know better how to engage students of color. And there needs to be more funding for districts like Philadelphia.

Francis-Thompson said that the district is trying to do just that over the long term. More immediately, for students most affected by the pandemic, officials are discussing a wide range of options, including more one-on-one instruction and an extended school year.

Cliggett agrees that more individualized support is necessary. “Even in small groups, sometimes it is not enough,” said Cliggett, “not when students can be so far apart.”

Bogoni also agrees. For her son, who was a struggling reader, one-on-one tutoring was the only intervention that worked. She sees this as a crucial strategy for lagging readers.

The concern with one-on-one tutoring is cost and scalability. The district already has a pilot program that matches high school students who fail English or math courses in the first semester with one-on-one tutors. Francis-Thompson believes that if that program shows meaningful results it could be expanded to lower grades. On the question of scale, she thinks that expanded partnerships with tutoring services and programs could make it work.

Read by 4th is currently doing research into this area. “I think we do have to look at how to scale tutoring in a way that makes it accessible to all families,” Bogoni said. Even having more trained adults in the classroom would make a difference. “If I’m thinking about policy and how to use the stimulus dollars that are going to be flowing, I think we probably need more adults trained around supporting teaching and reading in classrooms in the coming years.”

Another option is more effectively using the summer as an extension of the academic year. The summer break often results in what’s known as the “summer slide,” in which a student’s skills regress after a summer off. After the past year, educating students throughout the summer has taken on particular significance (with some wondering whether it is time to rethink the academic calendar entirely).

El-Mekki’s Center for Black Educator Development runs the Freedom School Literacy Academy, a program that trains high school and college students in proven literacy teaching strategies and in ways to more effectively reach Black students. Not only does this set up a pipeline for Black educators to enter the profession, but it more effectively reaches some of the communities most affected by the city’s gloomy literacy rates.

The Academy, focused on kindergarten through second grade, combines a strong emphasis on phonics and phonemic awareness and fluency with culturally specific instruction that targets Black students. This will be the fifth year of the summer program and the center believes it is more important than ever.

El-Mekki said the summer academies are in high demand and the hope is to double their capacity to reach 200 students. But even then El-Mekki said they expect there will be a waitlist. They also hope to run an extended program throughout the year starting this fall.

Francis-Thompson said that the district is also looking seriously at more options to extend instruction into the summer as a way to get students most significantly impacted by the pandemic additional help, although the details have not been released yet.

One thing everyone is clear about: making sure the youngest students have the building blocks to literacy has become a top priority.

“Anytime we are talking about being a world-class city and we have a populace this high that can’t read on grade level, we’re lying to ourselves,” said El-Mekki. “Being able to read is a human right.”

Philadelphia’s in-person learning expands to 22 more schools

2021-03-23T19:24:48+00:00

The School District of Philadelphia has announced 22 additional schools that are expected to open April 5 for prekindergarten to second grade.

Teachers at the schools are scheduled to return Wednesday.

The district’s announcement this week comes after scores of speakers urged the Philadelphia Board of Education at a public hearing last Thursday to open schools as quickly and as completely as possible. It also comes after Mayfair Elementary in the Northeast closed temporarily last Wednesday because of COVID-19 cases at the school.

“We are neither for opening schools at all costs, nor are we for keeping schools closed at all costs,” said Thomas Novak, a father of four students, who spoke at last week’s hearing. “But now it can be said that in-person schooling provides only a small health risk.”

This is the fourth set of schools announced since the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and the district agreed on a phased-in reopening process, which allowed the union to review ventilation documents in all schools before bringing students and staff back for in-person instruction. The agreement was reached following a mediation process led by a city-appointed third party.

The first 53 schools reopened on March 8, followed by 45 more schools on March 15. And 35 more elementary schools reopened Monday for in-person education.

Families with students in prekindergarten to second grade have until Tuesday to opt in to hybrid learning, if they want.

According to the district, families who select hybrid learning will be contacted by their child’s school later this week regarding next steps. They will be scheduled to start hybrid learning the week of April 5. The early learners whose families do not complete the survey will remain in all-digital learning. Families choosing hybrid learning for their child can return to all-digital learning at any time.

Mayor Jim Kenney has been vocal about returning as many early learners back to school as possible over concerns of learning loss and revving the local economy.

“We’re proud of everything the district did for our students and families during this very difficult period,” Kenney said. “There is no playbook for this pandemic, we did the best we could to meet the needs of our children.”

Students participating in hybrid learning will attend school in person two days per week and engage in digital learning three days each week, based on an assigned schedule designed to safely limit the number of students in schools and help maintain social distancing in all school spaces throughout the day.

Since returning to schools, teachers have been cataloguing what they say are unsanitary conditions, despite promises from the district that buildings had been thoroughly cleaned and made safe. The website #phled reopening tracker, started by members of the Caucus of Working Educators, urges teachers to post pictures and descriptions of conditions they find as they re-enter school buildings for the first time since the shutdown last March. In less than a week, the site received more than 30 testimonials.

Teachers union demands transparency after COVID-19 cases shut Philadelphia school

2021-03-17T23:12:57+00:00

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers demanded greater transparency from the school district Wednesday after a district school in the Northeast announced it would temporarily shut down due to COVID-19 cases.

Union President Jerry Jordan called on the district to create an “ongoing, trackable database of COVID-19 cases in buildings.”

“Anecdotally, we have learned from our membership that efforts to trace cases are delayed. This is unacceptable,” he said in a statement Wednesday.

Mayfair Elementary School, located at 3001 Princeton Ave., is scheduled to close Thursday until April 1, according to a letter Principal Guy Lowery sent to school staff. In his letter, he stated that “multiple positive COVID-19 cases” were found.

Jordan, who has been at odds with district leadership over the safe return of staff and students said the agreement between the district and the union to allow a return to school buildings is based on adherence to a stringent set of protocols. Jordan said the district needs to immediately address its notification and tracing protocol and provide a standardized reporting mechanism, including a publicly accessible dashboard.

Last week’s reopening was the fourth time since September that the district had attempted to return to some in-person learning. After false starts in September and November, due to opposition from parents and teachers and a surge in cases of the coronavirus, the district made plans for some in-person learning for kindergarten through second grade in February. That was delayed until March after the union objected and called for third-party mediation, citing inadequate ventilation in many buildings and the lack of teacher vaccines.

In a statement sent to Chalkbeat, the school district said it’s working closely with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, or PDPH, to monitor and identify any COVID-related situations.

“Due to several positive COVID-19 cases at Mayfair School, PDPH has determined that the school building will temporarily close on March 18th through April 1 to help stem exposure to and spread of the virus,” the statement said.

The health department guidance has different guidelines for “pausing” activities for a cohort in a school, for an entire grade, and for closing an entire school. An entire facility is closed for 14 days if there are three cases within 14 days due to exposure at the facility, and six cases within 14 days regardless of the source of exposure.

During the temporary closure, students and staff at Mayfair will return to the digital learning model and families will be contacted by their child’s teacher with details.

The district said the Mayfair building will be deep cleaned and disinfected before it is reopened for students and staff.

District announces initiative to recruit up to 900 Philadelphia teachers

2021-03-12T20:23:19+00:00

The Philadelphia school district needs to recruit up to 900 teachers for the coming school year, Superintendent William Hite announced Thursday. To aid in that effort, Hite said the district is launching the “Teach Today Change Tomorrow” initiative.

“Our goal with this campaign is simple, we want to hire talented educators,” he said during the announcement at Cayuga Elementary School in North Philadelphia. He directed those interested in teaching to apply online at teachinphilly.org. Speakers at Thursday’s announcement also included Cayuga teachers, Kati Funck and Joshua Palma-Rodriguez.

In any given year, the district looks to hire 800 to 900 teachers and has about 91% teacher retention, said Chief Talent Officer Larisa Shambaugh. District officials said applicants should “first and foremost have a love for children and figuring out how to meet those children where they are.”

According to the Philadelphia Education Research Consortium, on average, 27% of Philadelphia teachers left their schools and 15% left the school system. The report also revealed the district has increasingly relied on emergency teaching permits, which are issued when a position has been advertised and no fully qualified or properly certificated applicant is available.

Kati Funck is a second grade teacher at Cayuga Elementary School in North Philadelphia.

Math and science top the subjects where the district needs to fill the biggest number of vacancies, said Shambaug. The district has struggled for years to retain teachers in these subjects.

“We have our teacher preparation programs that prepare a great deal of teachers, but not as many in those fields,” Shambaugh said. “We are all looking for people who have great content knowledge in math and science.”

The district has a teacher residency program where individuals who have the knowledge of math and science come in and learn alongside a better teacher for a full year before they become a teacher by themselves in the classroom.

District officials said they also would like to see their teacher workforce mirror the district’s student demographics. More than 70% of the district’s students are Black and Latino, yet district teachers are predominantly white. Black teachers make up 24.5% of the 9,100 teachers in the district, while white teachers make up 67% of the teacher population, according to data listed on the district’s website.

“It’s something that we look at every year, report numbers on, and want to hold ourselves accountable to,” Shambaugh said. “We have seen an increase in our new teacher hires of color over the past several years, but it has to be an intentional effort. So we have several initiatives that are aimed at thinking about how we expand the diversity to go beyond just the traditional pipeline.”

Sharif El-Mekki understands the struggle of recruiting teachers.

The founder of the Center for Black Educator Development, is currently leading an initiative to recruit more teachers of color. He said any strategy aimed at locating future teachers must include a strong retention plan.

“Recruitment cannot just be once people graduate from college like it was for me,” El Mekki said. “I was recruited after I graduated from college. When I asked my colleagues, many white women remembered as early as the third grade when they were recruited.”

El-Mekki’s Black Teacher Pipeline aims to identify and cultivate high school and college students for careers in education, offering them apprenticeships starting in high school, mentorship into college, and overall support through their first four years in the profession. Strategies, he said, the district should consider in its effort to attract new teachers.

“We’ve had some great results where they have an apprenticeship, they start being professionally developed,” El-Mekki said. “And this is what I mean by the pipeline that starts as early as freshman in high school.”

Debbie Weiner, a former adviser to the district on teacher recruitment, said retention can be improved by having “a principal who stays in touch, a mentor who helps with instruction and classroom management, a reduced teaching load for the first semester, a clean and safe classroom and building, ample supplies and equipment.”

Brandon Archer, communications director for UrbEd argued if the district is going to hire and retain any teachers, especially Black educators, it should begin with respecting them.

“To have enough respect to value their lives as we send them back into unsafe schools, respect for their voice in policy decisions, and enough respect to not treat them as a cog in the wheel,” Archer said. “The district needs to make every effort possible to support its staff and not place the impossible burden of testing, new programs, or goals and guardrails onto them. Teachers today are risking their lives and careers to support students, it is time the district supports them.”

Philadelphia district will get more than $1 billion from rescue plan

2021-03-11T00:51:50+00:00

The Philadelphia school district stands to receive almost $1.3 billion from the American Rescue Act that passed Congress Wednesday and is expected to be signed by President Biden on Friday.

That is nearly a quarter of the $5.1 billion allocated to Pennsylvania for K-12 education. The aid will be distributed through the federal Title I formula, which is weighted toward districts and students in poverty. In Philadelphia, the poorest big city in the nation, two-thirds of its public school students live below the poverty line. The city enrolls more than 10% of all the low-income students in the state.

The mammoth $1.9 trillion legislation gives up to $1,400 in direct payments to individuals, significantly expands the child tax credit for low-income families and increases food stamps, now called SNAP benefits.

“In Philadelphia, where we struggle with one of the highest poverty rates in the nation, the American Rescue Plan’s support for qualifying families with children could lift an estimated 59,000 children out of poverty,” Darrell Clarke, president of the City Council, said in a statement.

In addition to the money going to the school district, the city will also get more than $1.4 billion in aid, Clarke said.

School officials confirmed the amount of aid they are expecting, but said they are awaiting “final language” and possible restrictions before confirming what the money will be used for.

The bill says the funds are available through September 2023, though federal guidance for the previous two stimulus packages allowed districts an extra year to allocate the funds.

The new stimulus money could help school districts across the country reopen safely, covering some of the additional costs of opening school buildings in a pandemic. It also could provide school districts with the funds to address trauma and potential learning loss with after-school programs, an extended school year or summer school.

Superintendent William Hite has said he plans to extend the year past June 14 voluntarily for teachers and students who want to participate and the district has provided behavioral health counselors to every school.

According to the National Education Association, among the permissible expenses are modernizing HVAC systems. Adequate ventilation has been a huge issue in Philadelphia’s old school buildings as the district starts a phased reopening. Other building-related expenses permitted include those related to social distancing in schools, purchase of personal protective equipment, or PPE, and hiring more custodial staff for cleaning.

Chief Financial Officer Uri Monson plans to present a revised “lump sum” budget at the board of education’s next regular meeting on March 25 that will have more details, district spokeswoman Marissa Orbanek said. The board also has a meeting on March 18, one of two required each year to hear public comment.

