Chalkbeat

Half of Philadelphia’s high school graduates opt out of college. Can pre-apprenticeships help them find jobs?

2026-06-25T19:04:29+00:00

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In a rehabbed shipping container in West Philadelphia, Nakiah Walker leaned over her friend’s Chromebook to take a peek at logo ideas.

Walker, 20, was among a group of high school students and recent graduates trying to apply the tips and tricks they’d learned during a semester-long digital marketing program.

She joined the program because she was interested in learning more about marketing. But more than anything, she said she’s glad to have the opportunity to explore different career options.

“They don’t really offer that in school,” said Walker. “In school, they just tell you to get your work done, graduate, then go to college. They don’t really tell you there are other things to pursue, and you can have a career doing things that you actually want.”

The program, launched in 2023 by the Philadelphia nonprofit We Love Philly, is part of a recent statewide effort to expand what’s known as pre-apprenticeships, which provide job training to high school students and recent graduates in a variety of fields. Pre-apprenticeships must be connected to apprenticeships, which are often connected with employers. The idea is that that pipeline can help ensure programs actually connect young people to jobs. But there isn’t comprehensive data yet to show whether that’s working.

Last year in Pennsylvania, there were nearly 150 pre-apprenticeship programs with around 3,200 active participants, according to state data. That’s three times the number of participants compared with two years prior, and a large portion are concentrated in the Philadelphia area. Gov. Josh Shapiro has proposed doubling the state’s investment in pre-apprenticeships and other career training programs for students to $7 million next fiscal year.

The investment comes as the number of students in Philly and statewide who opt out of going to college directly after high school has grown. In Philadelphia, around half of high school graduates in the Class of 2025 did not matriculate, according to district data. The rate was slightly higher for Black students like Walker. State officials are backing pre-apprenticeships as a way to help fill high-demand jobs and connect students to career pathways that don’t require a college degree. Still, those pathways remain rare, and college is still the surest bet for expanding economic opportunity. Experts and educators say students need more support for pre-apprenticeships to ultimately lead to real jobs.

“We talk a big game about, ‘You don’t have to go to college,’” said Taylor White, director of the Postsecondary Pathways for Youth program at New America, a think tank. “But there are very, very few other ways, and they’re really inaccessible and hard to find.”

Several other states have worked to expand apprenticeship opportunities for young people in recent years. And studies of some programs show they can help connect youth to careers, especially if students also take coursework in the same area. But the field is still fairly new in most states, said White.

Pennsylvania doesn’t publish any data on pre-apprenticeship participants’ outcomes. A spokesperson for the Department of Labor and Industry said in an email that the department has only recently begun collecting data on pre-apprenticeships “so the information we have at this stage is still somewhat incomplete and is not yet ready to share with confidence.”

Patricia Blumenauer, deputy secretary for workforce development at the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry, said the pre-apprenticeships goal is broad: connect more young people with industries looking to fill jobs and help them get relevant skills. Even if a student doesn’t continue in their pre-apprenticeship field, she said she still sees it as a win if the experience gives a young person a better sense of what they want to do.

“Really getting that experience and making a decision either way for us feels like a success,” Blumenauer said. That’s partly why the state wants to keep expanding pre-apprenticeship opportunities and get more employers on board to work with young people, she said.

Officials push pre-apprenticeships as a college alternative

When Walker graduated high school in 2024, she felt stumped about what to do next.

She thought about going to college, but didn’t want to pay for it before she knew what she wanted to study. But coming up with another long-term plan for her future felt impossible, she said.

After graduation, she spent a year working a mix of jobs. Then she got a call from someone she considered to be a mentor, telling her about the pre-apprenticeship. She was skeptical at first, and felt that it was risky to leave her job to start the short-term program. But she agreed to check it out.

Soon, Walker was showing up four days a week and earning a stipend of $12 per hour. She built a portfolio and earned a certification from Google in digital marketing. The team at We Love Philly also helped her format a resume and update her LinkedIn profile.

“I was at a point in time when I was stuck, until I got recommended here,” said Walker.

Walker was one of thousands of Philly students in her year who did not go to college the following fall. Of those who matriculated, around one-quarter dropped out after a year.

Research shows going to college remains the surest way for young people to access economic opportunities and move out of poverty.

At the same time, members of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration have repeated that alternatives to college — like military training, apprenticeships, and trade school — are valuable options for Pennsylvania’s young people.

“We need to respect each and every pathway the same,” Shapiro said at a rally earlier this year as part of his reelection campaign.

Blumenauer said many Pennsylvania students are looking for options other than college, even if they understand the relative value of higher education. She hopes pre-apprenticeships will help those students and help fill jobs in the state.

“We are constantly hearing from businesses that they are concerned about the future and where their pipeline of workers going forward is going to come from,” said Blumenauer.

Participants in the cybersecurity pre-apprenticeship program at We Love Philly learn coding skills that could lead to a job after the program.

Still, it’s unclear if the approach is working. Many states, including Pennsylvania, have set their own definitions of what an apprenticeship for young people should look like and standards for what it should accomplish. Data on outcomes of students after they leave the programs is also hard to come by.

The tension between college and careers comes up frequently in Philadelphia. Even groups working on helping students access college say they see lots of value in expanding career-oriented opportunities.

But some worry the push for career-related opportunities has eclipsed support for kids looking to go to college. Farah Jimenez, CEO of the Philadelphia Education Fund, which works with Philly high schoolers to access college and career training, said it’s useful to expose young people to different careers. But she worries the emphasis on career-related paths perpetuates the belief that college is expensive, likely to result in debt, and out of reach for many.

The question kids hear all the time now, she said, is: “Why would you go to college?”

Pre-apprenticeships provide job training, but no job guarantee

After Walker finished her pre-apprenticeship in digital marketing, she said she was hopeful and excited about what might come next for her professionally. She felt her resume, experience, and credentials would help her get noticed by employers, and she’s been able to find work since the program ended.

But that work isn’t in digital marketing. These days, she’s working at a hospital and considering applying for college in a year or two. She still isn’t sure if she wants to go into marketing, but in her free time, she enjoys using some of the skills she learned to help friends design websites and is preparing to launch her own jewelry business.

“It’s not just like we’re learning a skill — it’s also like we’re learning other things that goes into being an adult, being a good worker and just having and maintaining a career,” she said.

Josiah Miller, another recent pre-apprentice at We Love Philly, participated in the organization’s cybersecurity training program. He learned about and got into a paid two-year program to train recent graduates for tech-related jobs. He now plans to go into tech, and he attributes that to his time in the pre-apprenticeship.

His pre-apprenticeship motivated him “to learn new skills, put myself out there more,” Miller said.

At We Love Philly, directing students to jobs isn’t the only goal. The organization dedicates a portion of each day to social-emotional learning to help students build trust and prepare for the professional world.

“We have to create an environment where they want to be and are comfortable enough to take risks without feeling embarrassed or angry because, you know, they messed up or didn’t do something right,” said Cory Zoblin, who runs the cybersecurity pre-apprenticeship.

As with schools, workforce training programs can’t provide all the answers, Zoblin said. “But they can make learning and curiosity more integral, so that kids want to keep going.”

Rebecca Redelmeier is a reporter at Chalkbeat Philadelphia. She writes about public schools, early childhood education, and issues that affect students, families, and educators across Philadelphia. Contact Rebecca at rredelmeier@chalkbeat.org.

How can schools better prepare students after high school? Here’s what a few experts say.

2026-05-13T19:19:39+00:00

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Several states — including Pennsylvania — have recently overhauled graduation requirements in an effort to ensure students are better prepared for college and careers.

Many now encourage students to earn credentials, like workplace safety certifications, to meet graduation requirements. But with little oversight over which credentials students earn, many in Philadelphia and elsewhere get low-value ones just to check a box.

“Philly is really a microcosm of what’s happening across the country,” said Matt Giani, a research associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, during a Chalkbeat panel event Tuesday. His research has found that credentials vary widely in how valuable they are to students. Without good oversight, schools often find the most efficient ways to help students get credentials — which often means offering ones that are cheap and easy to pass.

Panelists Monica Hawk, CEO of Philadelphia’s One Bright Ray Community High School, and Sean Vereen, president and CEO of the nonprofit Heights Philadelphia, said they’ve seen this play out with Philly students. It’s a good thing, they said, that students know there are paths to success beyond college. But so far, those paths don’t have enough support or funding, they said.

“I think there is a real opportunity,” said Vereen. “But it puts more pressure on the thing we don’t provide kids enough of, which is advice and good counseling.”

Some states are addressing this issue head-on. Ohio has created a tiered system of credentials to encourage schools and students to pursue the ones that are most valuable. And overall, “schools and states are learning how to do this better,” said Giani.

Catch up on the full panel discussion here.

More Philadelphia students are graduating without passing state exams, new data shows

2026-01-12T19:37:10+00:00

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In the three years since Pennsylvania overhauled its high school graduation requirements, Philadelphia students have increasingly graduated without passing state exams.

Instead, students last year were most likely to graduate by fulfilling alternate requirements, according to new district data.

All students still must earn a certain number of course credits. But they can meet additional graduation requirements by being accepted into a four-year college, earning a certain score on career and technical education exams or SATs, and showing “evidence” that they’re prepared for college or jobs, among other options.

The change has been fast. The Class of 2023 was the first to graduate via the new system. Since then, the portion of Philly students who graduated by meeting certain score thresholds for their state exams dropped from more than 50% to around a third.

Tell us about your experience with Pennsylvania's graduation requirements

But lawmakers and state officials have published little follow-up that examines whether the shift has left young Pennsylvanians more or less prepared for their futures.

Pennsylvania Department of Education spokesperson Erin James said in a statement that it is “difficult to correlate graduation pathways with other postsecondary metrics” because it is hard to track students after high school. Researchers partnering with the district in Philadelphia say understanding the impact of the new system in the city will likely take years.

Since the switch, one alternative pathway to graduation has ballooned in popularity: submitting industry-recognized credentials. That’s a broad term used to describe certifications that are sought after by certain sectors, like medical assistant credentials, emergency first aid certifications, and auto mechanic qualifications.

Last school year, more than 3,400 Philly students — around 40% of those who had completed enough credits that made them eligible to graduate — submitted at least one industry-recognized credential to graduate. Some submitted them exclusively.

Neither the district nor the state publish a list of which credentials students are using to fulfill this requirement.

When then-Gov. Tom Wolf signed the new graduation requirements into law in 2018, he said in a statement that the aim was to give students “several options to demonstrate what they’ve learned and that they’re ready to graduate from high school to start a career or continue their education.”

The move permanently did away with the legislature’s previous plan to make passing the Keystones a requirement to graduate.

“How a student does on high stakes tests is not a useful way to decide if someone is ready to graduate from high school,” Wolf said at the time.

Yet amid the booming number of students earning industry-recognized credentials in Philadelphia and nationwide, some researchers worry that there isn’t enough evidence that they’re all useful.

“It’s great to have an alternative option, because there just are going to be some kids who aren’t going to go to college,” said Jay Plasman, a professor at The Ohio State University who has studied how earning credentials affects student outcomes. “The problem is not all credentials are created equally.”

Earning credentials is part of what’s called the “evidence-based” pathway to graduation. It requires students to submit three pieces of “evidence” from a pre-approved state list. Credentials count as evidence, as does being accepted into a two-year college; attaining a guarantee of full-time employment; earning a college-level course credit; achieving certain AP, IB, or SAT scores; and other options.

There are a total of 12 evidence options. Submitting credentials is the most popular one by far.

The state’s list of recommended credentials includes everything from certifications for barbers and child care workers to credentials related to Microsoft Office and ladder safety. Experts warn it’s important that states carefully review credentials to ensure they’re valuable to students and can lead to good jobs.

Philadelphia offers credentials from a subset of the state’s list, along with additional options based on student interest and industry recommendations for students graduating via the “evidence-based” pathway, according to district Executive Director of Career and Technical Education Michelle Armstrong.

It’s unclear which credentials are most popular among students, given the lack of public data about them.

The district’s graduation rate has risen in recent years, with more than 77% of students graduating within four years in the 2023-24 school year, the most recent year of data available.

Obtaining a high school diploma is valuable, and researchers have found that those who graduate high school are likely to earn more and live longer than those without.

But the increase comes as Philly students’ achievement on some state exams has fallen or remained largely unchanged. Last year, only around a third of Philly students achieved proficient scores on the state literature Keystone. Even fewer achieved proficient scores in algebra and biology.

Alyn Turner, co-director of the Philadelphia Education Research Consortium, which partners with the district, said her team is working to analyze which pathways students are accessing and what evidence they’re using to fulfill requirements. But she said the larger question of whether students are more prepared for jobs or college is still unknown.

“The extent to which this policy is supportive of that, or adding additional barriers to that, we just don’t know,” Turner said.

As more students in Philadelphia and statewide graduate without passing state tests, instead earning credentials or fulfilling alternate graduation requirements, Chalkbeat wants to hear from you: tell us about your experience with the state’s new approach to graduation.

We need your help reporting on how students, families, and teachers have experienced the new graduation requirements. And we want to understand how students graduating by earning credentials or fulfilling alternate requirements are faring during their final years of high school and after they leave.

Help us by filling out this survey.

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What makes a Philadelphia student want to become a teacher?

2025-10-30T22:14:01+00:00

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Why does Philadelphia have a teacher shortage? Monika Shealey hears one answer a lot.

People often tell Shealey, the dean of the College of Education and Human Development at Temple University, that young Philadelphians — particularly young Black and brown people — simply don’t want to become educators.

But on Thursday, Shealey told more than 200 Philadelphia high schoolers visiting Temple’s campus to learn about teaching careers that she believes otherwise.

“You are throwing that narrative out the window,” Shealey said at the Youth in Education Summit. “Let that be the story of the day.”

As Philadelphia struggles to retain and recruit teachers, education groups and leaders are doubling down on initiatives to inspire Philly teens to embark on careers in education.

In recent years, the district has begun the school year with hundreds of vacancies, and the number of graduates from teacher training programs in the state has plummeted.

There’s a particular shortage of Black male educators, who make up less than 10% of district teachers.

“The idea is that we want to increase the number of students and programs in what we call the ‘early pipeline’ space,” said Scott Gaiber, deputy chief of talent initiatives at Elevate 215, a local education advocacy group that helped organize the Thursday event.

The organization is part of a coalition of groups across the city to try to improve teacher recruitment. That coalition, the Philadelphia Citywide Talent Coalition, championed the district’s first career and technical education program for K-12 teaching, which launched in 2023. Since then, the coalition has also supported other initiatives at Philadelphia schools meant to increase students’ interest in teaching, like Thursday’s conference.

The students at the event are involved in different teacher training programs. Students from nine high schools participated, joining workshops on issues like how to apply for college teaching programs and what it’s like to be a Black or brown educator.

To Gaiber, the challenge is clear: even when young people say they’re interested in becoming teachers, several obstacles can derail them from ultimately becoming certified. For one thing, schooling is expensive. And getting a certification often requires overcoming bureaucratic hurdles.

The hope, he said, is that extra programming and “creating a supportive ecosystem” can lower those barriers and ultimately lead to a better-trained and more representative teacher workforce, even if the results won’t be evident for years.

For Elizabeth Melendez, a junior at Esperanza Academy Charter School who attended the event and helped lead a workshop for her peers, working with kids helped her confirm her interest in teaching.

Every week, she helps out with a class of first graders through an internship program at Esperanza.

“I know what I want to do now,” said Melendez. She said she plans to study child psychology and become a school psychologist.

Students learn about teaching through hands-on opportunities

Parkway West High School Principal William Brown said he knows many students are skeptical of becoming educators. Maybe they’ve heard that they could make more money doing something else, or they’re not sure if it interests them.

But he said he’s seen through the school’s early childhood career and technical education program that students often develop an interest in education once they’re exposed to it.

“It’s so important that the students get that hands-on experience,” said Brown.

Last school year, Brown worked with Philadelphia Academies Inc. to launch a program at his school meant to increase the number of Black and Brown male educators.

Students in the program first learn about the history of education in the U.S. and pedagogical best practices. Then they become student-teachers in the middle school that shares the building with Parkway West, earning a stipend for their work.

He said he believes the program has made a difference for his students. “A lot of our boys, especially, are taking their futures more seriously,” said Brown.

Amyha Watson, 16, left, and Meli Jimenes-Jaques, 17, said learning about teaching jobs made them more interested in careers in education.

Thursday’s Temple event wasn’t a magic wand. By the end of the morning, some students in the halls said they still didn’t feel convinced that working in education was for them.

But others said the sessions had a real effect on how they pictured their future.

Meli Jimenes-Jaques, 17, said that as a senior at Olney High School, she knew she would soon have to decide what she would do after she graduated. She was interested in working with kids but she didn’t know if she should look into teaching or something else. But after hearing more about the career path of a teacher, she said she felt excited about applying for education programs.

“Before I wasn’t as sure,” said Jimenes-Jaques. “But after seeing all these people and hearing all their voices and their thoughts as well, it really just, like, cemented the fact this is really what I want to do.”

Philadelphia Board of Education approves city’s first new charter school since 2018

2025-05-29T21:39:42+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education voted Thursday to approve the city’s first new charter school in nearly a decade.

At a tense board meeting in a packed room, board members said they were “obligated” to approve the Early College Charter School of Philadelphia — since the application met all of the standards set by the state charter school law. Still, several members expressed serious reservations about the new school’s impact on the district’s budget.

The board approved the school in an 8-1 vote. Early College Charter is the first new charter school the board has approved since it regained local control in 2018. The vote represents a turning point for education in Philadelphia and a big win for the city’s charter school community and its supporters, who have criticized the board’s resistance to new charters and other ways it’s approached the charter sector. Charter critics counter that the publicly funded and privately run schools have fallen far short of their promises to students.

The board previously rejected Early College Charter’s application in February. That decision drew the attention of elected officials and others who questioned the move. The group behind Early College Charter subsequently submitted a revised application before Thursday’s vote.

Board President Reginald Streater remained unsure about his vote until the last moment.

He ultimately voted to approve the application, but cautioned the school’s founders that he hoped this vote would be the “beginning of a constructive relationship” between the school and the district.

“You spoke of excellence,” Streater said to those in the room who applied to open Early College Charter. “Please prove it.”

Before casting his vote, Streater also said Pennsylvania’s charter school law does not address the complexities that the Philly school district is facing, including historic underfunding and a persistent teacher shortage.

More than a dozen charter advocates, parents, politicians, and community activists told board members the school is highly desired and would provide new opportunities for students in need.

“We know what we have submitted meets the intent of the law, and we’ve gone above and beyond what the application asks for,” said Keshema Davidson, who’s on tap to be Early College Charter’s CEO.

Board member Joyce Wilkerson was the lone no vote on Thursday. She said there are empty charter and district seats across the city, and that many schools lack certified special education teachers.

“It is inconceivable to me” that the board would vote to approve a new school amid the district’s “already stressed resources,” Wilkerson said.

The applicants behind Early College Charter say it would be Pennsylvania’s first open-enrollment middle and high school to focus on early college attainment. Students would graduate with a high school diploma, as well as some college credits or an industry-recognized certificate or both, according to the application.

The founders also say their proposed school is built on successful models in other states but has been meticulously tailored to Philly. They say the school would focus on educating underserved students, and that their vision adheres closely to the intended values of Pennsylvania’s charter school law.

But charter critics remained unconvinced on Thursday.

Robin Cooper, president of the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators, Teamsters Local 502, which represents school principals and other school officials, warned that the district has heard promises from charter school leaders before that “seemed too good to be true,” but that resulted in “carnage” for the district.

And LeShawna Coleman, chief of staff for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, also pointed to looming district school closures and teacher shortages, telling the board: “It is irresponsible and outrageous that this board would even contemplate authorizing any new charter.”

Early College Charter is now scheduled to open in the fall of 2026.

Critics say Philly’s charter sector rife with broken promises

In the leadup to Thursday’s meeting, one question loomed: If a charter school application meets all of the technical requirements of state law, are board members obligated to approve it, even if they have concerns about the impact on the district?

Thursday’s vote may have answered that question.

At their February meeting, board members said there was a lot to admire about the school’s application, only to reject it.

Before Thursday’s vote, Davidson and Anna Winter, who was also involved in Early College Charter’s application, told Chalkbeat that vote to reject the school’s application galvanized families, as well as political players from both sides of the aisle.

The district’s charter school office told board members Thursday that the school’s revised application addressed all of the concerns that had been raised with the original application.

Although Philly’s school board has not approved a new charter school since 2018 when it regained local control from the state, it has voted to renew charters and expand the number of seats at schools that were already operating.

In the intervening years, the charter sector has experienced scandals, poor academic performance reports, and broken promises. The aspirational Renaissance Charter turnaround program did not result in significant progress. And on the whole, student performance in charter schools is on par with student performance in traditional district schools.

District payments to charters also limit the district’s “ability to manage its expenses,” Fitch Ratings, a credit ratings agency, reported recently.

Since the district can’t raise tax revenue on its own, it has limited power to control its budget. One lever of local control that board members have exercised over the years is denying several charter school applications.

“In this time of uncertainty,” creating new charter schools would be “an imprudent risk for us to take,” Wilkerson said in February when she voted to reject Early College Charter’s application.

But some charters have stood out as models for citywide programs beloved by families and students. And thousands of Philadelphia families continue to enroll their children in charter schools.

Of the district’s roughly 198,300 total students, roughly 64,000 are enrolled in 81 brick-and-mortar charters, and another 14,250 are in cyber charters, according to the latest available district data.

Mayor Cherelle Parker hasn’t explicitly encouraged charter growth, but she has stated she wants to see an end to the “competition” between the school district and charters.

The school board is also revising its process for authorizing charter schools, through an initiative dubbed Project RiSE. The board approved a $300,000 contract with the National Charter Schools Institute on Thursday to “research charter authorizing best practices,” Streater said. But critics have claimed this process has largely taken place behind closed doors.

Some say innovation is crucial for Philadelphia education

Davidson and Winter cast themselves as atypical charter school founders.

They both served in administrative roles at Cristo Rey High School, a well-respected private Catholic school in the city, and don’t have extensive experience in the charter school world.

“We’re brand new, we have no baggage in this game,” Winter said in an interview.

Davidson said she and Winter felt “very strongly” that the school should operate as an open-enrollment public school with no selective criteria.

Philly already has a district school dedicated to programs in which students can earn associates degrees and professional certifications: Parkway Center City. But as a selective admissions school, not everyone gets in.

Early College Charter plans to use the city’s lottery application process for charter schools. But its backers say it will “focus its outreach, recruitment, and marketing” on reaching middle and high school students who live in 17 ZIP codes in which the average income for one adult with no children is below $46,363 before taxes, according to the application.

Davidson said for her and Winter, their intention is not to create a network of charter schools akin to Universal, ASPIRA, or KIPP, which have all been frequent targets of charter critics in Philadelphia.

“Our goal is to bring forth this one, high-quality school” that could serve as a blueprint for any traditional district schools, Davidson said.

Winter and Davidson said they empathize with the board’s position: they’re contemplating school closures while also being asked to approve a new school, but they still believe there is room for a collaborative relationship between Early College and both entities.

“We believe the bar should be very high, and that we should be held accountable to fulfilling the commitment we’re making to families,” Winter said.

Early College Charter’s application also shines a light on bigger questions for Philadelphia education, Winter said.

“Are we open for collaboration? Are we open for innovation? Are we ready to be at the table to talk about how we can improve and offer high-quality schools in our public district?” she said.

At one time, Philly had its own Innovation Network that produced district schools like SLA Beeber, Building 21, and The U School.

But that network no longer exists, district spokesperson Monique Braxton said.

That left Davidson and Winter with one option to open a new public school, they said: start a charter school.

Davidson said concerns about school closures and other budget worries are precisely why new public school models like Early College are needed to help families. She said Philadelphia parents and students should not simply be forced to wait for officials to improve the current system.

“Waiting while we fix things will mean that we have an entire generation of children that have not gotten access to a high-quality education,” Davidson said.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia school district’s free summer programs are expanding

2025-04-08T20:10:37+00:00

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Two thousand more students will be able to participate in the Philadelphia School District’s free summer programs this year, but looming budget deficits and threats to federal funding may put those programs at risk.

Starting in June, some 25,000 students from all grade levels will get the chance to spend their summer learning to weld, launching a small business, playing in a drumline or citywide orchestra, attending summer camp, or brushing up on their academics.

In total, the programs will operate in 135 schools across the city — but spots are limited. And even though the district is expecting to serve two thousand more students this summer than last year, that’s a fraction of the nearly 118,000 students the district educates.

Families can sign their kids up for the free summer programs here.

The district is also facing ongoing threats to federal funding from the Trump administration, the end of pandemic relief money that supported many of these summer programs, and a looming budget deficit.

For now, Superintendent Tony Watlington said the district has the funding and is prioritizing its summer offerings as a way to bolster student learning and improve upon the slight academic gains made recently.

“This district has done a really good job of managing its fiscal health,” Watlington said at a press event at Thomas Edison High School Tuesday. “While there are some districts that are suffering this summer with their summer programming, we’re not one of them, because we’ve been good stewards of the public tax dollars.”

Thomas Edison High School principal Lillian Izzard, right, said her school's summer programs provide a safe and structured environment for young people during this summer.

Edison Principal Lilian Izzard said summer career and technical programs like the welding class offered at her school are “invaluable for students” as a way to try something new. They also offer students the opportunity “to see themselves in a high school setting like Edison, to see if this school could be a good fit for their high school journey.”

Barry Pearl, a longtime welding educator at Edison, said he’s excited to work with his students this summer. Last summer, they made metal roses. And during the school year, students have taken on practical work like making height adjustments to metal chairs, as well as working on perfecting their technical skills.

Pearl said some of his students are natural welders, and he finds meaning in helping them advance their skills and set them on a path to a job that pays well.

“Last year was the first year, and it really took off,” Pearl said of the summer welding program. “I’ve been doing this for 40 years, and it’s just amazing.”

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia Academies evolves to help students ‘pick their direction’ for career and college

2024-10-30T11:00:00+00:00

Robert C. Williams’ great-grandmother, who raised him, made sure he went to school.

“My story was that I always liked going to school, I had to go to school,” Williams recalled.

But he “got in with the wrong crowd” and started losing interest in his courses because he wondered where they fit into his future.

By his own telling, he was on his way to dropping out of Edison High School in 1980 when he got back on track to graduate and his life path was set by a program that started in the school district just over a decade before: Philadelphia Academies, Inc.

Williams went to the school-within-a-school for applied electrical science, which happened to be the first one established in the city. Williams went on to a decades-long career as an electrician and electrical engineer.

“It was the best thing they could have done for me,” he said.

Philadelphia Academies was founded in the school district in 1969, amid concern that students of color were being shunted disproportionately into non-academic, “vocational” courses. Since then, the organization has walked a fine line between keeping students interested in school and giving them practical skills, while not seeming to limit their horizons. But over the last several years, the organization has refined and expanded its mission to meet changing workforce needs.

As it did when the group started, Philadelphia Academies focuses on preventing students from dropping out. Its 9th Grade Success Network provides support in 24 high schools to concentrate on the needs of students in their freshman year, when the slide toward dropping out often begins. And its programming is still rooted in particular careers and trades.

But now, Philadelphia Academies, which serves about 6,800 students, also stresses the importance of going to college, and clearly defines its role as giving students options while connecting their education to the real world. It’s also evolving away from its self-contained model and towards working in 32 schools through career and technical programs and the ninth grade success network.

“The mission is more now about how to make school a place where students want to attend” through interesting, practical courses, said Christopher Goins, the organization’s president and CEO. “They pick their direction.”

The initiative recently released data showing that in the high schools where Philadelphia Academies has a presence, the percentage of Black and Latino ninth graders on track to graduation is increasing at a greater rate than at high schools where the program is not located.

The group has also branched out into areas that some people might not associate with career-oriented programs. Earlier this month, the organization received a roughly $399,200 state grant to support its career pathway program focused on early childhood education at Parkway West High School.

Also in October, the City Council adopted a resolution from Councilmember Anthony Phillips commending Philadelphia Academies.

Nazirrah Terry, a Parkway West junior who lives in Strawberry Mansion, applied to the high school specifically because of the early childhood program. “I want to work with children,” she said, adding that she has “a bunch” of younger siblings.

Terry aspires to eventually work in, or even own, a day care center.

Program expands its reach, career options for students

Philadelphia Academies — or PAI — was established 55 years ago in response to an alarming dropout rate, especially among Black boys. It did so at the urging of civic leader Charles Bowser and Lee Everett, an executive with PECO, the city energy company, as a strategy to keep students on track to graduation.

For most of their history, the academies operated as schools-within-schools that emphasized practical skills in fields including construction, health care and hospitality. It also formed partnerships with local industries so students could be more connected to the world of work.

Of the 32 career and technical education programs supported by PAI, eight of them are now middle schools. That’s because the organization also wants to plant the seed of career awareness in younger students while also assuring that they enter high school prepared for the more rigorous coursework, especially in math.

“We expanded to middle schools so they don’t come into 9th grade off track,” Goins said.

In the current PAI model, students visit employers and participate in workshops on career development, financial literacy, resume writing, and interviewing.

Over the years, there have been academies focused on banking, law, and aerospace engineering. Programs supported now range from culinary to cybersecurity, construction trades to tourism, health to sports marketing, horticulture to film and video.

While the program focused on careers in early childhood education might be relatively recent, it does hearken back to the organization’s roots by evolving the focus on Black boys from dropout prevention to establishing “a robust pipeline to support more Black men becoming educators,” Goins said.

Roughy 4% of the teachers in Philadelphia are Black men; the nationwide figure is around 2%.

Parkway West Principal Will Brown said if you had told him when he was age 12 that he would grow up to be a teacher, he would have laughed. But that’s what he became, after he had a high school internship working with young children. Now he heads the 220-student school.

He envisions Parkway West’s early childhood pathway starting to prepare students for teaching at all levels, as well as for other careers that involve working with children and families.

Parkway West High School Principal Will Brown works with students in the early childhood academy.

“Not everybody wants to be a teacher, but if they decide to be a counselor or a social worker, we want them to have foundational knowledge of young people,” Brown said.

Kingston Wright, an 11th grader at the school, said he “didn’t know the school had early childhood education until I got here,” he said.

But now, based on his experiences learning about young children, he has decided he wants to go into “some sort of teaching.” Over the summer, he had a six-week internship at a child care center. “I like working with [children],” said Wright, 16. “That influenced me.”

Junior Jay Bush, also 16, said he wants to be a history teacher. “This class helps me understand kids, what they need,” he said.

Data suggests Philadelphia Academies helps students with coursework

Recent data provided to Chalkbeat by PAI indicates that the support offered by the program could be helping students with their overall academic course load.

For the last school year, 68.8% of ninth graders in the district were on track to graduate in schools getting PAI support. That was 2.2 percentage points higher than in those schools for 2022-23, according to the organization’s analysis.

The school district says ninth graders are “on track” if they have earned at least a C in classes in the four core subjects — math, science, English, and social studies — plus one other course. The district says students who are on track at the end of ninth grade are more than twice as likely to graduate.

At 66.7%, the on-track figure for Black boys was 5.7 percentage points higher than the year before, the figure for Black girls was 5.8 percentage points higher at 71.3%.

The overall on-track rate for all district high schools without the academies program is 77.9%. That figure includes selective admissions schools, and it has dipped recently.

Kathryn May, PAI’s assistant director, works with the 9th Grade Success Network. She said that at Jules E. Mastbaum High School, the on-track percentage has gone up by 19.7 percentage points to 69 percent since 2021.

“We’ve seen a lot of practices that have worked at one school adopted by other schools,” May said.

May coaches Amy Foster, Mastbaum’s assistant principal for ninth grade, and studies data to see which students need extra support so “we can put interventions in place,” she said.

Foster said the Philadelphia Academies team helps her work with teachers whose students are chronically failing their classes to see how they can adjust their teaching to help more students pass classes like Algebra 1.

As for Robert C. Williams, he was grateful for his career in the electrical field, but always felt something was missing. He was working at the Marriott Hotel engineering department when he took the day off and caught an episode of “Oprah.” The subject, he said, was “finding your passion.”

“I remembered when my great-grandmother would ask me what I wanted to be, I would always say, ‘a teacher,’” Williams recalled.

So, while still working, he enrolled at Community College of Philadelphia, then Temple University, then Lincoln University. He earned two degrees in education. For years, he went on interviews for teaching jobs, but didn’t get hired.

Eventually, he got a phone call from the Philadelphia district. There was an opening for an electrical teacher at Mastbaum.

He just started his seventh year there.

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 .

College Together provides different path for Philadelphia students to earn their degrees

2024-07-02T10:00:00+00:00

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Sanya Sek worked hard in high school. She got all As, including in Advanced Placement courses. She applied to college and even got into Bryn Mawr.

But her parents, both of whom had fled the Khmer Rouge in war-torn Cambodia when they were young, could not afford college, even though they prized education. The financial aid she was offered fell short of covering all the costs, including room and board, books, and the myriad ancillary fees. So she enrolled instead in Community College of Philadelphia.

“I took the safer option,” she said. “I had hopes to get into a decent college, but I felt the hard work I put in didn’t get the result I wanted.”

Sanya Sek said she benefited from College Together's project-based approach to learning.

But then Sek, 22, met Oscar Wang and discovered College Together, and a whole new set of doors opened for her.

Wang, 32, has worked since 2013 on mentoring first-generation students from Philadelphia to attend college. He started a group called Mentor for Philly while still a student at Haverford, which morphed into Philly College Team after he graduated in 2014.

But after working with dozens of students, he realized that most never finished their degree.

Mentorship, he reasoned, wasn’t enough. Enter College Together, which now has a staff of six, a spacious Center City office, and counts 21 college graduates who have passed through its program, including Sek and Rodriguez.

“It’s been a 10-year journey to answer a single question, how to get more Philadelphia students not just into, but through college,” Wang said. And not just through college, he added, but armed with marketable skills and free of debt.

Pursuing a degree through College Together is affordable – even no cost to students who qualify for Pell Grants. It has several partners, including the school district, the Mastery and KIPP charter networks, and foundations including the Philadelphia Foundation, Claneil Foundation, and the Samuel L. Fels Fund. Most crucially, it partners with Southern New Hampshire University’s Global Campus, an online school, through which students can earn their degree by doing a series of projects that develop real-world skills necessary to succeed in today’s job market.

While in the program, they can do their coursework from home or from College Together’s Center City office on Walnut Street, where they have access to one-on-one tutoring, laptops, research assistance and, often, food.

The help he needed to stay on track

MarcAngelo Rodriguez, 26, grew up on the mean streets of Kensington, stayed out of trouble, and graduated from Kensington Creative and Performing Arts High School in 2016. He enrolled in CCP, but left within a year. Then he tried training to be an automotive technician at Universal Technical Institute, a for-profit trade school.

When that didn’t pan out either, he worked different jobs – in retail, food services, security. His real goal was to be a police officer, and ultimately a detective.

Marcangelo Rodriguez dreams of becoming a detective. He was one of 21 students who earned a degree through College Together this year.

Rodriguez heard about College Together and got in touch with Wang. Now both he and Sek possess college degrees they likely would not have attained otherwise. Sek is pursuing a career in communications, and Rodriguez has dreams of becoming a detective.

Typical students in Philadelphia, especially those in neighborhood high schools – mostly low-income young people of color – have been “undervalued, ignored, or overlooked by traditional institutions and structures” and needed an alternative path, Wang said. These are students “who need flexibility, for instance, so they are not punished for missing class because they had to babysit.”

He chose to partner with SNHU Global Campus because “it was built with working adults in mind,” Wang said. In establishing College Together, he discovered that in designing its online degree program, SNHU educators quizzed employers like Boston Children’s Hospital on what skills they look for, and “reverse engineered” their coursework with the goal of building student competencies. SNHU is accredited by the New England Commission on Higher Education.

Today, there are a dozen organizations around the country like College Together that work with SNHU in places like Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, and New Orleans. Together they form the Post-Secondary Success Collective.

“This is what they call the community-partner model,” Wang said, explaining that in order to access SNHU’s courses offered through its competency-based innovation lab, students have to go through a nonprofit.

The tuition is $2,333 a semester, and students can double-up on courses year-round without paying more money. He said that Mastery, for instance, touts the program as the only pathway in Philadelphia through which students can earn a bachelor’s degree for under the amount of a federal Pell grant – essentially making it free to them.

Students prize learning by doing

Sek’s parents pushed her to do well and were proud of her achievements, but their culture prioritized keeping her close over anything else, she said. For high school, she could have attended a top magnet school – she got into Central and Palumbo, among others. But her parents didn’t want her going far away – she had never even learned how to use SEPTA.

So she attended Mastery-Thomas, a charter high school that was a 5-minute walk from her South Philadelphia home.

It turned out to be a good choice, she said, with a small student body, caring teachers, and a dual-enrollment option that allowed her to earn college credits in high school. But she didn’t get much help with financial literacy – she didn’t understand loans, and her parents were all about “save money, save money,” she said. That’s how she ended up at CCP.

It wasn’t easy at first; she started during the pandemic year. Plus, despite excelling in AP courses, she was done with learning based on reading a textbook “and answering multiple choice questions … I was forcing myself to memorize everything and not retaining anything. The purpose of learning was not there for me.”

Things got better after she switched her major from liberal arts to business. After getting her associates degree, she figured she’d save money and attend a local school like Drexel or Temple. That’s when her high school adviser, with whom she kept in touch, told her about College Together.

The project-based approach to learning at SNHU suited her. While earning her degree in management, she could engage in real-world problem solving. In one scenario, she had to explain how she would de-escalate a conflict between two employees in a work setting. Another required her to set up a business plan for a new pasta restaurant in a neighborhood with a competitor just a few blocks away. To do that, she had to research demographics and develop an advertising pitch to build clientele. She relished these kinds of tasks. “They require critical thinking and emotional intelligence,” she said.

So she not only got her degree from SNHU, but convinced Wang to hire her as College Together’s first communications director.