Correction: An earlier version of this piece said schools must spend the money by October 2023. It has been updated to note that districts may get an extra year beyond that to allocate the funds.

Philadelphia school reopening delayed again — this time until March 1

2021-02-17T15:44:40+00:00

The Philadelphia school district has pushed back reopening of schools for a third time, with a new target date for early grades set for March 1, Superintendent William Hite announced Wednesday.

The one-week delay for prekindergarten to second grade is the latest twist in the district’s third attempt to reopen school buildings, which have been closed since last March. Hite said he was “deeply disappointed” to make the decision, which was due to the ongoing mediation between the district and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

“I believe we all agree on reopening schools,” Hite said. “The dispute has been how can we do that safely and the district needs to address that.”

About 9,000 students were slated to return to classrooms on Feb. 22, but teachers and some parents have been questioning the safety of school buildings for months. Some 2,000 early-grade teachers were supposed to return to classes last week ahead of the reopening, but union President Jerry Jordan called on his members to stay home due to the safety concerns.

In a statement Wednesday, Jordan said the district “made the right decision to delay the reopening of school buildings.”

He said the union’s position — that “we are unable to verify the safety of buildings” — hasn’t changed. “Our goal of returning to school buildings when it is safe to do so also remains unchanged,” the statement said.

The Caucus of Working Educators on Wednesday said the district has to “drastically improve their communication and transparency” along with assessing ventilation and making vaccines available to all staff before buildings open. “We don’t have evidence that these goals can be accomplished by March 1.”

Hite said Wednesday that he believes the buildings are safe, but he said the district is waiting to hear the results of mediation. He also wants teachers to have enough time to prepare their classrooms for students and to learn how to teach in person and virtually at the same time.

Hite initially said teachers who didn’t report would be disciplined. But the district agreed to allow teachers to continue working remotely while the mediator, Dr. Peter Orris, reviewed ventilation reports and other documents tied to building safety.

The option for mediation was laid out in a memorandum of agreement secured by the union in the fall, which outlined the conditions for a safe reopening. Jordan called for mediation amid growing concerns that many buildings lacked adequate ventilation and that other longstanding issues, including asbestos, mold and lead, were still potential dangers in many buildings.

Teachers and parents have ridiculed the district’s purchase of 3,000 fans to improve air flow in classrooms in 32 schools where the aging ventilation systems had been turned off. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said during a visit to Philadelphia earlier this month that she thought the fans were a parody from Saturday Night Live. Experts, however, have said fans could be a good strategy to improve air circulation.

The mediator started working on Feb. 5, but the two sides did not come together until last Wednesday. No timetable has been set for a decision, but as mediation has dragged on, it has seemed increasingly unlikely that students could return as originally planned.

On Wednesday, Hite also outlined a plan for doing rapid COVID-19 testing of students and teachers, saying the district had “ample supplies.” All staff members will be tested weekly and students will be tested randomly, he said.

Many teachers also wanted to be higher on the priority list for vaccinations before being required to return to buildings. Some wanted to be fully vaccinated first. Hite has advocated for teachers to get priority for vaccinations, but he said Wednesday that “it’s never been a priority for vaccines to be a part of the reopening.”

The city and district announced two weeks ago that it had worked out a plan with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to begin vaccinations for school workers starting Feb. 22, both at CHOP and at six school sites around the city. Invitations should go out starting Wednesday from CHOP, including to school staff who have been working in school buildings or will be returning as part of the reopening, Hite said.

Hite estimated that 10,000 school staff would be required to reopen buildings for the early-grade students.

On Wednesday, Dr. David Rubin, the lead of PolicyLAB and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said during a City Council hearing on school reopening that he believes it is safe to reopen schools “based on the science.” He cited falling case rates, the experiences of other schools in the region, and plans to do rapid COVID-19 testing of students and teachers.

Rubin said vaccinations are important, but not a precondition to reopening. Similarly, he said that ventilation improvements were desirable, but not as crucial as primary interventions, such as wearing masks, social distancing, and keeping sick people out of the buildings. Opening as early as next week “can be done safely,” he said.

Hite, who also spoke during the council, said that all sides have the best interests of students at heart. “Let’s work together and let’s all make this happen.”

The city council hearing went on for more than five hours as parents, teachers, principals, and union leaders almost universally blasted the district leadership for its ”dime store fans” and pre-pandemic failure to adequately deal with asbestos and other school hazards. The principals pointed out that each school is in vastly different condition. “Before moving to a safe opening, we need clear, concise, transparent communication regarding each school’s status,” said Lauren Overton, principal of the Penn-Alexander Elementary School in University City.

A handful of parents, however, said that continued closure is further hurting the most vulnerable students. “Is it safe not to return?” asked parent Jen Leaman. “The educational losses over the last 11 months are monumental.”

The drama in Philadelphia comes as some school districts across the country grapple with reopening.

Philadelphia’s saga has been marked by strong distrust between the administration and the union, and the administration and the public. In a virtual rally on Monday, students, teachers and activists demanded a stronger voice in reopening plans and said they had been shut out of the process.

“We need proper ventilation, not crappy fans,” said Billy Seng, a sophomore at the Academy at Palumbo and a member of the advocacy group Viet Lead. “Our buildings have crumbling ceilings, lead and asbestos. We had that before COVID...we will continue fighting for a truly safe reopening.”

Shakeda Gaines, president of the Home and School Council, said that there has been “disrespect” coming from the district. “They’re trying to open schools even when we got together as a collective and said no,” she said. “We’re saying no to fans, no to lead paint...to asbestos, mold, lead, no to our children dying.”

Acknowledging the trust issues on Wednesday, Hite said part of the problem is when “there are sections or pockets of individuals who want to draw attention to something that is wrong and then apply that to all of the 227 buildings.”

“All we can do is to continue what we’ve done and that is to communicate,” he said.

National and local health experts have said ventilation is but one strategy among many to mitigate the spread of the virus. But the city’s activists jumped on the issue to draw more attention to the overall disrepair of many of the district’s buildings, which have an average age of 75 years.

The district’s own studies have shown that it needs $4.5 billion to fully upgrade schools.

The district has produced hundreds of “air balancing reports” in its classrooms and released other information on building conditions. But the critics were not mollified.

“We can’t verify the results,” said Art Steinberg, head of the PFT’s Health and Welfare Fund and president of the statewide federation, in an interview during an anti-reopening rally on Feb. 8. “We do not have any trust in the information. We’ve asked for data backing it up...they’ve refused to give it to us.”

Hite disputes that the union has been denied information, saying that officials have met regularly with union leaders.

From the start, Philadelphia’s health commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley has said it was safe to reopen schools. More than 100 private schools have been open to varying degrees since March, with little evidence that they accelerated the spread of COVID-19 in the communities, he said.

Many parents desperately want their children back in school, but fear for their safety.

Jasmine Ellis, whose son attends Grover Washington Middle School, said their school is in a relatively new building, but has had problems with mold in its auditorium. She said the building wasn’t safe before the pandemic.

At the same time, her son, who has special needs and a heart condition, “hates every second” of remote schooling. “Learning at home is horrible for us,” she said.

A former school district employee who worked as an aide in several schools, Ellis feels that the district has long neglected building maintenance.

“They have to go in and do what really needs to be done and what they’ve been sweeping under the rug,” she said.

Mayor says Philadelphia teachers should not be disciplined if they don’t show up

2021-02-16T21:51:33+00:00

Mayor Jim Kenney strongly suggested during a news conference Tuesday that teachers should not be disciplined if they do not show up to work for the proposed reopening Monday over COVID-19 safety concerns.

“I don’t want to see anybody disciplined,” Kenney said during the virtual press conference, providing updates on the city’s handling of the virus. “I don’t want to do this in a punitive way. We’ve all been through a lot within the last year and everybody is scared, everybody is stressed. And you’re more likely to add to that stress by disciplining people. I don’t think that gets us anywhere and maybe forebodes a longer term problem with managing staff personnel.”

Kenney’s comments Tuesday appeared to conflict with Superintendent William Hite’s statement earlier this month that “disciplinary action will be taken” against teachers who don’t return to work in school buildings. The declaration was made after Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan told teachers not to show up to work on Feb. 8 over safety concerns around the vaccine and ventilation. The details of Hite’s punishment were not made clear.

Though confirmed numbers of the virus across the city have lowered significantly a devastating milestone was reached on Monday.

“Yesterday, Philadelphia recorded its 3,000th death from COVID-19 — that’s more than 3,000 Philadelphians lost to this terrible virus in less than a year,” Kenney said. “My thoughts are with the loved ones of those who we’ve lost. Each life taken is one too many.”

Kenney reiterated Tuesday that school staff, teachers, principals and anyone who works in school buildings will start to get vaccinated the week of Feb. 22, the same time teachers are to return to their school buildings. The mayor also said there may be a message for parents later in the week.

Last Wednesday, Jordan invoked terms in a memorandum of agreement the district signed last fall that dictated the safety conditions in schools before in-person learning could resume. The agreement called for hiring an independent mediator to determine whether the safety requirements were met, if the two sides were at odds.

The inspector, Dr. Peter Orris of Chicago, began his work on Friday.

“We are working with the district and the union in an effort to work with the mediator to make the determination on the safety of schools in which the unions think are not safe and the district thinks they are,” Kenney said Tuesday. “The things that are in the MOU we need to work out through the mediator.”

The vaccinations for the teachers are to occur at the Roberts Center on the campus of the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, or CHOP, plus six different school-based locations. The plan requires schools to provide a list of names of their staff to CHOP. The schools will then notify their staff members about how they can contact the hospital to schedule an appointment.

“I think as we move towards more and more people getting vaccinated, discussions and resolutions on the buildings themselves, I think we will get to where we need to be,” Kenney said.
Natasha Bradley, who is a parent and teaches at Edward T. Steel Elementary School, told Chalkbeat her primary concern with the hybrid reopening was not about the vaccine.

“Ventilation in the school,” Bradley said. “Specifically at the school where I work. According to the report, it says that air quality is zero, so nobody should be in the building. Honestly, nobody should be in any space. And the only space that was available was INC [a district library], where people could actually be in a space with proper airflow.”

In regards to teachers not being disciplined for not showing up to work, Bradley agrees with the mayor.

“I don’t think we should be disciplined for anything because the district did not keep their promise,” Bradley said. “They said the buildings were ready and up to par and they are not. I don’t understand how they are able to dictate to us that we need to go back to buildings when they themselves are not back in their buildings and telling us this in the comfort of their own home.”

Mayor unveils vaccination plan as Philadelphia teachers protest return to school buildings

2021-02-08T21:57:57+00:00

Mayor Jim Kenney unveiled a vaccination plan for teachers and school staff after some Philadelphia teachers protested outside their schools Monday morning, saying they don’t want to return until they are convinced the buildings are safe.

Kenney announced that Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia will assist the city Department of Public Health in a new vaccination program for teachers, principals, and staff at all schools. It includes staff at district, charter, and private schools, as well as at child care centers and prekindergarten providers. Classroom aides and cafeteria workers also will be included.

The stepped-up vaccination effort could address one of the concerns of teachers who protested reopening Monday, the day early-grade teachers had been expected to return to classrooms for the first time since March. Speaking as they took short breaks from teaching students virtually from outside their buildings in the cold, some educators said they were hesitant to teach in-person until they were fully vaccinated.

“As we near the one-year anniversary of the pandemic, getting children back into classrooms throughout the city is vitally important to their future,” Kenney said. He said that he was in “full support” of Superintendent William Hite’s hybrid learning plan that will get students in prekindergarten to second grade back in classrooms the week of Feb. 22.

“This vaccination program will go a long way to easing the concerns that teachers have expressed,” Kenney said.

Hite, who has advocated for prioritizing vaccinations for school staff, called the new effort “welcome news” that will complement the “many layers of safety” in place.

The new program is expected to begin by the end of the month and will eventually encompass a number of locations, including pop-up clinics located in school buildings across the city.

The school district expected about 2,000 early-grade teachers to come back to school buildings Monday to prepare their classrooms for the return of students. But last week, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan told teachers not to return.

Instead, teachers protested and participated in teach-ins at schools across the city, joined by Jordan, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, and several state and local elected officials.

“Our teachers and students are being asked to return to buildings that have been deemed unsafe for occupancy by the district’s own metrics,” Jordan said, standing outside Gompers Elementary in Wynnefield. “It’s obscene and it’s cruel. And to add insult to injury, the school district has concocted a half-baked solution involving the purchase of thousands of fans. These fans are a disgraceful attempt to remedy decades of neglect.”

Weingarten said she came to show support for the local teachers. “We at the AFT have been working on this since April almost a year ago,” she said, adding that the “blueprint” for a safe reopening plan “does not include these fans.”

The controversial fans, seen in a photo on Twitter, are meant to supplement the “core preventive measures” recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, namely masks and social distancing, according to district chief operating officer Reginald McNeil. Experts told Chalkbeat the fans could be a good strategy to improve air circulation in some classrooms.

Elected officials who spoke at Gompers Monday morning included: state senators Sharif Street and Vincent Hughes, state Rep. Morgan Cephas, and councilmembers Derek Green, Katherine Gilmore Richardson, Kendra Brooks and Helen Gym.

“I welcome all elected officials who are saying schools are the important issue,” Gym said. “We have waited for legislators to stand up and put their money where their mouth is and address facilities that belong back in the 19th century. There is a plan to get kids back to their schools safely. It does not consist of a $20 fan from Home Depot.”

She said the effort to reopen schools is “the biggest public health effort” in Philadelphia in the quest to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, and that public officials “must take it much more seriously and not act in silos.”

On Wednesday, Jordan invoked terms in a memorandum of agreement the district signed last fall that dictated the safety conditions in schools before in-person learning could resume. The agreement called for hiring an independent mediator to determine whether the safety requirements were met, if there was conflict about returning to buildings.

After the union told its members not to return, district leaders quickly reversed course. Hite said Monday teachers will be expected, but not be required, to return as they await his ruling.

“It could be any day,” Jordan said. “The process is designed to be fast, so I would expect it at any minute.”

Jordan said he doesn’t expect Orris to side with the district. He said he hoped “cooler heads prevail” and the conflict doesn’t deepen or lead to a strike. The PFT’s last significant strike was 40 years ago.

Hite issued a statement saying since March the district has spent more than $300 million on building improvements including asbestos removal, ventilation and cleaning, going “above and beyond” what the agreement requires.

Late Sunday, they said they no longer expected the staff to come back, since the mediator hadn’t reached a decision. The inspector, Dr. Peter Orris of Chicago, is currently reviewing both sets of documents provided by the PFT and the school district. It’s unclear when he is expected to make a decision.

Joseph Peeples, first grade teacher at Henry Elementary School on Monday.

Gym, Brooks, Street, Weingarten, Jordan, and Pennsylvania AFT president Art Steinberg visited three more schools after the press conference, among them Steel elementary in Nicetown. In the half-century old building, all of the classrooms are listed as having zero safe occupancy. Only the library has acceptable air circulation, according to the district’s report.

Brooks, who is from the neighborhood and was an education advocate in the neighborhood, said any credible reopening plan must focus on schools like Steel, which is located in one of the city’s poorest zip codes that has been hard hit by the coronavirus.

“Our school has been under attack for years,” Brooks said. “When we found out our teachers and students are being forced to return to a building with zero air quality, we said ‘No.’”

“Until this school and every school is safe for our families, we continue to say no. Not without a plan, not without safe breathing, and together we can fight to do this,” she told dozens of teachers and supporters gathered outside the building. Drivers honked in support as they drove by.

Several miles away in Mount Airy, about thirty teachers, roughly half the staff, taught remotely outside CW Henry Elementary School. Some bundled up outside the front entrance and others sat in their cars. During breaks, they said that they want further assurances that buildings are safely ventilated and they also want to be vaccinated.

They differed about what safe ventilation entails and whether the city just needed a vaccination plan for teachers or needs all school staff to be fully vaccinated before they return to in-person teaching.

Kendra Brooks, in red mask, speaks outside Steel. AFT president Randi Weingarten is at left.

“I want to come back when money is used properly for ventilation. All I saw was the district plan that said our rooms are cleared for capacity, but I didn’t see a ventilation report,” said Nikki Paulino, who teaches dance and music and would be required to return.

The original Henry building was constructed in 1908 although additions have been put on since. Some teachers said they thought the building was safe, but others aren’t so sure. It has several different ventilation systems throughout the complex. Paulino said her room is in the basement and has vents in the ceiling.

Asked what she wants to see regarding ventilation, she said she’d like to know that both the district and the union think the building is safe for return.

On vaccines, she said, “If they want us to be here, they need to put a vaccine plan in gear for us.”

City Councilmembers Helen Gym, left, and Kendra Brooks, center, outside Steel. Sign says “not a fan of Hite’s new plan.”

But Micah Gillum, Henry’s PFT building representative, set a high bar on both issues.

“Even if our building is 100% safe, if everyone is vaccinated, if ventilation is taken care of, the amount of time after having the vaccination is cleared, all of those things are taken care of, there’s still so many other buildings in the district that are not safe,” Gillum said.

While Henry’s ventilation reports show that it has enough classrooms with adequate ventilation to accommodate all the students who want to return, he noted that this is not true everywhere and that some schools, like Steel, have an occupancy rate of zero.

“That is unacceptable,” Gillum said.

Joseph Peeples, a first grade teacher in his first year of teaching, said he wants all teachers to get the vaccine before going back into the building to assure “the maximum level of safety.”

In a reversal, Philadelphia teachers are no longer expected to report to schools Monday

2021-02-08T03:45:24+00:00

The city is not asking Philadelphia teachers to return to school buildings Monday morning, a last-minute twist in the reopening debate.

A spokeswoman said that about 2,000 staff members who had been expected to go to school buildings to prepare for a Feb. 22 reopening for early-grade students can teach remotely instead, since a mediator hired to review a safety agreement between the district and teachers union won’t have a decision in time.

“The mediation process is still ongoing. Without a final decision from the mediator, teachers won’t be mandated to report tomorrow, but any teacher who chooses to report is welcome to do so,” said a statement from a city spokesperson last night.

“We remain hopeful that this process will ultimately allow both parties to come to a resolution in time for students to return the week of February 22.”

The spokesperson said that Mayor Jim Kenney and Deputy Mayor Rich Lazer have been “directly involved in the ongoing conversations—making contact with both parties to reinforce his desire for a resolution that allows students to return to the classroom on time” in two weeks.

In addition, the spokesperson said, the administration “has been in active discussions about the vaccination plan for teachers and other school staff and we hope to have an announcement on that in the near future.”

Many teachers were expected to defy the district’s order to return to their classrooms after the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers told its members Friday not to report to buildings. Superintendent William Hite had said teachers would face disciplinary action but hadn’t spelled out consequences.

A series of protests planned for Monday is expected to go on as planned, and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and elected officials are expected to show their support.
Also last night, 30 elected officials signed a letter to Kenney and Hite saying that “the latest push by the school district to send teacher back into schools has raised deeply troubling questions” both about the results of recent ventilation tests, the lack of a comprehensive plan to vaccinate educators, and overall building conditions.
“Despite our demands for sufficient school funding, government at city, state and federal levels have all failed to provide money to safety and swiftly remediate the lead, asbestos, mold, rodent infestation and other hazardous conditions that our youngest residents have been subjected to for generations,” the letter said.

As Philadelphia teachers protest return to school, mediator weighs ventilation concerns

2021-02-07T20:09:19+00:00

As some Philadelphia teachers prepare to protest and defy orders to return to school buildings Monday, an impartial mediator has begun poring over documents to decide if schools meet safety requirements agreed on by the union and district.

One of the questions he will have to decide is whether key parts of the agreement, specifically around adequate ventilation, cover days when only staff is in the building or only become operative when students return.

The safety of Philadelphia’s aging buildings has become a key issue in the debate around early-grade students returning to school on Feb. 22 for the first time since the pandemic shuttered schools last March.

On Wednesday, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers president Jerry Jordan invoked a memorandum of agreement (MOA) the district signed last fall that dictated required safety conditions in schools before in-person learning resumes. The agreement called for hiring an independent inspector to determine whether the safety requirements were met if there was conflict around return to buildings.

As inspector Dr. Peter Orris of Chicago began his work on Friday, Jordan urged members not to show up Monday to begin preparing classrooms in part because of concerns about meeting the ventilation requirements in the MOA.

Independent inspector Dr. Peter Orris of Chicago.

But according to the agreement, the ventilation requirements appear to be triggered when students return to classrooms. Superintendent Wililam Hite said Thursday he didn’t believe the agreement should affect teachers’ return to buildings since they will be in classrooms by themselves, though he did acknowledge that it was possible the inspector might impose additional requirements that could delay the planned reopening for students. His administration has vowed to discipline teachers who do not show up Monday.

“We think we’ve gone well beyond the requirements of the MOA,” Hite said Thursday.

It is unclear when Orris, who will do his review remotely and not visit Philadelphia, will render decisions.

“Everything is being done virtually,” city Department of Labor spokeswoman Lauren Cox said. “A mediation is never meant to be an investigation—the third-party mediator is charged with hearing from both parties and reviewing any supporting documents they provide. In this case, documents include information on inspections that have already been conducted.”

Meanwhile, some teachers and their supporters are preparing for protests Monday outside school buildings. They are planning to show up in parking lots and conduct remote learning from their cars. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten will join the union’s “day of action.”

The memorandum of agreement that Orris is charged with enforcing covers a range of issues around reopening, such as COVID positivity rates, cleaning and sanitizing, social distancing, and the use of personal protective equipment.

But it is not very detailed when it comes to ventilation requirements, an issue that has risen to the forefront in reopening discussion. And the requirements that the agreement does include — such as identifying the maximum number of occupants for each classroom — are checked off for the return of students, not the return of teachers.

A Chalkbeat analysis shows that most elementary schools appear to have sufficient classrooms to hold the number of pre-kindergarten through second grade students who are planning to return for the hybrid learning model, based on the district’s measurements of what is safe. About 9,000 pre-kindergarten through second graders out of some 32,000 have chosen the hybrid model.

But there are other issues highlighted in the reports that increasingly alarmed teachers and some parents say need resolution before schools should begin any in-person learning.

For instance, in some buildings, only a few bathrooms are usable and gyms and cafeterias are not suitable for occupancy, often because they are on a different ventilation system that is either unsafe to restart or not working at all, according to Chalkbeat’s analysis. The reports show that the Lingelbach elementary school in Germantown, built in 1955, has several classrooms with double-digit occupancy, but the cafeteria, gym, and library are safe for no people.

The MOA describes “occupied space” as not just classrooms, but libraries, gyms and cafeterias as well. (Bathrooms are dealt with separately.) Hite has said in the phased reopening, common spaces not deemed safe will not be used; for instance, students will eat lunch in classrooms if necessary, he said.

At Lingelbach, there are two usable student bathrooms on the third floor, but none of the teacher bathrooms met a standard for occupancy, according to its report, which caused some concern among parents posting on social media.

“Our children deserve clean air, functioning bathrooms, and a usable cafeteria and gym,” said a Facebook post from Friends of Lingelbach. “To be clear, parents, teachers and students REALLY want the school to open. But it is important to hold the district accountable for decades of mismanagement of our building,” the post said.

At the same time, there are parents and teachers who are eager to see a return to school buildings. Azizah Grant, the mother of a 6-year-old first grader at a charter school that hasn’t reopened and a reading specialist who works in Philadelphia schools, said “it is time to go back.” She said educators like herself should be returning to jobs just as doctors and cashiers are. “The students are failing,” she said. “The disparity is real!”

The city’s school buildings still in use have been built over more than a century, are vastly different sizes, and have several different kinds of ventilation systems. Some, like Lingelbach, have multiple systems in one building.

In at least 26 schools, the nurse’s office has been termed fit for zero occupancy.

One of these is Richard Wright elementary in North Philadelphia, where the nurse’s office is one of the inner-facing, windowless rooms in the half-century old building.

Wright principal Jeannine Payne said this is discomfiting and also a logistical problem. The nurse will have to relocate “in the middle of a health crisis,” when she will be expected to do testing and temperature-taking and other activities related to keeping everyone safe.

On social media, supportive parents were making plans to help shovel snow and make sure Monday’s protests can proceed. Snow in Philadelphia is expected to reach accumulation of more than six inches.

The principals union has also thrown its support behind the teachers union, calling for proper vetting of ventilation reports and adequate access to vaccinations. Many principals have already been working in their schools.

Johann Calhoun and Neena Hagen contributed reporting.

After pressure from advocates, Comcast boosts internet speed for low-income users

2021-02-04T15:42:13+00:00

As students in Philadelphia near a full year of virtual learning, Comcast is doubling the speed of its “Internet Essentials” program, which connects low-income families to the web at a discounted rate.

For households nationally that subscribe to the program, internet speed will double from 25 megabits per second (mbps) to 50. Costs will remain the same at $10 a month. Upload speeds will also raise from 3 mbps to 5. Experts say the upload speed can often be the limiting factor for online school, especially if there is more than one person in a household is trying to log on.

Comcast said the update builds on its “longstanding commitment to advancing digital equity, closing the digital divide, and addressing both digital literacy and the homework gap.”

Since the pandemic began, the Philadelphia-based company has established 33 spaces in community centers across the city where students can receive free Wi-Fi for virtual learning. It also said it has invested $40 million dollars in digital literacy programs, with new digital equity grants announced Tuesday.

In an interview, Dalila Wilson-Scott, Comcast’s executive vice president and chief diversity officer, said increasing connectivity is one of the ways it can have “the most impact on Philadelphia communities.”