Rodriguez made it through Kensington CAPA, appreciating its newly built campus, but also sometimes “acting like a dumb teenager who followed the crowd” and neglecting his studies. As a result, he wasn’t well prepared for CCP. While he aced courses that focused on his interest, criminal justice, he faltered in others, like English.

Plus, life happened: He got married and had a daughter.

In 2022, he said, “I did an evaluation of my life, I was still working in retail, I was 24 and I had a kid. I felt I was at a dead end … I knew I wanted a career, and I had ambitious goals for myself.” He had heard about College Together through a friend, “and Oscar invited me to join the program.”

It took him two years to get his degree from SNHU. During his college experience, he was determined to do well. Like Sek, he appreciated the real-world nature of the learning experience.

“Teachers were willing to put in the work to invest in me, and them investing in me made me want to invest in myself,” he said.

Now he is in the process of applying to the police department.

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.

Pa. high schools could start offering students K-12 education training next school year

2023-01-13T20:58:21+00:00

Starting next school year, Pennsylvania schools will have a new career and technical education option to offer students: K-12 education.

The program is just one of many ways the state is responding to a teacher shortage that’s created cascading staffing challenges across the Commonwealth.

Tomás Hanna, the state Department of Education’s chief talent officer, said the goal of the program is to expose young people to careers in education.

“We’re not saying that a senior in high school is going to come out teaching in our schools,” Hanna said at Wednesday’s state board of education meeting. “What we’re saying is we have to get young people into the profession and aware of the profession earlier, particularly men, women, people of color.”

Teachers of color are rare in many Pennsylvania schools, and nonexistent in some districts.

Statewide, less than 7% of teachers are people of color, compared to 37% of students, according to the state Department of Education.

Hanna said while teaching has historically been promoted to white women, many people of color don’t think about becoming teachers until later in life when it’s harder to change paths.

Data shows fewer people are entering the profession overall. Roughly 15,000 Pennsylvania college graduates received teaching certificates in 2010, compared to less than 5,500 in 2020.

Career and technical education programs exist at many Pennsylvania high schools, with subjects ranging from carpentry and welding to child care and dentistry.

While CTE, once called vocational education, can provide an alternative path for students who don’t plan to go to college, program offerings have increasingly been geared toward exposing students to fields, like education, that require a degree.

The creation of an education CTE program is one of many potential remedies mandated by recent amendments to the state’s school code.

A state Department of Education committee looked at standards from similar programs in Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, and several other states to come up with standards for Pennsylvania, said Lee Burket, the state’s director of career and technical education.

Burket said the department will add the new standards to its website and share them with schools this week.

Schools can choose to offer the program informally or with department approval; the latter makes them eligible for state and federal funding, she said.

In addition to the new CTE program, Hanna said, the state is working on many other solutions to the teacher shortage, including creating a grant program that partners schools with teacher preparation programs in their communities and modernizing the state’s certification process.

It often takes several months for the state to certify a new teacher. Hanna said officials want to get that down to 15 days.

“That is a moonshot, to be frank with you, but it’s a shot worth taking,” he said.

Pennsylvania is also working on its own Grow Your Own program, an apprenticeship that allows teacher candidates to go to school for free and get paid to student teach. The U.S. Department of Labor added teaching to its list of registered apprenticeships a year ago. Since then, eight states have created programs.

Philadelphia launched its own version this spring using money from the American Rescue Plan Act. The program pays for district-employed paraprofessionals to get their teaching degrees.

The fact that Philadelphia could have upwards of 100 new homegrown teachers in the next few years, many of whom are people of color and bilingual, is impressive, Hanna said.

Long-term funding is a concern, he said, which is why the state Department of Education is working with the state Department of Labor and Industry to make teaching a registered apprenticeship in Pennsylvania. Once that happens, a move that requires legislative approval, schools will have access to federal dollars.

Hanna won’t bring the project to the finish line though, since he’s set to leave his position this week to become head of secondary schools for the School District of Philadelphia.

Community College of Philadelphia’s new technology center aims to help more students of color

2022-10-17T14:12:54+00:00

Since graduating from First Philadelphia Charter High School in 2018, Kwabena Ankoma-Darko III said he “tried a bunch of things.” He loved learning in general, he explained, especially math, but wasn’t sure how to pursue his education in a way that would lead to interesting work and a productive future.

What wound up being the perfect fit was the automotive and transportation program at the brand new $40 million Career and Advanced Technology Center at Community College of Philadelphia, where he is now in his first semester. “It being hands-on helps a lot,” he said. “I knew with auto technology I could get a secure career.”

The new center, which opened in August at 46th and Market Streets, has dramatically increased opportunities for students to pursue careers in transportation technology, advanced manufacturing and health care, all major industries in the area. Several companies, including Toyota, are directly partnering with community college in an effort to grow its own local workforce and cement its ties to the region.

The increased investment in non-degree trades has been a major goal for Donald Generals, who’s been the president of the community college since 2014. At the dedication of the new building, he called it “a new era” for the institution, which is the most common postsecondary destination for Philadelphia high school graduates.

Kwabena Ankoma-Darko, a Community College of Philadelphia student and a 2018 graduate of a charter high school in the city, says the college’s automotive and transportation program has helped put him on a good career path.

The center helps those graduates keep pace with new technology in various fields, especially in the automotive industry, which is changing faster than the school district’s programs can keep up with. It’s also designed to help Philadelphia’s K-12 students continue their studies in the city; provide an affordable option to Black and Hispanic students who often have higher college debt; and satisfy a demand for more practical training for “livable wage job opportunities,” said Ayanna Washington, the center’s executive director.

Michelle Armstrong, the school district’s executive director of career and technical education, said that as technology is becoming a bigger part of the automotive industry, the new center helps students “build on the skills that they are learning in the classroom and be prepared for this high-tech, high-paying field.”

But the center also aims to not just prepare students for that work, but serve as a hub so they experience that work directly. Washington said its partnerships with companies like Toyota and Honda, but also with organizations like the local transit authority SEPTA, “make things tangible” to students, so they can see real job possibilities after graduation.

“Everything is informed by industry,” she said, adding that students “want to go to school for something that means something.”

The cost for Philly residents taking four courses at the college, including tuition and various fees, amounts to less than $3,000 a semester. Washington said there are “a plethora” of scholarships available to students.

The college has long had trade programs, but these were competing with more robust offerings and modernized facilities at community colleges and private schools outside the city. She said Generals wanted to make sure that students in the city would not have to go elsewhere to access training in skills that interested them.

Washington, who has worked for 20 years in higher education, said the center was financed primarily through tax credits. The biggest source of funding came through the federal New Market Tax Credits Act that is designed to bring new investment to low-income communities

Many of the labs in the new center have floor-to-ceiling windows by design, she said, in order to create “a scenario where everyone can see what everyone else is doing,” and expand student interests and knowledge in the community about what is available, she said.

How coursework leads to regular work

CCP now offers 40 certificate programs at the new center, including in health care management, advanced manufacturing, and transportation technology fields, with emphasis on keeping up with new technology as the automotive program is doing.

While there are five automotive technology programs in Philadelphia high schools through which they can earn certifications, the college’s new automotive program takes it a step further. For instance, students will be able to specialize in heavy truck maintenance, a program that will start in the spring.

Dan Reed, one of the instructors, said that during the two-year program, students take basic courses and gradually specialize in areas like steering, suspension, and electrical systems. They can also be certified in alternative fuels. The college’s automotive center has 12 bays and two car lifts. (The bathrooms near the automotive area are all-gender, part of the college’s broader effort to attract young women to the lucrative field.)

The programs’ connections with outside organizations, including large companies, are planned out in notable detail. As part of the college’s partnership with Toyota through the Career and Advanced Technology Center, students can spend three days in class and three days at a dealership — for which they are paid — to apply what they learn to a real working environment.

Students who do this are in a better position to be hired after they achieve their certifications and meet other qualifications. Faculty at the college interview students first to make sure they’re ready for working at dealerships. They also need to have a driver’s license and pass a drug test. And they have to have college-level reading and math skills.

There are 160 students at the center now, all in the auto technology program. The other programs in advanced manufacturing and health care will ramp up in the spring and include courses in trades ranging from welding to CNC, which is the use of machining tools that are controlled through computer software.

In the center’s health education offerings, there are courses leading to certification as a nurse’s aide and for other positions in pharmacies and sterile processing.

Students can also take general education courses at the new campus along with those leading to certificates in the trades.

Overall, the new Career and Advanced Technology Center building has a capacity for more than 800 students. Total enrollment at the college is more than 19,000.

The center has also considered the area outside its doors in addition to the students inside. It has a fabrication laboratory — known as a “fab lab” — that is open to the community with a 3-D printing and milling machine (which cuts a variety of materials including iron and aluminum to make parts), Washington said. The fab lab is meant to be a community resource for entrepreneurs and innovators, in addition to the students.

Students can earn an associate’s degree along with their credentials in various trades, and general education courses are also available at the center. They can get credits for courses in fields like engineering, design, and construction.

How the center attracts Philadelphia students

Zafir Saunders, who is still considering his options after high school, is the kind of student the new center seeks to attract.

Saunders, 16, is a sophomore at Edison High School/Fareira Skills Center, which has the most skilled trades programs of any high school in the city — more even than Dobbins, Mastbaum, and Randolph high schools, which are the district’s designated career and technical education centers.

Edison’s career and technical education courses are the reason Saunders stays in school. The opportunity to pursue automotive technology classes in high school, and maybe also at community college, has made the difference for him, he said.

Saunders went to car shows as a child and fixed up antique cars with his dad. But he added, “I grew up hard. I was easily influenced by a lot of stuff.”

Now his dream is to eventually open a car dealership.

“If this wasn’t here, I don’t know what would have happened,” Saunders said. He is looking forward to his school’s Nov. 3 field trip to the new advanced technology center.

Those who work with students like Saunders think the new center will make a good impression. Sasha Singh, who teaches automotive tech at Edison, said the first time he saw the new center, “I told my coworkers, ‘I wish I was 18 again.’ It’s mind boggling.”

Patrick Peiffer, his counterpart at Mastbaum, noted that the center’s instructors at the college are teaching how to maintain and repair electric and hybrid vehicles. “These guys are state of the art. It’s a whole new world,” Peiffer said, adding that the new center “speaks to the demand for skilled talent in the industry.”

Like Saunders, Ankoma-Darko considers Community College’s trade programs to be a life changer.

He travels from Northeast Philadelphia to the Career and Advanced Technology Center, where, he said, he has a good relationship with faculty and can get one-on-one attention.

“In my first semester here, I can see the future,” he said. “I want to be a part of it.”

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 unveils ‘21st Century’ workforce initiative at three high schools

2022-09-16T17:11:33+00:00

Starting next year, students at three neighborhood Philadelphia high schools will be able to pursue workforce training in specific fields related to local needs and interests.

Students at Overbrook High School will be able to get certifications and internships in the entertainment industry. At nearby West Philadelphia High School, the focus will be urban development and real estate. And at Bartram High School in southwest, an area of the city lined with car dealerships and repair centers on the main road to Philadelphia’s airport, students will concentrate on the automotive, logistics, and transportation industries.

They will do this through partnerships with local organizations and companies. Teachers will also be trained to augment the curriculum with “blended instruction,” activities, and hands-on experiences in the areas of focus. The district’s aim is to help students see and create closer connections between the work they do in schools and their postsecondary careers.

The program, called the 21st Century Schools Model, will provide “life-changing opportunities and life-changing outcomes for students and their families,” Superintendent Tony Watlington said during a Thursday press conference at Overbrook.

Watlington described the initiative as a key part of achieving his goal to make Philadelphia the fastest-improving large school district in the nation regarding student achievement. Watlington noted that the district’s open enrollment policy allows students outside the schools’ catchment to enroll if this pathway interests them.

“Schools share the responsibility to help companies recruit, onboard, support, and develop the talent, namely our students,” he said. “In order to build a healthy, diverse and more equitable pipeline of skilled labor that supports both our local economy and economy of the future, we need pipelines like this that provide our young people with the instruction, awareness, exposure and experience to support whatever pathway they choose when they graduate.”

However, he added, while he believes that talent is equally distributed among Philadelphia students, “access and exposure to resources are not equitably distributed.”

The district also wants to eventually expand the program to other neighborhood high schools in the city, he said.

Officials at Thursday’s press conference did not provide a price tag for the 21st Century Schools Model. They also stressed that students participating in the new model will still need to accumulate the 23.5 credits required for high school graduation, and the goal is for all of them to be ready for college as well as careers.

Ali Robinson-Roberts, the district’s deputy chief of postsecondary readiness, said the program allows students to make a closer connection between the work they do in school and their future careers, combining “student engagement with academic rigor.”

Overbrook Principal Kahlila Johnson, herself a 1989 graduate of the school, said that Overbrook — the actor Will Smith’s alma mater — already has partnerships with several local companies and organizations. These include DASH, a nonprofit that exposes students to the entertainment industry; Live Nation and Live Nation Urban, which run entertainment venues; and the Mann Center for the Performing Arts.

The new model, she said, would help the school seek out and develop more such partnerships.

Johnson said experiences Overbrook already provides also increase students’ desire to attend school, which has a “rich history” in music and the arts and is a beacon for the community looking to provide students access to those fields.

Students will also be able to attain various industry certifications through 21st Century Schools, such as Apple Logic, which can turn an Apple computer into a recording studio. (Thursday’s press conference was held in Overbrook’s digital media lab.) Such opportunities will help industries to look at students as assets to their work once they graduate, Johnson said.

Through this new program, “We will be exposing students to more facets of the entertainment society in hopes of closing the opportunity gap here in West Philadelphia,” Kahlila Johnson said.

Philadelphia has a tiered system of high schools that includes neighborhood schools, citywide admission schools, and selective admission or criteria-based schools that have admissions requirements.

Some of the selective admission and citywide admission schools focus on certain fields, such as the High School of Creative and Performing Arts and the George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science.

The district has made previous efforts to expand its technical education offerings and workforce training programs into neighborhood schools. Swenson Skills Center is connected with Lincoln High School, and Benjamin Franklin High School in North Philadelphia has an advanced manufacturing program.

The citywide admission schools include Mastbaum, Dobbins, and Randolph, which were created as vocational/technical schools focusing on skilled trades that have since evolved to expand and modernize their offerings to meet local industry needs.

This year, for the first time, the district also opened up summer job opportunities to seventh and eighth graders in fields like construction to introduce them to possible pathways in high school.

Altogether, there are 43 workforce specialization areas in schools around the city, including culinary arts, digital media production, sports marketing, and automotive technology.

The 21st Century Schools Model initiative is separate from the district’s main career and technical education infrastructure, officials said.

West Philadelphia Principal Marla Travis, who was once a guidance counselor, said that students in her school had asked about career options that don’t require four years of college, such as real estate, which was adopted as her high school’s focus.

And Bartram Principal Brian Johnson emphasized that the focus in his school on the automotive, transportation, and logistics industries will go far beyond the traditional offerings in vocational programs such as car repair.

“We have a variety of logistics and automotive industries right outside of our walls, so having this type of advanced pathway in our school provides students with the option of securing work in these fields,” Brian Johnson said.

Watlington said the district developed the 21st Century Schools Model with the help of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, although no union representatives showed up at Thursday’s press conference. PFT president Jerry Jordan later issued a statement calling the model “an important opportunity to provide students with resources and services” and said the union negotiated “different instructional models” within the program.

This story has been updated to include comments from the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in the city. She is a former president of the Education Writers Association. 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.

An accidental teacher, this Philadelphia machinist wants to diversify the field he loves

2022-02-18T23:12:07+00:00

Ronald Sizer teaches precision machine tool technology at Benjamin Franklin High School. It’s the only program of its kind in the Philadelphia district, and it involves students learning to make tools, operate heavy machinery, and read blueprints.

“My father had me machining, welding, and grinding parts by 12 years old. As I became a man, machining was the only industry I considered,” said Sizer, the son of a machinist father and a mother who became the first Black nurse at Abington Hospital.

Sizer’s students are among the roughly 6,000 in the Philadelphia school system enrolled in career or technical education programs, or CTE, across more than 40 occupational areas — from auto repair to culinary arts. Such programs enable students to earn an industry-recognized credential or certificate along with their high school diploma.

February is CTE Month, which raises awareness of the role that career-oriented training has in education.

Before he started teaching, Sizer worked as a machinist at Marmetal Industries. The company’s owner saw his potential and sent him to the National Center of Defense Manufacturing and Machining for training. There, he received numerous certifications allowing him to work at high levels in the machine industry.

“I came back and worked on all Navy contracts, where I made parts for submarines, aircraft carriers, and more,” he said.

Sizer ended up at American Manufacturing & Engineering, making parts for the medical field such as bone files, bone replacements, and more. He also worked in the aerospace field, making parts for planes, helicopters, and even NASA.

Warren Crosby, a senior at Benjamin Franklin, enrolled in the precision machining program when he was a sophomore.

“In the ninth grade, I had no goal of what I wanted to do in life,” said Crosby said. “I talked to Sizer about precision machining. He told me all the benefits and what you would have to do to succeed.” After a year of learning, he got a summer job at Amazon and was quickly promoted. When he graduates high school in June, Crosby will transition into a full-time job with the Naval Foundry and Propeller Center.

Sizer, who spoke recently with Chalkbeat, said: “Giving the students respect and receiving it in return is an amazing feeling. When there is mutual respect, teaching and learning are easy for us both. The most gratifying feeling is seeing your graduates succeed financially after high school.”

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What was your biggest misconception that you initially brought to teaching?

The biggest misconception was that I would be able to teach machining without providing refreshers and lessons in advanced geometry and trigonometry – two areas that are important in precision machining. That’s when I realized I could use my class to help improve and, in some cases, advance the math skills of our students.

What has been your biggest hurdle returning to in-person learning?

Being a CTE teacher, the biggest hurdle from coming back after a year and a half was the equipment. Knowing my machines had been sitting for so long without daily, weekly, and monthly maintenance, I had to figure out which machines rusted out, which ones had to be serviced, and which ones no longer worked and had to be replaced. Teachers get a week to set up their classrooms and prepare for the return of the students. I spent that week servicing equipment that I could on-site and sending ones that I couldn’t to the manufacturer. Senior students came back and began learning machine maintenance immediately. Although it took a little longer to get the machine running due to the teaching part, seniors can now do monthly and weekly maintenance.

Describe what makes your teaching experience unique.

Teaching the machine shop gives me the opportunity to work backward, or as I like to say, in reverse. After learning the safety protocols and machine safety, students get to work right away on the machines. They start cutting and making projects on the machines and then learn the name of the tools they just used and the theory of the tool. If a drill breaks or a blade snaps, the student gets in the classroom and finds out why it broke and what should have been done during the operation. They are learning faster like this and remember everything taught. There are so many “aha” moments for students, who love working in the shop and making projects. When they hear the correct name or operation of the tool, their eyes light up.

Why teach machining at Ben Franklin?

I was taking my daughter to the high school fair at the convention center [about five years ago]. Since she was interested in cosmetology, we went straight to the CTE table. I looked through the programs offered in the district and asked a man named Charles why there was no CNC Machining program as I explained to him my background. I went on to say there aren’t many Black and brown folks with the skills and knowledge to manufacture parts. Charles grabbed a packet, opened it up, and showed me they did teach CNC at Ben Franklin High School and were looking for a teacher. After our conversation, he went on and on, saying he needed me to take over the program, and I thought this man was crazy. I did not even give it a second thought until a week later; there was an offer letter in my email. After thinking about it, speaking with my family about it, I realized if I want to make a change, this is my chance to pass down the skills that I learned from my father and all the skills learned on my journey to being a top CNC machinist. After years of being the only Black machinist in the shop, I knew that I could make the difference and help diversify the manufacturing field. I accepted the offer and haven’t looked back!

Tell us about a memorable time — good or bad — when contact with a student’s family changed your perspective or approach.

As a CTE teacher, we not only teach the trade, but we help students to get working papers, help them prepare for job interviews, show them how to search for a job, and teach students with a lot of the soft skills needed to act on the job site. I reached out to a parent one time to help the student complete his work permit application. But I soon learned that that student wanted a future for himself, and the parent had a separate agenda. This experience made me realize how important what I do is to make a difference in our neighborhoods and changing the mindset that is embedded in the minds of some parents. After speaking and working with the family, I was able to help the student become the breadwinner of the household, and he helped move his family out of the old neighborhood they grew up in.

Notebook hosts Project U-Turn Twitter chat

2019-12-11T20:51:07+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

If you missed the Twitter chat on Wednesday, Dec. 11, focused on youth re-engagement as part of Project U-Turn, you can read over the discussion on Twitter, using the hashtag #UTurnTalks.

Participants in the online chat included:

Philadelphia Youth Network
Philadelphia Public School Notebook
Department of Human Services
Congreso
District 1199C Training (tentative)
School District of Philadelphia Re-engagement Center
JEVS Human Services
Community College of Philadelphia

Project U-Turn is an alliance that unifies partners to increase the graduation rate and prepare young people for future opportunities. To learn more, visit projectuturn.org.

40 CTE options – and where to find them (2019)

2019-09-09T16:02:45+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

In the School District’s career and technical education (CTE) programs, students learn the technical theories, competencies, and skills that are used in business, industry, and professional settings. They also offer a college preparatory academic curriculum.

CTE graduates are equipped with industry knowledge, credentials, and certifications, but they are also prepared for post-secondary educational opportunities such as colleges, universities, technical schools, and apprenticeship programs.

Below are the programs now offered to District high school students. Full descriptions appear in the District’s 2019 High School Directory.

Accounting & Financial Services

Prepares students to provide technical administrative support to professional accountants and other financial management personnel.

Locations: Furness, Lincoln and Washington

Animal Sciences

Focuses on the sciences behind the production and health of both large and small animals. Students learn about equine science, dairy husbandry, and beef production, as well as sheep and small lab animals.

Location: Saul High School for Agricultural Sciences

Architectural Drafting

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and understanding of scientific principles, mathematical concepts, and technical skills, including CAD, to develop plans for buildings and other structures using various building materials, creative layouts, and designs that are in keeping with the various building codes, zoning laws, and other regulations and ordinances.

Location: West Philadelphia

Automotive Collision Repair

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills to repair damaged vehicles such as automobiles and light trucks.

Locations: Edison, Randolph, Swenson, and the Workshop School

Automotive Technology

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills to servicing and maintenance of all types of automobiles and light trucks.

Locations: Edison, Mastbaum, Randolph, Swenson, and the Workshop School

Baking & Pastry Arts

Gives students practical hands-on experience and basic theoretical training in desserts, pastries, candies, decorative work, specialty or artisan breads, high-volume production, and food marketing.

Location: Swenson

Barbering

Prepares students to shave and trim facial/neck hair and beards, cut and dress hair, fit hairpieces, give facial and scalp massages, apply skin treatments, and prepare for licensure as professional barbers.

Location: Dobbins

Biotechnology

Focuses on the connections between students’ science courses and potential solutions to various problems of our modern world.

Location: Dobbins and Roxborough

Business Administration

Locations: Dobbins, Franklin Learning Center, King, Lincoln, Mastbaum, and Roxborough

Carpentry

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills to lay out, fabricate, erect, install, and repair structures and fixtures using hand and power tools.

Locations: Mastbaum and Swenson

Computer-Aided Drafting & Design

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge related to the gathering and translating of data or specifications, including basic aspects of planning, preparing and interpreting mechanical, architectural, chemical, structural, civil, pneumatic, marine, electrical/electronic, topographical, and other drawings and sketches used in various engineering fields.

Location: Franklin

Computer Supports Systems Technology

Prepares students to apply basic engineering principles and technical skills in support of professionals who use computer systems.

Locations: Kensington and South Philadelphia

Computer Systems Networking

Focuses on the design, implementation, and management of linked systems of computers, peripherals, and associated software.

Locations: Dobbins, Swenson, and West Philadelphia

Construction Technologies

Prepares students to apply knowledge and skills in the construction technology field.

Location: Randolph

Cosmetology

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills related to a variety of beauty treatments, including the care and enhancement of the condition of hair, complexion, and hands.

Locations: Dobbins and Edison

Culinary Arts

Prepares students for employment related to institutional, commercial, or self-owned food establishments or other food industry occupations.

Locations: Dobbins, Edison, Frankford, Franklin, King, Mastbaum, Randolph, South Philadelphia, Strawberry Mansion, Swenson, and Washington

Dental Assisting

Prepares students to function effectively as integral members of the dental health team.

Locations: Kensington Health Sciences and Randolph

Digital Media Production

Includes, but is not limited to, computer system set-up and maintenance, operating basic computer and communications applications, design and layout of graphic and multimedia images, photography, website, and video and/or audio design and production.

Locations: Creative & Performing Arts (CAPA), Dobbins, Kensington CAPA, Overbrook, Northeast, Roxborough, Swenson, and West Philadelphia

Early Childhood Education & Childcare

Prepares students for a variety of occupations in childcare and guidance, often under the supervision of professional personnel in childcare or daycare centers.

Location: Parkway West

Electrical & Power Transmission Installation

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills necessary to install, operate, maintain, and repair electrically energized residential, commercial, and industrial systems, and DC and AC motors, controls, and electrical distribution panels.

Locations: Edison, Mastbaum, and Swenson

Electronics Technology/Automated Systems

Instructs students to apply basic electronic principles and technical skills to the production, calibration, estimation, testing, assembling, installation, and maintenance of electronic equipment.

Location: Randolph

Emergency Medical Technician/Fire Academy

Firefighter Training Academy: Prepares students for certification and careers as Emergency Medical Technicians and firefighters.

Location: Randolph

Engineering Technologies

Prepares students to apply knowledge and skills in the engineering field.

Locations: Carver, Kensington, Science Leadership Academy, Science Leadership Academy @ Beeber, South Philadelphia, and Swenson

Facility & Property Maintenance

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills to keep a building functioning and to serve a variety of structures, including commercial and industrial buildings and mobile homes.

Location: Dobbins and Franklin

Fashion Design

Introduces students to the spectrum of occupations associated with clothing and textile management, production, and services.

Location: Dobbins

Film & Video Production

Introduces students to the art and science of digital film and video production.

Locations: Edison, Fels, Lincoln, Roxborough, and Science Leadership Academy

Food Processing Science

Focuses on the study of food systems, which includes production, processing, and safe handling.

Location: Saul

Graphic Design

Provides students with the knowledge, skills, and portfolio needed to successfully tackle the challenges of college instruction or to pursue a career as a freelance graphic designer.

Locations: Dobbins, Edison, Mastbaum, and South Philadelphia

Health Information Records Technology

Prepares students to classify medical information and prepare records under the supervision of a medical records administrator.

Location: Mastbaum

Health-Related Technologies

Locations: Edison, Kensington Health Sciences, Lincoln, King, Mastbaum, Overbrook, Randolph, Robeson, Sayre, South Philadelphia, and Swenson

Horticulture

Focuses on the science behind plant production and health.

Locations: Lincoln and Saul

Logistics, Materials & Supply Chain Management

Prepares students to manage and coordinate logistical functions in an enterprise and to undertake the responsibilities associated with receiving, storing, shipping, controlling, and distributing products and materials, and the various systems and recordkeeping pertaining to these operations.

Location: Edison

Medical/Clinical Assistant

Prepares students to assist physicians by performing functions related to administrative and clinical duties of a medical office.

Location: Franklin Learning Center

Natural Resource Management

Focuses on the science behind protecting the natural environment. Hands-on skill-building highlights the value of biodiversity and the responsible management of natural resources.

Location: Saul

Plumbing Technology

Prepares students to practice as licensed plumbers by applying technical knowledge, safety, and skills to lay out, assemble, install, and maintain plumbing fixtures and systems for steam, natural gas, oil, hot water, heating, cooling, drainage, lubricating, sprinkling, and industrial processing systems in home and business environments.

Location: Edison and Mastbaum

Precision Machine Tool Technology

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills in all aspects of shaping metal parts. Instruction involves making computations relating to work dimensions, tooling, and feeds and speeds of machining.

Location: Franklin

Rehabilitation Aide

Prepares students to perform functions related to physical rehabilitation. Includes instruction in roles and responsibilities of rehabilitation providers, basic function of the human body, disabling conditions, therapeutic skills, client management and communication skills.

Location: Sayre

Solar Energy

Frankford was selected to implement the nation’s first Solar Energy Program of Study for high school students. A new three-year curriculum for an inaugural class of 10th grade students will begin in fall 2020.

Locations: Frankford High

Sports Marketing & Management

Prepares students to perform development, marketing, and management functions associated with careers in the sports and entertainment industry.

Locations: Dobbins, Kensington, Lincoln, Northeast, Roxborough, and Washington

Welding Technology

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills in gas, arc, shielded and non-shielded metal arc, brazing, flame-cutting, and plasma welding. Hand, semi-automatic, and automatic welding processes are also included in the instruction.

Locations: Edison, Franklin, Mastbaum, and Randolph

SLA move to Ben Franklin leaves both communities nervous and excited

2019-06-27T15:26:10+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

When Science Leadership Academy CEO Chris Lehmann was packing up his office in preparation for his school’s move earlier this month, one thing that he chose to keep was the sign on his office door that read: Principal 201A.

“[Thirteen] years walking into this office every day,” he wrote on Facebook. “The sign comes with me to the new space.”

The “new space” is in Benjamin Franklin High School. There, his office will likely not be in Room 201A. Still, the sign is a symbol of his open-door policy and of his intention that the culture of SLA will not change in its new location.

SLA is a 500-student special admission high school founded in 2006 by Lehmann, in partnership with the School District and the Franklin Institute. The school’s educational program is based on five principles: inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation, and reflection.

So the move – out of rented space in a former office building that cost roughly $1 million annually – was an opportunity to put these principles into action. For instance, the faculty asked the students to research office furniture to bring to the new building.

One day earlier in the spring, students seized a recently delivered chair that they had picked out for Lehmann’s new office.

The students said they wanted chairs that were breathable — less back sweat. So the wheeled chair has no solid back. It has a metal bar that wraps around most of the circular seat. A group of three students showed Lehmann each and every way he could sit in it. Facing forward. Facing backward. Sitting on the back with your feet on the seat. There were more, but at that moment they didn’t have time to explain them.

SLA’s academics place it near the top of all schools in the District, and it is highly sought-after among students of all backgrounds, all income levels, from all over the city. It is also quite integrated — 38 percent white, 37 percent black, 10 percent Hispanic and 11 percent Asian.

But the school has spent its entire existence in a high-rent converted office building at 22nd and Arch Streets with no gymnasium or cafeteria.

Benjamin Franklin, one of the city’s neighborhood schools in North Philadelphia, is a very different place. The five-story, block-long building, built in the 1960s near the corner of Broad and Spring Garden Streets, is vastly underused. Its student body is almost entirely African American, with less than 20 percent from other ethnic groups. More than a third have special needs.

Hardly any SLA students drop out, but at Ben Franklin, just 59 percent of students graduate in four years. It is the site of an evening school for students making a second try at getting a diploma.

Franklin’s new, state-of-the-art Career and Technical Education program focusing on advanced manufacturing is attracting more students from out of its immediate area. But it is underutilized.

Parents from Ben Franklin fear that SLA could expand and push out the neighborhood high school, while SLA parents fear a clash between two dramatically different school cultures. Some SLA parents, who described their school’s culture as one of mutual respect between students and staff, perceived the culture of Ben Franklin as “authoritarian.”

The cultural differences between the two schools were evident in preparing this story. A reporter was welcomed into SLA for follow-up interviews with students, but he was not able to arrange a return visit to Ben Franklin. When he tried to talk to students outside at dismissal time, the students were chased off a nearby public sidewalk by a staff member as school police watched. The staffer pushed students away from the microphone, telling them to “go home.”

SLA has won several national awards for innovation. Ben Franklin generally has made the news for incidents like one in 2016 when a school police officer was caught on tape forcibly restraining a student who wanted to use the bathroom but did not have a pass.

Even though it has fewer students than SLA, Ben Franklin has five school police officers, two of them paid for with discretionary funds that the school’s leadership could have used for another purpose — another college counselor, for instance.

SLA has one school police officer who sits by the main entrance to make sure no strangers enter.

SLA students don’t wear uniforms. Ben Franklin students do.

Ben Franklin students walk through metal detectors every morning before entering their building. SLA, for all its history, has never used a metal detector, one of three high schools in the District that made this decision.

The issues raised by putting these two very different schools in the same building was brought dramatically into public view at the March meeting of the Board of Education. In the name of consistency, the board scheduled a vote that would require all schools to use a metal detector whether they wanted to or not. Members never said why they needed to do this now, although most people assumed it was in anticipation of the SLA-Ben Franklin co-location.

At the meeting, several members of the activist Philadelphia Student Union, including students from SLA, spoke passionately against this, arguing that the detectors create a prison-like atmosphere. When the board, whose members were seated last summer, passed the resolution, the vote precipitated the biggest and most raucous demonstration yet at one of its meetings. Students and their leaders shouted down the members. The board reconvened its meeting in another room, closed to the public.

Students protest Policy 805, which would mandate metal detectors in all high schools, at the March Board of Education meeting. (Photo: Greg Windle)

Opposite ends of city’s high school landscape

SLA and Ben Franklin represent the two ends of the high school spectrum in Philadelphia: selective, diverse, and high-performing schools on one end, and the neighborhood schools, obligated to take everyone, at the other. Most often, that means students who could not get into or did not apply to the citywide and special admission schools, which, to varying degrees, weed out students with poor grades, attendance, and discipline records.

Putting these two schools in the same building is cause for both trepidation and possibility.

In announcing the $39 million plan for the co-location, Superintendent William Hite touted the eventual cost savings, plus the potential opportunities for joint learning. At the same time, he emphasized that this was a co-location, not a merger, that combines practicality — taking advantage of underutilized space — with optimism that the two schools could find synergy and areas in which to cooperate and engage in joint activities.

“We fully expect that the result of this collaborative process will be an innovative high school space in the heart of the city that efficiently uses District resources and is a high-quality learning environment, featuring high-tech CTE facilities and project-based learning,” Hite said in a statement.

Committees including students and staffers from both schools were formed to help with the design process. The official goals for the renovation and updating of Ben Franklin’s building include capitalizing on the benefits of shared resources, responding to a wide range of learning styles, and “providing real-world environments for collaboration.” And there is this: “Create a safe, inviting, exciting environment for all.”

Presented with several options, the committees voted in favor of a plan in which the building will be divided by a wall down the middle, with each school occupying one half and having separate entrances. But the first and top floors will be shared spaces. On the first floor, there will be two “cafe” areas where students from each school will eat lunch, connected by a broad open lounge called the “student union.” On the top floor, SLA’s classrooms outfitted for its CTE offerings — digital media and the like — will be alongside shared learning spaces and quiet reading lounges.

SLA principal Lehmann said he is “really excited” for the student union, which was meant to feel “collegiate.” It will give students from the two schools a chance to mingle.

“When you allow people to see another group of people as ‘others,’ that’s when negative things happen,” Lehmann said. “We’re going to be sharing a building. We’ve got roommates. If you’re that guy that lives in an apartment with another roommate and the first thing you do every day is go into your room and lock the door, your roommate is going to feel a certain type of way about that.”

Students from both schools who participated in the design process, which was run by the architectural firm, described it as positive and collaborative.

“Pretty much everyone wanted the shared spaces,” said Ben Franklin 10th grader Jeramie Miller. With most decisions came trade-offs. Miller, a member of ROTC, wasn’t thrilled about that class being moved to the basement. On the other hand, his culinary program is getting new cabinets, refrigerators, and burners for the stoves.

SLA 10th grader Horace Ryans said the design meetings looked like “a lot of students spitballing ideas. It was nice to see that, even though this was a completely new group of students, we were acting like we knew each other longer than we had.”

He noted that SLA will now have classic high school features that their school has always lacked, including a gym and auditorium. No longer will gym class consist of students running through the hallways. Equity was also a concern for Ryans.

“We wanted to make sure every student had access to the same resources,” he said.

Alexis, a 10th grader at Ben Franklin who didn’t want to give her last name, initially thought the co-location was a “horrible idea,” but she is happy about the renovations.

“We really appreciate that a lot,” she said. “They’re making everything look presentable and nice — fixing things up. They’re really welcoming SLA into the school [building].”

During renovations, the Ben Franklin students have been moved around as needed; for part of the past school year, they learned in the finished classrooms. “It looks happier,” she said. “It was all dull. … It feels like a school now. Before, it was just a building we went to school in.”

Students have mixed feelings about a literal wall dividing the two schools on all but the top and bottom floors.

“Honestly, that feels really weird,” said Simone Marant, who is entering her senior year at SLA. “Being split in half makes two different worlds. Some conflict may rise from that in and of itself.”

Her classmate Arthur LaBan is less concerned about separate entrances and a divided building.

“It will allow a smooth transition,” he said. “And the shared spaces will allow us to connect with Ben Franklin students and build a community. … It’s the same people coming through the doors. So if the doors change, I don’t think that matters as much as the people.”

Students collaborate during a meeting of the design committee (Photo: School District of Philadelphia)

Culture clash

Parents are not so sanguine about the move. Simone’s mother, Leslie Marant, has sent three children to SLA. She spoke about the incident in which a Ben Franklin student was tackled by a school police officer.

“A school police officer wrestling a kid in the hallway? Over a bathroom?” Marant said. “That would never happen at SLA, and it should never happen at Ben Franklin.”

She called Ben Franklin’s culture “authoritarian” and “punitive,” in contrast to SLA. Her problem with Ben Franklin “is not the students. It’s the way people behave who are given positions of authority over those students.”

Marant said that for her, “it’s not a class issue. It’s not ‘my kid is better than these kids at Ben Franklin.’ I’m a parent born and raised in West and North Philadelphia. Absent my getting into Masterman, I am those Ben Franklin kids.”

Finding Ben Franklin parents to interview proved difficult. Sheila Armstrong, a community organizer who lives in the area, contacted several, but although many were wary about the move, none felt comfortable speaking with a reporter. She said their concerns centered on whether SLA would expand and push Ben Franklin out of its own building. School officials, including central office staff and the schools’ principals, said that would not happen. SLA was founded deliberately to be a small school with an enrollment of roughly 500 students, and it has no plans to expand.