The company’s announcement comes amid calls by city officials and community advocates to do more for Philadelphia school children during a school year turned upside down by COVID-19. A few weeks ago, Comcast faced criticism for its Internet Essentials program by ex-employee Chase Roper, whose inside account went viral on Twitter.

He wrote that the program didn’t offer fast enough internet “for children to do their live ‘Zoom’ online class work.”

For Stefanie Marrero, a stay-at-home mom from Frankford, that rings true. Her family has had major Wi-Fi issues using Internet Essentials since the start of the pandemic when her four children began virtual school from home.

Marrero believes Comcast’s plan to boost speeds will provide a huge relief.

“There’s always one kid getting kicked off Wi-Fi, or the internet is dropping for hours on end. So I’m stuck using my phone, calling Comcast every other day,” she said.

According to Marrero, her kids get marked absent if they drop out of class because of Wi-Fi problems. “I don’t think it’s fair to the children who are trying to do their work and the internet is just not able to keep up with everything.”

She says her son John, a 9th grader at Kensington CAPA, is often awake until midnight, trying to finish his school work as the Wi-Fi drops in and out.

She still wonders why the increase in internet speed didn’t come sooner. “Why would Comcast wait until now, February, to finally increase the speed, knowing that people are going to be working from home and there would be tons of more children doing virtual school?”
Devren Washington, an organizer with the Movement Alliance Project (MAP), has been part of the coalition pushing Comcast to provide low-income students with better internet access.

“I wasn’t expecting this today,” said Washington. “This is a crucial step in the right direction, there are so many kids who don’t have other options for the internet.”

Washington said his group has been hearing an increased number of reports about students having difficulty connecting to online school.

The complaints about internet access led MAP to organize rallies with concerned community members, educators, students, and parents outside Comcast’s Center City headquarters.

Washington said internet access has historically been disproportionately low for people of color in the city, a problem made worse by the virtual needs of the pandemic.

‘De facto redlining’

This is the sixth speed increase in 10 years for Internet Essentials. Sascha Meinrath, a telecommunications professor at Penn State University, said this increase was crucial because “25 mbps was inadequate for any family with more than one child in virtual school.”

That speed is the bottom threshold for the Federal Communications Commission’s definition of broadband. Meinrath, who has studied the issue for years and specifically its impact on rural Pa., found in 2019 that median speeds for most of the state fall below that mark.

Meinrath, too, said the issue is all about social justice.

“The digital divide is de facto redlining,” Meinrath said.

In a press release responding to Comcast’s decision, Philadelphia City Councilmember Helen Gym offered thanks to those who have engaged in this battle for months.
Gym said the moves from Comcast should only be a start.

“Poverty must never be a barrier to learning. We will continue to push Comcast to ensure that ‘Internet Essentials’ is as reliable and fast as any commercial internet service and to end barriers to accessing the internet in every neighborhood in Philadelphia.”

MAP’s Washington noted that the larger conversation about access to the internet needs to stretch beyond focusing on students, noting the large portion of Philadelphia adults who lack reliable broadband.

“The only path forward is for the FCC, for Congress, and even the president, to say that internet access, especially amid a pandemic, is a human right.”

Comcast’s updates to Internet Essentials are set to go into effect on March 1.

Neena Hagen of Chalkbeat Philadelphia contributed reporting.

Some Philadelphia teachers may get vaccine before return to buildings Monday, health commissioner says

2021-02-02T22:33:57+00:00

Some prekindergarten to second grade teachers may be eligible for the coronavirus vaccine before they return to their schools next week, Philadelphia’s health commissioner said Tuesday.

“We will certainly not have all of those teachers vaccinated by then, but I don’t think reopening the schools should depend on that,” the commissioner, Dr. Thomas Farley, said. “We are going to see how soon we can get teachers started. So it’s quite possible we could have some to start by then.”

The school district confirmed to Chalkbeat that it would advocate for early-grade teachers to get vaccine priority. Prekindergarten to second grade teachers are slated to return to school buildings on Monday. Students in those grades whose families opted for in-person learning are slated to return to school buildings as of Feb. 22.

City officials said last month they anticipated teachers would get access to the vaccine beginning on Jan. 25. But Farley cautioned that the city has a limited number of doses and a large number of people who qualify for vaccination during Phase 1B of the city’s plan. Teachers are considered frontline workers, but currently must wait until others in the 1B group, such as first responders, corrections employees, transit workers, and those working with vulnerable populations, receive vaccines.

“When schools follow guidelines, the risk of spread will be low,” Farley said. “So yes, I’m confident we can do this safely and I think it’s very important for the teachers to come back even if they don’t have a vaccine by the time they are to come back.”

Since Tuesday, there have been 382 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the city, bringing the number of confirmed cases to 106,976 since the start of the pandemic. There have also been 12 confirmed deaths since Tuesday, bringing the total number of Philadelphia residents who have died to 2,886.

“Everyone needs to keep up their masks and distancing for now,” Farley said. “No indoor gatherings, no parties, no inviting anyone over to your place. If you do get together, meet outside with masks.”

While teachers and school leaders are not yet eligible for the vaccine, school nurses, like other health care workers, have been able to sign up for weeks. The district and the city’s health department held a vaccine clinic for school nurses two weeks ago.

“We are working on a couple of opportunities” to get teachers vaccinated, said Mayor Jim Kenney. “We know how important it is to get schools open. We know how important it is to get kids out of the house and parents back to work. We are working diligently to establish a process to do that.”

To improve air circulation and prevent virus spread in classrooms before campuses reopen, the district has been installing temporary window fans, which Farley said was a good idea.

“I was surprised to learn that once I got into this, but window fans can really make a big difference in the amount of ventilation that takes place,” Farley said.

Even with precautions in place, Mayor Kenny said he understands why city residents are on edge. “A lot of the stress has to do with the fact that we have very little vaccine, so I understand people’s consternation,” he said. “We are trying to get as much vaccines as we can.”

Meanwhile, a coalition of student leaders discussed the district’s reopening plans with Chalkbeat and advised the district to “slow down” the process and involve more students in the planning.

Philadelphia board promises change after report on low achievement, racial disparities

2021-01-29T19:47:35+00:00

A report presented Thursday to the Philadelphia Board of Education showed that just 32% of third graders read on grade level, with stark gaps among racial groups and particularly low scores for English language learners and students with disabilities.

The report classified 63 elementary schools as “off-track,” 64 as “near-track” and 21 as “on-track,” categories based on their progress toward meeting five-year goals in reading, math, and college readiness. The benchmarks for the report were gleaned through the district’s internal reading assessment, AIMSweb. Those considered on-track are likely to reach the goal of having 62% of students proficient by 2026.

In a stark example of inequity within the district, the board’s data show that schools considered on track enroll fewer than 5,000 students and are disproportionately white, while the near-track and off-track schools enroll more than 31,000 students in the grades studied, kindergarten to third grade.

At its first meeting since announcing its intent to focus on how the board can assure all students succeed, the board spent two hours questioning Superintendent William Hite about the poor results and discussing strategies for improvement. As part of their five-year “goals and guardrails” focus, they have set a goal for 62% of students to be proficient in English language arts by 2026. This is the first of many promised presentations on the goals and sub-goals. The next report will explore reading achievement for third grade through eighth grade.

Board members have promised to hold Hite and themselves accountable for making improvements, even if it means substantial changes in how they have traditionally operated.

“These trends are not surprising to any of us, now we have to talk about what we can do about it,” said Mallory Fix-Lopez, the board member who led the session.

Potential answers include abandonment of longstanding practices around teacher assignment and putting more resources into some schools compared to others, both of which have been largely off the table in the past. Hite said the findings would inform upcoming negotiations with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, whose contract spells out the terms for how teachers are assigned to schools, which still relies heavily on the choices of teachers.

He and Fix-Lopez said it might be time to offer incentives for teachers to go to and stay in challenging schools.

“We need to understand better what’s causing teachers to move,” Hite said.

Among the causes are school climate, including serious disciplinary incidents as well as student and teacher attendance rates. He pointed out that attendance in the top-tier schools is much higher, with 71% of students attending 95% of the time, compared to 54% in the near-track schools and 43% in the off-track schools.

Besides the numbers showing much lower student attendance, Hite said the bottom group of schools had much higher poverty rates, and more students learning English and with special needs. A higher percentage entered kindergarten already behind and without pre-kindergarten experience. The lowest tier schools also as a group had less experienced teachers, more teacher turnover, and a lower percentage of teachers rated “distinguished.”

At all the schools, regardless of overall achievement, there were racial achievement gaps, with Black and Latino students scoring below whites and Asians. Black and Latino students in the top-tier schools are on track to reaching the goal of 62% proficiency by 2026, with about half reaching the mark now. But two-thirds of white and Asian students in those schools are already there.

Even at the top-tier schools, English learners and special education students are not on track to reach the goal.

Board president Joyce Wilkerson said the district needed to have frank discussions around race, expectations, and “bigotry,” and the potential effect on student outcomes.

“I have this unease, when we talk about subgroups we seem to be masking issues of race,” she said. “I worry that we’re not tackling directly low expectations we have for some kids and the role that that might play....we said we will grapple with the role of structural racism, I worry that we’re glossing over the role of race, bigotry, low expectations, in talking about this in a very sanitized way...if we’re going to do the work, we need to do it in a very authentic way.”

Wilkerson asked whether the researchers controlled for factors other than race that could account for the disparities, such as homelessness. Hite said there were correlations with race, poverty, food insecurity, school attendance rates, and neighborhood conditions, and that the district would further probe that data. Wilkerson also promised to look into disparities by race in student disciplinary referrals and why the percentage of Black and Latino students has declined in coveted special admission high schools.

In response to Wilkerson, Hite also stressed the need for changes in teacher professional development that focus on long-term growth rather than “drive-by” sessions, and that more deeply explore attitudes and expectations.

And he also said that there would be changes in the reading curriculum based on the findings, moving from a “balanced literacy” approach to one that pays more attention to phonics and phonemic awareness.

As part of the “goals and guardrails” reorientation, the board changed its speakers policy, limiting it to 30 members of the public and up to 10 students, and giving them two minutes to speak instead of three. The changes did not go over well with those who spoke Thursday, many of them regulars.

They weren’t mollified by the board’s intent to hold regular town halls every two months, saying that is no substitute for letting people speak at the board’s monthly action meetings.

Jesse Godschalk, a teacher, said he applauded the “frank and open discussion” around the goals and guardrails, but said the change in the speakers’ policy is a “huge step in the wrong direction” that will short circuit any effort by the board to build trust with the community. “We see you replacing this public forum with smaller ones and new procedures that you have full control over,” Godschalk said.

Karel Kilimnik, a retired teacher and member of the watchdog group Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, also criticized the speakers policy and called the goals and guardrails presentation a “colorful rubric…[with] verbiage thrown at the wall to see what sticks.”

The board also indicated its approval for the district’s hybrid learning plan scheduled to begin next month, with six of the seven members speaking in favor of it as long as safety protocols are in place. Only Angela McIver said she was opposed.

She said she “can’t in good conscience” support reopening, planned for Pre-K through second grade students in late February, while “hospitals are overwhelmed by a virus our country has failed to control.” Several speakers also blasted the plan; one speaker called it “ridiculous” with the advent of new variants of COVID-19, another said the administration was forcing teachers to make “life or death” decisions.

“We will hold you responsible when your decision inevitably results in illnesses, deaths, and community spread,” said parent Sonia Rosen.

‘We should not rush this’: Students demand a voice in Philadelphia’s reopening plans

2021-01-28T21:17:33+00:00

Brandon Archer, a senior at Masterman High School, has accepted the fact he may never experience a prom or walk across the stage for his graduation. But he and others his age are taking issue with the Philadelphia school district’s reopening plan, calling it “rushed.”

A coalition of student leaders from a mix of schools and organizations gathered on Wednesday evening to discuss the district’s reopening plans with Chalkbeat. Their view was unanimous: The district should “slow down” the process and involve more students in the planning.
Student representatives from Philadelphia Student Union, Philadelphia Black Student Alliance, UrbEd and the Bullhorn attended the roundtable discussion.

“The district needs to be transparent about these processes,” said Archer, who is a member of UrbEd and the Philadelphia Black Student Alliance. “If we expect parents to make a decision if they are ready for their child to go back to school, we need to make sure that our parents are informed of what that entails — if it is just two days a week.”

Superintendent William Hite announced on Wednesday a reopening plan that calls for prekindergarten through second grade students to come back two days a week, in shifts, beginning Feb. 22. Staff supporting those grades will return to school buildings on Feb. 8.

Hite could not give a timetable for high school students, but stressed that the district’s most vulnerable students, its youngest learners, are at risk of falling behind.

“This isn’t just about pre-K and second grade, this is about people’s livelihoods,” said Rebecca Allen, a sophomore at Central and a member of PBSA. “The quality of the plans and resources need to be adequate.”

Samiya Smalley, a senior at Central High School, said she also was concerned about school ventilation issues. As part of his presentation Wednesday, Hite said assessments by certified air balancers have been completed in all schools to assess air flow and help determine safe occupancy levels in each room.

But questions remain stemming from the district’s past problems with buildings not meeting minimal ventilation standards.

“More than rooms, I’m concerned about all the schools being ventilated,” Smalley said.

Lola Mildr, a senior at Masterman and a member of the Bullhorn, said she’s interested to see how the district will balance in- person lessons with remote learning. Hite said families will be given the option of staying virtual if they don’t feel returning to school is safe.

“You have teachers teach two sets of students while managing students who are in person,” she said. “How will the district ensure that students are not gaining so much more resources and information than those who can’t?”

Many of the district’s students rely on using buses and subways to get to school — another concern of the students interviewed. SEPTA officials have declared their equipment is safe, but students noted that the school district cannot guarantee that those riding public transit will be in safe conditions.

Qamar Coleman, a senior at George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science, said the district may monitor its students but not the general public. “You can’t regulate a person on SEPTA taking off their mask.”

“Once the pandemic is over who’s to say that SEPTA is going to continue cleaning them?” asked Labiq Jaigirdar in regards to city buses, trolleys and subways. Jaigirdar is also a senior at Carver and affiliated with the group UrbEd.

Some of the students also were concerned about how the district plans to get teachers vaccinated. The district confirmed with Chalkbeat that it will advocate for teachers of prekindergarten through second grade to be prioritized for the vaccine. But due to a limited number of doses and large numbers of people in priority groups to get the vaccine, it may be weeks until teachers are able to get shots, according to the city’s health commissioner.

Hite has said several schools across the city will be used as distribution sites.

But Archer said he doesn’t want vaccine distribution to turn into a battle of which schools have resources and which schools don’t.

“If we can find an equitable way of distributing the vaccine we should pause with the reopening of schools,” he said. “We should not rush this.”

Youma Diabira, a student at Central High School and member of the PBSA realizes she is not going to get another senior year, but said she wants to speak up for the younger students in the district.

“These kids do need more support that they don’t have at home,” she said. “There are students that haven’t logged on the entire year. We need to find ways in which they are being supported as well as our faculty.”

Racial, economic inequities persist in Philadelphia schools, new report says

2021-01-14T01:46:08+00:00

The city’s high-achieving schools enroll drastically higher numbers of white and wealthy students than the district as a whole, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Philadelphia School Partnership.

Overall, 60% of Philadelphia kids attend low-achieving schools, with Black and Latino kids overrepresented at the lowest-performing schools, according to the PSP report. And low-income areas, like North and West Philadelphia, are home to fewer high-ranking schools than wealthier neighborhoods.

The data “affirms the landscape that many people probably would have expected,” said David Saenz, PSP’s spokesman.

The report, based primarily on state standardized test scores, uses the last three years of publicly available data to measure achievement, academic growth rates, and enrollment patterns in schools with kindergarten to eighth grade. High schools were excluded from the analysis because they administer different standardized tests. Elementary and middle schools use the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment or PSSA.

The study’s analysis breaks the city down into 13 regions that correspond with areas studied under the district’s comprehensive school planning and review process. That process was initiated to determine enrollment and demographic patterns and look at potential school closures or consolidations, but it was suspended due to the pandemic.

On PSP’s interactive map, users can click on each region to see how many schools fall into the “low achieving,” “average achieving,” and “high achieving” categories, with detailed enrollment statistics appearing below the map.

High-achieving schools are defined as those that meet or exceed average rates of students scoring proficient or advanced on the state standardized tests, compared with other schools in Pennsylvania. Schools marked as average scored below the state average but higher than the Philadelphia average. And schools marked as low achieving scored below the Philadelphia average on state tests.

Schools with high test scores are those with the most affluent students, according to the report. That’s often the case when standardized test scores are used as a measure of school quality. But, the report shows that many low-achieving schools also demonstrate academic growth — often considered an important measure of school quality.

More than half of the low-achieving schools in the district were deemed “high growth,” which was defined as showing “significant evidence the schools exceeded the standard of growth for Pennsylvania,” the report said.

Overall, 39% of Black students in the city were enrolled in low-achieving but high-growth schools. Seven of those schools saw test scores spike by more than 10 percentage points in the past five years.

A much smaller group of schools occupies the low-achieving, low-growth category, and most of those schools are located in Northwest Philadelphia and Olney, which are nearly the lowest-income regions in the study. The report calls this group of schools the most “concerning,” but Saenz notes that many high-growth, low-achieving schools are still well below the standard.

“In most instances, the growth is not translating into meaningful achievement gains,” he said.

The report also shows a stark difference in school quality along regional and racial lines. One region in the Northeast has as many as seven high-performing schools, while other regions have no high-achieving schools at all. And there are three times as many white students as Black students at high-achieving schools, even though Black students outnumber white students in the district by a margin of 4 to 1.

That data is reflected in enrollment statistics. There are close to 30,000 unfilled seats in low-achieving schools — with more than half of those unused slots located in North Philadelphia, which is majority Black and low-income. Some wealthier schools, like Penn Alexander in University City, are so overcrowded that they don’t have room to enroll every student who lives in the catchment area.

While this report doesn’t evaluate high schools, Masterman and Central, selective-admission schools and the top-performing high schools in the city, have seen their Black populations plunge in recent years. The percentage of Black students at Masterman hovered around 50% for most of the 1990s, and now is 15%. Central’s Black population has plummeted from 33% to 20% in the past decade. (Some students who had previously identified as Black could be included in a more recently introduced multi-racial category.)

Over the summer, students and alumni from both schools demanded that the district and the schools’ administrators work to diversify the student population. And both school principals responded, promising to rethink admissions criteria. Admission to the schools is heavily test-score based and depends, in part, on the quality of students’ elementary education.

PSP is a proponent of school choice and advocates for charter schools. The organization has donated $80 million to Philadelphia’s private, charter and district schools since 2011.

The district did not respond to request for comment.

Tamir Harper, Executive Director of UrbEd and a former Philadelphia public school student, said he found it “problematic” that the report placed a heavy emphasis on standardized tests.

“Standardized tests are traditionally built [around the idea] that nothing happens in the classroom except taking tests,” Harper said.

Lisa Haver, co-founder of Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, criticized the report for similar reasons.

“It’s pushing a system where schools and students and teachers are judged by standardized test scores and that has been a major part of the drive toward inequity,” Haver said.

Saenz acknowledged that the data doesn’t indicate that charter schools in low-income neighborhoods perform better as a group than district-run schools.

And he emphasized that school choice in Philadelphia goes beyond families leaving the district for charter schools, noting that in some areas of the city only half the students in neighborhood schools are from that school’s catchment.

He said half of K-8 students attend “schools of choice,” which are those schools that a student selects outside of their neighborhood.

“If something is surprising, it may be surprising that the city has that many students who do not attend their neighborhood school. Obviously that would make sense that students are more likely to opt out of their neighborhood school if it is low achieving.”

Although the report concluded that Philadelphia has too few high-achieving schools, Saenz said that much more goes into determining high-quality schools than test scores, including the availability of extracurricular activities, whether or not there are police and metal detectors in the buildings, and the availability of sports and special programs. Families, he said, have to make informed decisions based on a range of factors.

“Our purpose was to start a conversation,” Saenz said.

Dale Mezzacappa contributed to this report.

Philadelphia school leaders confident schools will reopen this year

2021-01-08T23:30:03+00:00

Superintendent William Hite, Board of Education President Joyce Wilkerson, and teachers’ union President Jerry Jordan all say they are confident school buildings will open for some students this school year.

Hite will likely announce a reopening plan within the next “10 days or so,” he said in an interview Thursday. Hite noted the Pennsylvania departments of health and education had that day revised the guidance for school reopening, encouraging schools to resume instruction for elementary students — even where virus transmission rates are still relatively high.

“Beginning with the start of the second semester, the departments recommend public schools in counties with substantial transmission consider returning elementary school students to in-person instruction while secondary school students remain fully remote, provided they follow all applicable orders and safety protocols,” said the revised guidance, signed by acting education secretary Noe Ortega and health secretary Dr. Rachel Levine. They also urged resuming in-person instruction for targeted populations including English language learners and students in special education.

Levine and Ortega cited studies showing younger children have less susceptibility to the virus. But the statement emphasized that the final decision is up to local officials.

“I think it strongly recommends that younger students come back to school,” Hite said. “And I think their timeline is around the end of the first semester, which is the beginning of February. Those are the same group of children we were working toward getting back into the school already.”

Jordan reiterated in an interview that the union had secured during contract negotiations a series of conditions necessary to open schools, complete with grievance procedures to enforce them.

“I think teachers want to be in the classroom, they want to be face to face with kids, kids need direct instruction,” he said. “We as a district and union are farther ahead than many places.”

Jordan pointed to Chicago as an example where the school district and teachers union have failed to reach an agreement about school reopening. District leaders there have moved ahead with plans over the objections of the union.

The school district has tried twice to reopen schools for 30,000 students in pre-kindergarten through second grade — first in September and then in November. Each time, the return was called off due to public opposition. A main concern was that the aging buildings aren’t safe.

Hite said Philadelphia has done more than many other districts to work on their buildings while they are empty of students and staff, and is one of the few to write detailed ventilation reports and make them public. The reports have alarmed parents because many schools have few classrooms that are deemed usable, but Hite noted that initial plans call for relatively few students to return. If areas of the buildings aren’t considered safe, they won’t be used, he said.

He also said there are plans to test students and staff for COVID-19 regularly once buildings are open. “There are protocols in place for testing, it is our goal to get young people back into school as quickly as possible,” he said.

Within two weeks, Hite said, the district is likely to open some schools in each area of the city for students with disabilities who need services that are difficult or impossible to deliver virtually, such as occupational and physical therapy.

In addition to younger students, Hite is concerned about older students in career and technical education classes who need hands-on experience in order to accumulate enough hours for certification in their chosen field.

“They have required hours on equipment that is only available in schools,” he said.

Wilkerson said many teachers and families want children to return for some in-person learning. When the district did a survey in preparation for opening schools on a hybrid model in November for students in pre-K through third grade, about one-third opted to return.

A Chalkbeat analysis of the fall survey results from families showed that in schools with higher percentages of white students, parents were significantly more likely to select the hybrid model over fully virtual. And schools with 80 percent or more economically disadvantaged students saw a lower rate of families choosing hybrid.

The board president thinks the availability of vaccines “changes the analysis somewhat.” She added, however, that the logistics are “mind-numbingly complicated.” For instance, if teachers are given priority for vaccines in Philadelphia, as Mayor James Kenney and health commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley have indicated, how will that work for those — about half, she said — who don’t live in the city?

“I have no idea how any of that works,” she said. She predicts that some schools will open and then close again, depending on their neighborhood and the level of spread. Hite also has said as much.

“I am confident in some form or fashion we will have in-person something,” she said. “What I do know is that we need to get kids back in school.”

Chalkbeat intern Neena Hagen contributed data analysis

Philadelphia schools due for more than $400 million from COVID-19 relief

2020-12-23T00:08:49+00:00

The Philadelphia school district is in line to get more than $400 million from the coronavirus relief legislation passed by Congress — but that doesn’t mean the system’s fiscal woes are over, Chief Financial Officer Uri Monson said Tuesday.

The money “buys us 18 months for the local economy to recover and for things to normalize,” he said. It will also let the board of education focus on its goals for improving student achievement rather than worrying about plugging budget holes.

“It’s not a moment we suddenly sit back and say, ‘Great, now we have nothing to worry about’” regarding funding, he said. “This is one-time money, so we can’t paper over structural issues.”

The $900 billion federal relief package allocates about $57 billion to K-12 education. Most of that, $54.3 billion, is for public schools, including charters. The money is expected to be allocated based on the formula for the Title I program. Title I is the federal government’s primary program to aid low-income students and districts.

Pennsylvania would be due nearly $2 billion of the education money, and Philadelphia would receive nearly a quarter of that. In the last COVID-19 relief bill, Pennsylvania received about $473 million, of which Philadelphia’s share was more than $100 million. Monson said he doesn’t have an exact figure yet for the latest round of stimulus funding.

The legislation, which runs to more than 5,500 pages, gives districts wide latitude for spending, but homes in on addressing student learning loss, investing in improvements to school facilities to mitigate the spread of the virus, and upgrading technology.

In Philadelphia, the district faces huge challenges with ventilation in aging school buildings. Workers have been analyzing air quality in all the district’s schools, which have an average age of 70 years, and reports show many have alarmingly few classrooms that meet basic standards. This money will help accelerate ongoing improvement efforts, Monson said, while also freeing up funds to address other chronic problems, such as asbestos and lead paint. “We will be able to do more work than planned,” he said.

The school board passed a $3.5 billion budget last May, which showed a small surplus for this year and a predicted $145 million budget gap at the end of 2022. That was before the second surge of the virus and the subsequent loss of more city and state tax revenue.