Ben Franklin’s principal, Christine Borelli, has worked alongside Lehmann to answer the questions of parents from both schools.

“With the parents, there were a lot of concerns about the reputation of Ben Franklin — there’s so much history involved,” Borelli said, adding that many of the concerns about reputation arose from a few news articles. There was the incident when the police officer restrained the student and another about a fight on SEPTA.

“That one incident you heard about 50 times — about a fight on the subway — that’s not really representative of our school,” she said. “That was resolved pretty early.”

Yet it was clear that where trust and mutual respect mark the relationships between staff and students at SLA, Ben Franklin’s culture draws a sharp contrast.

On a spring day after dismissal, Kayla Abdur-Rahim, a Ben Franklin junior, stood a block away from the school talking to a reporter about what she said was an inconsistent discipline system and the inconveniences brought on by the construction.

“If people jump you, they don’t always get suspended,” she said. “And they never kick them out — period.

“I feel like, if they can’t even control us, how are they gonna put us together with another school?”

Her friend standing nearby cursed under her breath at the sight of the school’s culinary teacher, Keith Pretlow, approaching them with the school police looking on from the other side of the street. “I don’t care about him — we’re just talking,” Abdur-Rahim said. “He can’t stop us.”

“Oh, yes he can,” her friend shot back.

And he did. As Abdur-Rahim kept talking — “They need to get this school together” — the teacher stepped between her and the reporter, refusing to identify himself or answer questions. Instead, he palmed the side of Abdur-Rahim’s head and shoved her away, saying, “Have a good day.”

“We’re talking!” she protested. Pretlow pushed her head away again and told her to go home.

Adbur-Rahim told him to “chill,” but he kept pushing her away from the microphone. Finally, she gave up and walked away. The school police did not move to intervene.

Before Ben Franklin staff were made aware of the interviews taking place outside, sophomore Alexis said her primary concern was fighting between students. “Teenagers,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s how they do it nowadays.”

But she liked the idea of shared spaces with SLA. “I don’t want them to be completely isolated from us,” she said. “They did well on that.”

Even though, she said, “there’s a lot of stuff I don’t like” about the plan, “I am excited for SLA to come in. … It would be good at least to see them so we can get to know each other.”

Concerns about conflict

Plenty of SLA parents are wary, too. “There are still parents talking about pulling kids, which I think is disruptive to their education,” said parent Sarah Caswell. “And it’s not teaching them any life lessons.”

Caswell teaches at Lincoln High School, where her students go through metal detectors every day.

“I don’t think many parents considered the opposite end: If Ben Franklin kids have to get scanned, but SLA kids don’t,” she said. “At Lincoln, we had a shooting [nearby] last year, so I don’t care. Scan them. … To me, that’s not the hill to die on.”

Other parents have mixed feelings. Nareida Babilonia, whose son is entering 11th grade, learned about the move during his freshman year and attended the first open house for parents.

“When I got into a circle with other parents, I could tell that certain parents were a lot more worried than I was,” Babilonia said. “It was very clear there was a lot of white privilege and a lot of conversations about ‘them’ and ‘they,’ which I didn’t appreciate. Somebody even called it a social experiment, which I thought was insulting.

“The concern I was hearing from parents was about Ben Franklin having a bad reputation. And a lot of concerns like: Are we going to be separated? Is it going to be clear which kids are from SLA and which are from Ben Franklin?”

Those concerns have been addressed by splitting the school building, using separate entrances, and Ben Franklin’s uniform policy.

Babilonia said the concern about fights between students was the only one she shared, but that she was comforted by the design for use of the building and had confidence in the staff.

Her son, Jacob Prunés, said that when he first heard about the move, he was “annoyed” by the change. But he’s looking forward to the expanded facilities for his CTE engineering program. And he’s excited to have a gym next year. He’s not worried.

“A lot of [my classmates] really don’t want to move,” Prunés said. “I’ve heard some say they’re thinking about switching schools, but most of my friends are going to stay.”

SLA parent Kathleen Butts didn’t understand all the fuss, saying that parents should visit the school and neighborhood.

“The more students and parents at both schools can talk to each other in an open forum, the better it makes the partnership for everybody,” Butts said. “There are some cool things that could come out of schools sharing resources. … I’m a huge fan of service learning, and I think there’s a potential for the schools to come together to work on projects for that community.”

Ben Franklin principal Borelli said that most parents who had concerns about the school had never visited it. So she invited them. “SLA clearly has its own brand, and I would say Ben Franklin is being transformed and reinvented. … I don’t think one group of students has more than the other, but they learn in different ways.”

In fact, there was no sign that applications to SLA declined this year or that students transferred. Today, its enrollment for September stands at 509, up slightly from the year just ended.

Students collaborate during a meeting of the design committee (Photo: School District of Philadelphia)

Unity Club

A year ago, Miranda Sosa, as a freshman at SLA, had a project in her English class that required her to identify something that affects her community and figure out a way to change the impact.

She chose SLA’s pending move as her subject and formed a club for students from both schools. Throughout the last school year, they met and brainstormed ideas for shared events and activities.

“We came up with ideas for the future like a field day, where we combine the two different schools playing sports,” she said. “We’re also thinking maybe we’ll have a potluck or a dance.”

Ben Franklin sophomore and student president Maniyah Clanton said she was “nervous” when she first heard about the move, not knowing what to expect. She met Sosa and the other students through the unity club, which she organizes from the Ben Franklin side, and now says “I like change. I’m all for it.”

“The first meeting we went over to SLA during the day. They took a small group of us around their school and showed us how their day goes,” Clanton said. “I liked how they get to express themselves.”

“I also learned that SLA has their own common spaces already,” Clanton said. “And they have couches in their classrooms.”

Jeramie Miller had a great time on the tour.

“Most of the time we were just laughing and talking. There were a lot of jokes,” Miller said.

His principal cut in. “There were some parties I keep hearing about that came out of that,” Borelli said.

Miller and Clanton just smiled in response. They listed ideas that the group of students from both schools came up with for shared extracurriculars: a book club, garden club, a joint culinary class, painting club, field day, local volunteer work, art contests, a big barbecue.

Students from both schools want to share CTE courses. Borelli and Lehmann said this is a possibility for the future, but won’t happen initially. Both principals are in discussion with the District’s central office about forming some sports teams with students from both schools.

“I felt really appreciated the second time I went to SLA, because the students really listened to my ideas and we talked about everything,” Clanton said. “I stayed in touch with some people [from SLA]. … I go over there after school sometimes.”

Miller and Clanton mentioned keeping in touch with SLA junior Shyann Davis.

“I’m in constant contact with Maniyah, and we’re always talking about events we can have to bring the schools closer together,” Davis said.

A friend of Miranda Sosa, she’s taken over leadership of the SLA side of the unity committee in her free time. “We’re trying to plan an event to get the juniors together … to have a party, or get-together, with food so we can all meet.”

Ryans called the unity club a “marvelous idea.”

“We’re two families coming together in the same house,” Ryans said. “There’s going to be conflict, but it’s going to be OK.”

Ben Franklin principal Borelli put it this way:

“They’re all teenagers. They’re all high school students. They all want the same things.”

Saul students create a zen garden at Philly Flower Show

2019-03-07T15:17:18+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

There are not many zen gardens in the heart of Philadelphia, but for the week of the Flower Show, students at Walter B. Saul High School have created one in the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Saul is the largest agriculture high school in the country, and it has created a display in the Philadelphia Flower Show for more than 30 years. According to horticulture teacher Lisa Blum, Saul is asked to return each year because they get a good response from the public and from the show organizer, the Philadelphia Horticultural Society.

“It’s kind of just a longstanding tradition,” Blum said.

Saul is a STEM-based special admission school, located on 130 acres in Roxborough, where students decide on one of four majors after their freshman year: environmental science, food science, animal science and plant science, also known as horticulture.

About 40 junior and senior horticulture majors worked on designing, building, and planting the exhibit.

The theme of this year’s show is Flower Power, and Saul “interpreted it as the power that flowers, in the larger sense, have in terms of helping humans with our mental health,” Blum said.

She noted that plants have healing power, both physically and mentally. They decided to focus primarily on Zen traditions and the Indian chakra and built an exhibit that corresponded with the colors of the seven chakras.

Ayania Singleton, a junior horticulture major at Saul, said, “Every color is for every piece of your body and your feeling.”

Photo by Maya Wernick

The walk-through exhibit includes a gazebo, with plants branching out in each color of the chakra, as well as origami, water features, and an arch.

Saul students Ayania Singleton (left) and Giancarlo Fowler. (Photo: Maya Wernick)

Singleton emphasized the importance of making their exhibit accessible for everyone, including people who use wheelchairs.

Saul is among three local high schools competing in the educational class of the show. The two others are Lincoln High School in Philadelphia’s Mayfair section, and Lakeside School, a North Wales-based therapeutic school with a focus on special education. Lincoln has a horticulture program, and Lakeside uses horticulture as a means of therapy for its students. The other schools in the category are universities.

“Being a public high school, our resources are really, really slim,” Blum said. “Our kids work super, super hard.”

Saul won a bronze medal from the Philadelphia Horticultural Society, as well as a Special Achievement award from the Garden Club Federation of Pennsylvania.

“I feel like it’s harder work for the high schools,” said Giancarlo Fowler, a junior at Saul.

Blum said that it is a challenge managing all of the personalities as well as the “life issues” that high schoolers may have, but the whole experience becomes worth it at the end. “The kids take such ownership. They are so proud of building something from nothing. That’s what gets me ready for next year.”

For Singleton, the goal for the display was simple: “What can we do to make it feel like you’re at home?”

Students show off cooking skills to mayor after trip to Italy

2018-11-08T10:00:31+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Philadelphia high school students instructed Mayor Kenney in the art of pasta-making on Wednesday.

Nineteen culinary arts students from four of the District’s community schools — Murrell Dobbins CTE High School, Kensington Health Sciences Academy, George Washington High School, and South Philadelphia High School — showed Kenney and other city officials how to prepare fresh ravioli, a skill they learned during their 10-day trip to Florence, Italy, in October to learn about the region’s cuisine.

The trip, part of Citizen Diplomacy International’s Sister Cities Program, was the first collaboration between CDI and the Mayor’s Office of Education. While in Italy, students learned to make pastries and pasta and visited medieval churches and vineyards. After returning to Philadelphia, they put their new cooking skills to use.

“The educator in me wanted them to demonstrate what they’ve learned,” said Otis Hackney, the chief education officer for the Mayor’s Office of Education.

The event was held at the Parkway Central Library’s Culinary Literacy Center. After Hackney thanked the trip sponsors, chaperones, and school principals, two students talked about their time in Italy, describing the art museums they visited and the food they enjoyed cooking and eating.

Kenney said of the students, “I just want to tell them how proud I am of them.”

Mayor Kenney tries his hand at kneading pasta dough. (Photo by Naomi Elegant)

The community schools project is an initiative of the Kenney administration, in collaboration with the District, that seeks to make schools the hub of neighborhoods by providing students and their families with social services and activities, such as adult education, that will enhance their learning experience and increase parent engagement.

The students, dressed in chef’s whites and hats, separated eggs and sifted flour under the supervision of chef Stuart Beck of George Washington High School, who was also one of the chaperones on the trip. Kenney joined in to help knead the pasta dough.

Superintendent William Hite also got some lessons in kneading.

“We are excited that our students have had this invaluable opportunity to learn and travel throughout Italy and are thankful to the organizations that made the trip a reality,” Hite said.

For many of the students, the trip to Florence was their first time out of the United States.

“I’ve never been on a plane, never been outside of the country, so I was kind of freaking out, but at the same time I was excited,” said Austin McSorley, a senior at George Washington High School. “It was honestly one of the best experiences I’ve had.”

The air was fragrant with cheese and herbs by the time the dish was ready. Students spooned plump spinach-ricotta ravioli onto plates and passed them around to guests.

Kenney, after finishing his first ravioli, walked back over to the kitchen counter and asked the students, “Can I have another one?”

Students Austin McSorley (left) of George Washington High School and Jada Myers of South Philadelphia High School crack eggs for their pasta.

40 CTE options and where to find them

2018-09-13T14:40:53+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

In the School District’s career and technical education (CTE) programs, students learn the technical theories, competencies, and skills that are used in business, professional settings, and industry. They also engage in a college preparatory academic curriculum.

Below are the programs now offered to District high school students. Three programs that appeared on the list last year are no longer being offered: Applied Visual & Interactive Design, HVAC & Refrigeration Technology, and Vending Machine Technology. Full descriptions appear in the District’s 2018 High School Directory.

Accounting & Financial Services

Prepares students to provide technical administrative support to professional accountants and other financial management personnel.
Locations: Furness, Kensington, Lincoln, and Washington

Animal Sciences

Architectural Drafting

Autobody Collision Repair

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills to repair damaged vehicles such as automobiles and light trucks.
Locations: Edison, Randolph, Swenson, and the Workshop School

Automotive Technology

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills to service and maintain all types of automobiles and light trucks.
Locations: Edison, Mastbaum, Randolph, Swenson, and the Workshop School

Baking & Pastry Arts

Gives students practical hands-on experience and basic theoretical training in desserts, pastries, candies, decorative work, specialty or artisan breads, high-volume production, and food marketing.
Location: Swenson

Barbering

Biotechnology

Focuses on the connections between students’ science courses and potential solutions to various problems of our modern world.
Locations: Roxborough

Business Administration

Prepares students to learn and work within various business and office/administrative operations by introducing them to the latest Microsoft Office Suite that will prepare them to take the Microsoft Office Specialist certification exams.
Locations: Dobbins, Franklin Learning Center, Kensington, King, Lincoln, Mastbaum, Overbrook, South Philadelphia, and Roxborough

Carpentry

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills to lay out, fabricate, erect, install, and repair structures and fixtures using hand and power tools.
Locations: Mastbaum and Swenson

Computer-Aided Drafting & Design

Computer Supports Systems Technology

Prepares students to apply basic engineering principles and technical skills in support of professionals who use computer systems.
Locations: Kensington, and South Philadelphia

Computer Systems Networking

Focuses on the design, implementation, and management of linked systems of computers, peripherals, and associated software.
Locations: Dobbins, Swenson, and West Philadelphia

Construction Technologies

Prepares students to apply knowledge and skills in the construction technology field.
Location: Randolph

Cosmetology

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills related to a variety of beauty treatments, including the care and enhancement of the condition of hair, complexion, and hands.
Locations: Dobbins and Edison

Culinary Arts

Prepares students for employment related to institutional, commercial, or self-owned food establishments or other food industry occupations.
Locations: Dobbins, Edison, Frankford, Franklin, King, Mastbaum, Randolph, South Philadelphia, Strawberry Mansion, Swenson, and Washington

Dental Assisting

Prepares students to function effectively as integral members of the dental health team.
Locations: Kensington Health Sciences and Randolph

Digital Media Production

Includes, but is not limited to, computer system set-up and maintenance, operating basic computer and communication applications, design and layout of graphic and multimedia images, photography, website, and video and/or audio design and production.
Locations: Creative & Performing Arts (CAPA), Dobbins, Overbrook, Northeast, Swenson, and West Philadelphia

Early Childhood Education & Childcare

Prepares students for a variety of occupations in childcare and guidance, often under the supervision of professional personnel in childcare or daycare centers.
Location: Parkway West

Electrical & Power Transmission Installation

Electromechanical/Mechatronics

Prepares students to apply basic engineering principles and technical skills in both the mechanical and electrical fields.
Location: Franklin

Electronics Technology/Automated Systems

Instructs students to apply basic electronic principles and technical skills to the production, calibration, estimation, testing, assembling, installation, and maintenance of electronic equipment.
Location: Randolph

Emergency Medical Technician/Fire Academy

Firefighter Training Academy: Prepares students for certification and careers as Emergency Medical Technicians and firefighters.
Location: Randolph

Engineering Technologies

Prepares students to apply knowledge and skills in the engineering field.
Locations: Carver, Kensington, Science Leadership Academy, Science Leadership Academy @ Beeber, South Philadelphia, and Swenson

Facility & Property Maintenance

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills to keep a building functioning and to serve a variety of structures, including commercial and industrial buildings and mobile homes.
Location: Dobbins, Franklin and Overbrook

Fashion Design

Introduces students to the spectrum of occupations associated with clothing and textile management, production, and services.
Location: Dobbins

Film & Video Production

Introduces students to the art and science of digital film and video production.
Locations: Bartram, Edison, Fels, Kensington CAPA, Roxborough, and Science Leadership Academy

Food Science

Focuses on the study of food systems, which includes production, processing, and safe handling.
Location: Saul

Graphic Design

Provides students with the knowledge, skills, and portfolio needed to successfully tackle the challenges of college instruction or to pursue a career as a freelance graphic designer.
Locations: Dobbins, Edison, Kensington CAPA, Mastbaum, and South Philadelphia

Health Information Records Technology

Prepares students to classify medical information and prepare records under the supervision of a medical records administrator.
Location: Mastbaum

Health-Related Technologies

Prepares students to apply knowledge and skills in the health occupations. Instruction is provided in basic skills in a variety of areas, such as health and medical services, pharmaceuticals, and medical instruments and supplies.
Locations: Edison, Kensington Health Sciences, Lincoln, King, Mastbaum, Overbrook, Randolph, Robeson, South Philadelphia, and Swenson

Horticulture

Focuses on the science behind plant production and health.
Locations: Lincoln and Saul

Logistics, Materials & Supply Chain Management

Medical/Clinical Assistant

Prepares students to assist physicians by performing functions related to administrative and clinical duties of a medical office.
Location: Franklin Learning Center

Natural Resource Management

Focuses on the science behind protecting the natural environment. Hands-on skill-building highlights the value of biodiversity and the responsible management of natural resources.
Location: Saul

Plumbing Technology

Precision Machine Tool Technology

Sports Marketing & Management

Prepares students to perform development, marketing, and management functions associated with careers in the sports and entertainment industry.
Locations: Dobbins, Kensington, Lincoln, Northeast, and Washington

Web Design

Prepares students to apply HTML, XML, Javascript, graphics applications, and other authoring tools to the design, editing, and publishing (launching) of documents, images, graphics, sound, and multimedia products online.
Location: Roxborough

Welding Technology

Advanced manufacturing center hits snags

2018-09-12T14:01:17+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

When the Benjamin Franklin High School Center for Advanced Manufacturing & Engineering Technology opened its doors three school years ago, the politicians, educators, and business people who toured the building had high hopes – the prospect of turning out hundreds of graduates a year, ready to fill open posts in welding, precision machining, computer assisted design and drafting, and “mechatronics,” as 800 students funneled through the center.

Better yet, the $6 million invested to build it – $2.5 million of it from Phillies co-owner John Middleton – would be put to good use, because students from Community College of Philadelphia would use the same high-priced, state-of-the-art equipment in the evenings, bringing more job candidates into manufacturing to fill vacancies produced by the much-discussed “gray tsunami” of Baby Boomers retiring.

The reality is something different. During the last school year, 175 high school students were enrolled in five programs that could have accommodated about 360,with the number of instructors on board.

“We’re building,” said Christine M. Borelli, the school principal, using the same words as the District’s head of Career and Technical Education, Michelle Armstrong.

Ben Franklin High School’s story is about what happens when dreams meet How-It-Is, although not necessarily How-It-Will-Be. People come and go. Staff is harder to recruit than expected, and the logistics of moving students through the school day turned out to be more complicated than imagined. State and federal regulations that apply to Career and Technical Education have to be met, as well.

On the personnel front, Borelli, for example, is the third principal at Franklin since the center opened three years ago. And two top School District CTE administrators who shepherded the project have also departed.

“The secret to success of any school is the vision and drive of the principal,” said one of them, Clyde Hornberger, the District’s former special adviser for CTE. The question, he said, is whether a new principal will continue the program. Hornberger, who was well-known for his success in building career partnerships in the Lehigh Valley as director of the Lehigh Career & Technical Institute, had retired from that job and was hired in Philadelphia as a consultant.

Hornberger spent a lot of time building relationships with the manufacturing community, including the Manufacturing Alliance of Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center, as well as commissions put together by former Mayor Michael Nutter.

Their expertise was critical. The manufacturers and employers advised the District on what types of machines to buy, what industry certifications were important, and what should be included in the curriculum. They helped to recruit instructors.
When the school opened, Hornberger left. David Kipphut, the District’s well-respected head of CTE, retired last school year. Armstrong, the new leader, simply hasn’t been around as long.

“There’s been remarkably little reaching out in the last two years,” said Stephen Jurash, president and chief executive of the Manufacturing Alliance. Borelli, who has been a principal at several schools, says the days of the high school’s leadership instability are over. The daughter of a union blue-collar worker, she is no stranger to the trades, and she says she’s staying put at Ben Franklin.

“I love this job,” she said. “It saves kids’ lives,” because young people who aren’t engaged in a traditional classroom find themselves ready and eager to learn when they can work with machines.

There are, however, complications. To be accredited in the trades, students must have 1,080 hours of teacher-led instruction in the specific trade. It takes three years to accomplish those hours, so what happens if an 11th grader transfers into the school?

“It’s a rostering nightmare,” Borelli said. Because there are so many shop classes, Borelli doesn’t have the ability to create enough electives to keep students who won’t be able to accrue their 1,080 hours engaged.

Another problem? Some Benjamin Franklin 9th graders were slotted into programs that they didn’t want, she said. To change that, she is instituting a Freshman Seminar class that will acquaint 9th graders with all the programs and team them with junior and senior mentors.

The early developers of the Franklin center had envisioned 9th and 10th graders rotating through the various disciplines before choosing a specialty for their junior and senior years. It was a good idea, Armstrong said, but incompatible with state regulations on CTE curriculum development.

Borelli credits the career and technical instructors with pushing her and others to start recruiting students in middle school. “We want the students who are coming to Ben Franklin to be coming for advanced manufacturing.”

Other lessons have been learned, as well.

For example, mechatronics – which is technology that combines electronics and mechanical engineering – proved to be too difficult for students who hadn’t had physics.

The problem is that physics is typically taught in later high school years, but students needed that background to understand their mechatronics coursework.

Borelli knew it wasn’t working when the school opened a renewable energy program and the students from mechatronics fled to it in droves – a credit to the renewable energy program, but also an indicator of flaws with the mechatronics course.

One of Borelli’s goals for this year is to better coordinate the academic program with what’s needed in the shop – for example, teaching angles in math class when they are using them in the design program.

There have been some bonuses as well, she said.

One plus is that each discipline has an industry advisory committee that helps keep instructors up to date. PTR Baler & Compactor Co. in Northeast Philadelphia donates metal and wire to Franklin’s welding shop.

An obstacle to hiring instructors is that many of them, long expert in their blue-collar trades, haven’t stepped inside a classroom since high school, but now have to go to college to gain the necessary certifications. That can be a deterrent to recruiting.

But it has a positive impact in the school, Borelli said.

“They are learning best practices” and passing them onto their colleagues, even as they are picking up tips from the experienced pros at the high school.

Borelli likes that her students know that Community College of Philadelphia students are using their classrooms at night, sending a message that college is an option for CTE students.

“The perception has been that you do CTE so you don’t go to college,” Borelli said. “We want them to know they have employment opportunities so they can afford higher education, if that’s what they want.”

District students learn business and make some serious cake

2018-06-15T20:04:12+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Last year, Rebel Ventures made history.

Its product, the Rebel Crumble — an apple-cranberry breakfast cake — became the first student-produced item to be made available in all District schools.

Now that just about every student in the District is able to enjoy the tasty pastry, Rebel Ventures is extending its reach into local communities by bringing Rebel Crumbles to ShopRite in Parkside.

Rebel Ventures is a student-led nonprofit enterprise supported by the University of Pennsylvania’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships.

“I felt good because kids say the things served at schools are freebies and stuff like that,” said Zaire White, entrepreneurial leader at Rebel Ventures and a junior at Parkway Center City. “So I feel like they’ll think our product is valuable to them because it’s sold in a ShopRite and given to them for free at the school district. So I think they’ll think differently about the product.”

Rebel Ventures is a student-led nonprofit enterprise supported by the University of Pennsylvania’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships.

The yearlong process started with a series of market testings initiated after Jarrett Stein, co-executive director of Rebel Ventures, reached out to ShopRite’s Sandy Brown to inquire about selling the crumbles in the Parkside store.

First, the students set up a stand at ShopRite and sold the crumbles themselves. In five hours, the crew sold out of 324 crumbles at $1.50 each.

After that success, it took several months for the team to move to the next test: being added to the store’s shelves.

“We had to have a lot of patience,” said Tre-Cia Gibson, co-executive director and a senior at Parkway Center City High School, referring to the months-long email back-and-forth with ShopRite.

“It took a lot of responses to add up to where we ended,” Gibson said. “So when that finally happened, we got the crumbles into ShopRite – that was a wonderful feeling. It was almost a year experience of trying to get in there, and we actually did it and it was a good feeling. The wait was worth it.”

Brown said that, if the crumbles are a hit at the Parkside location, then ShopRite will consider bringing the crumbles to other locations in the city. The possibility falls in line with the vision that Gibson has for Rebel Ventures.

“We want to get out of Philadelphia and broaden,” Gibson said. “We don’t want to just be in Philadelphia; we want to be in different states.”

Brown said she has been working to make sure the crumble receives the visibility and awareness that a product needs to sell well, but it all comes down to whether customers want to buy. Either way, Brown said, if the product doesn’t meet the goal, that doesn’t mean things have to end there.

“It’s a good learning experience and we might continue to do things with [the students] in that one store to get them experience and exposure,” she said. “So either way, it is a win-win.”

For the Rebel crew — consisting of nine students from different high schools, including West Philadelphia High, Palumbo, and Science Leadership Academy — the program is a chance to learn about business and entrepreneurship. In addition to District schools and ShopRite, the crumbles are available in some archdiocese schools and were tried in 40 charter schools.

Rebel Ventures is still waiting for the vendor to make a decision on broad distribution.

Certainly, the students on Rebel’s crew are receiving valuable business experience, but Stein, the co-executive director, said Rebel Ventures seeks to benefit students throughout the District. While the Rebel crew is in class, Stein has been working to expand Rebel’s mission of bringing “healthy deliciousness” to students from “breakfast in the cafeteria into learning in the school day.”

Students from the Workshop School and Dobbins’ culinary program incorporated Rebel Ventures into their lesson plan by helping them to improve their recipe. After surveying students and cafeteria managers, Rebel wanted to make the crumble less dense and sugary.

Rebecca Coven, a 10th-grade teacher at the project-based Workshop School, said she partnered with another Workshop teacher to teach students about the chemistry of baking. Coven said they’re looking to do a similar project next year — a hands-on approach to teaching students how to apply science in the real world.

“It was a really positive experience for students for a number of reasons,” Coven said. “It made them feel empowered, like they can make a difference in the food that is served in the cafeteria and served in the cafeteria throughout the District.”

Rebel Ventures is also working with food service managers to identify students who are “creating a healthier school,” so they can be rewarded with Rebel Ventures’ “Student Powered” T-shirts.

“These are just small examples,” Stein said. “But there are more, in terms of just partnering with schools directly and seeing how we can support schools directly and their efforts to bring young people and adults together to work … toward creating a healthy school.”

Despite its success, the Rebel crew continues to focus on improving the product. After considering student feedback, the team decided to adjust the apple cranberry crumble and introduce a new one: the Apple Delight, a crumble in which apples are the only fruit.

Zaire White hopes students will enjoy this new, improved creation.

“Everything we do is a learning experience,” White said. “This is a youth-run business. Everyone is new to this. This business hasn’t been out for that long.

“We’re really just starting to get out there to many stores and many people. So everything we learn and everything in the past, we try to get better and expand our business.”

Trade school provides an answer to his doubts

2018-06-11T10:31:26+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

First, Panna Kim would enroll in Philadelphia Military Academy, pass the drug and background tests, complete the paperwork, and after graduation, enlist in the military, preferably the Marines.

His future would be signed, sealed, and delivered. Meanwhile, he could be a teenager, skateboarding and hanging out with friends.

But then, two weeks before Kim received his diploma, an attack of pre-graduation anxiety struck the Olney teenager hard.

These days, he’s an electrician with certification from Orleans Technical College. He wires and inspects the control systems used to heat and cool trailers used for temporary housing in areas ravaged by natural disasters.

In between was a pathway — trade school — that he had no idea existed, until a friend gave him some advice and changed Kim’s life in the process.

“When I was young, I used to play with a lot of shooting guys,” said Kim, now 19, talking about the video games that captured his attention as a youngster. “So the military caught my eye. Becoming a soldier is what I wanted my career to be.”

As graduation approached , he saw some friends head off to college and others just trying to figure things out.

His future, which once seemed so settled, became murky.

“I didn’t know what I was going to do,” he said. “All I would have is a high school diploma and no experience.”

He asked himself: “Should the military be my only option?”

“I didn’t want to go to college and be back in school for another four years of my life and then be in debt,” he said.

The way he sees it, there are fewer options for people with advanced degrees and, therefore, more competition for every job. The winner gets the job and can pay off the debt; the loser just gets the debt.

As for the military, “it hit me,” he said. “I would have been in the infantry, which is the most dangerous job. I didn’t want to go and leave my family. I have brothers and I want to spend time with them. You only live once.”

Just before graduation, a friend told Kim about Orleans Technical College, a division of JEVS Human Services. The Northeast Philadelphia campus, which has 358 students, offers training in air conditioning, refrigeration and heating; building maintenance; residential and commercial electricity; plumbing and heating; carpentry; and health care.

Kim had heard, vaguely, about technical schools, but with the word technical in the title, he assumed they had something to do with coding or computers, which didn’t interest him.

But this was different. He started at Orleans in July 2017, a few weeks after graduating from high school.

“I was interested in electricity. There is electricity everywhere in the world. Everyone uses electricity,” he said. To him, that meant that there would be no shortage of work in the future.

Indeed, he’s had at least two job offers since his graduation Feb. 6 from Orleans. Heaccepted the one from EF Precision Group in Willow Grove.

“I’m learning something new every day,” Kim said, who started his job on March 7. He has already been given more responsibility, inspecting the work of his fellow electricians.

The company, which has a long relationship with Orleans, is a contract manufacturer offering design engineering and turnkey electromechanical assemblies to meet individual requirements.

Kim earns $15 an hour and often works at least eight hours a week overtime – enough, he said, to help him pay down the $4,400 debt from Orleans — far less, he thinks, than he would have accrued attending college. In the future, he hopes to work as an electrician building homes.

“If you are pressured to go to college, find something that you like to do in life, that will make you want to get up in the morning,” Kim said. “If college is not the way, then maybe trade school will be the way.”

As far as his family is concerned, it’s already paying off. Kim changed the lighting system in his family’s kitchen and is rewiring the basement so he can set up his own quarters downstairs.

It’s as if he is completing the elaborate structures that he built as a child with Lego blocks when he wasn’t shooting down the enemy in video games.

And it’s a good thing that he has passed the Lego-building phase, because, he says: “My parents threw them out.”

Programs that recruit more non-traditional workers receive $1 million in grants

2018-04-16T07:35:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Programs that lead future barbers, painters, coders, and laboratory technicians through pre-apprentice and apprenticeship programs received grants, Philadelphia Works announced last week.

The local grants, awarded April 9 to 12 organizations for both capacity-building and pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs, total $1 million. About a third of the funding was allocated to five building trades, most of which rarely get these kinds of grants.

“These grants will allow them to recruit more heavily for non-traditional workers, such as women and minorities,” said Tony Wigglesworth, executive director of the Philadelphia Area Labor Management Committee, a nonprofit that works with the region’s building trades. “It’ll give them the resources to do more outreach.”

Building trades have traditionally operated apprenticeship programs, funded by contributions from employers and journeyman workers. These new grants will allow the unions to develop pre-apprentice programs and to build capacity. One of the recipients, the Finishing Trades Institute, can confer college credits. It is operated by District 21 of the International Union of Painters & Allied Trades.

“Apprenticeship is extremely beneficial to the employer and the apprentice,” said Cheryl Feldman, executive director of the District 1199C Training & Upgrading Fund, which has developed nontraditional apprenticeship programs for behavioral health support staff and early childhood educators. The fund received an $85,000 grant for apprentice and pre-apprentice programs and a $50,000 capacity-building grant.

“Rather than hiring someone off the street” who may not be a good match for the job, she said, employers can shape the training. “For the apprentice, there is the opportunity to become employed in a position for which they may not have qualified and earn wages while learning the skills and competencies to become fully qualified.”

Like the District 1199C Training Fund, the Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children also works with apprenticeship programs to train early childhood educators. The association, which received a $49,600 capacity-building grant, focuses on training classroom teachers who mentor early childhood education apprentices.

With the training, “these mentors are becoming master teachers and are able to coach other teachers in their programs,” in addition to the apprentices they are supervising, said Carol Austin, executive director.

Apprenticeships differ from internships or shadowing experiences in that they must be registered with the state or federal government. To qualify, the course of study must be approved and the program must include a certain number of hours of classroom training and supervised on-the-job training. The apprentices are paid employees from the start and receive regular wage increases as their skills build.

“In Philadelphia, there is a rising tide of organizations and industries that now see the value of building viable career pathways to find and recruit talented employees,” Philadelphia Works chief executive H. Patrick Clancy said in a statement.

The $1 million in grants awarded to local agencies through Philadelphia Works is part of $3.5 million in workforce funding distributed by the state to area workforce investments boards. That money, in turn, is part of the $50 million PAsmart career pathways program proposed by Gov. Wolf earlier this year.

“Apprenticeships are incredibly important, as they connect the people who want to learn new career skills with the companies and industries that need highly trained employees,” Wolf said in a statement. “We propose to invest a total of $50 million in PAsmart, including $7 million to help double the number of registered apprentices in the commonwealth by 2025.”

Here are the groups that received grants:

A Road to Success – Cosmetology and Barber Program – $56,080 pre-apprenticeship/apprenticeship grant.
Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children – $49,600 capacity-building grant.
District 1199c – $85,000 pre-apprenticeship/apprenticeship grant and $50,000 capacity-building grant.
Finishing Trades Institute – $80,000 pre-apprenticeship/apprenticeship grant.
International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local #14 – $75,000 pre-apprenticeship/apprenticeship grant.
International Association of Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 19 – $62,000 pre-apprenticeship/apprenticeship grant and $45,495 capacity-building grant.
International Union of Operating Engineers Local 542 – $45,495 capacity-building grant.
JEVS Human Services – $99,956.60 pre-apprenticeship/apprenticeship grant and $49,996 capacity-building grant.
Philadelphia Carpenters JATC – $50,000 capacity-building grant.
Urban Technology Project – $75,000 pre-apprenticeship/apprenticeship grant and $45,495 capacity-building grant.
The Wistar Institute – $85,000 pre-apprenticeship/apprenticeship grant.
Zhang Sah – $45,495 capacity-building grant.

City will spend $6 million to connect disadvantaged youth to jobs

2018-01-09T21:14:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

In their yellow construction jackets and hard hats, the dozen or so students from YouthBuild Philadelphia Charter School made a great photo backdrop for Tuesday’s announcement that the city would spend $6 million in state welfare money to connect young people, ages 17 to 21, to job readiness programs and year-round employment.

“In my generation, there’s a lot of abandonment,” said Taryn Canty-Reid, 20, a YouthBuild student who dreams of being a carpenter. “I’ve been abandoned and I abandoned myself. I was always waiting for an opportunity to come to me instead of chasing opportunities.”

The money, funneled through the city’s workforce development board, will create opportunities for four groups of young people — those with autism and intellectual or developmental disabilities, those who have been involved with the criminal court system, those who have aged out of foster care, and graduates of Philadelphia’s career and technical education health-care programs.

For Canty-Reid, Tuesday’s press conference was a chance to meet the mayor. She also wanted to send a message to other young women interested in the male-dominated building trades: “You have to prove to them – and not only to them, but to ourselves – that this is our world and anything they can do, we can do.”

Canty-Reid never got a chance to speak, although she was prepared.

So was Mayor Kenney.

“We’re in a battle against poverty, which has kept a generation of young people in Philadelphia from achieving the life we want for them,” Kenney said during the news conference outlining the effort.

The program will identify and assist 1,000 young people who are already receiving some form of government support, adding a layer of workforce training to the help they already receive, said H. Patrick Clancy, president and chief executive of Philadelphia Works, the city’s workforce development agency.

Philadelphia School District Superintendent William Hite said, “When you make an investment in young adults, these young adults and youth never let us down.”

The move comes as the nation’s unemployment rate has fallen to 4.1 percent amid a tightening labor market, with employers unable to fill jobs.

Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate stood at 4.6 percent for November, the most recent month available for statewide statistics gathered by the U.S. Labor Department. In Philadelphia, November’s unemployment rate was well above national and state rates at 6.2 percent.

Typically, unemployment among young people and minorities runs higher, with rates skyrocketing for young people who have any kind of barrier.

For example, only one in two children moving out of foster care at age 18 has “meaningful employment” by age 24, said Cynthia Figueroa, commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Human Services, at the press conference. Her agency works with youth in foster care.

The $6 million will be divided among nine organizations providing youth services, each responsible for recruiting young people, identifying specific needs of each group, developing training and connecting them with employers to develop paid work experiences in industry sectors expected to see job growth. The organizations will act as career counselors, and provide supports in legal services, financial literacy, and high-school equivalency completion, among other areas.

Patrick Eiding, a member of the Philadelphia Works board and the head of the Philadelphia AFL-CIO, the city’s largest organized labor union, said the aim of the program was not to duplicate services already provided. “This is a holistic approach,” he said.

JEVS Human Services received a $354,178 grant to provide services to young people with autism and intellectual or developmental disabilities. Receiving grants to assist adjudicated youth were Eckerd Connects, $453,288; JEVS, $609,269; and YouthBuild Philadelphia Charter School, $344,675.

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia received $528,081 to develop programs for young people aging or aged out of foster care. Other providers in that group included Communities in Schools in Philadelphia, $637,500; JEVS, $300,000; Temple University’s Center for Social Policy and Community Development, $614,111; and Valley Youth House, $628,800.