The budget also didn’t figure in the costs of the new contract agreement with the teachers union and it counted on $35 million from a property tax reassessment, which the city has subsequently abandoned.

Monson told the board earlier this month that the financial picture had worsened considerably, outlining a shortfall $11 million this year and predicting a 2021-22 budget gap of $300 million, more than twice the size of what he forecast in May. In five years, the projected shortfall was over $700 million.

While the federal funds won’t totally wipe out these numbers, they will improve the fiscal picture enough to change the conversation, Monson said. Board president Joyce Wilkerson issued a statement saying that “these one-time funds will be immensely helpful in filling budget gaps for the next 18 months, while the district focuses on long-term structural deficits that challenge our ability to fully support student learning and achievement.”

At its December meeting, the board of education announced its intention to reframe its stewardship of the district around “goals and guardrails” that focus on raising student achievement and promoting equity.

Both publicly and internally, Monson said, questions have been raised how the board could do that while facing such huge gaps between available revenue and student needs. “Now the discussion is how we can reallocate certain resources, where we can put investments for the goals and guardrails,” rather than always searching for how to save money. “We’re starting these conversations already,” he said.

Because the money is not recurring, strategies like hiring more teachers to reduce class size would not be advisable, he said. Addressing learning loss would more likely have to be done through temporary programs, such as tutoring or summer school.

The federal legislation did not include additional money for local and state governments. That’s a problem for Philadelphia schools because, unlike every other district in Pennsylvania, it is entirely dependent on local and state revenue. The board has no taxing power of its own.

After the last recession, Pennsylvania used stimulus money as a replacement for state aid. When it dried up, districts faced huge shortfalls. Philadelphia alone lost more than $250 million, forcing it to lay off all of its nurses and counselors, among other austerity moves, the effects of which linger today.

But the latest bill prevents that from happening by specifying that states cannot reduce state education aid significantly without a federal waiver. Cities, however, have no such restrictions and Monson said he anticipates some pressure on the city to try to cut the funds it allocates to the schools as a way to meet its own needs.

“The city is facing its own challenges,” Monson said. “We won’t know what the city will do until we see the mayor’s budget.”

President-elect Joe Biden called this bill just a “down payment” and has said that he may push for another relief bill after he takes office.

Philadelphia widens free internet eligibility for families with children in school

2020-12-18T23:46:59+00:00

Do you have Internet Essentials? Take this survey about the quality of your connection.

Philadelphia has expanded eligibility for PHLConnectED, its program to provide free internet access to families with school-age children.

City officials intensified outreach this week to families who now qualify for the program.

Under the new guidelines, all families who participate in public benefit programs with income qualifications, such as food stamps, will be eligible. Students who receive special education services or are learning English also qualify.

“We want to connect as many families as possible to reliable internet access,” said Mayor Jim Kenney in announcing the outreach campaign. “As digital learning continues, access to high-speed internet is more important than ever.”

Among the main beneficiaries of the expansion are customers who were enrolled in Comcast’s low-cost Internet Essentials program — especially those who fell behind on their payments — before the pandemic forced most learning online and Comcast began offering free access to new customers.

Even at $9.95 a month, the cost can prove too much for families who are struggling with other obligations, especially those who lost jobs during the pandemic.

“Throughout this process, we’ve also learned that many families already have internet service, but struggle to afford it,” said Chief Information Officer Mark Wheeler. Those already enrolled were not eligible for the two-months-free offer Comcast made last spring to new customers when some virtual learning began for almost all the schools in the city.

About 7,000 people signed up for the Comcast offer between April, when the offer was made, and August, when PHLConnectED started as a joint venture with the city, school district, internet service providers, and several foundations and non-profits. The $17 million program promised free internet until June 2022 to eligible households with students enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade in the Philadelphia school district, as well as at most charters and some private schools.

Those 7,000 families have since been notified that they could enroll in PHLConnectED and receive free internet through the end of the 2021-2022 school year. That group accounts for more than half of the 12,000 families PHLConnectED has enrolled since its August launch, according to officials.

As part of PHLConnectED, the city designated three organizations to employ “digital navigators” who track down families, tell them about their eligibility, and help them complete the multi-step process.

“Most of the people I have talked to on the phone about Internet Essentials and PHLConnectED, they don’t know where to start,” said Miyo Imai, a digital navigator for the ExCite Center of Drexel University.

Besides Drexel, the other organizations with digital navigators are Community Learning Center, an adult literacy organization, and SEAMAAC, an advocacy group for immigrants.

Even before PHLConnectED started, Drexel and the other organizations had been reaching out to clients trying to help them with their internet connectivity and to obtain Chromebooks or other devices.

Signing up for PHLConnectED requires several steps, and many families just didn’t follow through.

“They have to take the initiative,” said Imai, who is a Drexel student studying computer science and psychology. “In the beginning, we weren’t getting very many calls, and we weren’t sure how to get the word out there.” It’s a Catch-22, she said — promoting a program online doesn’t work if people aren’t online.

“It was hard to get the word out to people who really needed it,” she said. The city turned to advertising through other means, which helped somewhat, she said.

But altogether, she estimates that she only succeeded with about 10 families to complete the process from beginning to end.

To sign up for the program, families can call a 24-hour, 211 hotline. They get a promotional code from the district or their participating school, which they must then activate before receiving the equipment they need to get online. Some families, such as those with less stable living situations, get hotspots through T-Mobile if that will better serve their needs.

Imai and other navigators said many families are in situations where other life challenges take priority over signing up for internet access.

“We have people coming back to us who don’t know how to set it up once they get a kit from Comcast,” Imai said, “Some have data plans on their phone, so we can send them links. But with other people, it is harder. They’ve never seen a modem or a router, they don’t have any idea what to do with them. There is such a range of people’s experiences with tech.”

Other people have called the Drexel navigators to say that their internet speeds are “ridiculously low. “One woman said she couldn’t open up a single web page,” she said.

Existing customers whose bills are in arrears will not have those obligations forgiven, but have not had their service cut off and will be able to receive free service through June 2022.

Before the expansion, eligible families included those with no access or access only through mobile phones, anyone experiencing housing insecurity, or those who had students who spent their days with caregivers at locations without access.

Philadelphia to widen eligibility for free internet access for students

2020-12-10T19:41:33+00:00

City officials plan to expand eligibility for PHLConnectED, a program that provides students in Philadelphia with free internet access for remote learning.

Next week will be designated “PHLConnectED Week” with expanded outreach to families, said Otis Hackney, the city’s chief education officer. City officials will release details then about who else will be eligible for the program.

Thousands of families still are not connected to the internet, he said, though he couldn’t provide an exact figure. When the program began in August, city officials estimated that 18,000 families needed internet access. Since then, they said that they have reached about 12,000 families, including more than 7,000 who had signed up for a Comcast promotion before the official launch of PHLConnectED.

“We’re using this week to continue promotion of PHLConnectEd with new opportunities to sign up,” he said, speaking at Superintendent William Hite’s weekly availability with reporters.

Since the program began, city officials have learned more about why families continue to lack internet access. One problem is that some families start the process to receive wired access or a mobile hotspot and then don’t complete it. A large proportion of families fail to take the next step, Hackney said.

The week will include incentives, including contests and gift cards, and increased communication with those families and others, he said.

“We’ve targeted those families who started the process but not yet completed it,” he said.

Hackney said that the program is working with district and charter schools and the Catholic Independence Mission Schools to pinpoint those in need.

Initially, Hackney said, the city tried to find families who had no access at all. Now city officials are reaching out to those who have some access, but it’s sufficient to support multiple students in the same home. In that case, they may also offer mobile hotspots to the family.

Some students may have access in their homes but spend their school day with caregivers who have spotty internet connections or no access. Those students also would be candidates for mobile hotspots.

PHLConnectED, funded through a combination of public money and private contributions, including by Comcast, promises free internet access through June 2022.

During Thursday’s availability, Hite also said the district is working with Children’s Hospital and the city’s department of health on a rapid coronavirus testing plan for when school buildings might reopen. He said the district will likely contract with a third party to administer the testing, which will be mandatory for any student or staff who is symptomatic.

The district is hoping to contract with an organization with mobile sites that can prioritize areas of the city that have been hardest hit by the virus. He said a plan will be finalized in the next couple of weeks.

Philly mayor, school board objected to COVID fund distribution

2020-12-09T00:42:38+00:00

Mayor Jim Kenney and city council president Darrell Clarke sent a letter to Gov. Tom Wolf in August complaining about how the state distributed $174 million in coronavirus relief funds to school districts, saying it denied the Philadelphia school district, the state’s largest, its “fair share” of the money.

A report issued this week by two state education advocacy organizations said that districts serving low-income, mostly Black and Latino students were shortchanged by the process. The groups urged state leaders to distribute any additional federal funds by using the state’s basic education formula, which takes into account factors such as poverty and the number of English language learners.

The letter from Kenney and Clarke called the formula the state used “inequitable” and called for Wolf to use his emergency education money to fix the disparity and “ensure Philadelphia students receive their fair share of state funding.”

Republican legislative leaders devised the formula used to distribute the health and safety grants — giving each of the state’s 500 school districts a baseline of $120,000 and then allocating the rest based on total enrollment. The result: Philadelphia received less per student than any other district, according to the letter.

After the Keystone Research Center and Education Voters PA released the report, Wolf, a Democrat, said he agreed the money should have been distributed using the state’s basic education funding system, also known as the “fair funding” formula.

“The District’s share would increase from $13 million to more than $40 million if the Fair Funding Formula was used to distribute these funds,” the letter said. The district’s chief financial officer, Uri Monson, told the board last week that it may have to do layoffs or furloughs because of shrinking revenue and rising costs from the coronavirus pandemic.

The Philadelphia Board of Education first objected to the distribution method when the money was allocated last spring. Board president Joyce Wilkerson said the formula “benefited wealthy suburban schools at the expense of large, urban schools. These are the same school districts that face the biggest hurdles and expenses related to reopening.”

Coronavirus relief method cost poor districts millions, report says

2020-12-08T02:49:54+00:00

When the state of Pennsylvania distributed $174 million in federal coronavirus relief to schools, it used a formula that shortchanged districts with large numbers of low income Black and Latino students, a new report shows.

By its calculations, Philadelphia alone would have received $30 million more.

The education advocacy groups that conducted the analysis, Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center and Education Voters PA, said that they hoped to influence how any future federal COVID relief funds are allocated to schools.

“This is a pretty simple story about getting the allocation of these funds backwards,” said Stephen Herzenberg, president of the Keystone Research Center, the parent group of the budget and policy center. “And when you step back and think about the context in which this happened, the pandemic, the [coronavirus] relief, but also the country’s wrestling with its history of racial injustice … there’s a tone deafness to the distribution of these funds that is stunning. We cannot make this mistake again.”

The groups say that it made the most sense to distribute the funds according to the state’s basic education funding formula, which is weighted toward districts with the highest needs. That formula takes into account the number of low-income students and English language learners, as well as the concentration of poverty, taxing capacity, and other district conditions, which vary widely in the state.

Had this method been followed, Philadelphia would have received $43.6 million instead of $13.7 million, according to the analysis. The district could have used the money: Philadelphia schools may have to lay off or furlough staff to balance its budget this fiscal year, its chief financial officer told the board of education last week.

Pennsylvania received $5 billion of $150 billion distributed to states as part of the CARES Act, as the federal coronavirus relief bill is known. Of that amount, the state was required to distribute $470 million to school districts, charters, and private schools based on their federal Title I allotment, which considers the portion of students from low-income families.

But there was a pot of another $200 million with no requirements for how to allocate it. Of that amount, $26 million went to charter schools and $174 million to school districts.

That $174 million, designated as school health and safety grants, was distributed according to a method Republican legislative leaders devised. Each district, regardless of size, received $120,000 (charters got $90,000), with the rest distributed based on enrollment.

“The purpose of setting a baseline amount was to protect smaller school districts, ensuring that they received a sufficient amount to assist with COVID-19 health and safety mitigation,” said a statement from Neal R. Lesher, the communications and policy director of the House Appropriations Committee. “The rest of the funding was distributed based on the per pupil membership of the district, as the need for cleaning, PPE, technology and other expenses logically grows with the size of the district.”

Apparently, the Republican-controlled legislature and Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, disagreed on how to allocate the funds, another reflection of the state’s deep partisan divide and largely urban-rural split. Wolf’s office issued a statement in response to the groups’ analysis: “This allocation was mandated by the General Assembly. The governor has always supported additional education funding through the Fair Funding Formula,” a reference to the basic education formula.

Resource disparities among districts in the state rank among the starkest in the nation; for instance, it is common to see well-funded and mostly white districts abut those that are mostly Black, Latino, and poor, with more needs but far less per student to spend.