Educational Data Systems Inc. landed a $629,847 grant to provide services to health-care graduates of the city’s career and technical schools. Philadelphia Youth Network received $552,500 to serve the same group, and Temple University’s College of Education was awarded $637,500.

New lottery system for Philly trade school admissions stokes debate

2017-10-17T16:24:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

For decades, Philadelphia’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) High Schools have been among the city’s most desirable, attracting motivated students from every neighborhood.

And for years, they’ve been able to cull their students, discarding applicants with poor grades, poor attendance, or even just a poor interview.

All of that, however, is about to change.

Starting with this year’s eighth graders, the school district of Philadelphia’s four CTE high schools — Murrell Dobbins, Swenson Arts and Technology, A. Philip Randolph, and Jules E. Mastbaum — will admit students via lottery. There will no longer be any admissions criteria other than students showing interest.

If there are too many students for the number of seats available, high achievers will have no advantage over those who struggled in lower grades.

District leadership says the move is about fairness. By shedding admissions criteria, officials say, these schools can serve all interested students, rather than casting aside those who may have tripped up in seventh or eighth grade.

“This is all about creating access for children and making sure that regardless of where children live they have access to some of our more successful programs,” said superintendent Dr. William Hite. “There’s a lot of interest in CTE. We have children on a wait list, we have CTE programs that are not filled.”

But critics believe the shift threatens the vitality and quality of successful schools, essentially turning them into new versions of the come-one-come-all neighborhood high schools that many consider the city’s worst.

Alumni unite

“It would change the whole tone of the school,” said Connie Little, a 1965 Dobbins grad. “It’s like the want to make it a neighborhood school. [Dobbins] is not a neighborhood school.”

Little, a long-time aide to former Mayor John Street, and other Dobbins alum are vowing to fight the change.

“When we go to a fight, we come prepared,” Little said. “And we’re prepared to win.”

What seems, at surface, a technical question about high school admissions policies is actually a referendum on equity and excellence in a school district struggling to balance the two.

Earlier this year, the Pew Charitable Trusts published a report on Philadelphia’s free-wheeling high school choice system, where students can pick among special admissions schools such as Central and Masterman, citywide admissions schools such as Dobbins, and neighborhood high schools.

Each school has its own criteria, and this complicated setup systematically disadvantages certain students, Pew found. In particular, Latino students whose credentials qualified them for top schools tend not to even apply. And the city’s most selective, academically focused schools are disproportionately white and Asian.

The city’s four CTE schools — which were designed to focus on vocational training — accept applicants from all over the city, but have a lower academic bar than special admissions schools. At Dobbins, for instance, applicants must have A’s, B’s, or C’s, no more than 10 latenesses, and no negative disciplinary reports on their most recent final report card. Applicants also must submit to an interview before hearing whether they’ve been accepted.

In 2015, the year of the Pew study, Dobbins received 1,601 applications and accepted 687 students. Other CTE schools also rejected hundreds of applicants. Among citywide admissions schools, Philadelphia’s CTE high schools received some of the highest numbers of total applications. And no citywide admissions school rejects more students than Swenson Arts and Technology.

SCHOOL # APPLICATIONS # ACCEPTED ACCEPTANCE RATE

Murrell Dobbins 1601 687 42.9%

Swenson 2533 857 33.8%

Randolph 1055 621 58.9%

Mastbaum 1282 798 62.2%

District officials want to open the doors wider, by both adding seats at CTE schools and shedding the admissions criteria that, they believe, bar too many motivated students from entry.

“Interest is the criteria,” said Hite. “If children are interested in pursuing cosmetology or building trades or culinary arts…I want the children in those programs.”

The superintendent said it’s nonsensical to take children with multiple absences and turn them away from a program that interests them. Rather, the district should be pursuing policies to engage those kids who aren’t lit up by the standard curriculum.

But where district brass see expanded opportunity, Dobbins alum see the continued dilution of a school that was once a bastion of black excellence in long-suffering North Philadelphia.

Read the rest of this story at WHYY News

Students from Ben Franklin see history take flight

2017-10-09T12:48:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Last week, Benjamin Franklin High School students witnessed history in the making.

Eighteen students from the school’s Advanced Manufacturing & Technology program toured the helicopter division of Leonardo, a company based in Italy that specializes in aerospace, defense, and security, and saw the prototype of the first new helicopter type in 50 years.

The AW609 Tiltrotor is the first commercial aircraft designed to act as a hybrid of a helicopter and an airplane. It is being built right here in Philadelphia, and the students from Ben Franklin were quite impressed with what they saw. Some even started considering a future at the company.

“I am thinking about all of the possibilities,” said Richmond Hamilton, a sophomore in Ben Franklin’s Computer-Aided Drafting & Design program. “I can see myself down there working.”

The field trip was organized by the city’s Chamber of Commerce and Ben Franklin High School to celebrate Manufacturing Month in Philadelphia. With the trip, state and city officials hope to raise awareness of the local career opportunities awaiting students.

“There’s a whole bunch of facilities here in the Northeast that a lot of people don’t even realize are here in the city of Philadelphia,” said State Rep. Martina White, a Republican who represents Northeast Philadelphia. “And that’s what’s cool about it. We’re like a hidden treasure of jobs.”

The Northeast is home to businesses such as Penn Maid, specializing in dairy products, Herr Foods, Pepsi Bottling Co., and more.

Heloise Jettison, director of talent and development for the chamber of commerce, said trips such as these “are part of an effort to make sure there are pipelines and career pathways for our young people in all different professions that have never been open before.”

During the tour, which took a little over an hour, students were taken from one facility to the next, learning about how different model aircraft are assembled and tested.

Harry Graham, the welding teacher at Ben Franklin, said students were selected for the trip based on their grades, attendance, and behavior. But the criteria weren’t just about ensuring good conduct in the facility that builds multimillion-dollar aircraft. Graham said that he and teachers of the manufacturing programs place a heavy emphasis on developing students’ soft skills.

“Every student is not the brightest,” he said. “But if they have the best attitude, then the right employer can make them a good employee, because they have what it takes. They may not be the fastest, but you can teach them to be the fastest. Soft skills, you either have them or you don’t.”

Also, in light of the recent announcement that Ben Franklin will be welcoming Science Leadership Academy into its building, computer-aided design teacher Peter McDermott said that the faculty from both schools had been meeting and working to make sure the transition “goes as smooth as possible,” while keeping Ben Franklin students motivated for the world that awaits them.

“Yes, they have kids that are extremely smart,” said McDermott. “Yes, they have kids that have great infrastructure behind them with parents and support. And some of the kids at Ben Franklin don’t have that, and that’s where the staff has to step up even more and give them that guidance and provide leadership to these kids and let them know with trips like this that there are opportunities out there. There are opportunities in the city of Philadelphia. The world is theirs; they have to go grab it.”

Kim Pearsig, senior manager of external relations and communications at Leonardo, reinforced that message when she told the students what it takes to succeed there.

She, too, stressed the importance of soft skills and leadership. “If you have the passion, your people skills are all going to serve you,” she said.

“If a problem arises and your skills are such that you can get the best out of your [team members] … that makes you a leader. That’s the type of person we look for here.”

As the group left the facility, Hamilton said that Pearsig’s words inspired him to “step it up a couple flights of stairs” and that he is up for the challenge of working hard.

“I’m just in awe,” he said. “I see myself here. This is where I want to be, at least for a start. This is where I am going to be.”

Steps to applying online

2017-09-19T10:38:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The District’s online School Selection application process is for families who wish to apply to schools other than their neighborhood elementary, middle or high school. For families who do not have Internet access, computer kiosks will be available at regionally based Network Offices and at the Office of Student Enrollment & Placement, 440 N. Broad St., Suite 111. Parents can also use the computers at their local Free Library branch.

As usual, the District’s process includes neighborhood schools with available seats, citywide middle schools, and citywide and special admission high schools. Charter schools have a variety of application timelines and processes.

August-November

If a student is interested in a school with entrance criteria, families should review the student’s final report card from the previous grade level, as well as his or her standardized test scores, behavior marks, and attendance to determine whether he or she meets the entrance criteria.
The School Selection student application will be available on the District’s website from Sept. 29 to Nov. 13. District students will be able to access the application through the parent/student online portal by entering their student ID and password. Non-District students will be able to access the application through a link on the main page of the School District’s website. The High School Fair will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 15, and from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, at Broad and Race Streets. Registered middle school groups can attend from 1 to 5 p.m. Friday. All Philadelphia District, charter and Archdiocesan schools are invited.
Families research schools. Students and families can access the District’s high school directory and other School Selection resources at schoolselect.philasd.org. Counselors and teachers may hold information sessions to help parents and students choose schools and complete the online student application. Parents should ask principals for information about assistance in completing the application.

Fall and ongoing

Some high schools allow prospective applicants to visit and shadow students. Families should contact schools directly. The District is encouraging high schools to hold open houses in the fall for prospective students.
Charter schools have separate application forms and deadlines for entering admissions lotteries. A list of charter schools participating in the new common application coordinated by the Charter School Office and Philadelphia School Partnership is available on PhillySchoolApp.org.

By Nov. 13

The application deadline for the District’s School Selection application and the common application for charter schools is 5 p.m. Nov. 13. Applications may be submitted starting Sept. 29, but there is no admissions advantage to submitting early.
Students may apply to up to five District schools. There is no limit on charter applications.
Non-District students who applied to District schools that have admissions criteria must deliver transcripts and any required supplemental materials, such as essays, directly to the schools by Nov. 13.

November-January

High schools and middle schools with admission criteria begin to conduct interviews and hold auditions. Some schools only invite students who have met their criteria and do not notify students who have not. Other schools interview all applicants. Some schools expect the student to call to schedule the interview, so students should consult teachers and counselors and keep on top of the process.
Special admission schools make decisions on acceptance, rejection, and waitlists.
Citywide high schools choose the students who meet their admissions criteria to enter into the admissions lottery.
The District’s Offices of Student Enrollment & Placement and Information Technology run three computerized lotteries (one each for general education, special education, ELL) for acceptance to citywide and neighborhood schools.
Charter schools begin holding admissions lotteries.

January

District notifies students about initial status for their selected schools: accepted, declined, or waitlisted.
Students with one or more acceptances are expected to confirm their selected school choice within six days of the date of the notification.
Students with no acceptances are guaranteed enrollment at their neighborhood school.

February

District collaborates with schools to fill vacancies from waiting lists and send students final letters about where they’ve been accepted.

… and beyond

After students receive their final letters from the District, students may make one change in their school selection if they are subsequently accepted from waiting lists.
Schools continue to pull from waiting lists to fill vacancies if they arise as families’ plans change.

Compiled with assistance from Danielle Seward, District deputy chief, Student Enrollment & Placement.

From middle school to middle college

2017-09-18T12:02:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Adrian Mondragon is only 14 years old, but he started college this summer. In July, just weeks after graduating middle school, Mondragon enrolled in a general education course at Community College of Philadelphia (CCP).

“It’s a big change from middle school,” said Mondragon. “You think of going into high school as something a little bit higher than middle school, but not too much. But when you come and see this, it’s a whole different [thing]. The game has changed a lot.”

A big change, indeed, and not just for him.

Mondragon is one of 132 students who enrolled in the city’s first middle college at Parkway Center City High School, which starts this fall.

Started in 1974 in New York City, middle colleges are high schools whose curriculum is a blend of high school and college-level classes. Upon graduation, students receive a diploma and an associate’s degree. There are around 50 middle colleges in the country, and Parkway is the first in Pennsylvania. The District will pay CCP about $4 million for the program over four years.

“We know that when students are exposed to a college environment in high school, they are more successful in college and career,” said Superintendent William Hite.

In early July, the students started their first college courses in the school’s Summer Bridge program, where they got a jump-start on their coursework. Those who succeed will receive college credit before entering high school.

To be officially enrolled, students had to attend the Summer Bridge program. So on July 10, 132 students made their enrollment official as they began their five-week college courses.

“To be a part of that is exciting, because every single middle college is unique,” said Parkway principal Anh Nguyen-Brown, former principal of Nebinger Elementary. “And every city and every state is different. So to make it our own, that’s the challenge, but that’s the [point of] pride.”

One hundred and forty-five students from across the city were accepted to fill 150 slots. The ideal candidate kept a clean disciplinary record, had strong standardized test scores, showed college aspirations, participated in the required interview process, and showed strong academic performance — only one C is allowed in major subjects.

Sonya Mendoza, along with Mondragon, enrolled in a Survey in Justice course. Summer Bridge, she said, “helps you realize what college really is and if you are ready and you want to take college courses.” “It’s really cool. We have a lot of responsibilities, and they treat us like adults so we’ll know what is expected in college,” she said.

Graduates of the middle college can earn certificates in entrepreneurship, computer programming, and software development, and an associate’s degree in liberal arts. But students can also get a taste of campus life with clubs and programs, such as chess, poetry, dance, and anime.

In 2011, when Hite was the superintendent of Prince George’s County, Maryland, Public Schools, he saw the opening of a middle college – Academy of Health Sciences at Prince George’s Community College. The school had a positive impact on students, especially those who had low college aspirations.

According to District spokesman Lee Whack, Hite wanted to provide Philadelphia students the same opportunity. Whack said that about half of the students enrolled in middle college are first-generation college students.

“The thing is, our kids can do it,” said Brown, Parkway Center City’s principal. “Why not Philadelphia? Why not our kids? Our kids deserve it. They can do it. So why not provide them with the opportunity to do it?”

Mondragon, one of those students, said he doesn’t know exactly what college he wants to go to, other than an Ivy League university. But college is important to him, he said, because no one else in his family finished college, and he’s ready to be the first.

“I look at myself as the one who needs to do this for the whole family,” he said.

After he completed the Survey in Justice course, though, Mondragon’s uncertainty changed. The rising high school freshman expressed interest in a justice career after learning about the criminal justice system during classes and field trips to Eastern State Penitentiary and Superior Court.

“I didn’t know that courts and stuff were that interesting,” he said. “Now, I am going to get into that. I am considering it. I want to do something like that.”

Mondragon and Mendoza, along with their classmates, received certificates for completing their first college course.

Mendoza also shared a newfound appreciation for the law and a better understanding of the legal system.

“Before I started this, I didn’t like laws at all,” she said. “I didn’t want to know about them because I wasn’t all about that. … I used to think it was boring, with too many complicated things, but this made me realize that it is important to know about laws and it’s not that bad.”

Both Mendoza and Mondragon said that the program was worth it, and now they are focused on completing it and excelling in college.

“I thought this summer was going to be wasted by this program,” said Mondragon. “But it didn’t turn out that way. It turned out to be what I was looking for.”

Organizations that help students get to college

2017-09-15T12:34:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Several organizations in Philadelphia work with students for free to help them get the most from their high school education and to prepare them for college. Students must seek out these opportunities and go through an application process. Some of the programs are only available at certain schools.

Philadelphia Education Fund

In 1995 two existing non-profits—Philadelphia Alliance for Teaching Humanities and Philadelphia Renaissance in Science and Mathematics—merged to form the Ed Fund, dedicated to building a culture of college-readiness among students and teachers through professional development and programs that help students realize their college and carreer goals. The Fund also offers scholarships through the College Access Program, but only to students at five District and charter schools. It offers further scholarships to students at another 20 school through Philadelphia Scholars. Philly Goes to College An online, interactive, tool that guides students through the process of selecting and applying to college, regularly hosts open workshops for prospective college students, and offers one-on-one financial aid workshops upon request. Who can apply? It offers resources and guidance starting at the middle school level, through the college application process.

What are the criteria? Any and all students interested in attending college can participate.

What are the benefits? Free online comrehensive guides for students at different age levels, detailing what is expected of them at that age if they hope to increase their chances of getting into college, and guides on the college application process itself. It also hosts open tours of local colleges and universities, information sessions for families, and one-on-one advice on the financial aid process upon request.

What must you do? Visit the website to get involved.

Philadelphia Futures

In operation since 1989, Futures is the largest and most established such organization in the city. It has several programs, but the two biggest are Sponsor-a-Scholar and College Connection. philadelphiafutures.org

Sponsor-a-Scholar

Who can apply? Any 8th, 9th, or 10th graders in Philadelphia District schools who would be the first in their families to attend college and who meet income guidelines for free and reduced-price lunch (currently just under $45,000 for a family of four).

What are the criteria? Students must have good grades and behavior records and be recommended by a teacher or administrator in their school.

What are the benefits? A one-on-one mentor throughout high school and beyond, $6,000 for college-related expenses, SAT and ACT tutoring, college trips, individual counseling to pick the right college and to maximize financial aid while minimizing debt.

What must you do? Be available for afterschool and summer programs and maintain a focus on college.

College Connection

This program, now in its fifth year, started after Philadelphia Futures merged with White-Williams Scholars.

Who can apply? High school juniors and seniors in District, charter, independent, and parochial schools from families who meet the income guidelines and who would be first-generation college students.

What are the criteria? A grade point average of at least 3.3, rigorous academic courses in the 9th and 10th grades, and if the student has taken college admission tests, a score of 900 or better combined on the reading and math SAT or 19 on the ACT.

What are the benefits? Guidance in finding the right college, SAT and ACT prep, college trips, help with financial aid applications and college transitions, and support throughout college. Joan Mazzotti, longtime director of Philadelphia Futures before she stepped down earlier this year, said the program helped students find the right fit socially, academically, and financially for college. College Connection looks for students who are college-bound and college-ready, but won’t have the resources to go through the college admissions process and the guidance to get through college, she said.

What must you do? Attend the programs and maintain your focus on college.

Futures partners with eight Pennsylvania colleges that offer full-need financial aid: Penn State, Drexel, Haverford, Arcadia, Gettysburg, Franklin & Marshall, Lafayette, and Dickinson.

Charles Ellis Trust for Girls

Futures also administers this program, which offers financial resources for high school girls living in low-income Philadelphia homes where parents are absent or disabled. Prospective students must have Cs or higher in major academic subjects and be on track to graduate. If they attend parochial or independent schools, they get tuition assistance; in public schools, they get money for expenses such as uniforms and school supplies, as well as access to programming, including the Women in Natural Sciences program at the Academy of Natural Sciences.

Breakthrough of Greater Philadelphia

In operation in Philadelphia since 1995, the organization started as SummerBridge at Germantown Friends School. It has expanded to include students from all over the city. breakthroughphilly.org

Who can apply? Any 6th grader in a Philadelphia District, charter, independent or parochial school. Last year, Breakthrough students came from about 36 schools, most in West and Northwest Philadelphia, where the program has so far concentrated recruitment efforts. But executive director Robbin Washington-Smart says Breakthrough wants to cast its net widely. “We do not rule out any middle school students in Philadelphia.” Students can reach out directly and so can school personnel, “anybody who has access to 6th graders and wants to help them with options.” She specifically mentioned community organizations and places of worship.

What are the criteria? The application is comprehensive and involves both the student and the family. It is designed to “understand the student’s commitment to a future as a college graduate, their level of preparation, their personal mission, and where they stand at school.” Washington-Smart described it as a “partnership” with the student and family. An educator recommendation is also required. There is no income cutoff or requirement that the student be the first in his or her family to attend college, but those students are given preference.

What are the benefits? Breakthrough specifically helps middle schoolers find and apply to good city high schools, both District schools with admissions requirements and charter schools. Once the student is in high school, Breakthrough provides monthly meetings about grades, tutoring, and SAT preparation. The students also form a community with like-minded students who are excited about learning and gain access to college-student mentors and academic coaches.

What must you do? Attend a six-week summer program and Saturday programming during the year. Those are held at two locations: Drexel University in West Philadelphia and Germantown Friends School in Northwest Philadelphia. For the first time, this summer students took day trips to Swarthmore’s campus for courses on applying to college.

College Possible

In operation since 2014 in Philadelphia, this program started in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 2000 and is now in six cities. AmeriCorps members, many of them first-generation college students themselves, coach low-income students, helping them navigate the college journey. collegepossible.org/locations/philadelphia/ Who can apply? Sophomores in the five Philadelphia high schools where the program is located: George Washington, Murrell Dobbins CTE, Parkway Center City, and West Philadelphia, and Jules E. Mastbaum CTE. What are the criteria? Philadelphia executive director Wyneshia Foxworth said the program is looking for students “in the academic middle” who are not likely to get the guidance they need to prepare for, apply to, and succeed in college. Like the other programs, it seeks motivated students who “see a future for themselves.”

What are the benefits? Individual mentoring and coaching from AmeriCorps members, SAT and ACT prep, college visits, and support while in college.

What must you do? Attend twice-weekly afterschool sessions, maintain good grades and behavior, and apply to college.

Young Scholars Program

Created in 2001 by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, the selective program offers academic enrichment courses throughout high school, a personal college counselor, and opportunities to apply for internships and trips to study abroad.
jkcf.org/scholarship-programs/young-scholars/ Who can apply? Students entering 8th grade with mostly As in core academic subjects whose household family income is below $95,000 a year.

What are the criteria? Applying students must have one English and one math teacher write them a recommendation for the program. The application is an online process requiring students to submit report cards, standardized test scores, extracurricular activities, and an essay.

What are the benefits? Students are mentored by a college and academic counselor and meet with the counselor individually. Supports for each student are tailored to his or her needs and interests. They will probably participate in academic enrichment programs in the summer and on weekends and receive a computer if needed, and they can apply for internships and study abroad trips through the program. Nearly two-thirds of participating students have studied abroad, and one-third have participated in internships.

College Prep at the Free Library

The Free Library of Philadelphia offers an online tool that walks students through selecting a college, applying, filling out the federal financial aid form (FAFSA), and taking admissions tests like the SAT and ACT. Each step provides online resources, including the Common App, search engines for state universities, virtual tours, guides to completing applications, guides for the FAFSA, an extensive list of local scholarships and much more. The program has also periodically offered free SAT and ACT prep classes and sessions for filling out applications and FAFSAs at library branches around the city. https://libwww.freelibrary.org/programs/collegeprep/

40 CTE options – and where to find them

2017-09-13T11:50:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Accounting & Financial Services

Prepares students to provide technical administrative support to professional accountants and other financial management personnel.
Locations: Furness, Kensington, Lincoln, and Washington

Animal Sciences

Architectural Drafting

Autobody Collision Repair

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills to repair damaged vehicles such as automobiles and light trucks.
Locations: Edison, Randolph, Swenson, and the Workshop School

Automotive Technology

Baking & Pastry Arts

Barbering

Biotechnology

Focuses on the connections between students’ science courses and potential solutions to various problems of our modern world.
Locations: Dobbins and Roxborough

Business Administration

Carpentry

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills to lay out, fabricate, erect, install, and repair structures and fixtures using hand and power tools.
Locations: Mastbaum and Swenson

Computer-Aided Drafting & Design

Computer Supports Systems Technology

Prepares students to apply basic engineering principles and technical skills in support of professionals who use computer systems.
Locations: Edison, Kensington, and South Philadelphia

Computer Systems Networking

Focuses on the design, implementation, and management of linked systems of computers, peripherals, and associated software.
Locations: Dobbins, Swenson, and West Philadelphia

Construction Technologies

Prepares students to apply knowledge and skills in the construction technology field.
Location: Randolph

Cosmetology

Culinary Arts

Dental Assisting

Prepares students to function effectively as integral members of the dental health team.
Locations: Kensington Health Sciences and Randolph

Digital Media Production

Early Childhood Education & Childcare

Prepares students for a variety of occupations in childcare and guidance, often under the supervision of professional personnel in childcare or daycare centers.
Location: Parkway West

Electrical & Power Transmission Installation

Electromechanical/Mechatronics

Prepares students to apply basic engineering principles and technical skills in both the mechanical and electrical fields.
Location: Franklin

Electronics Technology/Automated Systems

Emergency Medical Technician/Fire Academy

Firefighter Training Academy: Prepares students for certification and careers as Emergency Medical Technicians and firefighters.
Location: Randolph

Engineering Technologies

Facility & Property Maintenance

Fashion Design

Introduces students to the spectrum of occupations associated with clothing and textile management, production, and services.
Location: Dobbins

Film & Video Production

Introduces students to the art and science of digital film and video production.
Locations: Bartram, Edison, Fels, Kensington CAPA, Roxborough, and Science Leadership Academy

Food Processing Science

Focuses on the study of food systems, which includes production, processing, and safe handling.
Location: Saul

Graphic Design

Health Information Records Technology

Prepares students to classify medical information and prepare records under the supervision of a medical records administrator.
Location: Mastbaum

Health-Related Technologies

Horticulture

Focuses on the science behind plant production and health.
Locations: Lincoln and Saul

Logistics, Materials & Supply Chain Management

Medical/Clinical Assistant

Prepares students to assist physicians by performing functions related to administrative and clinical duties of a medical office.
Location: Franklin Learning Center

Natural Resource Management

Focuses on the science behind protecting the natural environment. Hands-on skill-building highlights the value of biodiversity and the responsible management of natural resources.
Location: Saul

Plumbing Technology

Precision Machine Tool Technology

Sports Marketing & Management

Web Design

Welding Technology

Choosing a high school: Frequently asked questions

2017-09-11T11:38:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

I am excited about going to high school. How do I get started?

Talk to the adults in your life, including teachers, counselors, and parents or guardians. Read this guide and the District’s online high school directory to develop a list of schools that align with your interests and goals. Seventh and 8th graders should attend the 2017 Philly High School Fair scheduled for Sept. 15-16 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, at Broad and Race Streets, Philadelphia.

When should I get started?

No later than the beginning of 7th grade. Selective high schools look at 7th-grade attendance, grades, and test scores in determining who is qualified to attend.

How do I apply? What’s the deadline?

The application process will be conducted online only. Starting Sept. 29, students and their families can access an application on the District’s website. All students entering kindergarten to 12th grade may submit an application for a school in the Philadelphia District that is not their neighborhood school. Applications will be accepted until 5 p.m. Nov. 13.

How does the online application system work?

Students and families must fill out the application online and submit it through the online portal. Counselors have online access to the applications of all the students in their school so they can help students choose schools for which they meet the criteria and to which they are suited. Some schools in the Innovation Network (The LINC, The U School and Building 21) have no criteria. Students should also take the initiative to find additional help when needed. This is the fifth year for the online application. Paper applications are no longer accepted.

What is the difference between a special admission high school and a citywide admission high school?

Entrance criteria for special admission schools are more competitive. Students accepted to special admission schools must meet the school’s test score, grade, and attendance requirements. Citywide admission schools give less weight to test scores, but still set minimum standards for grades, attendance, and discipline records.

At special admission schools, the principals and their selection teams evaluate each applicant’s academic record against the school’s entrance criteria. Citywide admission schools also evaluate each applicant’s academic record against the school’s entrance criteria, but they put all students who meet the entrance criteria into a computerized lottery that randomly selects the ones who will be offered admission.

How do I get into a charter school?

How can I find out the admissions requirements of a school?

This guide and the District’s online directory include the admissions requirements for each high school. Your counselor or teachers can also help explain the admission requirements for each school.

Should I visit the school?

Yes. The School District is compiling a list of dates for high school open houses. The completed schedule will be made available on the District’s website. You can also contact schools of interest to request the date and time of their open house or other opportunities to visit. Some schools allow prospective students to shadow current students for a day to get a feel for what a school is like.

If I don’t meet the exact criteria of a selective school, should I apply anyway?

Yes, but only if your record comes close to meeting the requirements. In close cases, principals at selective schools may seek recommendations from adults at the applicant’s school who know the student. Interviews can also make a big difference.

If I am not accepted for admission to any of my choices, what do I do?

Keep in mind that you will increase your chances of admission if you apply to schools that align with your academic record and career interests.

Admissions decisions are either accepted, declined or waitlisted. If an application is declined, a reason for that decision is provided in the notification letter.

For special admission schools, if you receive a decision of waitlisted, you met the criteria of the school, but due to space constraints, a seat is not available. In this instance, there is a chance that you will be admitted, so stay in contact with the school’s principal and/or counselor.

Most applicants should be matched with a school of their choice by April. However, spots open up in schools throughout the summer as family and student circumstances change, so if you are waitlisted, it is advisable to stay in touch with schools that you remain interested in. Sometimes, additional recommendations and phone calls can help.

If you receive a decision of waitlisted for one or more citywide admission schools, your name will be entered in a second- or even a third-round lottery. Although decisions for citywide admission schools are not made at the school level, it doesn’t hurt to let the principal know of your interest.

In most cases, you are guaranteed admission at your neighborhood high school.

If I intend to go to my neighborhood school, should I still fill out the online application?

It is not necessary, but it is encouraged. District officials hope that the online-only system will increase the number of students and families who find guidance on their options. This process has resulted in an increase in the number of students exercising their right to choose a school – from 12,000 in 2014 to 15,000 in 2015 to 17,000 in 2016 to more than 20,000 in 2017.

Do any neighborhood schools have special programs?

Many neighborhood high schools have advanced academic programs, including AP (Advanced Placement) and IB (International Baccalaureate) courses. Many also have Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs in subject areas such as health occupations, culinary arts, architectural drafting, communications/graphics, video production, and automotive technology. The profiles in this guide show what programs each school offers. The District’s directory summarizes them by area of interest. Budget cuts have taken their toll in schools, so it is wise to double-check how robust an advertised program is.

Can I apply to a neighborhood school in another area?

Yes, but if it is filled to capacity, applications will not be accepted. Northeast High School is an example of a school whose enrollment exceeds capacity; it usually cannot accept applications from outside.

Can students who have IEPs or who are English learners apply to selective high schools?

All students are encouraged to apply to any high school that interests them and for which they meet the basic qualifications. In response to lawsuits, the District facilitates an advocacy process for 8th-grade students applying to selective high schools. It is required to enroll a certain percentage of special education students and English learners (ELs) at these schools. Students who have individualized education programs (IEPs) or who are ELLs can learn more from their counselor or principal and from the Office of Specialized Services at 215-400-4170.

Where else can I get help with high school placement?

Families can access more information about schools, as well as computers to use for filling out online applications, at regional Learning Network offices (see box for locations). Parents will be directed to the District’s website, where they can obtain school profiles. They can also access computers at their local library branches or at any public computer with internet access.

Where do I find official information from the District? Visit the District’s Office of Student Enrollment and Placement website at philasd.org/studentplacement

Hotlines offered in 8 languages

The District maintains eight language hotlines, which take questions on any subject, including high school admissions. Students and parents can leave a message in their language with contact information, and someone who speaks their language will return the call.

Albanian: 215-400-8480
Arabic: 215-400-8481
Chinese: 215-400-8482
French: 215-400-8483
Khmer: 215-400-8484
Russian: 215-400-8485
Spanish: 215-400-8489 (live support)
Vietnamese: 215-400-8486

Would CTE fit your needs? Take a look

2017-09-08T12:28:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

These questions and answers were developed with the help of the School District’s Office of Career and Technical Education.

Is CTE a good idea for me?

CTE, or career and technical education, used to be called vocational education. The varied programs available now are designed to prepare students for jobs in today’s economy. In addition to traditional trades that are still in demand, such as plumbing, welding, and auto repair, CTE programs now include such fields as health-related technologies, computer systems networking, game design, and culinary arts. Typically, students spend 1,080 hours of learning time in their specialties. Classes are taught by teachers with experience in the field, and students also may get part of their training through industry internships and apprenticeships. Successful CTE students can graduate from high school with certifications and contacts that can lead directly to employment.

If I take CTE, does that mean I won’t be prepared for college?

Quite the contrary. CTE students take all the academic coursework required for high school graduation in addition to their specialties, and they can often be better prepared for college. Studies show that CTE students graduate at higher rates than non-CTE students, which is probably the result of the focus on employable skills and hands-on learning.

Do CTE students attend college?

Many do. Most CTE career areas require at least some post-secondary training. CTE graduates can and do enroll in four-year colleges, community colleges, and trade schools.

Will CTE prepare me for well-paying jobs?

Many of the CTE specialties are in demand now. Some traditional trades, including plumbers, welders, and electricians, are experiencing worker shortages and pay well for highly trained people.

How do I choose a program? How do I know whether it is rigorous and legitimate?

Talk to your counselor during 7th and 8th grades about your interest. All CTE programs have admission guidelines, and competition is stiff. But 25 District high schools, including nearly all neighborhood schools, have at least one CTE program. This guide, as well as the District’s online high school directory, outlines what specialties are available at what schools (see page 13).

Can I find CTE programs in charter schools?

Only one charter high school, Universal Audenried in South Philadelphia, has state-certified CTE programs, in health-related technology and culinary and automotive trades. It also offers cinematography and video production. Don’t assume from a charter school’s name that it has a CTE focus or a certified CTE program, even though it may offer work-study or internship placements in certain fields.

What questions should I ask before enrolling in a CTE program?

Important questions include: Who is the teacher, and what is their experience in the field? Of those who enroll, how many pass their state competency exams? Can I earn college credits? Will I get to go to work-based settings? What partnerships are offered with employers? What kinds of internships, part-time jobs, or other work experiences might be available for summer or after school? What industry certifications can I get? Ask the principal: How do you view CTE and what do you do to support it?

What are industry certifications, and how do students earn them?

Students can earn industry certifications by passing a test showing that they have mastered the skills at the standards required to work in the field. The industries design the tests. These credentials may allow students to enter the occupation right after graduation. In most programs, each student can obtain multiple certifications. For instance, students in health-related fields can be certified in CPR and in the use of defibrillators, among other competencies. Philadelphia’s CTE students earned more than 3,800 industry certifications in 2016-17. The costs for industry certifications are fully covered by the District.

What is NOCTI?

The acronym for this test stands for National Occupational Competency Training Institute. Pennsylvania requires that students who have completed a three-year, 1,080-hour program take this exam in their senior year for the program to maintain good standing and continue to qualify for federal Perkins funds. The NOCTI exam has a theoretical component, administered online, and a hands-on, practical component. About 70 percent of students who take the NOCTI in Philadelphia pass it. Potential employers consider industry certifications more important than NOCTI scores, although students who score advanced on NOCTI can get an additional state credential and benefit when applying to post-secondary schools.

Is it possible to earn college credits through CTE?

Yes. For most programs, this comes through the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Students Occupationally and Academically Ready (SOAR) program. Students can earn up to 11 college credits at participating institutions across Pennsylvania, depending on the field. Every field allows for at least some college credits with one or more state institutions. Students can also get post-graduate internships and industry apprenticeships through SOAR.

How are CTE classrooms different?

These spaces have two main areas: theory and practical. The theory area, for traditional teacher-led lessons, looks like a typical classroom, with desks, chairs, and a whiteboard. The lab or shop area will have the needed industry-standard equipment so that students can apply the skills learned in theory lessons to simulated work situations. Plus, CTE students often do much of their coursework through internships at industry sites.

What if my interests change? Can I switch programs?

Students can and do change their minds. Those enrolled in a CTE school who want a change must switch to another specialty in that school. If they are in a neighborhood school and do not switch to another CTE program, their CTE courses count as electives. Students can also switch into a program during junior or even senior year, and if they master 50 percent of the field’s “competencies,” they can take certification tests.

Amid the challenge of expansion, CTE thrives

2017-09-07T14:29:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Five years after receiving a $5.7 million grant from John S. and Leigh Middleton to revamp its career and technical education program, the Philadelphia School District continues to strive to give students a head start in finding gainful employment after graduation.

The program now offers training in 40 career fields through 117 programs at 30 schools in the District, where career-focused students can learn from industry professionals and gain hands-on experience that can lead to industry certification and college credits.

Students can choose from such fields as business and administration, horticulture, animal science, fashion, auto technology, and much more.

According to School District data, interest in CTE has been rising, with a 41 percent year-over-year increase in the number of program applicants in the fall of 2015. In addition, enrollment in CTE is on an upward trend. In the 2014-15 academic year, 5,542 students enrolled in CTE programs; in the following year, 5,886 students enrolled.

But CTE is not immune to the regular funding problems that plague the District. Even with the Middletons contributions, the DIstrict’s funding crisis has impeded its goal of increasing the number of CTE seats. When the revamping began in 2013, the District planned to have 12,000 seats by 2017. Last summer, they pushed that deadline to 2020, before pulling back from the estimate altogether. Currently, there are close to 7,000 seats.

Although CTE is a worthwhile investment for many students, it is an expensive one for the District. Equipment alone can carry a price tag in the tens of thousands of dollars.

This year, the District received about $10 million in federal and state funds for FY17 and FY18. The federal portion comes from Perkins funding, which pays for CTE expenses, while also requiring the District to test students to measure their progress. The requirement for testing makes it critically important for schools to maintain student engagement in their programs and encourage students to stay committed.

Colette Langston, principal of Swenson Arts & Technology High School, a CTE-focused school, received $190,800 in Perkins funding for the 2017-18 school year.

“You want students that are going to come into your program, finish your program, get certification,” she said. “Because you want the federal government to say, ‘Oh, OK. They’re spending our money in a worthwhile way.’”

To measure students’ progress, the state of Pennsylvania requires that all seniors enrolled in CTE who have completed their three-year, 1,080-hour program take the National Occupational Competency Testing Institute (NOCTI) exam.

The exam consists of both a theoretical component and a hands-on, practical component, and helps maintain a school’s good standing for federal funding. Those who score at an advanced level can get an additional state credential and benefit when applying to post-secondary schools.

Although it is important to career and technical education, the NOCTI is not an industry standard test. Each field has its own test designed to evaluate students’ proficiency and mastery of the required skills to work in that particular industry.

For example, students in health-related technology receive certifications in CPR and defibrillators. Last year, the District issued more than 3,800 industry credentials to CTE students.

Despite the focus on careers, CTE is not a substitute for going to college. Instead, it’s a supplement. CTE students take all of the typical academic coursework for graduation at the same time as their hands-on career training.

Cheryl Logan, the District’s chief academic support officer, said that when it comes to college and CTE, the programming is “preparing our kids for both.”

At Swenson, Langston estimated that more than half of the school’s graduating class moves on to post-secondary education.

“I tell them, ‘This is the foundation. You’re just building a foundation. You’re going to leave here with entry-level skills,’” she said. ‘“It’ll make you more attractive than someone who just took academics.’”

Even career academy schools, such as Roxborough High and South Philadelphia High, incorporate the CTE programming into their college preparatory mission.

And whether CTE students choose post-secondary education or go directly into working in their chosen field, their graduation rates are strong. A 2015 District evaluation that followed a 2009-10 freshman cohort over four years found that the graduation rate was 84 percent among CTE students.

The results held steady District-wide, with an 85 percent graduation rate for CTE students for the 2015-16 school year.

Not only is the training program preparing students for real-world job skills, it also is proving to be a potential mechanism for equity. The same District evaluation found that black and Latino students’ graduation rates — 83 percent — were only three percentage points behind white and Asian students — 86 percent.

For non-CTE students, the graduation rates were 74 percent for Asian and white students and 58 percent for black and Latino students.

In some fields, students can receive an industry credential before completing the program. Culinary arts students, for example, can receive ServSafe certificates as sophomores. ServSafe is a food-handling certification that is valid in many states.

Marcus Henderson, a 2013 graduate, studied Health-Related Technologies at Franklin Learning Center. He has since attended the University of Pennsylvania’s nursing program, served as president of the Student Nursing Association of Pennsylvania, and was one of 10 interns who worked over the summer of 2016 with the U.S. surgeon general in Washington.

He said the skills he learned through his CTE training helped him along the way.

“Already knowing how to do blood pressure, already knowing how to do some of those technical skills that a nurse’s aide does coming into a nursing program is very helpful because it kind of sets you apart from some of your colleagues who might not have necessarily had that training,” he said.

In the past, there has been some concern about CTE’s services and availability to English language learner students and students with disabilities. However, the CTE office maintains that the programs are open to all students and that resources such as bilingual teaching assistants and CTE assistants are available in various schools when requested. Currently, about 17.5 percent of CTE students classify as ELL and 10 percent as special needs.

Another challenge for CTE is increasing awareness about the programs among prospective students. The District works with middle school guidance counselors to help them inform 8th-grade students entering high school.

“We try to make sure all of our kids know their options and the things that are available, especially in their own school,” said Logan.

The District also organizes events to raise CTE awareness. The biggest, perhaps, is in February when the District celebrates CTE Month. Ceremonies honoring students and public tours help bring attention to the program’s benefits.

As of the 2017-18 school year, some of CTE’s offerings have changed. Due to low enrollment, HVAC & Refrigeration Technology is no longer available. Logan said that at Parkway West High School, they are beginning an early childhood education program. She also said that aviation is being considered for the future.

Where students can take a different approach

2017-09-06T13:09:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Greg Windle
At age 20, Dylan Hill finally graduated high school this summer.

After three years at Tacony Academy Charter, he had accumulated only half the credits he needed, so he tried the cyber school route, enrolling first in Pennsylvania Cyber Charter –– drawn by its ads and what his friends told him – and then Agora Cyber Charter.

He says he spent a nightmarish two years fruitlessly trying to enroll in the right courses and get teachers to pay attention to him, as well as find and update his transcript. After this five-year odyssey, he found One Bright Ray, which runs three of the Philadelphia School District’s “accelerated schools,” designed to re-engage students and lead them on a path to their diplomas.

In one year there, he has accumulated enough credits to graduate.

“Teachers are down to earth with the students and give us one-on-one attention more often,” Hill said. “They make you actually want to come to school and learn.”

The journey of Jeffrey Martinez, 17, has been shorter. He graduated in June after three years in high school.

Martinez had first tried one of the District’s new innovative schools, the U School, which counts on students to take more control over their own education. It wasn’t a good fit for him.

“I felt I needed to be handled by more strict rules,” he said.

So he ended up at Excel Academy North, an accelerated school operated by Camelot, a national education company. After two additional years, he had acquired enough credits to earn a diploma.

“They let you go at your own pace,” he said. “They helped me stay on track to graduate.” He plans to get an associate’s degree at a community college and then join the Air Force.

One Bright Ray and Excel Academy North are part of the District’s Opportunity Network, which includes 25 alternative schools and programs that reflect the vast variety of needs and circumstances of Philadelphia’s young people. Eleven of them are accelerated high schools, which speed up credit accumulation for students who have dropped out or fallen behind in high school. Three others are “transition schools” for students flagged for disciplinary reasons, including one for very young students who need a change.

Other available choices are the Educational Options Programs (EOPS), which are night schools for older students who have work or family obligations; E3 centers (Education, Employment, and Empowerment) operated by the Philadelphia Youth Network for students who are trying to get a GED; and Learning Academies, for students returning from incarceration or foster placement.

The District also runs a dual enrollment program with Community College of Philadelphia in which students can catch up on high school credits while also earning an associate’s degree, and a school in the Juvenile Justice Center for students charged with felonies who are awaiting adjudication.

Most of the accelerated and transition schools are run under contract by outside providers. The biggest is Camelot, which works with school districts in seven states to provide accelerated and transition programming. Camelot favors a tight structure for students, with constant supervision, from the classroom to the hallway, and a strict behavioral system that allows students to rise in rank and earn privileges.

But the providers contracted to run the accelerated schools use a wide spectrum of practices. They range from using metal detectors and conducting daily searches in which cell phones are confiscated to doing project-based learning where student freedom is a guiding principle.

But there isn’t currently a systematic way to match students with the programs that might suit them best. Since 2012, the District’s re-engagement services have fallen victim to budget cuts; staffing at the main center was reduced and a site in Kensington was closed. Students interviewed said they chose an accelerated school based primarily on word of mouth, and some bounce around from one to another.

Data for evaluating these schools has been scant, but the District is about to pilot a system called the Alternative Education Progress Report (AEPR) that will be a sister to, but not the same as, the School Progress Report that comes out annually for each District school. This report will attempt to capture metrics that offer more nuance in determining whether the schools are fulfilling their mission.

“Numbers don’t necessarily tell the whole story of a school,” said Christina Grant, assistant superintendent of the District’s Opportunity Network.

These reports will use both statistics, such as graduation rates, and more qualitative measures, such as success in placing students in jobs at the places where they have interned. “We’ve stepped back and built out a framework,” Grant said. “We don’t know if we’ll ever have an apples-to-apples comparison, but we will be able to have a level of transparency.”

Grant said the AEPR will also try to evaluate the rigor of academic offerings.

It’s not enough, she said, just to create “environments that are safe and happy, but are they actually teaching the students something? We do them a disservice if we are keeping them safe, but they are not learning anything.”

Overall, Grant said, the 11 accelerated schools report that in 2015-16, 85 percent of students within striking distance of graduation based on their total credits did, in fact, earn a diploma. However, this average reflects a broad range in graduation persistence among individual schools and programs.

More freedom

The accelerated school that awards students the most freedom in their daily routine is El Centro de Estudiantes in Kensington, with a graduation rate of 87 percent for seniors in 2015-16.

Every morning, El Centro’s principal, JuDonn DeShields, sits in his office with the door open. He can see students as they approach the sign-in desk. He greets them, but he also asks them how they are — whether everything’s all right.

DeShields has restructured the school so that there is a counselor on each of its three floors. One-third of the school’s 200 students attend classes on each floor, and each counselor is responsible for one floor of students.

“We try to make them feel like they’re more than just a number, more than just a problem, like a lot of previous schools have made them feel,” DeShields said. “We don’t have metal detectors, we don’t have police officers, and yet we have maybe one or two fights per year. We’re creating a culture of care.”

El Centro was opened in 2009 by Big Picture Philadelphia, a nonprofit that is part of the international Big Picture network, which operates more than 50 schools in the United States using project-based assessments, outside mentorship, and career internships. One theme of the school’s work is helping students find their passions and interests.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, students have academic courses organized into three blocks that emphasize group work and student discussion: science and technology; engineering and math; and writing and social studies. After lunch they have advisory class, where newer students work on advisory-wide projects and students closer to graduation work on individual projects.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, students go to their career internships, from auto shops to local nonprofits.

“Students come to us disengaged, without a lot of confidence in their academic skills. They’re often expecting to fail,” DeShields said. “We try to give them hands-on, engaging projects so they can gain some confidence in their skills, but also so the work feels connected to something real.”

More structure

Camelot has a different approach and philosophy, but its leaders say they also are intent on giving students individual attention. The company, which has operated in Philadelphia since 2004, runs two accelerated and two transition schools, for a total of 1,100 students.

At Camelot Academy, one of the transition schools, students quietly walk the halls in single file wearing black collared shirts and khaki pants, with a few rare exceptions wearing casual outfits.

Along with some artwork and inspirational posters, the halls are lined with students’ names and rankings, based on behavior and grades, which are updated each month. Those wearing the casual clothes have earned the highest rating for the last month and are called “executives.” The executives are considered part of the student government, along with the middle-ranked students, who are called either “eagles” or “hawks,” depending on whether they are in the school’s accelerated or transition programs.

These students are rewarded by not having to follow the same rules as other students, such as remaining quiet in the hallways for high school students or having to walk the hall with their hands behind their backs for middle school students.

“Students who end up in the transition programs have engaged in things that broke the code of conduct, so we have to have a high bar for structure,” said Grant.

The school’s transition program sets aside two-and-a-half hours each week for group counseling, and the accelerated program uses that time to get students ready for graduating high school — filling out federal financial aid forms, writing a resume, applying to colleges and jobs.

Camelot also holds orientations where they explain how the school works and meet with students and families to develop personalized learning plans. Transition students set short-term academic goals, and accelerated students develop a graduation plan that lays out the courses they’ll need.

Alyssa Boyle, principal of Camelot’s transition school, said that the average reading level for incoming high school freshmen is 5th or 6th grade. She said the that school deals with an especially high-needs population of students and that it has formed a partnership with the District to give trauma training to every teacher.

“We’re looking for a way to transition them back to their neighborhood school,” said Boyle. That involves getting them to understand themselves and their feelings and behavior.

Students in transition schools have been transferred because they violated the code of conduct or had a disciplinary incident, but many students in accelerated schools have also had disciplinary problems.

“Our kids are very angry,” Grant said. “The key is getting them to a point where they understand deeply and concretely that they can walk away. They don’t have to respond if a girl is talking about you.

“It’s getting to the heart of that, and, by the way, we want you to fall in love with reading and math.”

Greg Windle is a freelance writer for the Notebook. Dale Mezzacappa contributed to this story. This story first appeared in the Summer 2017 edition of the Notebook.

De escuela intermedia a la mitad de un grado universitario

2017-09-06T13:08:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Adrián Mondragón tiene 14 años, pero empezó la universidad este verano. Este pasado julio, pocas semanas después de graduarse de escuela intermedia, Mondragón se matriculó en un curso de educación general en el Community College of Philadelphia (CCP).

“Es un cambio grande después de la intermedia”, dijo Mondragón. “Uno piensa en la escuela superior como el próximo nivel después de la intermedia, pero no muy diferente. Pero al llegar y ver esto, es otra cosa por completo. Es un cambio total”.

Un cambio grande, claro que sí, y no solo para él.

Mondragón es uno de 132 estudiantes que se matricularon en el primer programa de cursos universitarios de la ciudad en la Escuela Superior Parkway Center City, que empezará este otoño.

Este programa, que comenzó en la Ciudad de Nueva York en 1974 y se conoce como middle college, se trata de escuelas cuyo currículo es una mezcla de cursos de escuela superior y cursos universitarias. Al graduarse, los estudiantes reciben un diploma de escuela superior y también un grado asociado universitario de dos años. En el país hay alrededor de unos 50 programas middle college, y el de Parkway es el primero en Pensilvania. El Distrito le pagará al CCP unos $4 millones por el programa durante cuatro años.

"Sabemos que cuando los estudiantes son expuestos a un ambiente universitario en la escuela superior luego tienen más exito en la universidad y en sus carreras profesionales", dijo el Superintendente William Hite.

A principios de julio, los estudiantes comenzaron a tomar sus primeros cursos universitarios en el programa Summer Bridge de la escuela para de esa manera poder adelantar su programa de estudios. Los que tengan éxito recibirán créditos universitarios antes de empezar la escuela superior.

Para matricularse oficialmente en el programa de middle college, a los estudiantes se les requirió asistir al programa Summer Bridge. Por lo tanto, el 10 de julio 132 estudiantes quedaron oficialmente matriculados al comenzar sus cursos universitarios de cinco semanas.

“Ser parte de eso es genial, porque cada programa de de middle college es único", dijo Anh Nguyen-Brown, principal de Parkway y que previamente fue principal de la Escuela Elemental Nebinger. “Y cada ciudad y cada estado es diferente. El reto es hacer que este programa sea nuestro, y eso es motivo de orgullo."

Para llenar los 150 espacios disponibles, se aceptaron ciento cuarenta y cinco estudiantes de toda la ciudad. El candidato ideal es uno que tiene un expediente de disciplina limpio, obtuvo buenas puntuaciones en los exámenes estandarizados, demuestra tener aspiraciones de ir a la universidad, participó en el proceso de entrevista requerido, y ha demostrado un excelente desempeño académico — solo se permite tener una C en las materias principales.

Sonya Mendoza se matriculó en el curso Survey in Justice junto con Mondragón. Ella dijo que el programa Summer Bridge “te ayuda a ver cómo realmente es la universidad y saber si estás preparado y quieres tomar cursos universitarios." "Es bien cool. Tenemos muchas responsabilidades y nos tratan como adultos para que sepamos qué se esperará de nosotros en la universidad", dijo ella.

Los estudiantes que se gradúan del middle college pueden recibir certificados en empresarismo, programación de computadoras y desarrollo de software, y un grado asociado en artes liberales. Además, los estudiantes también apreciarán cómo es la vida de un universitario, ya que habrá clubes y programas como ajedrez, poesía, baile y anime.

Cuando Hite era el superintendente de las Escuelas Públicas del Condado de Prince George en Maryland en 2011, él fue testigo de la apertura de una escuela superior de este tipo – la Academy of Health Sciences at Prince George’s Community College. La escuela tuvo un impacto positivo en los estudiantes, y en especial en aquellos que no tenían muchas aspiraciones de ir a la universidad.

Según nos dijo Lee Whack, portavoz del Distrito Escolar, Hite quería que los estudiantes de Filadelfia tuvieran la misma oportunidad. Whack dijo que aproximadamente la mitad de los estudiantes matriculados en el programa son la primera generación de su familia en tomar cursos universitarios.

“El asunto es que nuestros estudiantes sí pueden,” dijo Brown, principal de Parkway Center City. “¿Por qué Filadelfia no? ¿Por qué lo nuestros no? Nuestros estudiantes se lo merecen. Ellos tienen la capacidad. ¿Por qué no darles la oportunidad para lograrlo?"

Mondragón, que es uno de esos estudiantes, dijo que no sabe exactamente a qué universidad quiere ir, pero que será una de las más prestigiosas del país. Pero nos dijo que era importante para él porque nadie más en su familia se ha graduado de la universidad y él está listo para ser el primero.

“Yo considero que soy el que necesita hacer esto para toda la familia”, dijo.

Después de completar el curso Survey in Justice, sin embargo, la incertidumbre de Mondragón cambió. El futuro estudiante de primer año de escuela superior expresó interés en una carrera en justicia después de aprender sobre el sistema de justicia criminal en el curso y los viajes que la clase hizo a la Penitenciaría Estatal y al Tribunal Superior.

"No sabía que los tribunales y esas cosas eran tan interesantes", nos dijo. "Ahora me voy a meter en eso. Lo estoy considerando, Quiero hacer algo así”.

Mondragón y Mendoza, junto con sus compañeros de clase, recibieron certificados por haber completado su primer curso universitario.

Mendoza también compartió que ahora aprecia las leyes y entiende mucho mejor el sistema legal.

“Antes de empezar esto, el tema de las leyes no me gustaba para nada”, dijo ella. “No quería saber nada porque no eran lo mío. … Yo pensaba que era un tema aburrido, con demasiadas complicaciones, pero este curso me hizo entender que es importante saber acerca de las leyes y que no es tan malo”.

Mendoza y Mondragón dijeron que el programa valió la pena, y ahora están enfocados en completarlo y tener éxito en la universidad.

“Pensé que iba a perder el verano en este programa”, dijo Mondragón. “Pero no resultó así. Resultó ser exactamente lo que estaba buscando”.

The evolving Philadelphia high school

2017-09-06T12:04:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Gay Carducci
Note: This is a longer version of a story that appeared in our Fall Guide to High Schools.

With the sound of drills and nail guns in the background, two ninth-grade boys tried to solve a math problem.

“How many 2-by-4, 8-foot planks am I going to have to buy when I go to Home Depot this afternoon?,” asked Jared Lauterbach, the students’ teacher, “and how many 6-foot planks?”

This is what studying Shakespeare looks like at the Workshop School, one of seven (soon to be eight) schools in the District’s Innovation Network. They are part of a growing national movement to reinvent the high school experience by re-aligning learning with skills students actually need to lead successful and productive lives.

Two 9th-grade classes at Workshop, which grew out of West Philadelphia High School’s Automotive Academy, had spent the prior several weeks reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Together, they wrote their own version of the play, set in West Philly in 2017. Called The Summer That Changed Everything, it featured teenage love triangles, betrayal, misunderstandings, and a psychiatrist who hypnotizes people with classical music. The antidote to the trance is a dose of R&B. Big themes include class and family identity.

To produce the play, the students divided into groups based on areas of interest. One group was in charge of the acting and direction, one handled ticket sales and publicity, and another designed the costumes, lighting, and sound.

The two students who were considering how much wood to buy were in the group building the set — specifically, at the moment, a bench. They had to come up with the shopping list for the materials. Using the instruction manual for the design they chose, they came up for the shopping list for the needed materials.

“How much money do we need to buy all these pieces of lumber? Don’t forget about tax,” said Lauterbach. In a few minutes, the students had a budget.

Nobody took a test on soliloquies.

This is what Workshop and the other innovation schools strive toward: project-based learning with a student-centered and inquiry-driven curriculum. The projects are instructionally rigorous while simultaneously building community identity and teamwork skills.

“We have to continue to think about how do we design models and structures and systems that are more responsive to today’s learner, not a learner from a decade ago,” said School Superintendent William Hite. “When I was in school, we did X, Y, and Z, but guess what? My grandson, who is five, is not learning that way. That type of school is not going to serve him.”

Reimagining school for all

Over the last four years, the District under Hite has opened four new innovative high schools — the U School, Building 21, LINC (for Learning in New Contexts), and Workshop. Hite also oversaw the creation of two new schools using the model developed by Science Leadership Academy Center City — SLA@Beeber and Science Leadership Academy Middle School (SLAMS).

Hite made these investments despite unrelenting financial pressure on the District, not to mention criticism that he should instead pour more funds into existing schools and, presumably, their traditional educational model. But the superintendent has reached a different conclusion.

“What we actually want [is] for children to understand the problem, be consumers of information and research, work as members of a group to actually solve that problem,” he said. “And they are doing that, they are developing these thinking skills that will then go much farther in preparing them for the future that they will be exposed to than the traditional approach [would.]”

Beyond the creation of new schools, the innovation initiative seeks to develop 21st-century best practices for the 21st century that can be incorporated districtwide. The ultimate goal is to reinvigorate the idea of school for students effectively abandoned by the existing system; all the new schools except SLA and SLA@Beeber are meant to be open to everyone, with minimal or no admissions criteria, offering something different to students who would otherwise end up in traditional neighborhood high schools.

“I don’t think the folks downtown think that the goal of creating this network is to have seven [new and] different schools,” said Matt Riggan, a co-founder of the Workshop School and head of the Sustainability Workshop, its nonprofit research arm. “I think it’s to say, “How do we create systems that are more supportive and more flexible?”

The eighth school in the Innovation Network will open in September as a neighborhood high school in the shuttered Roberts Vaux building in the Sharswood community of North Philadelphia. It’s a place for years defined by a drug-ridden, high-rise housing project.

The new school is part of an unprecedented partnership among the District, the teachers’ union, and the Philadelphia Housing Authority — which has invested millions already in a massive neighborhood revitalization. The school will be operated by Big Picture Philadelphia, the local arm of a national organization that specializes in student-centered, project-based school models that use internships to create real-world learning environments.

“One of our tenets is always to create a school without walls,” said David Bromley, Executive Director of Big Picture Philadelphia. “We feel really fortunate. We have three partners that are very, very much invested in creating a really high quality Big Picture school.”

Vaux will be the first neighborhood high school in the network in that it doesn’t require an application through the citywide admissions process.

But as the District tries to cultivate an ecosystem in which innovation can thrive, it is learning that the process is full of obstacles.

One is the question of how to determine success in an accountability environment that prizes test scores more than any other means of evaluation.

Tied to this is the tendency of huge bureaucracies, including the Philadelphia School District, to resist change. For example, different grading systems have to be developed in schools that have different models of success. In addition, not everyone around Hite is a fan of prioritizing new models when the city’s traditional schools have so many unmet needs.

A third, vexing and rewarding at the same time, is whether this kind of innovation — which represents a new way of learning — can work with the typical student. In Philadelphia, thousands of students reach their high school years short on skills and with no other experience of education except a mandate to absorb information they may or may not be interested in.

“We have a lot of students for which their school experience up until they get to us has not been about them in control,” said Charlie McGeehan, a teacher at the U School. So putting them in control in 9th grade “is a really big challenge.”

SLA Center City has had remarkable success since its founding in 2006, and its model has proven popular and effective. But, as a magnet school, it is able to choose its students. SLA@Beeber is somewhat less selective; SLAMS is a neighborhood middle school. Workshop has no official admissions criteria, but it does interview students to make sure they understand the school’s model. LINC, U School, Building 21 have been designed specifically to be open to all students citywide and, like Vaux, have no enrollment criteria at all — not even attendance or behavior requirements.

So far, however, LINC, U School and Building 21 are under-enrolled. While the incoming 9th grade classes have grown larger each year, the schools have struggled to market their different approaches to potential students and parents.

Enrollment is something “we have struggled with, and I think all of our schools have struggled with,” said Neil Geyette, founder and principal of the U School. “The amount of work we have to invest in enrollment is crazy. We can’t afford boots on the ground.”

But before these schools could advertise their model, they had to refine it, which has taken time. Then comes the task of explaining their non-traditional schools to outsiders who don’t even have a familiarity with the basic language needed to explain these out-of-the-box models.

So far, most students have been referred by word of mouth.

“Our school’s most successful enrollment happens because of the kids and parents who say, ‘You’ve got to go to this place. My kid loves this place. I love this place.’” said Geyette.

Same values, different methods

The Innovation Network was created two years ago to help educators and officials tackle the overriding issues facing these schools together, united in their common purpose.

They all share a set of values, officially articulated as “modern, empowering, authentic and caring.” They all have an inquiry- and project-based component, they all use technology to facilitate learning, and they all have built personalization into their instructional model.

They also join in believing that school must clearly relate to real-world questions and issues that interest students.

“We’re trying to get away from this idea that kids have to buy into this vague promise of what education is for, and instead make it based on what their experiences in school on a day-to-day basis actually is,” said Riggan, the Workshop co-founder. “You can’t say ‘suffer through this boring, pointless, irrelevant, crappy experience for 13 years’ in the hope that ultimately you can trade that experience for some other abstract experience that they have no idea what it’s about and they may not know anybody else who does either.”

The designers and leaders of these schools are equally committed to upending the traditional learning model. All the schools have extensive advisory programs, for instance, designed to nurture relationships and a sense of stability. But the schools all operate very differently. Implementation has been a matter of their founders’ visions, trial and error, adaptation to particular circumstances, and the style of leadership.

At SLA the advisory model includes having the same advisor and group for all four years of high school, meeting two times per week for 40 minutes. At Workshop, students have a different advisor every year, but spend the first half of every day in their advisory, both for community building and instructional blocks. U School doesn’t call it “advisory” at all, but “possi,” which stands for “possibilities.” A possi group is the maintained through all four years of high school and meets every day for 30-40 minutes.

According to Chris Lehmann, the founder of SLA and for two years the assistant superintendent of the Innovation Network, it is a matter of restructuring schools with a deliberate, intentional focus on student needs.

“It’s not like other schools don’t care about children,” he said. “They absolutely do. Schools have long cared about children. But they don’t create the systems and structures that allow schools to care for children.

“That shift only happens if there’s incredible intentionality,” he explained. “In all of our schools in the network, we are very intentional about what it means to take care of children and what are the systems and structures that the schools need to do so.”

The LINC has affiliated with the national organization New Tech, known for its project-based model. Workshop School uses hands-on interdisciplinary projects based on real world problems and supplements content areas with some subject-specific seminars.

U School and Building 21 are “competency-based,” meaning that students are evaluated on their ability to master a skill, but there’s flexibility in how they demonstrate mastery. They can work at their own pace and students can go back and improve various assignments as long as the final product shows that they have achieved mastery.

Most notably, the competency model bases student achievement and credit accumulation on the demonstration of actual learning, not on the amount of time students spend sitting in a classroom learning a particular subject. For example, students don’t accumulate social studies credits by taking a sequence of social studies courses, but by incorporating social studies into their projects and internships.

They do not earn the credits until they demonstrate mastery of the skill. For example, they must master an analytical writing assignment before moving on to the next one, say, narrative writing. They do this as quickly or as slowly as fits their learning needs.

Even within the competency-based model, there are still real differences in the ways students are taught. At the U School, because of the school’s focus on producing self-driven learners, students are not organized by grade level. Instead, they are grouped by how independent they are as learners. Students themselves propose which group is the best fit for them, making their case for why they should be taught in a more teacher-directed classroom or an environment that more closely resembles collaborative coworking space with short 15 minute lessons and daily one-on-one check-ins with the teacher.

The inertia of big systems

But innovation is incredibly challenging, particularly in a district the size of Philadelphia that is often seen as too big and too bureaucratic to be flexible.

“The inertia of big systems actually bring people back to the norm,” said Dr. Hite, “There are a lot of things as a system that could choke out innovation from a school or from an approach. We have to get better at as a system just in allowing those flexibilities.”

Some of those pressures toward status quo are internal, such as grading and roster structures, while others are external, such as state testing mandates and accountability metrics.

For the internal structures, Christina Grant sees herself as the bridge between school and network needs and District rules. Grant has spent the last two years as the assistant superintendent for the Opportunity Network, which comprises the accelerated and alternative schools designed to recapture students who have either dropped out or failed to accumulate enough credits after many years in school.

This year she will also be leading the Innovation Network — with schools meant to so radically invigorate the learning environment that these students never drop out in the first place.

“I see my role as support,” said Grant of her new responsibilities. She said she wants to figure out what needs to happen at the system level to allow each school’s particular innovation to grow.

“You need a system person who is sitting in the central office that is doing that side of the work so that the principals can be running great schools.”

Grant said that, as she sees it, in these “entrepreneurial” schools, standards and the basic content stay the same. But “learning and delivery changes, school schedules change, grading policies change.” The key is to support the entrepreneurial spirit while ensuring that their diploma means something and “sets them up for post-secondary success.”

In pursuit of this goal, there have been significant growing pains. How are the competency-based grades translated to a traditional report card? With state requirements to take math courses, for instance, in a particular order, what does that mean for “working at your own pace?” Can we really abandon the idea that high school should last four years, not three, not five? How exactly do students accumulate the necessary credits to graduate?

Lehmann, who is stepping down as the network’s leader to take on a role as CEO of SLA’s own network of three schools, acknowledged this challenge as well. “It’s sort of push and pull. Working with the larger structure to figure out how do we create the conditions for innovation, right? What are the systems that need to adapt and change to allow these schools to have the flexibility they need to do the kinds of models that they are doing? Whether that is rostering, professional development, curricular design, credit accumulation, you name it,” said Lehmann.

Grant’s experience in the charter sector in New York as well as the leader of the Opportunity Network gives her a unique background for this work. By their very nature and the kind of the students they work with, the alternative and accelerated schools have been forced to navigate outside the systems that were made for the traditional schools. For example, the very point of an accelerated school is to get overage and under credited students enough credits to graduate in an accelerated timeline. Figuring out how to balance a school’s unique needs with the District’s desire for a clear and system-pleasing answer will certainly be beneficial for Grant and the schools she manages.

Everyone, from Hite to individual teachers, acknowledges that there is a long way to go, and many of the principals in the network have been frustrated by the feeling that they have needed to alter or abandon key parts of their instructional models in order to accommodate bureaucratic logistics. However, at the same time, they realize a change in mindset, from the top down, has made it possible for their existence.

“There are still things that need to be figured out,” said Simon Hauger, co-founder and principal of the Workshop School. “I think it’s important to acknowledge that we probably wouldn’t be doing this work under a different superintendent.”

In 2013, as the District planned to shutter two dozen schools due to declining enrollment — caused largely by a migration to charter schools — Hite decided to invest in the creation of innovative schools.

“We started these schools in a time when we were fiscally challenged and looking for unique and different models of success,” he said. “The current models were not working. Children were telling us that over and over again, and they were not just telling us verbally. We saw it in the attendance numbers, drop out numbers. We saw it in children who were leaving and trying to go to other opportunities.”

But like inventing a new kind of high school with no template to consult, the process of building a District receptive to this type of work involves constant feedback and readjustment. At times, it’s messy. Most of the schools look different now than they did during their opening year. They have fine-tuned their models, let go of ideas that didn’t work, replaced them with ideas that do, and little by little, built something that both serves kids and challenges our concept of what high school looks like.

“Start-ups are hard,” Hite said. “Start-ups in business are hard, start-ups in schools are hard. Many people will think that they can happen very quickly. . . but they require time to evolve.”

This story is part of a project on innovative high schools funded by a fellowship from the national Education Writers Association and reported and written by freelancer Melanie Bavaria. Additional project stories are is coming soon to thenotebook.org.

GOP leaders in Pa. Senate staunchly defend Eichelberger

2017-02-22T11:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Updated 12:15 p.m. with blog post from Sen. Eichelberger

Republican leaders in the Pennsylvania Senate are defending comments from State Sen. John Eichelberger at a town hall meeting where he suggested that "inner city" students would benefit from "less intensive" vocational programs because they do not succeed in college.

After seeing reports of the statements, State Sen. Vincent Hughes, a Philadelphia Democrat, called Eichelberger’s comments "racist" and said he "is not fit to serve" as chair of the Senate Education Committee.

That interpretation was rejected by a spokesman for Senate President Joseph Scarnati, who determines committee chairmanships.

The spokesman, Senate Republican counsel Drew Crompton, said that Eichelberger’s remarks were taken out of context and that Scarnati had no intention of removing Eichelberger, who represents a mostly rural central Pennsylvania district serving Blair, Fulton, Huntingdon, Franklin and part of Cumberland Counties.

"Education issues are always sensitive, we understand that," Crompton said. "Urban education issues are also sensitive." Although Eichelberger didn’t word his remarks "as precisely as he wanted to," Crompton said, "I think the message Sen. Eichelberger was carrying, that there are some high school students from all over the state [who] are better served through vocational training than college, is perfectly acceptable and accurate."

As reported in the Sentinel of Cumberland County, Eichelberger spoke on a number of education issues at the town hall meeting before launching "a critique of Pennsylvania’s ‘inner city’ education programs, positing that money was being misspent on pushing minority students from high school into college instead of into vocational programs."

According to the Sentinel, Eichelberger said: "They’re pushing them toward college and they’re dropping out. They fall back and don’t succeed, whereas if there was a less intensive track, they would."

Hughes said the comments reflect "a racist viewpoint [and] stereotype that we’ve been dealing with for generations" during which African American students were routinely shunted into vocational rather than academic tracks, often against their will and without regard to their interests or potential.

"Kids who have been locked out will continue to be locked out," Hughes said. He said the poor outcomes of many students in Philadelphia who fail to earn diplomas or graduate high school without the skills and knowledge to succeed in college are the result of a systematic denial of resources.

"Kids have not had the opportunity to succeed," he said. "We have to be mindful that the U.S. Department of Education has rated Pennsylvania as the worst state in the nation in terms of educational funding disparities."

Some of the state’s wealthiest districts spend three times as much per pupil as the poorest. Philadelphia, though it gets more state aid by far than any other district because of its size, is in the bottom half among the 500 districts in per-pupil spending. And about 150 districts get more state aid per pupil.

Eichelberger issued a statement Tuesday evening that clarified and defended his remarks, contending that he meant to say that all students should have more educational options, not fewer. It stated, in part: “While I may not have said it very artfully, I believe every student deserves to be provided with options for their education so they can all succeed, whether that is college or vocational/trade education program. Each child has different skills that may be best suited for college or vocational training. This has been recognized by educational experts in our state and around the nation. The best option for kids should be available for all students, whether in Carlisle or Philadelphia or anywhere else in the Commonwealth.”

He said "vocational training is not an offensive term" but rather "a path for training and education that leads to higher incomes and family-supporting jobs. For many, it is their stepping stone for success."

Eichelberger concluded: “We cannot continue to protect a system that is failing children. If our students are not being provided with that guidance and options in a significant way, then we need to take a closer look at that to ensure that every student deserves the chance to succeed no matter their skin color or economic situation.”

The bland statement contrasted with a post on his website titled "I’m fighting to give these kids a chance," in which he said he was a victim of "fake news," called the Sentinel story "dishonest," and blasted Hughes for his comments.

Hughes, the post states, "is calling me a racist because I spoke about the failing schools in Philadelphia, located in minority neighborhoods, not preparing their students for college. He’s trying to say that since the kids are black, that I think they’re not capable of learning. Wrong. I see the potential of these children and want to see them succeed. Their race doesn’t matter to me, what matters is that every child has opportunities to succeed. I’m fighting to give these kids a chance; he’s fighting to protect the status quo and collect another check from the teacher’s union."

Eichelberger is not a fan of teachers’ unions and is pushing a bill that would take away state guarantees of sick days, bereavement leave, and sabbaticals, requiring unions to bargain for them instead.

Hughes responded that if Eichelberger and other Republican legislators are serious about providing opportunities for all students, they will have a chance to co-sponsor legislation to deal with the funding disparities among Pennsylvania districts that the Democrats are preparing.

"In the end, it’s about the policy," he said. "And what we know is, Black and Brown children are in underfunded schools all across Pennsylvania. That all relates to the funding cuts Sen. Eichelberger has voted for and championed and voted for and advocated."

Historically, there has been suspicion in Harrisburg that Philadelphia doesn’t make good use of the money it has, so it shouldn’t be given any more. These critics cite poor test scores and data showing that most Philadelphia high school graduates do not persist in college.

Hughes said that student outcomes in Philadelphia were better before the budget cuts that Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration made, starting in 2011.

Jennifer Kocher, a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, said there was a feeling in Harrisburg – reflected in Eichelberger’s remarks about money being "misspent"– that Philadelphia isn’t investing enough in vocational education.

"There are many vo-tech schools in different areas of the state, and there is some concern about the ability to do that in Philadelphia," she said. "That’s where decisions need to be made, [whether to invest resources in] vocational education or college prep, whether you’re talking about rural school districts or urban school districts. The problem or the issue is that [Eichelberger’s] comments were seen as some sort of indictment or saying that vo-tech is a bad thing."

Instead, she said, there should be "an open dialogue about vo-tech education. Not every kid is destined for college. The world still needs plumbers and electricians, whether in rural or urban school districts."

Over the last few years, Philadelphia has been expanding its Career and Technical Education (CTE) options, collaborating with local industry, and seeking to put at least a few programs in all of the city’s neighborhood high schools. Several high schools, including Mastbaum, Randolph, and Dobbins, specialize in CTE.

A new advanced manufacturing center opened in 2015 at Ben Franklin High. The District has also been working on introducing younger students to CTE options.

Finding the right mix of programming, location, and student interest, however, can be daunting and requires significant investment. For instance, to acquire industry certifications, students must spend a certain number of hours in their specialty, as well as taking all the academic courses required by the state for graduation. In the past, students took vocational courses, but many never received certifications because they hadn’t accumulated enough hours due to scheduling constraints. Today, scheduling issues have been worked out and more students do take industry certification tests.

Hughes said that Philadelphia needs still more CTE programs, as well as art, music, counselors, and other amenities that he said have been "wiped out."

"Is there a need for more programming in these schools? Absolutely. Should there be more programming for kids going to higher ed? Without question. More programming for those wanting to get into vocational training? Yes. For the most part, there aren’t counselors in these schools to figure out the best college options and get financial aid. If there are, it’s a small number that’s just been put back into place for the last year or so. They have wiped out a bunch of programs in an overwhelming number of schools in Philadelphia. They’ve begun the process of trying to rebuild that stuff, but it’s not at the level it needs to be."

With an easing of the School District’s financial crisis, Superintendent William Hite was able last year to announce new investments for the first time in his tenure, rather than devastating cuts. Through a spokesman, Hite said he would have no comment on Eichelberger’s statement.

Fixing CTE involves targeting middle school students

2016-10-31T11:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

UPDATED with new numbers from the District on number of CTE seats

While Jim Kenney’s community schools and universal pre-K initiatives have made headlines since the mayor’s election, another part of his education plan could have equally important consequences in addressing Philadelphia’s systemic needs. He also wants to embark on a project to align Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs with the city’s industry demands, creating more options and job opportunities for the city’s students.

“We want to make sure what students are learning in the District and what young adults and adults are learning at [Community College of Philadelphia] are skills that were applicable to real occupations in the city,” said Kendrick Davis, director of STEM initiatives at the Mayor’s Office.

Just after Kenney took office, his office held a series of cross-sector meetings bringing educators from the District and CCP together with the Philadelphia Youth Network, the Department of Labor, the Department of Commerce, and others to discuss how fund and tailor CTE education to the city’s workforce needs.

While the District has been moving forward with training for high-demand CTE fields, there persists a mismatch between student interest and available spots. So the District and the Mayor’s Office of Education are setting out to educate younger students about the options as they consider where they would like to go to high school.

Currently about 6,400 students are enrolled in career and technical education programs while there is capacity in the District’s high schools for approximately 6,864, according to spokesman Lee Whack. And while there are waiting lists for traditionally popular CTE programs such as culinary arts and cosmetology, space remains in industries and skills that many young people see as less appealing, but are important to Philadelphia’s future growth, Davis said.

These include welding and plumbing, plus so-called “advanced manufacturing” skills in the chemical, electronics, metals and vehicle sectors. Some of these programs are sitting at only 60 to 70 percent of enrollment, said Otis Hackney, the city’s Chief Education Officer.