Whether Pennsylvania districts are equitably and adequately funded is a “longstanding and devastating problem” in Pennsylvania, said Susan Spicka, president of EdVotersPA. A major fair funding lawsuit is now making its way through the courts and is expected to go to trial sometime next year. The plaintiffs, six school districts and several parents, want the state to contribute more towards education and to distribute it more equitably.

When the fair funding formula was adopted in 2015 after 25 years without a reliable and predictable system, it was applied only to new funding. Districts were guaranteed no less than they had received the year before, even if their enrollment had gone down. This benefited many rural districts, including some that are poor, but it hammered urban ones, which tend to educate more students of color.

“I don’t think it is ever a good idea to allocate money to schools without a formula that keeps equity in mind,” Spicka said.

At a virtual press conference Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center and Education Voters PA convened, Steven Rodriguez, superintendent in Pottstown, one of the poorest districts in mostly affluent Montgomery County, said that the overall funding system in Pennsylvania, “has made second-class citizens of urban students.”

“When I compare my school district ... and think about what happened in the spring, that’s a pretty obvious example,” he said, noting that schools with greater resources “were able to immediately move into a virtual format. They had the curriculum, they had the setup, they had the technology. And even those who didn’t had families that were able to support in a better way than our families were.”

He said a lot of urban districts “still have families that don’t have internet in their homes, they don’t have a level of technology to fully support students doing virtual education, and quite frankly, need to work. So while on the one hand I can say I’m glad that $400 million was spent equitably, I’m very disturbed about the fact that $174 million was spent in a way that I’m not sure why it was spent that way, and I think that citizens need to ask that question.”

According to the groups’ analysis, the distribution method resulted in the districts in the poorest quartile receiving less per student than more affluent districts. Those needy school systems received a total of $36 million, rather than the $90 million it would have gotten had the basic education funding formula been used.

The 25% of school systems with the highest share of Black students also lost out, receiving $34 million instead of the $76 million. Those with the lowest share of Black students received $55 million. It was a similar story for districts with large number of Hispanic students — they received $33 million instead of $82 million.

Philadelphia officials had no comment as of press time.

“At some point,” said Spicka, “you have to realize some school districts are so desperately underfunded, and have so few resources, that the focus in Harrisburg should be leveling up these districts so every kid in Pennsylvania can succeed in school and in life.”

Brave new world: Students from immigrant families in Philadelphia give inside view on adjustment to remote learning

2020-12-04T23:07:30+00:00

This article was produced with support from Resolve Philly, the organization that leads Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on economic mobility.

In mid-March, some 200,000 Philadelphia students were sent home from their public schools due to the coronavirus, with hopes they would return two weeks later. That didn’t happen, and the buildings have been shuttered ever since.

From Northeast to Overbrook to Furness, students had to adapt to learning online, largely from their homes. For thousands of students from immigrant families in Philadelphia public schools, including 13% who are English Language Learners, the shutdown has posed unique challenges. There can be language barriers or confusion about the new technology. There is concern about juggling jobs with children’s course loads. There is fear about the virus, which disproportionately strikes communities of color.

But there are also victories, grace, even a touch of enlightenment. A pair of brothers cozily study on a pillow bed handmade by their mother from African fabric. Others enjoy sharing lunch as a family, eating recipes passed down by great grandparents. Many have grown closer in this isolation.

Here are the stories of three immigrant families who spoke to Chalkbeat Philadelphia about this singular time in their education experience.

It all happened so fast.

“I had stuff left in my locker. I had my personal books in my locker, my dance clothes for my dance team in my locker. I expected to be sitting [out] for a week or two and come back,” recalled Ramirrah Reid, a junior at George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science, of her last days attending school.

But then the principal sent out an email saying the district was shutting down. “That was my sophomore year,” Ramirrah said, “and I didn’t really get to experience it at all.”

Ramirrah Reid, left, and her younger sister Samya Demercado.

“It all happened so fast ... I expected to be sitting [out] for a week or two and come back.” -Ramirrah Reid, George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science

For 16-year-old Ramirrah, school is now a laptop that she uses in her home in Overbrook Park, where she lives with her siblings as well as her mother and grandmother, both of whom immigrated from Jamaica in the 1990s. As the eldest of three children, she has also taken on the role of tutor and teacher while her mother is at work as a nurse.

On a recent morning, Ramirrah watched an astronomy lesson on space missions while her sister, Samya Demercado, sat on a living room sofa in her pink and white pajamas and played a game on the cell phone. Samya had a half day and was done with school a little after 10 a.m.

“My mom, at first she was here with us, taking care of my grandmom but she just recently started going back to work so it’s just me with my siblings,” Ramirrah said. “It’s kind of a lot because I’m doing my work, then I got to make sure they’re doing their work.”

Ramirrah is juggling everything at home while still fulfilling the requirements of what she called “hardcore” classes — Honors Pre-Calculus, Honors Physics, AP U.S. History, and an English 101 dual enrollment course at the Community College of Philadelphia.

According to the African Cultural Alliance of North America (ACAN), an organization that assists African and Caribbean immigrants, virtual learning has brought on an extra burden for families. The organization provides tech training for business owners and says they are working on a grant to help families adjust to virtual learning.

“There have been a lot of issues with digital learning in the African and Caribbean community,” said ACANA CEO Voffee Jabateh. “We do get parents having difficulties...issues like trying to log onto Zoom and not having the proper internet. In some cases, parents do not have the proper tools. Some of them only know how to go online over the phone. The parents might not know how to follow up or check their work, they only take their [students’] word for it.

Reporter Samaria Bailey and immigrant students appear on The Source with Andrea Lawful Sanders - WURD Radio

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Ramirrah said before returning to work, her mother supervised her younger brother and sister. Now, although she has stepped into the role, she is just as, if not more, bothered by the fact that she can’t be near her close friends. While Ramirrah is not shy, she does sometimes keep to herself and felt like school “really brought me out of my shell.” She tries to stay positive, avoids thinking about the stress and keeps herself busy. But some days it’s not easy.

“I prefer to be in school - just the whole school experience – going to different classes, meeting new people, going places after school with my friends,” she said, crying. “I don’t think I’ve ever come straight home after school.”

“Going virtual,” she continued, “I’m missing out on most of my high school experience.”

Ramirrah’s sister, Samya, said she felt similarly, like remote learning has taken something from her. When she was a second grader last year at Overbrook Educational Center, she was in the annex building. This was supposed to be the year that she moved up to the big building, where she could see all the older students, including her brother, walk to lunch in the cafeteria.

Ramirrah Reid, left, and her younger sister Samya Demercado shown studying together at home.

“But, now I’m in my house. I’m not in the building,” she said. “I feel furious because I want to see all my friends. I can’t see any of my friends and how funny and crazy they are.”

Samya has been struck by the heavy workload she’s expected to finish every day and turns to her teacher or sister if she needs help. The computer puts a strain on her eyes, she said, so much so that sometimes she feels as though they are “burning.” Ramirrah says she also gets headaches sometimes. Their brother, on the other hand, prefers learning at home without the distraction of classmates.

But virtual learning has brought on some residuals that they enjoy. Ramirrah and Samya have come to appreciate their grandmother and mother’s food, especially recipes passed down from their great-grandmother. Before, they might have eaten the school’s breakfast and lunch or ordered takeout meals. Now, they eat more of their family’s native foods – including special Jamaican sourced frankfurters, tin mackerel with boiled dumplings, and porridge.

“Sometimes what I will do is come down and make them something to eat because I don’t want them to be sitting around the computer all day, eating chips and stuff,” said their grandmother, Marlene Johnson. “I think I feel more for the children because sometimes you can see that they are confused. [But] they do their work.”

Learning at home has been an adjustment for all of Aracely Isidoro, an immigrant from Mexico, and her four children. But the sacrifice is perhaps steepest for her oldest, Jazaret.

The 18-year-old is an advanced construction student at YouthBuild Philadelphia, an accelerated program for nontraditional students to finish high school. Learning at home means she might miss out on one of the most important pieces of her program — the hands-on training needed to eventually earn a certification in her field. Jazaret watches the local coronavirus cases rise and restrictions on in-person learning remain in place, and she feels uncertain about her future.

“It’s complicated to get your certificate without having any experience,” said Jazaret. “We are going to get our diploma [but] we might not get certified because we don’t have the required hours or the hands-on experience.”

Juntos, a community-led Latinx immigrant organization based in South Philadelphia, said such uncertainty has come to mark the experiences of countless families and called on the School District of Philadelphia to do more.

“We have seen parents weigh between taking a job or leaving their children home alone, older siblings becoming teachers for their younger siblings, all while families fight for internet access to ensure their children are able to attend classes and then resolve issues that come up with the online platforms all in a language that is not their own,” Juntos said in a statement.

Learning inside the family’s three bedroom home in South Philadelphia, Jazaret misses having a “seat partner” who she could ask questions of in class. Jazaret described her new version of class as “in my bed … just staring at the computer.”

From left, Jazaret Isidoro embraces her younger brother Francisco. Her sister Angie is to the right and her brother Alan Perez is at the rear.

“When [we] go to normal school, if you have a question, you ask your seat partner. Now, it’s really difficult because we don’t know each other because our cameras are off.” -Jazaret Isidoro, YouthBuild Philadelphia

“Now, it’s really difficult because we don’t know each other because our cameras are off. We don’t have that connection or communication,” she said, adding that she sees a change in her siblings, too. “Normally, [I’m] used to after school, after three, the kids come in, they are full of energy but now it’s quiet.”

Her brother, Alan Perez, an 8th grader at Andrew Jackson School, also attends class in his bedroom. He said he initially liked the idea of virtual learning because he didn’t always enjoy learning in a school building. “I was actually pretty happy that we weren’t going back. I didn’t really like going in person. I thought it was nice to have freedom to roam around the house on breaks,” he said.

“My feelings have changed drastically.”

Alan knows that he procrastinates without someone watching him, especially when his mother is downstairs, and not able to mind him. So he admits he sometimes doesn’t pay attention in class. “It’s like, since I’m not being watched, I drift off doing my own thing…mostly playing video games,” he said. “I do feel I am learning. I still am able to turn in my assignments correctly.”

Jazaret and Alan said they also assume tutor roles for their two younger siblings, Angie, a fifth grader, and Francisco, a third grader. Their mother, who doesn’t speak English, said through a translator that their stepping in has been a huge help, as has a nearby church that offers tutoring two days a week.

“It’s very hard for me and my kids. I also didn’t study in Mexico, so the method of learning is very different and also much more advanced,” she said, noting that Jazaret and Alan’s help with the younger kids “makes it easier [but] it’s still complicated.

“In the case of my younger son - he has a hard time focusing on the task at hand. The teacher will send a message if the younger child is missing homework but there is no additional support,” she said.

One of the silver linings to having school at home for the family is the growth of their relationships. Jazaret and Alan observed that Angie and Francisco, who’ve been mostly immersed in American customs, are now more exposed to Mexican food and language.

“My younger siblings, they are speaking more of their native language, instead of English, which is good. During lunch or breakfast, we are eating more of our native food than normal school. They are eating better now. Here, we eat what we normally eat and our own fresh food, compared to the school’s processed food,” said Jazaret. “That’s one of the great things that came out of it. You have more time to connect or talk to your family than you would normally.”

When the Mohammed brothers, Aunullah and Mohammed-Muftahu, awake in the morning, the first thing they do is pray the Fajr prayer, one of the five daily Islamic prayers. They then shower, eat breakfast, and by 8:30 a.m., they are logged into their laptops for school. This is their regular routine, and according to their mother, Halimatu Mohammed, it has been slightly modified for virtual learning – as have other parts of their lives.

Mohammed, originally from Ghana, has to balance supervising her sons’ learning with her work as a visiting scientist at Northeastern University, including writing scientific papers and editing journals.

Brothers Aunullah Mohammed and Mohammed-Muftah Mohammed attend class on their laptops at their mother’s seamstress work table.

“I have to put a lot of these things on hold. Or, the majority of my work is done when they are asleep at night,” said Mohammed, who moved to the U.S. in 2000. “Whereas, I was a little bit relaxed on the sleeping time, now I have to be a lot stricter. I realized having a calendar for each child helps out a lot.”

Kou Dolo, an ACANA social media consultant, said the pandemic is a challenge for many working parents, including African and Caribbean business owners who have had to bring their children to work. She observed one instance recently while visiting a store along a majority African business corridor.

“There was a student in the store during [business] operations and people kept coming in and out and she was basically in class online and there were a lot of distractions [and] asking the teacher, ‘Can you please repeat?’” said Dolo. “I spoke to the president of the small business owners association and he talked about how they can’t leave their kids alone, they don’t have a babysitter, they have to bring their child to work with them.”

An active parent, Mohammed serves as a parent representative board member for her sons’ school, Independence Charter School - West, and regularly contacts their teachers to ensure they are on or ahead of target. At home in their Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood, such engagement translates into what the eldest, 12-year-old Aunullah, described as a mom who is stricter than the teacher.