“We will work with the District to promote offerings to student and families so they do not go to waste,” Hackney said.

In the summer, the District said it was planning to have 12,000 CTE seats by 2020, but has now scaled back its estimates.

One way to do this is to educate students at a younger age about the different options available and showcasing the value of these jobs, Hackney said.

Many of these jobs are unionized, are highly-skilled, provide stable employment and have a high earning potential, he added. Part of the District’s strategy to fill the programs will be targeting younger students, those in middle and elementary school. The aim is to educate them about options before they get to high school and have to make choices about whether to aim for traditional academic track or a CTE program, and which one.

“So if I’m in middle school, if I’m in 6th grade and I learn that there is an agricultural program at Saul High School. Or if I’m in 6th grade and I learn there’s an advanced manufacturing program at Ben Franklin High School, it changes my trajectory and it changes what I think about the high school experience,” explained Davis.

“It changes what my expectations are about the high school experience, and then hopefully we can surround those students with the supports where they can take that change of expectation and translate it into something real.”

Some of the individual industries are already starting to do this in order to recruit more students into their professions down the line. For example, the Manufacturing Alliance of Philadelphia held an advanced manufacturing tour of the city as a middle school engagement program. Students were led by a Temple professor and they did prototyping with 3D printers with students in various schools around the city.

The Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce also hosts a Future Ready program with the School District. The program allows middle school students to talk with local companies about various future job opportunities.

“One great thing about Philadelphia is that there’s so many different things happening in so many different pockets and corners of the city,” said Davis. “But the challenging part of that is capturing it and sharing the information and trying to figure out where the gaps are and how we can strengthen the efforts that are already going on.”

This, he said, is where the city comes in as a coordinator to increase awareness among middle school students and their families about the opportunities that already exist in these industries and the District programs to prepare them.

Individual schools are also taking it upon themselves to be a part of this effort. Southwark Elementary School principal Andrew Lukov has a partnership with South Philadelphia High School to introduce CTE modules to their middle school students that match CTE opportunities at Southern, their neighborhood high school.

“It’s important because too often children are narrowly focused on getting into citywide admission high schools or special admission high schools without considering other options,” said Hackney.

While the city is working with the District to encourage more principals like Lukov to expose their students to existing CTE programs, the city is creating additional exposure opportunities outside the classroom for students who do not have them. For example they worked with the District to do a symposium focused on the so-called STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and math – where 1,000 middle school students who were able to see what it is like to work at PECO, PGW, and other utility companies.

“It was just an exposure opportunity,” said Davis, adding that “you never know” when these types of events may spark an interest in a child.

Getting an early start

The importance of middle school in determining college and career readiness is well documented, as is the positive impact that CTE programs have on lowering dropout rates and increasing student achievement. According to a report by the ACT on college readiness, “The level of academic achievement that students attain by 8th grade has a larger impact on their college and career readiness by the time they graduate from high school than anything that happens academically in high school.”

The civic campaign STEMcityPHL was created last year under the Nutter administration as part of the national US2020 project that aims to mobilize 1,000,000 STEM mentors by 2020. It is meant to both bring STEM opportunities to high-needs students and make them think about their educational path as well as their future career readiness.

The general consensus seems to be that in order to change high school and post high school outcomes, the education community needs to start thinking about targeting kids earlier. Stephanie Gambone, executive vice-president of Philadelphia Youth Network, who has been a part of the cross sector meetings on future CTE initiatives, said that PYN has in recent years realized the value of bringing some of their own programs to younger students. As recently as two years ago the youth education and employment advocacy organization focused on 14- to 21- year-old students, but about 18 months ago they decided to include 12- to 14- year-old students because of the value of early exposure. PYN is now looking to expand programming they have been piloting over the past year with education partners.

Helping both parents and young people understand the benefits of CTE programming “I think is one thing we all feel very strongly that we need to do,” said Gambone, “and in terms of what we can do, particularly what can we do at scale, I think we are at the beginning stages of what that looks like.”

The STEMcityPHL initiative is just one that has been given a renewed focus under the current administration. In order to know where to target, the city identified areas they call “STEM deserts” where there is a high needs population but little resources and little exposure to this type of programming.

“There are nine zip codes in Philadelphia that we qualified as STEM deserts,” said Davis. The city is working on bringing STEM opportunities to these areas.

The programming may be completely new, or build on services already available, for instance through a Boys and Girls Club or community center, Davis said.

In that case, he said, the “audience of students” is readymade, and “maybe we’re just increasing exposure by asking if a robotics component can be added…Maybe we’ll have a science challenge of the week.”

The common theme is getting different programming that supports CTE efforts to more students at a younger age. However, the Mayor’s office, the School District, and other partners are still thinking this through, trying to decide what specific programs should be prioritized and how to most efficiently and effectively bring CTE to more students.

Hackney echoed the need to expose children at younger ages. But he also noted the need to “make sure that when students do enroll in CTE courses, they’re taught by a certified industry professional.”

Davis said that the are also considering establishing pilot programs as incubators where the Mayor’s office has more direct oversight and involvement to see how other types of targeted programming can work in specific neighborhoods. Similarly to the community schools initiative, the goal would be to eventually scale these programs across the city.

“[Kids] may not know that CTE high schools also have college preparatory curricula so there are opportunities to get the best of both worlds by preparing for college and trades simultaneously,” Hackney said.

All of this is part of a larger effort to reduce poverty in Philadelphia and find more people high-paying jobs. The Kenney administration is focusing on the younger generation, coupling this with the community schools and pre-k initiatives.

“There’s a part that education plays in reducing poverty,” said Davis. “CTE is definitely a part of it.”

Applying to high school? Here’s what you should know

2016-09-15T15:01:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

I am excited about going to high school. How do I get started?

Talk to the adults in your life, including teachers, counselors, and parents or guardians. Read this guide and the District’s online high school directory to develop a list of schools that align with your interests and goals. Seventh and 8th graders should attend the 2016 Philly High School fair scheduled for Oct. 14-15 at the Convention Center, Broad and Race Streets, and talk to representatives of schools that interest you.

When should I get started?

No later than the beginning of 7th grade. Selective high schools look at 7th-grade attendance, grades, and test scores in determining who is qualified to attend.

How do I apply? What’s the deadline?

This year, the application process will be conducted online only. Students and their families can access an application on the District’s website starting Sept. 29. All 8th-grade students, even those who intend to go to their neighborhood high school, are being asked to participate in the selection process. Applications will be accepted until 5 p.m. Nov. 14.

How is the online application system different from the old system?

This is the third year for online-only applications. Before that, students filled out paper applications and gave them to the school counselor for final submission. Now, students and families must fill out the application online and submit it electronically. This means students must take the initiative to seek the counselor’s help and advice in making their choices. Counselors have online access to the applications of all the students in their school.

What is the difference between a special admission and a citywide admission high school?

Special admission schools have more competitive entrance criteria. To be accepted to a special admission school, a student must meet the school’s test score, grade, behavior and attendance requirements. Citywide admission schools don’t require test scores, but do set minimum standards regarding grades, attendance, and discipline records. At special admission schools, the principals and their selection teams evaluate each applicant’s academic record against the school’s entrance criteria. Citywide admission schools also evaluate each student’s academic record against the school’s entrance criteria. But they put all students who meet the criteria into a computerized lottery that randomly selects the ones who will be offered admission.

How do I get into a charter school?

Students must apply to each charter directly. Charter schools are required to conduct lotteries if they have more applicants than spaces. They are not permitted to pick and choose their students. However, many have detailed applications, and the deadlines for being entered into their lotteries vary. Last year, many charter schools began to use a common, written application, which is available at GreatPhillySchools.org, along with the list of participating schools. Completing the common application can simplify the process if the charters on your list use it. The GreatPhillySchools website also has schedules, deadlines, and applications for all charters. Some charters have their own online applications; others still require a paper document.

How can I find out the admissions requirements of a school?

This guide and the District’s online directory include the admissions requirements for each high school. Your counselor or teachers can also help explain admission requirements for schools you are interested in.

Should I visit the school?

Yes. The School District is compiling a list of dates for high school open houses. The schedule will be made available on the District’s website. You can also contact schools directly to request the date and time of their open house or other opportunities to visit. Some schools permit prospective students to shadow current students for a day to get a feel for what the school is like.

If I don’t meet the exact criteria of a selective school, should I apply anyway?

If I am not accepted for admission to any of my choices, what do I do?

Keep in mind that you will increase your chances of admission if you apply to schools that align with your academic record and career interests. Admissions decisions are either Accepted, Declined, or Waitlisted. If an application is Declined, a reason for that decision is provided in the notification letter.

For special admission schools, if you receive a decision of Waitlisted, you met the criteria of the school, but due to space constraints, a seat is not available. In this instance, there is a chance that you will be admitted, so stay in contact with the school’s principal and/or counselor.

Most students are matched with a school of their choice by April. However, spots open up in schools throughout the summer as family and student circumstances change, so if you are waitlisted, it is advisable to stay in touch with schools that you remain interested in. Sometimes, additional recommendations and phone calls can help.

If you receive a decision of Waitlisted for one or more citywide admission schools, you still may be offered admission. After students who got into multiple schools make their choices and seats become available, officials pull names off the waitlist in the order created by the lottery. Although decisions for citywide admission schools are not made at the school level, it doesn’t hurt to let the principal know of your interest.

Students are always guaranteed admission at their neighborhood high school.

If I intend to go to my neighborhood school, should I still fill out the online application?

Yes. District officials want the online-only system to help persuade all students and families to get guidance on their options. This new process has resulted in an increase in the number of students exercising their right to choose a school from 12,000 in 2014 to 15,000 in 2015 to 17,000 in 2016.

Do any neighborhood schools have special programs?

Many neighborhood high schools have advanced academic programs, including AP (Advanced Placement) and IB (International Baccalaureate) courses. Almost all also have Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. See the section on CTE in this guide and the individual school profiles, which show what programs each school offers. The District’s directory summarizes locations by area of interest. But budget cuts have taken their toll in schools, so it is wise to double-check how robust an advertised program is.

Can I apply to a neighborhood school in another area?

Yes, but if it is filled to capacity, applications will not be accepted. Northeast High School is an example of a school with an enrollment that exceeds capacity; it usually cannot accept applications from outside.

What about transportation?

If a school is more than 1.5 miles from your home, you are entitled to free student SEPTA TransPasses. That is true for students in District, charter and private schools.

Can students who have IEPs or who are English language learners apply to selective high schools?

All students are encouraged to apply to any high school that interests them and for which they meet the basic qualifications. In response to lawsuits, the District facilitates an advocacy process for 8th-grade students applying to selective high schools. It is required to enroll a certain percentage of special education students and English language learners (ELLs) at these schools. Students who have individualized education plans (IEPs) or who are ELLs can learn more from their counselor or principal, and from the Office of Specialized Services at 215-400-4170.

Where else can I get help with high school placement?

Families can access more information about schools, as well as computers to use in filling out the online application, at the District’s regional Learning Network offices. Parents will be directed to the District’s website, where they can obtain school profiles. They can also use the computers at their local library branches.

Where do I find official information from the District, including the application?

Visit the District’s Office of Student Enrollment and Placement website at schoolselect.philasd.org.

How does CTE shape students?

2016-09-12T11:57:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia School District’s career and technical education (CTE) programs give students an opportunity to choose a career path that matches their interests and talents, while gaining hands-on training in high school. The District has 43 CTE programs, and many graduates have transitioned to post-secondary institutions – college, university, or technical school. Some have taken jobs in their chosen fields right out of high school. CTE students are gaining valuable experience in fields they are now considering because of their work in the program.

The Notebook asked some current and former students from District CTE programs how their participation shaped their interests and lives. Here are three of their stories.

Stephen Jolicoeur
Carpentry

Before the thought of graduation can even sink in, most high school seniors are bombarded with questions about college, and they may not receive information about alternative paths to success. But Stephen Jolicoeur, a 2014 graduate of Swenson Arts & Technology High School, was among those who had an opportunity to weigh all of his options, even if it was close to the wire.

Jolicoeur, who earned a 3.5 GPA while at Swenson, had been enrolled in the school’s Carpentry CTE program since his freshman year. He was admitted to multiple colleges, but when he weighed the options for post-secondary education against pursuing a career in the trades right out of high school, the latter seemed to be a more natural progression for him.

“It was just last-minute,” said Jolicoeur. “I could tell you it was maybe a month before graduating where I said. ‘Nah, I’m going to the trades.’ I just looked at it. It made sense financially.”

After graduation, Jolicoeur was recruited into the District Council 21 trade union’s VIP program for students. There he learned about drywall finishing and decided to pursue that instead of carpentry. Now in the second year of a drywall-finishing apprenticeship, Jolicoeur said he can see that the skills and experience he gained in the Swenson CTE program has made his transition seamless.

“As soon as I got out here, I hopped right on my feet,” he said. “I came out here swinging. [If] anybody tell you about me, they’ll be like as soon as I grabbed a knife and a pan, I knew what I was doing because it was not the first time I ever touched tools.”

Patrick Derkin was Jolicoeur’s CTE teacher at Swenson. In addition to carpentry, he taught his students the importance of professionalism, such as handling money and being punctual. He also urged them to consider their trade when planning for the future.

“He’s a great guy,” Jolicoeur said of his teacher. “I give him updates to let him know how I am doing. And he is always proud to hear what I am doing.”

Jolicoeur continues to be a member of District Council 21 and has a reputation among his colleagues for being a good worker who exceeds expectations.

Though he has not ruled out going to college at some point, Jolicoeur said that he is also open to other opportunities, maybe as a journeyman – a tradesperson who goes from job to job as an independent worker – or a project foreman. But still, he has an even bigger idea in mind.

“I would be interested in opening a small drywall company, because there’s a lot of small work going on around here. Drive around Center City, you can see there’s work everywhere right now. And it’s like, why not get a piece of that?”

Jocelynn Duran
Applied Visual and Interactive Design

Jocelynn Duran, a 2006 graduate of Northeast High School, built lifelong relationships and skills while attending one of the school’s career and technical education programs in graphic design. Now 28, Duran said that she would love to share those experiences with a new generation of CTE students by becoming a teacher at her alma mater.

“I feel like, too often, kids just go to school and they hate going to school,” she said.

“Taking graphic design, for me, was an outlet. It was just something that I looked forward to every day.”

Duran said that she hopes to teach in the Sports Marketing and Management program at Northeast and that she feels inspired to pursue such a position because of her own CTE teacher, who continues to be a mentor.

For Duran, teaching is a two-way learning opportunity: On one hand, she said, she will be able to “share industry knowledge,” and on the other, she will be at the forefront of developments in the field.

Duran enrolled in a graphic design program at Northeast during her sophomore year in 2004. At the time, the program was not fully developed, but was more of a “pilot program,” Duran said. It would later become known as Applied Visual and Interactive Design. Duran took an elective graphic design class once a day, where she was involved in various projects.

In the program, Duran developed new skills and gained experience working with desktop publishing programs, such as Adobe.

“I had such a great experience in that class,” Duran said.

“I learned so much about myself and just about being creative and learning things on my own.”

Duran said that this class opened up different options for her after high school and expanded what she knew about particular career paths.

“[The program] gave us an idea of what we could do in the future,” she said.

After graduating from Northeast, Duran enrolled at Temple University, where she planned to major in graphic design. But she was not able to pursue that major because admission would have required an art portfolio, which she did not have at the time. Duran did not let this deter her passion for design. She looked for another program where she could maintain and build upon her design skills,ultimately deciding to major in advertising. She graduated from Temple in 2011 with a bachelor of arts degree in advertising.

Since then, Duran has held positions at a marketing start-up company and has worked as a freelancer. Today, she works with Philly.com, the website owned by Philadelphia Media Network, as a national digital sales specialist.

As her career path has advanced, Duran said, her CTE experience has never left her. In fact, she said, it has only enhanced the work that she has done.

“The class that I took definitely had an impact on where I am today,” she said.

Marcus Henderson
Health-Related Technology

Marcus Henderson, 20, always knew he wanted to work in the health-care industry. So in 2009, he wasted no time before enrolling in Franklin Learning Center’s Health-Related Technology program, one of the school’s career and technical education offerings.

“I was one of the primary caregivers for my great-grandmother and great-aunt for many, many years. So I knew that I wanted to be in health care in some way, shape, or form,” said Henderson, who is now a senior in the University of Pennsylvania’s nursing program.

Initially, he applied to Central High School and Science Leadership Academy. But neither school accepted him, leaving him open to a friend’s suggestion to apply to Franklin Learning Center for its program, which today is called Medical/Clinical Assistant.

“I think it was one of the best decisions I ever made, to go to FLC and attend that program,” he said.

Besides being an Ivy League undergraduate, Henderson, a first-generation college student, serves as president of the Student Nursing Association of Pennsylvania (SNAP). He also was selected as one of 10 interns who worked over the summer with the U.S. surgeon general in Washington. The internship program was through Health Occupation Students of America. Henderson worked under the assistant secretary for preparedness and response in the Department of Health and Human Services.

He credits the communication skills that he learned in his CTE program with helping him reach these accomplishments.

“Nursing is one of the few professions where you have a unique interaction with patients and families on a consistent basis,” he said. “And I think the communication that [I] learned in [the] CTE program is really what is carried with me — my ability to communicate with patients, communicate with other students. Even when I am at statewide or national meetings and interacting with leaders from all over the globe, I think that communication piece was key.”

He also attributes his progress to the technical skills and training he learned because it gave him an advantage over his peers.

“Already knowing how to do blood pressure, already knowing how to do some of those technical skills that a nurse’s aide does coming in to a nursing program is very helpful because it kind of sets you apart from some of your colleagues who might not have necessarily had that training,” he said.

Henderson graduated from Franklin Learning Center in 2013, but he still

maintains a good relationship with his former teacher, Jessica Way. Henderson said she played an important role in helping him realize his potential.

He said she saw something in him that he didn’t see in himself at the time. She took him under her wing and continues to be there for him.

“There’s not many teachers in the School District that care for [their] students like Ms. Way does,” he said.

After completing his undergraduate studies in 2017, Henderson plans to pursue a master’s degree in the science of nursing and is considering going for his Ph.D. In the end, he sees himself as a health educator and mentor — someone who is there for students the same way that “Ms. Way” was there for him.

Darryl Murphy and Ellen Schoder were interns at the Notebook this summer.

Organizations that help students get to college

2016-09-09T10:42:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Philadelphia has several organizations that work with students to help them get the most from their high school education and to prepare them for college. Students must seek out these opportunities and go through an application process. Not all are available in all schools.

Philadelphia Futures

In operation since 1989, it is the largest and most established such organization in the city. Futures has several programs; the two biggest are Sponsor-a-Scholar and College Connection.

www.philadelphiafutures.org

Sponsor-a-Scholar

Who can apply? Any 8th and 9th graders in Philadelphia District schools who would be the first in their families to attend college and who meet income guidelines for free and reduced-price lunch (currently just under $45,000 for a family of four).

What are the criteria? Students must have good grades and behavior records and be recommended by a teacher or administrator in their school.

What must you do? Be available for afterschool and summer programs and maintain a focus on college.

College Connection

This program, now in its fourth year, started after Philadelphia Futures merged with White-Williams Scholars.

What are the criteria? A grade point average of at least 3.3 and scores at least in the 90th percentile on state tests; if the student has taken college admission tests, a score of 900 or better combined on the critical reading and math SAT or 19 on the ACT.

What are the benefits? Guidance in finding the right college, SAT and ACT prep, college trips, help with financial aid applications and college transitions, support throughout college. “Our whole big thing is to help students find the right fit socially, academically, and financially,” for college, said Philadelphia Futures director Joan Mazzotti. “We are looking for students who are college-bound and college-ready, but won’t have the resources to go through the college admissions process and the guidance to get through college.”

What must you do? Attend the programs and maintain your focus on college.

Futures partners with eight Pennsylvania colleges that offer full-need financial aid: Penn State, Drexel, Haverford, Arcadia, Gettysburg, Franklin & Marshall, Lafayette, and Dickinson.

Charles Ellis Trust for Girls

Futures also administers this program, which offers financial resources for high school girls in low-income, single-parent homes. If they attend parochial or independent schools, they get tuition assistance; in public schools, they get money for expenses such as uniforms and school supplies, as well as access to programming, including the Women in Natural Sciences program at the Academy of Natural Sciences.

Breakthrough of Greater Philadelphia

In operation in Philadelphia since 1995, when it started as SummerBridge at Germantown Friends School. It is expanding this year to include students from all over the city.

www.breakthroughphilly.org

Who can apply? Any 6th grader in a Philadelphia District, charter, independent or parochial school. Current Breakthrough students are from about 36 schools, most in West and Northwest Philadelphia, where the program has so far concentrated recruitment efforts. But executive director Robbin Washington-Smart says Breakthrough is “planning on casting our net further. … We do not rule out any middle school students in Philadelphia.” Students can reach out directly; so can school personnel, “anybody who has access to 6th graders and wants to help them with options.” She specifically mentioned community organizations and places of worship.

What are the benefits? Breakthrough specifically helps middle schoolers find and apply to good city high schools, both District schools with admissions requirements and charter schools. The students also form a community with like-minded students who are excited about learning and have access to college-student mentors and academic coaches. The program stays with the student through college admission and is launching a new component to help throughout college as well.

What must you do? Attend a six-week summer program and Saturday programming during the year. Those are held at two locations: Drexel University in West Philadelphia and Germantown Friends School in Northwest Philadelphia.

College Possible

http://www.collegepossible.org/locations/philadelphia/

Who can apply? Sophomores in the four Philadelphia high schools where the program is located: George Washington, Murrell Dobbins CTE, Parkway Center City, and West Philadelphia.

What are the criteria? Philadelphia executive director Wyneshia Foxworth said the program is looking for students “in the academic middle” who are not likely to get the guidance they need to prepare for, apply to, and succeed in college. Like the other programs, it seeks motivated students who “see a future for themselves.”

What are the benefits? Individual mentoring and coaching from AmeriCorps members, SAT and ACT prep, college visits, support while in college.

What must you do? Attend twice-weekly afterschool sessions, maintain good grades and behavior, apply to college.

Would CTE fit your needs? Take a look

2016-09-08T15:40:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

These questions and answers were developed with the help of the School District’s Office of Career and Technical Education.

Is CTE a good idea for me?

CTE, or career and technical education, used to be called vocational education. The varied programs available now are designed to prepare students for jobs in today’s economy. In addition to traditional trades that are still in demand, such as plumbing, welding, and auto repair, CTE programs now include such fields as health-related technologies, computer systems networking, game design, and culinary arts. Typically, students spend 1,080 hours of learning time in their specialties. Classes are taught by teachers with experience in the field, and students also may get part of their training through industry internships and apprenticeships. Successful CTE students can graduate high school with certifications and contacts that can lead directly to employment.

If I take CTE, does that mean I won’t be prepared for college?

Quite the contrary. CTE students also take all the academic coursework required for high school graduation and can often be better prepared for college. Studies show that CTE students graduate at higher rates than students not in CTE, which is probably the result of the focus on employable skills and hands-on learning.

Do CTE students attend college?

Many do. Most CTE career areas require at least some post-secondary training. CTE graduates can and do enroll in four-year colleges, community college, and trade schools.

Will CTE prepare me for well-paying jobs?

Many of the CTE specialties are in demand now. Some traditional trades, including plumbers, welders, and electricians, are experiencing worker shortages and pay well for highly trained people.

How do I choose a program? How do I know whether it is rigorous and legitimate?

Talk to your counselor in 7th and 8th grades about your interest. All CTE programs have admission guidelines, and competition is stiff. But 25 other District high schools, including nearly all neighborhood schools, have at least one CTE program. This guide, as well as the District’s online high school directory, outlines what specialties are available at what schools.

Can I find CTE programs in charter schools?

Only one charter high school, Universal Audenried in South Philadelphia, has state-certified CTE programs, in culinary, electrical and automotive trades. Don’t assume from a charter school’s name that it has a CTE focus or a certified CTE program, even though it may offer work-study or internship placements in certain fields.

What questions should I ask before enrolling in a CTE program?

Important questions include: Who is the teacher, and what is their experience in the field? Of those who enroll, how many pass their state competency exams? Can I earn college credits? Will I get to go to work-based settings? What partnerships are there with employers? What kinds of internships, part-time jobs, or other work experiences might be available for summer or after school? What industry certifications can I get? Ask the principal: How do you view CTE and what do you do to support it?

What are industry certifications, and how do students earn them?

Students can earn industry certifications by passing a test showing that they have mastered the skills at the standards required to work in the field. The industries design the tests. These credentials may allow students to enter the occupation right after graduation. In most programs, each student can obtain multiple certifications. For instance, students in health-related fields can be certified in CPR and in the use of defibrillators, among other competencies. Philadelphia’s CTE students earned more than 3,400 industry certifications in 2014-15. The costs for industry certifications are fully covered by the District.

What is NOCTI?

Is it possible to earn college credits through CTE?

Yes. For most programs, this comes through the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Students Occupationally and Academically Ready (SOAR) program, Students can earn up to 11 college credits at participating institutions across Pennsylvania, depending on the field. Every field allows for at least some college credits with one or more state institutions. Students can also get post-graduate internships and industry apprenticeships through SOAR.

How are CTE classrooms different?

These spaces have two main areas: theory and practical. The theory area, for traditional teacher-led lessons, looks like a typical classroom, with desks, chairs, and a whiteboard. The lab or shop area will have the needed industry-standard equipment so students can apply the skills learned in theory lessons to simulated work situations. Plus, CTE students often do much of their coursework through internships at industry sites.

What if my interests change? Can I switch programs?

Students get a jump on Ben Franklin’s CTE program

2016-09-08T11:45:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

A dozen students sat in a small classroom situated within the welding shop in Benjamin Franklin High School’s basement, calling out answers to a math problem.

They were part of the school’s new Summer Bridge program, a voluntary summer school that is designed to help incoming freshmen adjust to the demands of the career and technical education (CTE) curriculum at the school’s Center for Advanced Manufacturing & Engineering Technology.

The students used the hourly wage of a welder to calculate a daily wage of $197.

“So if you’re working five days, how much per week?” the teacher asked.

When one student shouted out “985 a week,” another responded with “your pockets would be fat!” The response was met by laughter and applause from his peers. The students were describing the salaries of welding jobs they could apply for after they graduate.

“The intention is to expose them to what we have to offer and bridge that gap from middle to high school,” said principal Gregory Hailey of the summer classes. “Start whetting their appetite. Make sure that this is something they take seriously.”

Louis Bartholetti just finished his sophomore year at the center, where he took courses in the welding program.

“I really like the mix between the manufacturing classes and the academics — that’s what drew me to the school, actually. There’s a draw to work harder because I’m in this program,” Bartholetti said. “I like the manufacturing aspect — getting to create something.”

Bartholetti said every welding class starts with 15 minutes of safety instruction from their teacher while students take notes.

“Then we go straight into the shop and start working on pieces and different techniques,” he said. “This year I learned about stick welding, which is an electrode used to fuse two metals. But some other kids were working on MIG [metal inert gas] welding, which feeds a wire through a tube, and that’s used to fuse the two pieces of metal together.”

Students’ days at the center are separated into four block periods — 90 minutes each — of classes. Each student has two academic classes, a manufacturing class, and then an elective.

“It flows pretty well,” said Bartholetti. “Last year I was in Introduction to Art. That was really fun. We weren’t just learning about art history, we were actually drawing and painting in class. I signed up for AP Art next year.”

Students can also take electives, classes in gym, or one of the other CTE courses.

Growing the center

By the end of 2015, the center had more than 500 students.

The CTE programs accept students from all over the city, Hailey said, even though Ben Franklin is still a neighborhood high school. The school now has students from 35 zip codes.

Last year, the center offered four specialized programs: Welding Technology, Precision Machining & Milling, Electromechanical/Mechatronics, and Electronics Technology.

Hailey explained he is still trying to add several new programs, but expects that just Pre-Engineering and Computer Aided Drafting & Design (CADD) will be ready in time for the start of the school year.

In the CADD program, students will learn to use software to design custom parts for machines. They can then use Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines to produce them in the school’s lab.

Hailey said the pool of jobs requiring these skills is expanding as automation becomes more common in manufacturing.

“In industry, this is what they use to replace custom parts. You can’t just go buy a new widget,” he said.]

Pre-Engineering is a common freshman program at universities offering degrees in engineering. It typically focuses on math, physics, and chemistry, but at Ben Franklin it will also include time in the Pre-Engineering lab, equipped with 3D printers installed over the summer.

It’s not just the Pre-Engineering students who plan to go to college.

Bartholetti hasn’t decided where he wants to go after graduation yet, but he “would definitely like to attend college. I plan on doing as well as I can in my academic courses.”

Hailey said the center also prepared a lab and classroom for the upcoming Renewable Energy program, where students will learn to build and maintain common system components like solar panels and hydrogen fuel cells. Hailey wants the new teacher to lead students in conducting an energy audit of the building to determine how the school could be made more energy-efficient.

Nicholas Gasis, assistant director of the District’s Office of Career & Technical Education, said Ben Franklin’s Mechatronics, Machining, and CADD programs are the only such programs in the city, and the center’s Renewable Energy program will be the first in the state.

Bartholetti said he wanted to take an elective course in Renewable Energy once the program’s up and running.

“We’re not exactly treating the planet that well,” he said. “I think renewable energy is only going to be more important in the future.”

The District is interviewing teachers for the Renewable Energy program, but filling the position could take a while because candidates must first commit to getting certified from an accredited university, which they have to pay for themselves.

The school was able to open itsr Industrial Building Maintenance program last year after Overbrook High School closed its program and Ben Franklin hired Overbrook’s CTE teacher.

The program teaches students the basics of safety, construction, and electrical wiring. Last year, students learned carpentry by using band saws and sanders to build tables and learned basic wiring skills by making lamps.

Bartholetti said safety is also a big component of the Welding program.

“During the beginning of the year, we focused on learning safety and being prepared to go into the shop to start working.” Bartholetti said. “Then, as the year progressed, we had more time in the shop where we could actually learn the skill hands-on. By the middle to the end of the year, we were mostly working in the shop,” except for the safety review during the first 15 minutes of class.

A path to careers

Hailey said he wants to expand the number of students who get work experience through internships.

“We’ll have them doing three years in their programs and probably doing an internship in their final year.” Hailey said internships would be awarded only to experienced students, based on ability.

Reginald Moton is the career awareness specialist at Ben Franklin, responsible for creating relationships with local businesses for internships and workplace tours.

Bartholetti said his favorite trip of the year was to an oil refinery.

“We got to see their underwater tank, where you can actually see welders training to become underwater welders,” Bartholetti said.

When Bartholetti graduates, he will have the certification needed to start training as an underwater welder, but he wants to go to college instead. Still, he didn’t rule it out, saying “there’s a lot of good money in it — and there’s a lot of jobs open, too — so possibly.”

After his sophomore year in the welding program, Moton helped Bartholetti get a paid internship working for the Philadelphia Streets Department. His job was to “log service reports” for the solar-powered “big-belly trash cans” around the city.

“I would put in the data, looking for any changes in the status of the can, and looking for alerts – so if any damage was done to the can, I would put it into the database.”

Moton placed three other students in summer jobs at the Streets Department and the Naval Shipyard as part of the Center’s partnership with WorkReady Philadelphia, an organization that partners with local businesses to get students work experience before they leave high school. Moton hopes to expand the number of students in summer jobs as the center grows.

Bartholetti said he wants to get a four-year college degree in Business Management and start his own small business.

“I could see myself opening a welding shop. I’ve also always been interested in construction and contracting. It would be cool to build a business doing that.

“Even if, after college, I don’t get a labor job, I still have the understanding of what it’s like to be in that position.”

Greg Windle is a freelance writer for the Notebook.

Neighborhood high schools look to reinvent themselves

2016-09-07T14:54:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The District’s 20 neighborhood high schools — sometimes overlooked by families considering the academic options after middle school — are scrambling to find new lives as viable, even preferable alternatives to the city’s lineup of special admission, citywide admission and charter schools.

All of the neighborhood schools have opened 9th-grade academies, each with a newly assigned assistant principal, its own cadre of teachers and classrooms, and minimal interaction with upperclassmen for the students. There’s more focus on career and technical programming, and principals are being encouraged to open theme-based academies.

Roxborough High School, for instance, has three academies — sciences, arts and business. Sayre, in West Philadelphia, offers medical science studies and afterschool opportunities through a partnership with the Netter Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Penn Treaty High is among several schools that have introduced AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination), a college prep program that improves the odds of students – if they have the skills and are doing well in high school – to persevere and graduate college.

And in a pilot project, Sayre, South Philadelphia, Frankford and Kensington High Schools are getting even more support — including a career and college coordinator at each school for 9th grade only.

“Every high school has to become a high school of choice,” said Cheryl Logan, the District’s chief academic support officer.

“I don’t want any child to feel they have defaulted into a high school. If you want to stay in your neighborhood catchment because you want to be close to home, your local school should have programming to fit your needs.”

Sam Howell, principal at Penn Treaty, said, “The plan is to have a good school in every zip code.”

Daunting behemoths

The effort is both necessary and long overdue, in the opinion of some observers.

Most of the neighborhood high schools stand as behemoths — towering stone edifices visible from blocks away and utterly daunting the first time a new kid goes searching for his homeroom. Decades ago, nearly every public high school in the city was a neighborhood high school, accepting every student who walked in the door and offering a comprehensive curriculum that varied little, if at all, from one school to the next.

But that model of instruction and organization fell on hard times long ago. Too many students fell behind, dropped out, or ended up taking remedial coursework once they entered college.

“What you see in high schools in distressed urban settings nationally is that kids make backward progress once they get to high school,” said Logan, “and that’s not acceptable.”

Magnet and citywide admission schools siphoned off students who could meet admission criteria, while charter schools wooed other students away. But even now, neighborhood high schools enroll more students than District-run magnet and citywide admission high schools combined.

“We have had decades of neglect of these schools,” said Donna Cooper, executive director of Public Citizens for Children & Youth (PCCY), the region’s leading child advocacy organization. Last winter, PCCY published “Separate and Unequal: A Path Forward for Neighborhood High Schools.”

The District’s recent efforts, including the hiring of an executive director of high school reform, are “a move in the right direction,” she said. The new director is Fateama Fulmore, formerly a high school principal in North Carolina.

Concluding that “there is no quick fix,” the PCCY report (which can be found at pccy.org) made numerous recommendations related to leadership, staffing and financial support. To improve student outcomes, the report recommended “smart and reliable” remediation, more skills-based learning, more access to college prep courses, and more arts, electives, and enrichment.

Some schools, including George Washington in the Northeast, have long had successful programming in place. Others revamped efforts more recently, and some are trying new approaches this school year.

“The District has pointed out, correctly, that not every neighborhood high school is in equally bad condition or has the same challenges,” Cooper noted.

According to the PCCY report, based on recent data, every neighborhood high school offers the coursework needed to enter college. Nine offer up to five Advanced Placement (AP) courses, five offer six or more AP courses, and two — Northeast and George Washington — offer the International Baccalaureate program.

Schools also are being encouraged to adopt the “restorative practices” model to reduce violence and bullying in schools — another recommendation of the report.

Anton Austin is a big fan of neighborhood high schools. The father of four children, two of whom are in high school, lives in the Overbrook section of the city. Austin worries about the schools’ reputation, but has high hopes for their renaissance.

“I’ve always felt neighborhood schools were valuable, but I’ve seen over the years that the resources in them have declined. If your child has a particular affinity or skill, programming might not be offered at the neighborhood school. That’s an issue they’re hopefully now addressing,” said Austin, speaking of the career and technical education (CTE) offerings.

One of Austin’s children is at Parkway West High,land the other high schooler, Aris Austin, is now in 10th grade at Overbrook. Aris Austin had been at the Building 21 program, but also doing Junior ROTC at Benjamin Franklin High School. The travel and scheduling hassles proved to be too much. At Overbrook, the youth has JROTC and a CTE program.

“I look forward to the day when you can track your kids from the elementary schools in your neighborhood all the way up to the high school and graduation,” said Austin. “It’s almost insane that you have to travel to some other neighborhood for something fairly basic.”

9th-grade focus

According to Logan, the chief academic officer, the focus on 9th grade is strategic, with the payoff coming later, in the upper grades.

“If we can reduce the number of kids who are credit-deficient when they come back for year two, that will really change the dynamics of the whole school,” she said. “The quicker we catch kids up, the better the outcome.”

Peter Jepsen, new assistant principal for 9th grade at Penn Treaty School, said his attention will be “laser-focused” on achievement and attendance issues.

“Any student absent more than three consecutive days will be assigned, in essence, a case manager,” he said.

Early intervention and mentoring will be key, he said, to ensuring that 9th graders graduate on time. Penn Treaty, which expanded from a middle school to 6-12 several years ago, touts itself as a STEM-based school, with all students studying physics and engineering, among other subjects.

The school also offers AVID, an elective that builds writing and organizational and study skills. The program, said Jepsen, is aimed at “B and C students who may be the first in their family to [aspire] to college, but who need that extra level of support to become college-ready.”

Karee Brown, 16, a junior, does AVID each year.

“Our instructors give us the step-by-step to succeed. I know I’m getting ready for college,” he said.

His goals are twofold: to study engineering or business in college and to pursue a career as a professional boxer.

Doing well in high school “is just like chasing your dream, in my case, boxing,” said Brown. “You have to be willing to put in the work.”

Penn Treaty and the other neighborhood high schools are gearing up for increased scrutiny and layers of initiatives.

“There’s a lot of work to be done,” said Logan. “There’s no way to sugarcoat it.”

“This is a hugely important issue,” said Cooper. These are the schools, she said, “where the kids who have the least family support and the greatest needs end up – and where most kids go to school.”

Connie Langland is a freelance education writer who writes frequently for the Notebook.

Federal grant will help incarcerated youth start learning a trade

2016-05-04T17:17:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Students in the criminal justice system will be able to learn a trade and get help with the transition back to school or work due to a new $945,000 federal grant.

Philadelphia was one of four cities to receive the award from the U.S. Department of Education, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice, to help incarcerated and formerly incarcerated youth. The program will allow the District to expose students in the Juvenile Justice Services Center and Pennypack House to five different career and technical education tracks.

Students in these centers have been charged with crimes as juveniles, and those in Pennypack House have been charged as adults and are awaiting adjudication.

"This is an opportunity to get these students excited about different types of learning," said Christina Grant, assistant superintendent in charge of the District’s Opportunity Network of alternative schools, which includes these two facilities.

It is the first time, she said, that the District has been able to introduce career and technical education into these centers, because of restrictions inside detention facilities, including the prevention of full access to the internet and the presence of certain tools and machinery.

"That’s why this is exciting. We are able to give students real-world learning experiences in a confined environment," Grant said. "That has always been the challenge."

In addition, the young people will have access to guidance, career counseling, and other services upon their release and re-entry into society.

The project will reach about 825 students over three years, starting in September, Grant said. The students at the Juvenile Justice Service Center and Pennypack House cycle in and out rapidly, spending an average of 25 days at those sites.

Due to restrictions on what materials can be brought into a placement facility, each student will get a kit with the materials needed to learn a trade. The tracks being offered are: green technology, network cabling-fiber-optics-based systems, introduction to telecommunications and technology, introduction to home entertainment (audio and video), and energy management systems.

For each of these specialties, students can earn a credential in three weeks. Upon release, students will be counseled to enter high schools that offer a full course in the specialty they chose.

"This initiative will allow the School District to create innovative opportunities for students who face hard challenges," said Superintendent William Hite in a statement. "CTE programs have been successful in re-connecting students who have left school, and we plan to provide the same chance for success to students in court-ordered placements."

A font of knowledge

2015-09-24T14:23:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Computers have drastically changed the graphic design industry, but that hasn’t stopped Colleen Yaremko from teaching the trade she loves.

Starting as an entry-level paste-up artist, Yaremko, who worked in the graphics industry for 16 years, said that she “learned the old-school way of design, pre-computers.”

Then the industry went digital, she said, and many people who refused to adapt lost their jobs. But not Yaremko.

“I was intrigued. I purchased my own computer and taught myself the graphics software.”

It was that self-training that helped Yaremko, a 1978 graduate of the Studio School of Art & Design, open two design businesses and teach her employees to advance in the graphic design field.

Operating her first business from 1984 to 1989, she produced illustrations and camera-ready artwork for science journals. In the early 1990s, she ran a second enterprise, producing graphics for a diverse clientele in the music industry, and for Subaru and QVC.

Yaremko said her desire to become a teacher took over after watching her employees take what they learned from working for her and secure other jobs.

“I enjoyed seeing them move on to bigger and better opportunities,” she said.

Yaremko closed her second business in 1994 and began teaching at Swenson Arts & Technology High School that same year. In 1996 she moved to Germantown High School, where she started a career and technical education program in graphic design. Yaremko left in 2001 for Northeast High School, where she became a small learning community coordinator.

Today, Yaremko, 57, is the program coordinator for the Northeast Communications Technology CTE program, a state-approved CTE career cluster where students train in computer technology, graphic communications, graphic design, cinematography, web and multimedia design, film and video, and game and interactive media design.

As the coordinator, Yaremko works to make the program more cohesive. She said that she’s interested in making all of the students in her classes graphic designers, but knows that’s not realistic.

“I’m happy to share what I know from my trade experience, train them on the equipment and software, help them develop their creativity and related ethical sensibilities, and get them to think more about planning next steps and that learning is lifelong,” she said.

What counts most in the graphic design field, Yaremko said, is portfolio work.

“Graphic design is a highly competitive field. Now a college degree or trade school education is required, but that’s just to send in the résumé,” she said.

In her class, students work on projects that integrate multiple facets of graphic design. For example, if the overall goal is for students to design a two-color logo using Adobe Illustrator and complementary typography, they need to learn about logos, the necessary software, color theory, and typography.

“Because CTE is competency-based, students must master each step before they can move on to the next. Thus you’ll find students at many different stages in a given class, but all moving towards the logo design expectation.”

Yaremko said that this classroom arrangement sometimes presents challenges.

Most CTE teachers want to train students like they would if they were in the workplace, Yaremko explained, but teacher evaluations are developed with the non-CTE teacher in mind.

“We are expected to teach like non-CTE teachers,” she said. “Evaluators want to see more ‘whole group instruction,’ and when they walk into a CTE room and every student is doing something different, it looks disorganized to them even though we are modeling differentiated instruction.”

Teaching lessons about copyright and ethics is important to Yaremko. In her class, students discuss how a reputation for infringement can destroy a career.

“With the Internet and computers, students seem to think that there’s nothing wrong with copying directly from a webpage or each other. I create scenarios to try to get them to put the shoe on the other foot,” she explained.

Yaremko’s experience as an educator has made her conscious of the trends in CTE.

“What I found back then was that vocational education was mostly being used as a dumping ground for low-performing, underperforming, special education, and misbehaving students – those considered undesirable by other teachers and schools,” she said.

Now she sees that things are changing.

“We’ve all read about so many college grads that are in great debt and can’t find jobs, mostly because they pursued degrees where the job market is oversaturated or degrees that aren’t in high-demand occupations,” she said.

“I know that some are taking a second look at CTE, especially since this ‘everyone will go to college’ thing is going to be a big bust with degrees galore, but no jobs.”

Now that CTE programs in neighborhood high schools can recruit citywide, Northeast is seeing a much more interested group of students who want to pursue the trades, she said.

“When I’m in the classroom, I don’t want the students to just think of me as teacher, I want them to think of me as someone who’s been there, done that. And I’m sharing that professional experience with them so they can be better for it. I think they get it.”

Fabiola Cineas is a freelance journalist and a Notebook contributor.

Results of the 2015 NOCTI exams for CTE students, school by school

2015-09-21T11:54:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Students in career and technical education (CTE) programs take a competency exam in their field during their senior year. It’s called the NOCTI, or National Occupational Competency Testing Institute, and it provides one tool for judging the quality of a CTE program.

Overall, the pass rate in Philadelphia schools on NOCTI exams was about 70 percent in 2015.

For the first time this fall, the Notebook obtained and published NOCTI competency rates school-by-school for its annual high school guide. Here you find a more detailed breakdown of the results for Philadelphia schools.

https://public.tableau.com/views/CTEcompetencybyexamsubject/Dashboard1?:embed=y&:showVizHome=no&:tabs=no&:toolbar=yes&:animate_transition=yes&:display_static_image=yes&:display_spinner=yes&:display_overlay=yes&:display_count=yes&:showTabs=y

The first thing to notice is that the numbers of students taking the exams varies widely from program to program and school to school.

Few of the schools offering multiple CTE programs of study have high competency scores across the board. Standout schools include Randolph, which gives the NOCTI exam in seven areas and had competency rates above the District’s 70 percent average in every area. Franklin Learning Center and George Washington also have high pass rates, but they each offer the NOCTI exam in only two subjects.

South Philadelphia High School gives the NOCTI exam for eight different programs of study, with an overall pass rate of 86 percent.

More typical of citywide results was Mastbaum High School, where 100 percent of students passed the NOCTI exam in Health-Related Technologies, but only 39 percent demonstrated competency in Automotive Technology. The overall pass rate was 69 percent.

The differing results among schools offering the same program are striking. For example, four schools in addition to Mastbaum – Edison, Franklin Learning Center, King, and South Philadelphia – saw all their Health-Related Technologies students pass the NOCTI exam, but at Lincoln High School, only 21 percent (3 out of 14 students) passed that test.

And there are programs where no school is up to standards. Two schools – Bartram and Roxborough – offered a Web Design program, but no student at either school passed the competency exam.

The barber of Dobbins

2015-09-15T14:58:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The typical person is lucky to discover a life’s passion after years of schooling and working. Desmond Kirton found his at the age of 10, when he picked up a pair of hair clippers.

Since then, this South Philadelphia native has been his neighborhood’s barber. He has owned his own barbershop for seven years and has managed another. Now 38, he teaches at Dobbins Career & Technical Education High School, where he is the only barbering teacher in the District.

“Cutting hair has been my life,” said Kirton, who said he grew his clientele while still a student at South Philadelphia High and received his license in 2002.

Kirton was appointed chairman of Dobbins’ Barbering Occupational Advisory Committee in 2011 after volunteering in the classroom, and he became a full-time teacher in 2012.

“I love being at Dobbins because we prepare kids for both college and career,” he said. “I like presenting these two opportunities for our students.”

Once barbering students reach 1,250 credit hours, they can take the licensing exam, which is part theory and part practical. Besides skills such as how to cut and how to give a facial massage, students learn aspects of chemistry, anatomy, and physiology, he said. The class integrates language arts, as students are responsible for learning barbering vocabulary and the names of techniques. And for mathematics, they need to know what kind of angle will allow for what kind of cut.

Kirton said he gets their attention by teaching them “how to stand out and be competitive and figure out what makes them different.” He also spends a lot of time getting his students to be invested in their own education by having them think about whether they want to be a liability or an asset in the future.

That is why his class is better than a simple apprenticeship; he works on motivation, character and human relations as well as cutting hair, he said.

“In my class, we get hands-on. Doing an apprenticeship in the shop, they just give you a book, and you’re going to need luck passing your theory exam,” he said.

He also teaches his students to care about their customers and not “just treat them like money. I tell my students that if they treat people like people, the money will always be there. There’s integrity associated with being a barber. We need to be professional and prepared.”

Businesswise, barbering is more insulated than other trades from economic recessions — “there’s hair everywhere,” he points out – and can provide a path to stability and independence. “Entrepreneurship is in our blood. I want my students to know that they don’t have to stay working for someone else.”

In the Dobbins program, students cut each others’ hair and charge others in the building $5 for a haircut.

Being a new CTE teacher also means being a part-time student. Kirton, who joined the military after high school instead of going to college, takes education courses at Temple to fulfill his teaching certification requirements.

“This has been a challenge, because we have no support from the District to pay these classes off. And I feel like I can lose my job at any moment if I don’t get my certification.”

The classes teach him how to write lesson plans and manage a classroom.

“Still being in the industry is a major advantage,” said Kirton. Since becoming a full-time teacher, Kirton has placed nearly 30 of his students into hair shops across the city each summer to work.

Kirton spends time recruiting middle school students and pitching his program and he makes special outreach to females. There are eight in his program.

Kirton is a 2015 recipient of the Lindback Award, given to teachers for promoting both intellectual development and character development in their students.

“I want to stay in the classroom because I know how influential a barber is in the community,” he said. “I am trying to effect change in my students and in the industry.”

Career and Technical Education Teachers in Philadelphia

2015-09-15T10:12:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The teachers within the District’s 41 career and technical education (CTE) programs provide instruction in a number of different areas. One thing they all share is the belief that passion is an important part of their work in the classroom.

The Notebook asked three CTE teachers to share their stories about their paths to working in career and technical education, and how they are helping students to pursue careers in fields that match their interests and talents.

View Film & Video | Northeast View Barbering | Dobbins View Culinary Arts | Randolph

Northeast’s film teacher on industry skills in demand

2015-09-14T12:29:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

From Montgomery County to Los Angeles, Yaniv Aronson pursued his passion for film, working for Spike TV, the Travel Channel, and the Sundance Channel.

Four years ago, when one of his Spike TV bosses left to become a teacher in West Philadelphia, he followed.

“I’m coming into teaching with fresh eyes from the industry, and I’m seeing what seems to be working,” Aronson said. “I’m seeing kids who are passionate about something. It’s creative, and they are building upon their interests.”

Northeast’s program is unique in the city. Students take courses in three areas and are kept in the same cluster for both their CTE and academic classes.

Students take Aronson’s class in 10th grade, they take graphic and web design in 11th, and in 12th grade they take a video game design course.

In his class, students do “exactly what they would be expected to do in the industry,” which means they write scripts, edit video, and even roam the hallways narrating stories or shooting movie scenes. They use Adobe After Effects to work on special effects. They act things out, and they huddle around the audio board.

“By the end of the school year,” he said, “they are teaching me things.”

Aronson teams up with the academic teachers at Northeast to make sure that lessons cover English competencies.

“Writing is the most important thing you can do on a film set,” he said.

“You have to be a writer to be successful in the film industry. So a lot of my class is about writing, planning, and being organized. There are a lot of films with big budgets that have been beautifully shot, but are unsuccessful because of poor writing.”

Aronson shows students his own film work. He has traveled to make documentaries on a variety of topics from ghost hunting to the annual “polar bear” plunge of intrepid cold-water swimmers. He still strives to make a film each year.

“I stand before them with my work and tell them, ‘This is my movie. This is me as a filmmaker.’ I can tell them about the decisions we had to make on set and that I was once a struggling filmmaker. I let them know that it gets better over time.”

Aronson, who attended Wissahickon High School, said that he has had his eyes opened in Philadelphia.

“Coming from a suburban district, I had never been inside of a Philadelphia public school,” he said. “We recently had major budget cuts and the kids felt it. They also know that kids in other schools have more than them. We lost a lot of counselors and young teachers. Our students aren’t oblivious to the politics.”

In his teaching, Aronson keeps in mind what potential employers in the movie business are looking for – and it’s rarely a college degree or a certain GPA, he said. “They want to know who can edit, work a manual camera, or set the shutter speed, for example. Here they get the opportunity to build a portfolio and for me that’s the biggest thing. They are developing concrete skills.”

CTE Success Stories: A passion for design

2015-09-11T11:31:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

By Harvey Finkle
By the eighth grade, Jordan Miller thought he knew what he wanted to do with his life: be a civil engineer so that he could fix Philadelphia’s bridges. Throughout most of high school, he pursued that goal. But that all changed when he reached the 11th grade.

“When I got to my junior year, civil engineering took a back burner and I found my passion, and where I wanted to be was graphic design.”

After deciding to attend his neighborhood high school, Northeast, he needed to choose a small learning community that would function as his shop. This group of students took classes together and were focused on the same skills in their CTE classes.

Miller chose the Applied Visual & Interactive Design (AVID) program and took classes in film and video, printing, graphic design, and web and game design.

Each year, students take a cluster of classes that fall into one of the categories. This is intended to help students get a better understanding of what the career field has to offer. Miller felt it also allowed students to learn what they enjoyed and avoid the hassle of switching programs.

Being able to take several different types of classes within one shop, Miller said, was one reason he decided on Northeast and the AVID program. This gave him the ability to decide what areas of the program he liked and disliked.

Of his classes, Miller, now 19, said that he liked web design the most, because it was interactive and he was able to test his skills. He called game design an acquired taste that he did not develop.

As juniors, Miller and his friends also revived an old program called the Technical Student Association, which allowed them to run their own business within the school. They created products ranging from coffee mugs and T-shirts to phone cases and license plates.

Miller was proud to sell the products and enjoyed seeing people’s reactions when they learned that students had designed them.

“The first best part was making a deal. The second best part was getting the money and making sure the customers were happy,” he said. “[That] was a really valuable experience.”

Of his high school accomplishments, Miller said that his favorite memory was designing his senior class pin.

“Now, every single graduating senior from that class has that pin, that I created, and knowing that they are going to take that with them the rest of their lives is really cool,” Miller said.

After graduating from his CTE program in 2014, Miller attended Montgomery County Community College. There he continued to study graphic design.

“High school didn’t prepare me completely for college, because it is so different, but it prepared me as best as it could for college. And now college is preparing me as best as it can for the rest of my life.”

In the spring of 2016, Miller will receive his associate’s degree in graphic design and he plans to pursue a bachelor’s degree in the same field at a university. After that, he hopes to get an internship or work for an illustration company owned by a friend.

The AVID program at Northeast, he said, “really set me up for success and now it is just on me to follow through with that and succeed for myself.”

Samantha Weiss was an intern at the Notebook this summer.

Would CTE fit your needs? Here’s what you should know

2015-09-09T12:40:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Is CTE a good idea for me?

CTE, or career and technical education, used to be called vocational education. Programs available now are varied and designed to prepare students for jobs in today’s economy. In addition to traditional, but still in-demand trades, such as plumbing, welding, and auto repair, CTE programs now include such fields as health-related technologies, computer systems networking, game design, and culinary arts.

Typically, students spend 1,080 hours of learning time in their specialties. Classes are taught by teachers with experience in the field, and students also may get part of their training through industry internships and apprenticeships. Successful CTE students can graduate high school with certifications and contacts that can lead directly to employment.

If I take CTE, does that mean I won’t be prepared for college?

Quite the contrary. CTE students also take all the academic coursework required for high school graduation and can often be better prepared for college. Studies show that CTE students graduate at higher rates than students not in CTE, probably the result of the focus on employable skills and hands-on learning.

Do CTE students attend college?

Many do. Most CTE career areas require at least some post-secondary training. CTE graduates can and do enroll in four-year colleges, community college, and trade schools.

Will CTE prepare me for well-paying jobs?

Many of the CTE specialties are in demand now. Some traditional trades, including plumbers, welders, and electricians, are experiencing shortages and pay well for highly trained people. The District has also added an “Advanced Manufacturing” program tailored to local industry needs, such as precision machine tool technology.

Can I attend any CTE program offered in any District school?

Most CTE programs, whether in specialized schools or neighborhood schools, take students from all over the city. For programs in neighborhood schools, preference is given to students in the catchment area. But programs vary widely in quality, so it is important to investigate the ones you are interested in.

How do I choose a program? How do I know whether it is rigorous and legitimate?

Talk to your counselor in 7th and 8th grade about your interest. Your first decision will be whether to apply to one of the District’s five CTE-focused schools: Randolph, Swenson, Dobbins, Mastbaum, and Saul. They all have admission guidelines, and competition is stiff.

The first four are “citywide admission,” meaning that all qualified students are entered into a lottery. Saul, which offers agricultural and horticultural programs, is a “special admission” school, which means its criteria include a test-score cutoff. But 25 other District high schools, including nearly all neighborhood schools, have at least one CTE program.

This guide, as well as the District’s online high school directory, outline what specialties are available at what schools. Programs listed in these guides are approved and supported financially by the state. All CTE programs in the District have been identified as being connected with the “high-priority occupations” for the Philadelphia region.

Can I find CTE programs in charter schools?

What questions should I ask before enrolling in a CTE program?

Important questions include: Who is the teacher, and what is their experience in the field? Of those who enroll, how many pass their state competency exams? Can I earn college credits? Will I get to go to work-based settings? What partnerships are there with employers? What kinds of internships, part-time jobs, or other work experiences might be available for summer or after school? What industry certifications can I get? What are some of the program’s graduates doing now? Ask the principal: “How do you view CTE and what do you do to support it?”

When do I start CTE coursework?

CTE courses don’t start until 10th grade. For students at CTE schools, 9th grade offers orientation to the various specialties, in addition to a full academic program. In neighborhood schools, 9th grade can also be the time when students are introduced to the CTE option. Even if a student enters a neighborhood school in 9th grade without any thought of CTE, it is not too late to enroll in a program.

Does enrolling in a CTE course prevent me from taking any other courses?

It does reduce the number of electives that a student may take. Some neighborhood schools may also have difficulty scheduling students into all desired classes. For instance, Advanced Placement courses may be offered at the same time as required CTE classes. Schools try to adjust the student’s schedule to accommodate both courses.

What are industry certifications, and how do students earn them?

Students can earn industry certifications by passing a test showing that they have mastered the skills at the standards required to work in the field. The industries design the tests. These credentials may allow students to enter the occupation right after graduation. In most programs, each student can obtain multiple certifications. For instance, students in health-related fields can be certified in CPR and in the use of defibrillators, among other competencies. Culinary students can get certified through the ServSafe food handler’s exam. Welders, electricians, and carpenters all have certification tests for various skills. Philadelphia’s CTE students earned more than 3,400 industry certifications in 2014-15. The costs for industry certifications are fully covered by the District.

What is NOCTI?

NOCTI stands for National Occupational Competency Training Institute. Pennsylvania requires that students who have completed a three-year, 1,080-hour program take this exam in their senior year for the program to maintain good standing and continue to qualify for federal Perkins funds. The NOCTI exam consists of both a theoretical component, administered online, and a hands-on, practical component. About 70 percent of students who take the NOCTI in Philadelphia pass it. Potential employers consider industry certifications more important than NOCTI scores, although students who score advanced on NOCTI can get an additional state credential and benefit when applying to post-secondary schools.

Is it possible to earn college credits through CTE?

How much personal attention will I get from the instructor?

The typical number of students in a CTE program class/lab/shop does not exceed 24.

How are CTE classrooms different?

CTE program spaces have two major areas: theory and practical. The theory area, for traditional teacher-led lessons, looks like a typical classroom, with desks, chairs, and a whiteboard. The lab or shop area will have the needed industry-standard equipment so students can apply the skills learned in theory lessons to simulated work situations. Plus, CTE students often do much of their coursework through internships at industry sites.

Are there any dress regulations for CTE students?

Many CTE programs require students on “practical” days to wear the same attire (i.e., scrubs for health programs) that professionals wear in the industry.

If I enroll in a CTE program, do I have a longer school day?

No, the length of the school day is the same.

What if my interests change? Can I switch programs?

Students can and do change their minds.Those enrolled in a CTE school must switch to another specialty in that school. If they are in a neighborhood school and do not switch to another CTE program, their CTE courses count as electives. Students can also switch into a program in junior or even senior year, and if they master 50 percent of the field’s “competencies,” they can take certification tests.

Meta: Que la educación CTE sea opción de primera clase

2015-09-09T11:19:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

David Kipphut tiene una misión: transformar lo que se antes se conocía como educación vocacional de una opción de segunda clase a una de primera clase que llevará a la prosperidad en Filadelfia.

Esto no será camino fácil en un distrito carente de dinero que le da mayor prioridad a ir a la universidad. Aún así, Kipphut ha visto bastante progreso desde que tomó las riendas de la Oficina de Educación Vocacional y Técnica (CTE, Career and Technical Education) hace tres años. Entre sus ejemplos favoritos está el programa de soldadura en la Escuela Superior Randolph, que acaba de graduar su primera clase.

Uno de los graduandos enlistó en el ejército para especializarse en reparación de aviones. Otro cuenta con un empleo bien remunerado en el Akers Philadelphia Shipyard después de haber completado su práctica allí exitosamente.

Y un tercero va a asistir a la universidad en Virginia para estudiar manufactura avanzada.

“Por supuesto siempre nos encontramos con gente que dice, ‘Es necesario ir a la universidad’”, dijo Kipphut. “En el mundo de la CTE decimos que la universidad sí es una opción, pero que no es la única”.

Cuando Kipphut (quien antes fue principal) se hizo cargo de la oficina de CTE, encontró graves problemas: cursos sin actualizar, falta de equipo, principales que no apoyaban el programa y una matrícula en decadencia.

Sin embargo, el reto que su equipo enfrentó no fue solamente resolver esos problemas. El reto también incluyó eliminar la imagen negativa de la educación vocacional como un vertedero y convencer a los padres, estudiantes y principales de que la CTE puede expandir las posibilidades en vez de limitarlas.

Todavía falta mucho para cumplir la misión, pero los principales dicen que están pasando cosas buenas.

“Yo les digo a los estudiantes y padres: Esta no es la misma educación vocacional de tus papás”, dijo Toni Damon, principal de la Escuela Superior Vocacional Murrell Dobbins, una de cinco escuelas vocacionales de la ciuda (las otras son Swenson, Randolph, Mastbaum y Saul). “De este programa saldrás listo para la universidad – o para cualquier educación postsecundaria”.

Lo básico: ¿Qué es la CTE?

Los programas CTE son cursos de estudio de tres años impartidos por profesionales con experiencia. Hay programas en 41 “áreas ocupacionales”, que incluyen tecnología de computadoras, ingeniería, arquitectura, diseño, cosmetología, cuidado de niños, salud, y carreras vocacionales tradicionales como plomería y carpintería.

Una meta central es tener experiencia de trabajo en el mundo real. Los estudiantes del programa culinario cocinan para eventos. Los estudiantes de diseño operan talleres de imprenta. Los estudiantes de horticultura trabajan en el Philadelphia Flower Show.

En total, el año pasado se matricularon aproximadamente 5,600 estudiantes en 115 cursos de CTE de 40 escuelas superiores del Distrito, entre las que se incluyeron escuelas de la comunidad, escuelas con admisión a toda la ciudad y escuelas de admisión especial.Algunas tienen solo unos pocos programas; otras ofrecen 10 o más. Todos los cursos de CTE están abiertos a los estudiantes de toda la ciudad.

Una escuela chárter de Filadelfia, la Universal Audenried en el sur de la ciudad, ofrece programas de CTE aprobados por el estado, lo cual la cualifica para recibir fondos federales.

Los estudiantes generalmente solicitan su programa preferido en 8vo grado y entran a la escuela superior ya inscritos en la especialidad, pero los cursos de CTE empiezan en 10mo grado. Un programa de CTE típico requiere 1,080 horas. Los estudiantes toman exámenes de certificación específicos durante el transcurso del programa y también un examen en su especialidad del National Occupational Competency Testing Institute, o NOCTI, durante el duodécimo grado (lo cual es requisito estatal).

Los programas reciben fondos suplementarios del programa Perkins del Departamento de Educación federal y también ayuda del estado. Los fondos del programa Perkins están reduciéndose en gran parte debido a una baja general en la matrícula del Distrito: de $5.2 millones el año pasado a $4.6 millones este año. El estado aporta $950 por estudiante por año; la propuesta de presupuesto del Gobernador Wolf aumentaría esa cifra a aproximadamente $4,000.

La calidadad varia

Respaldada por un grant de $5.7 millones de la familia Middleton, la oficina de CTE ha estado eliminando programas obsoletos durante los últimos años, mejorando el equipo, mejorando la colección de datos y resolviendo una variedad de problemas. Los fondos Middleton están financiando un nuevo centro de CTE en manufactura avanzada en la Escuela Superior Benjamín Franklin, que abrirá sus puertas en septiembre.

En una evaluación hecha en el 211 se identificaron muchos de los problemas, que incluyen la necesidad de mejor adiestramiento para los principales. Ahora hay 42 principales certificados en administración de programas de CTE.

Sin embargo, la calidad de cada programa individual todavía varía. Mucho depende de la calidad del maestro, el apoyo del principal, y el clima de la escuela. Kipphut dice que la oficina de CTE está en proceso de tener una herramienta de evaluación para darle una “puntuación” a cada programa, pero que todavía no está disponible.

De todos modos, una evaluación de la CTE hecha por el Distrito en el 2015 mostró varias tendencias positivas:

• El porcentaje de graduación de los estudiantes de CTE es mayor. El porcentaje de estudiantes de CTE graduados fue 84 por ciento, en comparación con 62 por ciento de los estudiantes de toda la ciudad.

• La “brecha de desempeño” racial para graduarse se elimina casi por completo. El porcentaje de graduación de estudiantes de CTE negros y latinos es casi el mismo de los estudiantes blancos y asiáticos.

• Los estudiantes de CTE informan tener mejor experiencia en la escuela. Los estudiantes de CTE informaron haber tenido experiencias más positivas que los estudiantes del currículo regular en áreas como establecimiento de metas y mantener el interés en las clases.

• Los estudiantes de CTE son estudiantes “típicos”. Los resultados positivos del programa de CTE no se deben a haber preseleccionado a los estudiantes de mejor desempeño; los estudiantes que optan por la CTE tienden a ser de desempeño promedio pero con una asistencia mejor que la promedio.

¿Qué necesita mejorar?

Aunque ha habido progreso, los programas de CTE todavía enfrentan obstáculos.

Se necesitan maestros de alta calidad, apoyo de los orientadores y principales, y colaboradores eficaces del sector privado y la comunidad.

El exigente requisito de 1,080 horas, combinado con un mínimo de personal y opciones limitadas de cursos en las escuelas, significa que los estudiantes de CTE que quieren tomar clases como las de Colocación Avanzada (a fin de prepararse para la universidad) o clases de idiomas (especialmente los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés, o ELL) van a tener dificultad para conseguir los cursos adecuados.

Debido a la escasez de orientadores académicos y personal de apoyo, el programa CTE no atiende a los estudiantes ELL y de educación especial al nivel necesario.

“No se puede poner a un estudiante autista en un taller de carpintería con otros 23 estudiantes y un solo maestro”, dijo Kipphut. “En el Distrito completo, tengo cuatro auxiliares para trabajar con los estudiantes que tienen necesidades especiales”.

Y quizás lo más importante es que el proceso de reclutar estudiantes para los cursos CTE es ad hoc y disparejo. Las escuelas superiores enfocadas en CTE tienen hasta 10 solicitudes de admisión por cada espacio disponible, mientras que los programas de CTE en las escuelas de la comunidad no tiene suficiente matrícula. El Distrito no tiene los sistemas de datos ni la capacidad laboral para dirigir efectivamente a los estudiantes a todas las opciones disponibles.

“Ese es nuestro reto más grande”, dijo Kipphut. “En los años de escuela intermedia estamos haciendo un trabajo pésimo para informarles a los estudiantes sobre las opciones de carrera”.

Aún cuando los estudiantes muestran interés en una carrera solicitando admisión a una escuela de CTE, no hay seguimiento adecuado para informarle a los que no son admitidos sobre las opciones similares que hay en otros lugares, dijo.

Esa es una razón principal por la que la matrícula en CTE – 56 por ciento de los espacios disponibles cuando él empezó, 70 por ciento actualmente – sigue siendo menos que la meta de Kipphut de un 80 por ciento. La mayoría de los espacios disponibles son en escuelas de la comunidad, aunque la Swenson (enfocada en CTE) ha tenido vacantes en algunos programas, mayormente las vocaciones de construcción y servicio automotriz.

Una de las metas principales de Kipphut es crear un plan “completo” de orientación académica para todos los estudiantes (K-12) que incluya la CTE.

Pero por ahora, el reclutamiento recae mayormente sobre los ya sobreocupados principales y orientadores, entre los cuales varían los conocimientos y el apoyo por la CTE.

“Las escuelas en las que los principales están totalmente involucrados tienen mucho éxito”, dijo Kipphut. Algunos principales son negativamente influenciados por memorias de los días en que los estudiantes de color eran desviados de ir a la universidad y enviados a clases de taller, dijo él, pero otros ven la CTE como un verdadero complemento a la educación superior.

Por ejemplo, las prácticas de CTE pueden resultar en trabajos a tiempo parcial que pondrían efectivo en los bolsillos de los estudiantes – lo cual hará que tengan menos probabilidad de abandonar su educación cuando enfrenten cargos de $200 por alojamiento u otros costos inesperados de la universidad. Eso “cambia el juego”, dijo Otis Hackney, principal de la escuela superior South Philadelphia, hogar de ocho programas de CTE que migraron allí en el 2013 de la ahora cerrada Bok Technical.

De igual manera, el estudiante que consigue un trabajo a tiempo completo a través de la CTE estará en mejor posición para ir a la universidad a tiempo parcial, dijo él.

Hackney, como Damon de la Superior Dobbins, tiene una lista de mejoras deseadas, entre ellas programas más flexibles para ayudar a que los estudiantes de CTE puedan conseguir las mejores clases académicas y más apoyo para los estudiantes ELL y algunos estudiantes de educación especial.

Pero mayormente le gustaría que aumentara la conciencia entre el estudiantado sobre la oportunidad que los programas de CTE ofrecen. Llevarles ese mensaje a los estudiantes de escuela intermedia no es fácil. En un open house reciente, Hackney tenía esperanzas de recibir unos 60 estudiantes pero solo se presentaron 20.

De todos modos, él estaba listo con su mensaje. Les dijo, “Si van a la playa de vacaciones, verán tantos carpinteros y plomeros como médicos y abogados. Todos tienen graduados de universidad trabajando para ellos, llevándoles la contabilidad”.

CTE Success Stories: ‘It prepares you for whatever comes’

2015-09-04T12:19:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

For Jeremy Estes, taking career and technical education classes meant something more than what a syllabus or test score can capture. It made him feel good about going to class.

“It gave me more motivation to go to school," he said. "All my friends were in that class. It felt like family.”

Estes graduated in 2014 from George Washington High School. He was enrolled in the Sports Marketing & Management program, which provides instruction in entrepreneurship, business economics, human relations, and related fields.

Estes said that his reasons for joining the program in 10th grade were simple.

“I saw the course, I’m into sports, and thought ‘I would like this,’” he said.

In addition to learning the textbook lessons on sports business, Estes said, he developed marketable skills that could be applied to many more fields. The career-focused DECA competitions that his class participated in, especially, gave him an opportunity to practice those real-world skills.

DECA, previously known as the Distributive Education Clubs of America, is a national organization known for hosting competitive events that simulate the business world. The competitions are meant to prepare students for college or careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, and business management.

“We did a lot of practicing for interviews for the competitions for DECA but, in reality, for jobs,” Estes said.

Through preparing for DECA’s events he gained interviewing skills and confidence in public speaking. But Estes also credits his teacher, Sheryl Kirby, for how the CTE program prepared him for life after high school.

“She made sure we were conscious about our own personal aspirations, conscious of what we wanted. It evolved us into becoming professionals,” he said.

“It wasn’t just sports marketing. Our teacher cared about what we wanted to do in the future, and it was that extra step that molded us as better people for the future.”

Today, Estes, 19, is a sophomore at Drexel University and is studying information technology. Drexel was his top choice, but at first, the cost made it seem unlikely that he’d be able to go.

“My mom’s a single mom. We don’t have a lot of disposable income,” he said.

Drawing on the interviewing skills he learned in his CTE program, Estes won a scholarship from Drexel’s Liberty Scholars Program. Liberty Scholars provides 50 recent Philadelphia high school graduates with an annually renewable scholarship that covers 100 percent of their tuition and fees, an effort meant to let students attend the school regardless of background.

The scholarship competition included an evaluative interview, and Estes said that his experience in the sports marketing courses helped him feel at ease during the process.

Estes said of what he learned in high school: “All the skills helped pay for school. I’m really happy in that regard. If I didn’t get the scholarship, I wasn’t going to go. A lot came down to that. It was my number one choice, and chances didn’t seem great, but things worked out.”

During his freshman year in college, Estes said, he faced new challenges like managing increased personal responsibility and having to adjust to the school environment, but he said he also felt substantially more familiar with the course material than other students.

“I really appreciate the CTE program. It taught me everything I’m learning at college," he said. "The stuff I did at Washington, it was embedded in my brain so much, it felt like it was stuff I already knew coming in to college, and others didn’t.”

Looking to the future, Estes said he wants a job where he can support students as his CTE classes supported him.

“I want a job that’s also giving back. I want to be a computer teacher or work on implementing technology within the School District,” he said.

His high school classes, he said, “made me be grateful for what we do already have in the School District. With budget cuts, kids are getting more taken away.”

The fact that Estes entered Drexel with sports marketing as his major and changed it to information technology speaks to the transferability of the skills he gained from the sports marketing program.

“It prepares you for whatever comes.”

Michaela Ward was an intern at the Notebook this summer.

Alternative pathways for finishing school

2015-09-03T14:23:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Philadelphia has several alternative pathways to earn a diploma for students who are over-age, undercredited, or have dropped out.

Here are some alternative educational options outside of the traditional classroom environment. Students should contact the School District’s Re-engagement Center at 440 N. Broad St. for a complete list of programs (215-400-6700).

Type of program
Description
Examples of programs/sites
Sample eligibility requirements

Accelerated high schools
Give over-age and undercredited students an opportunity to get on track to graduate in 3 years or less.

El Centro de Estudiantes

One Bright Ray Community High School

Ombudsman Northwest and South

Vary by program

GED-to-college programs
Provide GED preparation, college access information, and college preparation.

GED To College Success Program at 1199C

GED To College at Temple University

GED To College (G2C) by YESPhilly

17 or older

Not in school

Want to enroll in college

upon attaining GED

Gateway to College
Offer dual enrollment, allowing students who have dropped out of school to earn their high school diploma and college credit simultaneously. Scholarship pays for college tuition, fees, and books.
Community College of Philadelphia

Ages 16-21, dropped out of school

No more than 21 high school credits

At least an 8th-grade reading level

Educational Options Program
Allow students and adults over age 17 to continue earning credits towards a high school diploma. Classes are held between 3 and 6:30 pm. Participants may earn 6 to 9 credits each year.
Hunting Park

Ben Franklin

South Philadelphia

Over 17

Must have more than 8 high school credits

Not enrolled in a regular day school

Transition Programs
Structured environments with personalized learning programs for students who have been expelled, transferred for serious disciplinary issues, or returned from court-sponsored placement.
PLA North and South

Camelot Academy

Phase 4 Learning Center – Hunting Park

Grades 6-12 or 9-12

Using the high school profiles

2015-09-03T13:27:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The fall guide contains profiles of 88 public high schools that will be accepting students in Philadelphia for fall 2016. The information can help you find schools that are a good fit for you.

The profiles are organized by the type of high school – see our explanations below. Review the profiles to find schools with offerings that match with your interests. Do you want strong arts programs? Lots of Advanced Placement (AP) courses? Many sports teams? Each profile lists academic offerings, extracurricular activities, and other programs at the school.

Check the admissions requirements to get an idea of whether you would qualify. Consider where the school is located. The profiles also include statistics about enrollment and student characteristics, as reported by the School District or the state.

Then check out our information on school and student performance. You will find statistics like SAT scores, graduation and suspension rates, and more. There are big differences among schools in how they perform on these indicators. Using all this information, you can whittle down your list of schools.

The profiles use responses from a survey of principals in summer 2015, which gives them the chance to tout their offerings and accomplishments. We edit the responses to avoid repetition and correct errors; we may remove claims about school performance that conflict with publicly available data. If a school had no response to a category, that category does not appear. A few schools failed to complete the survey.

The Notebook does not independently verify that all of the programs described are currently in place, nor can we assess their quality. The school profile survey was administered by the Notebook in collaboration with the Philadelphia School Partnership and its school choice website, greatphillyschools.org.

More on the school selection process

The Office of Student Placement handles the District’s school selection process. Check for any updates at: schoolselect.philasd.org.

Types of high schools

The profiles are organized by type of high school:

Special admission high schools

These 19 District-run high schools have specific – and generally tough – admissions requirements in the areas of test scores, grades, and attendance and behavior. But any student can apply using the School District’s application form.