“I can’t get as loose as I want to because in school there’s certain things that I can do, that I can’t do in here. At school, if you want to stand up, you can stand up. Here, if you stand up, you have to sit down, and you have to pay attention in class,” he said. “Mom is stricter when it comes to school. She takes it really serious.”

Aunullah Mohammed lies down on the pillow bed handmade by his mother, while attending class on his laptop.

On a late November afternoon, while Aunullah participated in a science lesson on the four hemispheres of the Earth, a piece broke off of his headphone jack. It’s the fourth pair he’s had. Seated nearby, his 9-year-old brother, Mohammed-Muftahu, listened intently to a Spanish class while the teacher reviewed the terms for the three meals of the day.

The brothers sat at a table usually used by their mother for some of her seamstress work. Mohammed observed the boys, providing direction in her Ghanian language, Hausa, while also tending to their three-year-old sister. At one point, she urged Aunullah to put his headphones back on, to which he responded with a minor protest.

“I don’t like it,” he said. Both sons wore casual clothes, as opposed to a uniform that they would normally have worn if they were in the school building.

At other times, they attend class in their rooms, planted on a pillow bed Mohammed recently handmade using an African-printed fabric, an effort to make them feel comfortable while online.

The issues they’ve experienced are similar to those reported by other families – computer freezes, sound failures, screen fatigue, wandering minds, and some sibling discord.

“I was in the room doing my class [and] he kicked me out while I was lying down,” said Mohammed-Muftahu, pointing out one of his brother’s antics. “When I’m not looking, he will come in my class and start [throwing] his hand up. It’s annoying. Sometimes, he types all of this stuff in the chat and the teacher says stop but it’s not me.”

Aunullah admitted that he is prone to distractions and will play games while his teacher is prepping lessons or if he finishes his work early.

Ms. Mohammed said the games were initially a problem, but through a rewards system she’s created, she’s been able to rein it in. She describes the entire experience as an adjustment – from the all-day management of the kids while tending to her own business to the constant buying of headphones and having to visit the school for supplies. But on a broader plane, she describes it as a “blessing.”

Because they are home more, the children are learning more of her native language — and she’s learning different sides of their personalities.

“I deeply appreciate it now that my kids will actually…initiate the conversation in my language and now it’s like a competition for them. I really love hearing them speak it,” she said. “These times are affording that and it’s allowing me to know my children. I feel like I’m a lot closer to them.You get to learn the different personalities of the kids. So, it’s like a blessing in disguise.”

Penn announces $100 million, 10-year gift to Philadelphia school district

2020-11-17T22:32:47+00:00

The University of Pennsylvania announced today that it would donate $100 million to the School District of Philadelphia over 10 years to help pay for the remediation of asbestos and other potentially dangerous conditions in aging school buildings.

It is the largest single private donation to the district ever, and it comes after years of pressure, including from a group of Penn’s own students and faculty, to contribute to the district in the form of “payments in lieu of taxes,” or PILOTS.

“All Philadelphia students deserve high quality and safe learning environments, but we know that achieving this systemwide in our aging school buildings requires significant resources,” said Mayor Jim Kenney. He said the gift “will go a long way in accelerating the district’s aggressive environmental remediation work.”

Penn president Amy Gutmann said the “historic commitment by the university and Penn Medicine will help support a most critical and immediate need that will benefit generations of Philadelphia students, their teachers, and school staff.”

As a nonprofit, Penn is exempt from paying property taxes, which is the school district’s largest single source of local funding. Penn, including its campus and hospital network, is also the city’s largest private landowner.

The advocates, who have mobilized for years to get Penn to contribute to city coffers, said the gift was welcome, but just a “first step.”

The Penn for PILOTS movement, as well as other organizations including Jobs for Justice, had estimated that if Penn paid property taxes on its holdings, it would owe the city about $100 million a year. The groups proposed that Penn pay 40% of what it would owe, or about $40 million annually. It also proposed that all the money go into an educational equity fund dedicated to the school district. (The city’s property tax is split between the district and the city, with the district getting 55%.)

Crediting the “power of mobilization” for the gift, Penn for PILOTS, in a statement, said that “the chronic underfunding of the Philadelphia public schools cannot be resolved with a limited commitment of ten annual payments; it requires a system of public finance that ensures that the city’s wealthiest institutions pay their fair share every year in perpetuity.”

The tax exemption, the group said, “deprives the public school system of funds that students, teachers, and staff need and deserve. Year in and year out, the poorest big city in the United States subsidizes one of the richest universities in the country... A time-limited gift will not make up for Penn’s accumulated debt to the public schools, nor will it ensure that Penn contributes what it owes in the future.”

Devan Spear, executive director of Jobs for Justice, echoed this point. “The chronic underfunding of the Philadelphia public schools cannot be solved with a limited contribution,” he said, calling on other large universities, including Drexel and Jefferson, to “look to Penn’s leadership when they consider what they owe to the city they call home.”

City council member Helen Gym, who has pushed for PILOTS since before she was elected, also characterized it as just a first step while urging other major institutions to “pay a fair share in addressing the shameful school funding crisis.”

The school district has estimated that it needs $500 million to remediate all its buildings of flaking asbestos and other hazards, including mold, peeling lead paint, and outdated or ineffective ventilation systems — an issue that has become more urgent with the coronavirus pandemic. Since schools closed in March, it has been accelerating this work, but the task is monumental. Penn’s statement said that the money “will allow the district “to dramatically accelerate and expand their response to environmental concerns in our public schools.” On average, the buildings are 70 years old; the oldest still in use was built in 1888.

Calling it a “tremendous gift,” Board of Education president Joyce Wilkerson said the funds will “free us to direct our focus to investing in a new and compelling vision for school facilities.” Superintendent William Hite called it “a great support” in helping the district to address immediate hazards and create “a 21st century learning environment for our students.” They and Mayor Kenney also called on other institutions to contribute.

“It takes all of us working together — government, business, nonprofit, and philanthropy — to tackle our most pressing challenges and ensure our kids have access to great schools in every neighborhood,” the mayor said.

Philadelphia teachers, district reach contract deal, avert strike

2020-10-22T02:03:00+00:00

Philadelphia’s teachers and the school district have reached a tentative contract agreement that includes a 2% raise and what union president Jerry Jordan calls “one of the most stringent safety plans in the nation” to regulate in-person schooling during the coronavirus pandemic.

He noted the health and safety plan is not part of the tentative agreement, yet something his team negotiated as a separate memorandum of understanding, or MOU.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, or PFT, has 13,000 members. Jordan announced that those attending a Zoom meeting Wednesday evening had indicated strong approval for the one-year pact.

The 2% raise is retroactive to August 16. In addition, members will receive their “step” increases, due based on additional experience and advanced degrees, starting on Jan. 4, 2021. “This is a significant win for us,” Jordan said in a press call with reporters, noting that 89% of the members present for Wednesday’s meeting voted in favor of the agreement. Union officials said about half the members were on the call.

He said the pact would cost the district an additional $31 million. “This is not an expensive contract for them,” Jordan said. The overall district budget is more than $3 billion.

The safety plan is in the form of a detailed memo of understanding outlining specific conditions that must be met when teachers and staff return to school buildings, which at this point is slated to happen next month, despite a surge of COVID-19 cases in Philadelphia.

Those conditions cover issues including rules for social distancing, safe building capacity, and the availability of hand sanitizer and masks.

“To be clear, buildings cannot and will not open if it is not safe to do so, period,” Jordan said.

Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite will present to the board of education Thursday his plan for reopening school buildings to about 30,000 pre-kindergarten through second grade students on Nov. 30. Teachers and other staff are expected to return on Nov. 9. The board will not vote on the reopening plan at the meeting.

The MOU contains a dispute resolution system, Jordan said, in which any problems will be solved within days and rely on the mediation of a “renowned” physician who specializes in public health. “This is going to be a very rapid process,” he said. “Our goal is not to have unresolved disputes because this virus is nothing to play with.”

He said the full text of the MOU would be released publicly before Nov. 9.

Of the proposed timetable for reopening schools for in-person learning, Jordan said he is taking school officials at their word that it can be met.

“I can only tell you what the district has said,” he told reporters. At the same time, he added, “what we have seen so far is that we are not ready.”

A point of contention for parents and teachers is whether schools, most of which are decades old, can be properly ventilated to standards necessary to stem the spread of the virus. Hite has said that all buildings are being tested for air quality, but the district has yet to release the inspection reports themselves. Its “readiness reopening dashboard” says that 21% of buildings “are fully certified for ventilation.”

Hite and Chief Financial Officer Uri Monson have said that the district has spent some $70 million on COVID-19-related costs, including signs for social distancing, masks, and sanitizer.

When the union contract expired on Aug. 31, Jordan asked his members for a two-week extension of negotiations. At the time, Hite said he was confident the two sides could reach an accord in that time period. Jordan also expressed optimism — although he accused the district of trying to “shake down” teachers by demanding they sign off on a school reopening plan before discussing possible wage increases.

Still, the talks dragged on for two months. Jordan said that elected officials, including Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, were instrumental in helping the two sides reach an agreement.

The district “thought they would break us, but it didn’t work,” Jordan said.

Asked for a response to Jordan’s announcement of a pact, district spokeswoman Monica Lewis said via email Wednesday that “at this time, there will be no comment on the matter.”

Jordan said the union sought a one-year extension because of the unusual conditions brought on by the pandemic. He said that the union will be seeking a four-year contract after this agreement expires. “Well be back at the table probably in January,” he said.

The PFT had not gone on strike since a weekend walkout in 2000. Before that, the last strike was in 1981.

During the 17 years that the district operated under the state-dominated School Reform Commission between 2001 and 2018, the PFT was prohibited from striking. During that time, the union went five years without a contract, during which members received no raises or step increases. Once among the highest-paid teachers in the region, city teachers fell behind surrounding districts. Salaries now range from $45,716 to $91,852.

The PFT’s membership includes secretaries, counselors, and paraprofessionals. There are approximately 8,000 teachers and 125,000 students in the district.

The American Arbitration Association will now send out a mailing to all PFT members for formal approval. That process will conclude on or about Oct. 29, Jordan said.

The district and the union disagreed over whether the district could afford to give teachers a raise. Hite and CFO Monson said that the pandemic had battered its usual state and local revenue sources, and forecast a yearly shortfall of $800 million by 2025. The union noted that the district had received more than $100 million in federal coronavirus aid.

Jordan said that while some parents might feel that teachers don’t deserve raises because they have not been in school buildings, the virtual environment has been a backbreaker for them.

“Our teachers and other employees are working harder this year than they’ve ever worked,” he said. “It requires a different set of skills” that they weren’t trained for.

He added: “I understand the frustration of parents” who must upend their lives because the children are home. “This is very frustrating for everyone.”

Philadelphia continues working to give thousands of families free internet access

2020-10-10T00:07:49+00:00

City officials declared on Thursday that more needs to be done to give families with school-age children free access to the internet through the PHLConnectED initiative.

Last month, city and school officials embarked on the two-year, $17 million PHLConnectED initiative effort to connect up to 35,000 households to the internet. The service is to cover the need for students, who are studying remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic. The school district gave out 2,500 mobile hotspots before the program ramped up.

However, officials estimated up to 18,000 families with school-age children still lacked internet access. The estimate was based on culling the Philadelphia School District’s list of families with children enrolled and determining which ones did not have an account with either Comcast or Verizon.

Chief Education Officer Otis Hackney said on Thursday that considerable progress has been made in identifying and reaching many of the families and assessing their needs, but the work continues.

Eligible households will be chosen through data gathered by the school district, the charter schools office, and internet service providers. The district or schools will reach out to the households directly through direct mail, email, robocalls, or text message to let them know they are eligible for the program.

So far, PHLConnectED has signed up 590 families for Internet Essentials and given another 642 MiFi hotspots through Verizon, according to Andrew Buss of the city’s Office of Education and Technology.

About 1,650 signed up for internet access as soon as schools closed but before April, when Comcast offered two free months of internet for new customers. After that offer, more than 6,000 families signed up.

PHLConnectED is reaching out to those 6,000 to let them know that through the program, they can keep the free service through June 2022, as long as they continue to have children in school.

“We are telling them it is important for them to move into PHLConnectED, because we didn’t want them to be disconnected after the 60-day window,” Buss said.

For the 1,650 who signed up as soon as schools closed, but before the two-months-free offer, Comcast is letting them know that they also can receive free service through June 2022 through PHLConnectED.

To help reach its immediate goal of serving 18,000 households, PHLConnectED is reaching out to another 7,400 or so families who have signed up for the Internet Essentials program. Comcast offered that program to needy families free in the spring, but some district families reported difficulty accessing it.

Hackney noted many households don’t believe that they won’t get a bill, or are reluctant to divulge personal information to another entity.

“There is a lack of trust some people have,” he said.

“There is an assumption that if something is free, people will automatically rush to avail themselves of it,” Buss said. “We’ve never found that to be the case.”