Citywide admission high schools

These 12 District high schools also take students from across the city. Some have a vocational focus. They have admissions requirements for grades, attendance, and behavior – though generally not as tough as the special admission schools. All applicants who meet the criteria are entered into a District-run lottery.

Neighborhood high schools

These 21 District schools have geographic boundaries; students are guaranteed admission if their school for grade 8 falls within the feeder pattern. Those living outside of the feeder pattern may also apply; admission is based on available space and determined through a lottery.

Charter high schools

We profile 36 charters serving the high school grades. Each functions as an independent school district with its own admission procedures. Several “Renaissance” charters serve a specific neighborhood catchment area and must first admit any applicants who live within those boundaries. Any Philadelphia student may apply to any charter school. Charters are required to choose students by lottery if there are more applicants than slots. They cannot screen students based on academic performance or behavior.

Philadelphia’s District and charter high schools: How are they doing?

2015-09-03T12:22:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

While the school profiles provide a lot of detail about the 88 public high schools and their programs, here we provide statistics about their students and how they are performing. That is important information as you think about where to attend high school.

Below, you’ll find data about all the District-run high schools and charters.

The first four columns of numbers in each table tell you about each school’s student body. What’s the enrollment and do they serve large percentages of low-income and special education students and English language learners?

Student attendance is often a good indicator of how engaged students are. Keep in mind that a school with 90 percent attendance has twice as many students absent as one with 95 percent attendance. One good measure of school climate is the percentage of students with at least one suspension.

Average SAT scores indicate how well the school prepares students for the test required for college admission. We leave out schools where fewer than 25 students take the test, but these averages can be misleading if mainly high-performing students take the test. Nationally, average student SAT scores, both reading and math, hover around 500. SAT test results are highly correlated with poverty rates.

Check out on-time high school graduation rates and what percent of each school’s graduates are directly going to college. There are big variations among schools on these indicators.

And for District schools with CTE programs, look at how students did on their NOCTI competency tests.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/189ZHJMivD3HYe_5rf4QEu8rb-8r809J8-Xtu-tkYnZM/pubhtml?widget=false&headers=false

Note: (Four recently opened schools are not included; no performance data is available: Science Leadership Academy @ Beeber, Building 21, the LINC, and the U School.

Key to data for District schools

• Schools that serve grades other than 9-12 are noted with grade span – data are for the entire school.

• Enrollment and demographic data are for 2014-15. Source: School District of Philadelphia website.

• Attendance data are for 2013-14. SAT scores are for the class of 2014. Source: Pa. Department of Education website. NA indicates no data available.
* indicates fewer than 25 students took the SAT.

• Suspension, graduation, and college-going rates are for 2013-14. Source: School Progress Reports, School District of Philadelphia.

• Graduation rates: the number of 4-year graduates compared to the size of the original cohort in 9th grade, adjusted for students who transferred in and out. Students are attributed to the last school they attended. NA indicates no graduating class.

• College-going rates: The percentage of 2014 high school graduates entering college in fall 2014. NA indicates no graduating class.

• NOCTI pass rates: The percentage of students passing CTE competency exams (see p. 7), and total number of students taking the exams in all subject areas, 2014-15. Not all schools offer CTE programs. Source: School District of Philadelphia.

Key to data for the charter schools

• Schools that serve grades other than 9-12 are noted with grade span – data are for the entire school.

• † indicates Renaissance neighborhood charter school. Admission is guaranteed to students in school catchment area.

• Enrollment, demographic, and attendance data are for 2013-14. Source: Pa. Department of Education website.

• SAT scores are for the class of 2014. NA indicates no data available. * indicates fewer than 25 students took the SAT. Source: Pa. Department of Education.

• Suspension, graduation, and college-going rates are for 2013-14. Source: School Progress Reports, School District of Philadelphia. NR indicates school did not report its data in these District reports. NA indicates data was not available.

• College-going rates: The percentage of 2014 high school graduates entering college in fall 2014. NA indicates no graduating class.

New CTE center will focus on higher-paying jobs in manufacturing

2015-09-02T13:22:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

There are nearly 16,000 advanced manufacturing jobs in Philadelphia, commanding an average annual salary of $48,236. Roughly half these jobs do not require a college degree.

But Philadelphia’s manufacturing employers are constantly scrambling to fill job vacancies, despite the city having about 412,000 residents living in poverty and an unemployment rate of 7.4 percent.

A new Center for Advanced Manufacturing will open at Benjamin Franklin High School this month in an effort to train students for these lucrative jobs.

This year, the center will offer four career and technical education (CTE) specialties. Next year, it will add four more, each with its own lab and instructor. Seven of the specializations are not available at any other school in the District.

The center will open this fall with capacity for 400 students in four areas: Electromechanical Technology, Welding Technologies, Electronics Technology, and Precision Machine Tool Technology.

Precision Machine Tool Technology teaches students how to use Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC) machines, which takes a product designed on a computer and precisely cuts it out of raw materials – essentially the opposite of a 3D printer, which builds a product. Graduates could enter the field as a CNC design specialist or work on CNC machine maintenance.

Steve Jurash, president of the Manufacturers Alliance of Philadelphia, said wages for entry-level positions in this field start at $14.50 an hour, but can reach as high as $50 an hour with seniority. With a post-secondary degree, graduates could become CNC supervisors.

Welding graduates could work for Philadelphia based companies like PTR Baler, which makes industrial trash compactors, or even the shipyard, building ships for the Navy. Jurash said welding wages start from $13.50 to $21 an hour depending on the employer, but can get as high as $35 an hour without an advanced degree. Salaries rise with years of experience and the types of welding the employee is certified for.

The most specialized field is electromechanical technology. Students learn a variety of skills necessary to work with automated manufacturing equipment. They don’t just learn about the machines themselves, but about systems that run the production line, such as electrical systems, motors, generators, hydraulics, and robotics.

This is one field for which higher education is a natural next step. To secure the best jobs, Jurash said, students are advised to get a college degree in mathematics or engineering.

“This leads to a multitude of design, production, chemical, and engineering positions,” Jurash said. “Salaries for this area are in the hundreds of thousands, and the starting salaries are in the area of $70,000 and up.”

The enrollment capacity at Ben Franklin will increase to 800 once the other four specializations are implemented: Industrial Facilities Maintenance & Operations, Computer Aided Drafting & Design, Engineering Technologies, and Renewable Energy Engineering.

High wages aren’t the only incentive to enroll in CTE programs.

“It keeps the kids engaged in school, keeps them interested in school, and makes it relevant for them,” said David Kipphut, deputy for the District’s Office of Career and Technical Education.

The District’s CTE evaluation report, released by the Office of Research and Evaluation in February, found that CTE students had a significantly higher graduation rate than non-CTE students. In the District’s 2010-11 9th-grade cohort, 84 percent of CTE students graduated in four years, compared with 62 percent of non-CTE students.

The center’s estimated total cost is $6.1 million. It was funded in part by a $2.5 million grant from the Middleton family, with the remainder coming from the District’s capital budget and federal Perkins Funds, which are dedicated to vocational education programs.

Much of the center’s price tag is associated with safety costs. The exhaust system in the welding shop alone cost about $300,000, and the basement’s sprinkler system costs another $300,000.

The curriculum also places an emphasis on safety. Kipphut said that “the first thing we do every year – even if this is your third year – is we stop and go over safety from the very beginning.”

Kipphut estimates that 200 students in 9th and 10th grade will be “cycling between these four areas as an exploratory CTE program." The center is not just for students who applied to Ben Franklin for a CTE specialization. Two hundred 11th- and 12th-grade students will be able to take CTE courses as electives.

Kipphut wanted to be clear: “This is a program for every student at Ben Franklin, not just for a few.”

The availability of funds to hire the teachers to expand from four to eight specialties will depend on the total enrollment for this year. Kipphut is working hard to get the full 400, so it can offer all eight programs to 800 students by the fall of 2016.

The center relies on its connection with local industry. The Mayor’s Task Force for Advanced Manufacturing and the Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center served as advisers for the curriculum and standards used at Ben Franklin. The Manufacturing Alliance of Philadelphia and Philadelphia Academies Inc. helped organize occupational advisory committees.

Jurash of the Manufacturers’ Alliance said that “these committees are comprised of front-line supervisors and/or employees with practical and specific knowledge.” The committees are involved in the selection process of vendors and machinery for use in the CTE labs.

In addition to reviewing the curriculum, the committees will be “making recommendations on the kinds of workforce credentials graduates will need to have,” Jurash said. They will meet twice a year at the school and are required by the state to tour the facilities and personally check for safety and equipment issues.

“Whatever is required by industry is required for our students,” said Kipphut.

MAP runs a “permanent placement service for manufacturers in the region,” which Jurash says it will use to secure job placements for the center’s graduates.

MAP also assists with recruiting middle-school students by setting up tours of manufacturing facilities. Jurash says MAP has created a “manufacturing week” curriculum, in which “students actually design, source, and construct a finished product.” He gave the example of students “constructing a package capable of encasing a potato chip that can survive shipping through the mail.”

The center will be able to save money on the cost of maintenance by teaching the students to do it themselves. “Students are responsible for maintaining the shops. As far as the equipment, teachers work with students as much as they can,” Kipphut said.

The school also has service contracts with vendors. This arrangement helps prepare students for their field, where a significant portion of jobs are in maintenance and repair.

When students apply to Ben Franklin for CTE, they select a program they’re interested in, but are not locked into it for the rest of high school. Kipphut said students will spend a report-card period in each of the shops and decide at the end of sophomore year which program to go into.

The choice of a specific program is required by state law. The Pennsylvania Code stipulates that CTE students must spend at least 1,080 hours of instruction in one specialization.

The District’s CTE office is in the process of applying to have the center’s programs recognized as “cluster programs,” Kipphut said, “which permits us flexibility in the scheduling of students within a career pathway.” This would allow students to continue taking classes in multiple specializations throughout high school.

Kipphut said it is not uncommon for CTE students to get bachelor’s degrees, and the ability to get a more well-rounded CTE education would be an advantage. The state is recognizing this, he said, and is in the process of changing the code.

“We want to have as many options open to the students as possible,” Kipphut said.

School selection timeline

2015-09-01T14:23:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

This fall guide focuses on applying to high schools for the first time. But the District’s online School Selection application process is also for families of younger students who wish to change schools or for older students who want to change high schools.

For those without Internet access, computer kiosks are available at the School District’s regional Network Offices and at the Office of Student Enrollment and Placement, 440 N. Broad St., Suite 111. Parents can also use computers at any Free Library branch.

Families should use the District process for neighborhood schools with available seats, citywide middle schools, and neighborhood, citywide and special admission high schools. Note the deadlines, which are earlier this year.

Charter schools have a variety of application timelines and processes.

August – November

► Students and their families review the student’s final report card from the previous grade (for high school applicants, 7th grade) along with standardized test scores, behavior marks, and attendance to determine whether they meet entrance criteria for desired schools.

► The School Selection student application will be available on the District’s website from Oct. 1 to Nov. 13. District students will be able to access it through the parent/student online portal by entering the student’s ID and password. Non-District students can access it through a link on the main page of the School District website.

► The High School Expo will be held from 3 to 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 16, and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 17, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Broad and Race Streets. Representatives from all Philadelphia District, charter and Archdiocesan schools are invited.

► Families research schools. The District’s high school directory and other resources are available at schoolselect.philasd.org.

► Counselors and teachers may hold information sessions to help parents and students choose schools and complete the online application. Parents may ask principals for help.

Fall and ongoing

► Some high schools allow prospective applicants to visit and shadow students. Families should contact schools directly. The District encourages high schools to hold open houses in the fall for prospective students.

► Charter schools have separate application forms and deadlines for entering admissions lotteries. A list of charter schools participating in the new common application and other information about individual charters are available at GreatPhillySchools.org

By Nov. 13

► The deadline for the District’s School Selection application and for charter schools using the common application is 5 p.m. Nov. 13. Applications may be submitted starting Oct. 1, but there is no admissions advantage to submitting early.

► Students may apply to up to five District schools. There is no limit on charter applications.

► Non-District students who apply to District schools that have admissions criteria must deliver transcripts and required supplemental materials, such as essays, directly to the schools by Nov. 13.

November – January

► Schools with admissions criteria begin interviews and auditions. Some schools invite only students who have met their criteria and do not notify students who have not. Other schools interview all applicants. Some schools expect the student to call to schedule the interview. Students should keep on top of the process through counselors.

► Special admission schools make acceptance, rejection, and waitlist decisions.

► Citywide admission schools choose students who qualify for the lottery.

► The District’s Offices of Student Enrollment and Placement and Information Technology run three separate computerized lotteries (for general education, special education, ELL) for acceptance to citywide and neighborhood schools.

► Charter schools begin holding lotteries.

January

District notifies students about initial status for selected schools: Accepted, Declined, or Waitlisted.
Students with one or more acceptances are expected to confirm their choice within six days of the date of the notification.
Students with no acceptances are guaranteed enrollment at their neighborhood schools.

February

District collaborates with schools to fill vacancies from waiting lists and send students final letters about where they’ve been accepted.

… and beyond

After students receive their final letters from the District, they may make one change in their school selection if they are subsequently accepted from waiting lists.
Schools continue to pull from waiting lists to fill vacancies as they arise. Though not part of the official process, parents, counselors, and principals can and do advocate on behalf of students originally waitlisted or declined through phone calls and recommendation letters.

Compiled with assistance from Danielle Seward, District deputy chief, Student Enrollment and Placement.

Hoping for a year without reductions, closures, and cuts

2015-09-01T13:54:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

No state budget. Continuing labor strife. Conflict with City Council. Courts that block the School Reform Commission’s moves to control charter expansion. Student proficiency rates that tanked in the wake of a new, more difficult state test.

Despite these challenges, Superintendent William Hite, starting his fourth year in Philadelphia, says he is optimistic that he can move forward with an agenda for 2015-16 focused on expanding opportunity for all students – what he is calling “ensuring equity.”

In an interview, Hite said he hopes this will be the year to settle the teachers’ contract and get the District’s charter office operating at full speed to make sure that all charter seats are “high quality.”

Overall, he said, “Things feel different this year. This is the first time we are talking about opening schools without having to reduce, cut or close something.”

Under Gov. Wolf, he said, “There is real talk about providing school districts with the resources they need and restoring drastic cuts” imposed under his predecessor, Gov. Tom Corbett.

Although schools are planning to operate under the insufficient status quo, Hite noted that every principal has proposed a wish list budget should Harrisburg significantly increase education spending.

But if the Harrisburg standoff goes on too long, — until mid-October, Hite said — it could result in $1 million in borrowing costs. He also raised the possibility of being unable to borrow at all due to the District’s precarious finances.

Also requiring the District’s attention are the grim statewide results on the new, more rigorous PSSA exam. Educators are trying to assure parents that they reflect a change in the test, not a decline in students’ abilities. Still, the District had to adjust its criteria for admission to selective schools.

Marc Mannella, CEO of the charter network KIPP Philadelphia Schools, said the new standards require from students “a different level of understanding,” especially in math. That means expensive and time-consuming investments in new curricula and teacher retraining will be needed.

As a result, it is even more crucial “to bring more dollars to public education in this city,” Mannella said, and to monitor how it is distributed and spent.

Leadership changes

Hite is defining equity as “great schools close to where children live.” As an example, he cites a new foundation-funded career and technical education center for advanced manufacturing at Ben Franklin High School.

Within schools, there is more leadership stability: About 90 percent of new principals have stayed. New partnerships include one with the College Board so all 9th, 10th, and 11th graders can take the PSAT test for free. There is also a citywide campaign called READ! by 4th focused on early literacy.

Key to Hite’s agenda is the reorganization of school networks, led by new assistant superintendent hires who have experience with the kinds of schools they are supervising. Four new networks focus on innovation, school turnaround, alternative options for students seeking to re-engage, and autonomy for schools doing well.

But spending money on additional high-level administrators has irritated City Council President Darrell Clarke, who is still holding $25 million in city funds earmarked for the District.

Clarke’s position is that Hite promised to put those resources directly into schools; he is also miffed about the outsourcing of substitute teachers and principals.

Before the school year is out, the city will also have a new mayor, almost certain to be Jim Kenney, and new City Council members likely to include Helen Gym, who built her campaign around education.

Gym has advocated for more resources for schools and has been strongly critical of many District policies, particularly outsourcing and school privatization. The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, perennially at odds with District leadership, supported both Kenney and Gym.

Hite, too, says the new faces in City Hall will benefit the District. “The more we have individuals concerned about the quality of education for all students, the better the chances we will have … sufficient resources,” he said.

Settling the contract?

The SRC is in prolonged, and so far losing, legal battles with its teachers’ union and charter schools. The relationship between the District and the PFT remains toxic; the two sides haven’t been able to reach an agreement after three years of negotiations. The SRC has taken a series of unilateral actions including nullification of the contract, but judges and arbitrators have so far mostly sided with the union.

Hite hopes this will be the year the contract is settled. He said teachers deserve more money. Throughout the stalemate, teachers have gotten no raises. “I want to get teachers something as much as teachers want to get something,” he said. “We don’t pay our teachers nearly enough.They have gone long enough in this situation.”

But, he added, “Given the economic environment, we all have to make sacrifices.”

The state Supreme Court will ultimately decide the case about the contract, which the SRC nullified in October, trying to impose benefit changes to save $50 million.

PFT president Jerry Jordan agrees with Hite that Wolf has changed the conversation about education funding and that teachers deserve more. But he mostly scoffed at Hite’s concern for teachers, citing his support at the start of talks for cutting their salaries.

Although Jordan also hopes for a settlement, he said that the PFT will not back down from including in the contract detailed staffing provisions like the one requiring a full-time counselor in every school. The District wants to remove such language.

“The only reason it is in the contract is that at some point the District wasn’t doing it,” he said.

The state of charters

Courts have also rebuffed the SRC’s unilateral moves regarding charter schools.

DawnLynne Kacer had barely accepted the job as head of the SRC’s charter office, which was vacant for three years, when Commonwealth Court ruled that the District can’t impose enrollment caps on charters that don’t agree to them. Without such power, the District argues, it has no control over its own budget and cannot plan.

Hite reiterated that he thinks charter enrollment has reached a “saturation point” – signaling that under Kacer, the charter office will likely be aggressive in trying to weed out poor-performing charters as it considers new ones.

As the SRC votes on new charter applications this year, it will continue to pursue four nonrenewals: Delaware Valley, Imani Education Circle, New Media Technology, and Universal-Bluford. Three other charters closed last year.

“I am looking for an honest conversation about what is high quality, how do we know it, when do we know it, and what do we do when schools are not,” said Hite. “I would rather talk less about what sector it is. That’s an old, stale argument.”

A note from the editor

2015-09-01T11:30:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

To our readers,

Welcome to our annual fall guide to Philadelphia public high schools. The Notebook, the city’s independent education newspaper, developed this guide because applying to high school here is a complicated, competitive process. Information is vital to help students get into schools that are a good fit.

Sadly, our high schools vary tremendously in performance measures such as graduation and attendance rates. They are suffering the effects of budget cuts. But some schools still have a wealth of courses and activities, while others have sparse offerings. We hope this guide helps level the playing field – assisting families in understanding their options, while flagging the need to improve high schools that are struggling.

This fall, students will have nearly 90 public high school options to sort through (not counting cyber schools), with varying admissions criteria. Some schools receive 10 or more applications for every slot. Others admit students mainly in the middle years, making it tough to get into 9th grade. Although this guide helps explain that, it’s important to get help from counselors or other knowledgeable adults when figuring out where to apply. Unfortunately, counselors are still in short supply due to budget cuts (a good reason to let your elected officials know that Pennsylvania schools need adequate funding!).

For the first time, this year’s guide highlights career and technical education programs. CTE can be a great option for students who are interested in hands-on learning and mastering a skill that makes them employable right out of high school. The 41 available specialties range from traditional trades like welding to growing fields like computer networking. There have been unfilled slots in some of these programs.

This guide has three main sections: articles to help you understand the high school admissions process in general and CTE programs in particular, profiles listing what each school has to offer, and a center spread of data to compare how schools are doing. You can learn more about high school selection at thenotebook.org/fall-guide-page.

Seek out other resources as well. The District publishes an online directory. Our center spread points you to websites that rate schools. Talk to other families and visit schools. That will help you to find the best fit.

Paul Socolar, editor and publisher

P.S. Donations from members make this guide possible. Support its continued publication: Become a Notebook member today!

41 programs to choose from – and where to find them

2015-09-01T11:15:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

In the School District’s career and technical education (CTE) programs, each of which takes three years, students learn the technical theories, competencies, and skills that are used in business, professional settings, and industry. They also engage in a college preparatory academic curriculum.

Below are the programs now offered to District high school students. Full descriptions appear in the District’s 2016 High School Directory.

Accounting & Financial Services

Prepares students to provide technical administrative support to professional accountants and other financial management personnel.

Locations: Furness, Kensington Business, Lincoln, and Washington

Animal Sciences

Location: Saul High School of Agricultural Sciences

Applied Visual & Interactive Design

Includes instruction in Film & Video Production, Video Game Design, Graphic Design, Graphic Communications/Printing, and Web Design taught by professionals from each of these industries.

Location: Northeast

Autobody Collision Repair

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills to repair damaged vehicles such as automobiles and light trucks.

Locations: Edison, Randolph, Swenson, and The Workshop School

Automotive Technology

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills to service and maintain all types of automobiles and light trucks.

Locations: Edison, Mastbaum, Randolph, Swenson, and The Workshop School

Baking & Pastry Arts

Gives students practical hands-on experience and basic theoretical training in desserts, pastries, candies, decorative work, specialty or artisan breads, high-volume production, and food marketing.

Location: Swenson

Barbering

Location: Dobbins

Biotechnology

Focuses on the connections between students’ science courses and potential solutions to various problems of our modern world.

Location: Roxborough

Business Administration

Locations: Dobbins, Franklin Learning Center, Kensington Business, King, Lincoln, Mastbaum, Overbrook, South Philadelphia, and Roxborough

Carpentry

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills to lay out, fabricate, erect, install, and repair structures and fixtures using hand and power tools.

Locations: Mastbaum, South Philadelphia, and Swenson

Computer Supports Systems Technology

Prepares students to apply basic engineering principles and technical skills in support of professionals who use computer systems.

Locations: Edison, Kensington Urban, and South Philadelphia

Computer Systems Networking

Focuses on the design, implementation, and management of linked systems of computers, peripherals, and associated software.

Locations: Kensington Urban, Swenson, and West Philadelphia

Construction Technologies

Prepares students to apply knowledge and skills in the construction technology field.

Location: Randolph

Cosmetology

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills related to a variety of beauty treatments, including the care and enhancement of the condition of hair, complexion, and hands.

Locations: Dobbins and Edison

Culinary Arts

Prepares students for employment related to institutional, commercial, or self-owned food establishments or other food industry occupations.

Locations: Dobbins, Edison, Frankford, Franklin, King, Mastbaum, Randolph, South Philadelphia, Strawberry Mansion, Swenson, and Washington

Dental Assisting

Prepares students to function effectively as integral members of the dental health team.

Locations: Kensington Health Sciences and Randolph

Digital Media Production

Locations: Creative & Performing Arts (CAPA), Swenson, West Philadelphia

Early Childhood Education & Childcare

Prepares students for a variety of occupations in childcare and guidance, often under the supervision of professional personnel in childcare or day-care centers.

Locations: Edison and South Philadelphia

Electrical & Power Transmission Installation

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills necessary to install, operate, maintain and repair electrically energized residential, commercial, and industrial systems, and DC and AC motors, controls, and electrical distribution panels.

Locations: Edison, Mastbaum, and Swenson

Electromechanical/Mechatronics

Prepares students to apply basic engineering principles and technical skills in both the mechanical and electrical fields.

Location: Franklin

Electronics Technology

Instructs students to apply basic electronic principles and technical skills to the production, calibration, estimation, testing, assembling, installation, and maintenance of electronic equipment.

Location: Franklin

Emergency Medical Technician

Firefighter Training Academy: Prepares students for certification and careers as Emergency Medical Technicians and firefighters.

Location: Randolph

Engineering Technologies

Prepares students to apply knowledge and skills in the engineering field.

Locations: Carver, Science Leadership Academy, South Philadelphia, Swenson, and The Workshop School

Facility & Property Maintenance

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills to keep a building functioning and to serve a variety of structures, including commercial and industrial buildings and mobile homes.

Location: Strawberry Mansion

Fashion Design

Introduces students to the spectrum of occupations associated with clothing and textile management, production, and services.

Location: Dobbins

Film & Video Production

Introduces students to the art and science of Digital Film & Video Production.

Locations: Bartram, Edison, Fels, Kensington CAPA, Roxborough, and Science Leadership Academy

Food Processing Science

Focuses on the study of food systems, which includes production, processing, and safe handling.

Location: Saul

Graphic Design

Provides students with the knowledge, skills, and portfolio needed to successfully tackle the challenges of college instruction or to pursue a career as a freelance graphic designer.

Locations: Bartram, Dobbins, Edison, Kensington CAPA, King, Mastbaum, and South Philadelphia

Health Information Records Technology

Prepares students to classify medical information and prepare records under the supervision of a medical records administrator.

Location: Mastbaum

Health-Related Technologies

Locations: Edison, Kensington Health Sciences, Lincoln, King, Mastbaum, Overbrook, Randolph, Robeson, South Philadelphia, and Swenson

Horticulture

Focuses on the science behind plant production and health.

Locations: Lincoln and Saul

HVAC & Refrigeration Technology

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills to install, repair, and maintain commercial and domestic heating, air conditioning and refrigeration systems.

Location: Edison

Logistics, Materials & Supply Chain Management

Location: Edison

Medical/Clinical Assistant

Prepares students to assist physicians by performing functions related to administrative and clinical duties of a medical office.

Location: Franklin Learning Center

Natural Resource Management

Focuses on the science behind protecting the natural environment. Hands-on skill-building highlights the value of biodiversity and the responsible management of natural resources.

Location: Saul

Plumbing Technology

Locations: Dobbins, Edison, and Swenson

Precision Machining & Milling

Location: Franklin

Sports Marketing & Management

Prepares students to perform development, marketing, and management functions associated with careers in the sports and entertainment industry.

Locations: Dobbins, Kensington Business, Northeast, and Washington

Vending Machine Technology

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills necessary to repair, install and service vending machines, as well as other commercial units such as ice makers and coffee makers and consumer appliances such as refrigerators.

Location: Randolph

Web Design

Prepares students to apply HTML, XML, Javascript, graphics applications and other authoring tools to the design, editing and publishing (launching) of documents, images, graphics, sound, and multimedia products online.

Location: Roxborough

Welding Technology

Prepares students to apply technical knowledge and skills in gas, arc, shielded, and non-shielded metal arc, brazing, flame-cutting, and plasma welding. Hand, semi-automatic, and automatic welding processes are also included in the instruction.

Locations: Edison, Mastbaum, Randolph, and Franklin

Q&A about applying to high schools

2015-09-01T11:05:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

I am excited about going to high school. How do I get started?

Talk to the adults in your life, including teachers, counselors, and parents or guardians. Read this guide and the District’s online high school directory to develop a list of schools that align with your interests and goals. Seventh and 8th graders should attend the 2015 Philly High School fair scheduled for Oct. 16-17 at the Convention Center, Broad and Race Streets, and talk to representatives of schools that interest you.

When should I get started?

No later than the beginning of 7th grade. Selective high schools look at 7th-grade attendance, grades, and test scores in determining who is qualified to attend.

How do I apply? What’s the deadline?

This year, the application process will be conducted online only. Students and their families can access an application on the District’s website starting Oct. 1. All 8th-grade students, even those who intend to go to their neighborhood high school, are being asked to participate in the selection process. Applications will be accepted until 5 p.m. Nov. 13.

How is the online application system different from the old system?

This is the second year for online-only applications. Before that, students filled out paper applications and gave them to the school counselor for final submission. Now, students and families must fill out the application online and submit it electronically. This means students must take the initiative to seek the counselor’s help and advice in making choices. Counselors have online access to the applications of all the students in their school.

What is the difference between a special admission and a citywide admission high school?

Special admission schools have more competitive entrance criteria. To be accepted to a special admission school, a student must meet the school’s test score, grade, and attendance requirements. Citywide admission schools don’t require high test scores, but do set minimum standards regarding grades, attendance, and discipline records. At special admission schools, the principals and their selection teams evaluate each applicant’s academic record against the school’s entrance criteria. Citywide admission schools also evaluate each student’s academic record against the school’s entrance criteria. But they put all students who meet the criteria into a computerized lottery that randomly selects the ones who will be offered admission.

How do I get into a charter school?

How can I find out the admissions requirements of a school?

Should I visit the school?

If I don’t meet the exact criteria of a selective school, should I apply anyway?

If I am not accepted for admission to any of my choices, what do I do?

In most cases, you are guaranteed admission at your neighborhood high school.

If I intend to go to my neighborhood school, should I still fill out the online application?

Yes. District officials want the online-only system to persuade all students and families to get guidance on their options. This new process has resulted in an increase in the number of students exercising their right to choose a school from 12,000 in 2014 to 15,000 in 2015.

Do any neighborhood schools have special programs?

Many neighborhood high schools have advanced academic programs, including AP (Advanced Placement) and IB (International Baccalaureate) courses. Almost all also have Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. See the section on CTE in this guide and the individual school profiles, which show where such programs are located. The District’s directory summarizes locations by area of interest. But budget cuts have taken their toll in schools, so it is wise to double-check how robust an advertised program is.

Can I apply to a neighborhood school in another area?

What about transportation?

If a school is more than 1.5 miles from your home, you are entitled to free student SEPTA TransPasses. That is true for students in District, charter and private schools.

Can students who have IEPs or who are English language learners apply to selective high schools?

All students are encouraged to apply to any high school that interests them and for which they meet the basic qualifications. In response to lawsuits, the District facilitates an advocacy process for 8th-grade students applying to selective high schools. It is required to enroll a certain percentage of special education students and English language learners (ELLs) at these schools. Students who have individualized education plans (IEPs) or who are ELLs can learn more from their counselor or principal, and from the Office of Specialized Services at 215-400-4170.

Where else can I get help with high school placement?

Where do I find official information from the District?

Visit the District’s Office of Student Enrollment and Placement website.

CTE program worked for these graduates

2015-09-01T11:01:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia School District’s career and technical education (CTE) programs give students an opportunity to choose a career path that matches their interests and talents, while gaining hands-on training in high school. Many graduates of the District’s 41 CTE programs have transitioned to post-secondary institutions – college, university, or technical school – and some have gotten jobs in their chosen fields right out of high school.

The Notebook asked some recent, successful graduates from District CTE programs how their participation shaped their interests and lives.

Building the CTE program into a first-class option

2015-09-01T10:50:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

It’s an uphill climb in a cash-strapped district that prioritizes college attainment. Even so, Kipphut has seen significant progress since taking over the Office of Career and Technical Education (CTE) three years ago. Among his favorite examples: the welding program at Randolph High, which just graduated its first cohort.

One grad joined the military to specialize in aircraft repair. Another has a well-paid job at the Akers Philadelphia Shipyard, after a successful internship.

And a third is going to college in Virginia to study advanced manufacturing.

“Of course we run into the issue where everyone says, ‘You need to go to college,’” Kipphut said. “In the world of CTE, we say, college is an option, but it’s not the only option.”

When Kipphut, a former principal, took over the CTE office, he found serious problems: out-of-date courses, equipment shortages, unsupportive principals, and flagging enrollment.

But the challenge his team faced wasn’t just to resolve those issues. It was to wipe out vo-tech’s negative image as a dumping ground and convince parents, students, and principals that CTE can expand possibilities instead of limiting them.

The mission is far from fully accomplished, but principals say good things are happening.

“I tell students and parents: This is not your mother’s vo-tech,” said Toni Damon, the principal of Murrell Dobbins CTE High School, one of five CTE-focused schools in the city (the others are Swenson, Randolph, Mastbaum and Saul). “You will come out of this program ready to go to college – or any post-secondary school.”

The basics: What is CTE?

CTE programs are three-year courses of study taught by experienced professionals. Programs in 41 “occupational areas” include computer technology, engineering, architecture, design, cosmetology, child care, health care, and traditional trades such as plumbing and carpentry.

Real-world work experience is a central goal. Culinary students cater events. Design students run print shops. Horticultural students work on the Philadelphia Flower Show.

Altogether, about 5,600 students were enrolled last year in 115 CTE courses in 30 District high schools, including neighborhood, citywide admission, and special admission schools. Some have just a few programs; others offer 10 or more. All CTE courses are open to students citywide.

One Philadelphia charter school, Universal Audenried in South Philadelphia, offers state-approved CTE programs, qualifying it for federal funds.

Students generally apply to specific programs in 8th grade and arrive at high school enrolled in the specialty, but they begin CTE coursework in 10th grade. A typical CTE program requires 1,080 hours. Students take skill-specific certification tests along the way and a state-required, comprehensive exam from the National Occupational Competency Testing Institute (NOCTI) in their specialty area during senior year.

The programs get supplemental funds from the federal Department of Education’s Perkins program and state aid. Perkins money is declining, from $5.2 million last year to $4.6 million this year, due largely to an overall District enrollment drop. The state contributes $950 per student per year; Gov. Wolf’s budget proposal would increase that to about $4,000. Program design and implementation are guided by a complex set of rules and advisory committees largely made up of industry professionals.

How well do the programs work?

Backed by a $5.7 million grant from the Middleton family, the CTE office has been shaking out obsolete programs over the last several years, upgrading equipment, improving data collection, and resolving a variety of issues. Middleton money is seeding a new CTE center in advanced manufacturing at Benjamin Franklin High, opening in September.

Many of the problems, including the need for better training for principals, were identified in a 2011 evaluation; 42 principals are now certified in CTE administration.

Individual program quality still varies, however. Much depends on the quality of the teacher, the principal’s support, and the school’s climate. Kipphut says the CTE office is working on an assessment tool for “scoring” each program, but it is not yet available.

Still, a 2015 District evaluation of CTE showed several positive trends:

• CTE students graduate at higher rates. The graduation rate for CTE students was 84 percent, compared to 62 percent citywide, and they were more likely to graduate on time.

• The racial “achievement gap” for graduation is almost eliminated. Black and Latino CTE students graduate at almost the same levels as White and Asian students.

• CTE students report better “soft” outcomes. The students reported more positive experiences than non-CTE students in areas like goal-setting, planning, recovering from setbacks, and staying engaged with classes.

• CTE students are “typical” students. Positive results for CTE are not explained by pre-selecting for high-achieving students; those who choose CTE tend to be academically average, but with better-than-average attendance. (Attendance is a factor in admissions.)

What needs to be improved?

Despite progress, CTE programs still face obstacles.

They need high-quality teachers, support from counselors and principals, and effective private-sector and community partnerships.

The demanding 1,080-hour requirement, combined with minimal staffing and limited course options in schools, means that CTE students who want things like Advanced Placement classes (to prepare for college) or language classes (especially for English language learners) can find it difficult to schedule all the right courses.

Because of shortages in counselors and support staff, CTE underserves ELL and special education students.

“You can’t put an autistic student into a carpentry shop with 23 other students and one teacher,” Kipphut said. “In the entire District, I have four aides to work with special needs students.”

And perhaps most significant, the process of recruiting students to CTE courses is ad hoc and uneven. CTE-focused high schools may have 10 times as many applicants as spaces, while CTE programs in neighborhood schools are underenrolled. The District lacks the data systems and staff capacity to effectively steer students to all available options.

“That’s our biggest challenge,” Kipphut said. “In the middle years, we do a terrible job of informing young people about career pathways.”

Even when students show interest in a trade by applying to a CTE school, there is inadequate follow-up to inform those who don’t get in about similar options elsewhere, he said.

That’s a major reason why CTE enrollment – 56 percent of available slots when he started, 70 percent today – remains lower than Kipphut’s goal of 80 percent. Most openings are in neighborhood schools, although CTE-focused Swenson has had vacancies in some programs, mostly building trades and automotive skills.

Creating a “comprehensive” K-12 counseling plan for all students that includes CTE is one of Kipphut’s primary goals.

But for now, recruitment falls largely to overworked principals and counselors, among whom knowledge of and support for CTE varies.

“The principals that are totally engaged, those schools are very successful,” Kipphut said. Some principals are negatively influenced by memories of the days when students of color were steered away from college into subpar shop classes, he said, but others see CTE as a true complement to higher education.

For example, CTE internships can lead to part-time jobs that put cash in students’ pockets – meaning they’re less likely to drop out when hit with $200 dorm fees or other surprise college costs. That’s a “game-changer,” said Otis Hackney, principal of South Philadelphia High, home to eight CTE programs that migrated in 2013 from now-closed Bok Technical High.

Likewise, the student who gets a full-time job through CTE is in better shape to go to college part-time, he said.

Hackney, like Damon from Dobbins High, has a wish list of improvements, including more flexible schedules to help CTE students get the best academic classes and more support for ELL and special education students.

But mostly he’d like more awareness of the opportunity that CTE programs offer. Getting that message out to middle-schoolers isn’t easy. At a recent open house, Hackney hoped for 60 students and got about 20.

Still, he had his pitch ready. He told them, “If you go down the Shore, you’ll see as many carpenters and plumbers as you see doctors and lawyers. They have college graduates working for them, doing their books.”

CTE Success Stories: An HVAC mechanic who beat the odds

2015-08-31T14:31:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

When Luis Maldonado first heard about the HVAC & Refrigeration Technology CTE program at Edison High School, he was simply passing his lunchtime with a friend who was already in the class.

“For lunch we’d hang out in the shop and he’d teach me what Mr. Zimak had taught him,” Maldonado recalled.

This preview of the HVAC coursework led Maldonado to visiting CTE teacher James Zimak’s shop regularly. At the time, he thought CTE courses were a graduation requirement, so he signed up for Zimak’s class.

“After I was enrolled in the class, I was told it’s not a requirement, [but] I stuck with it,” he said.

“I thought it was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”

While in the CTE program, Maldonado was exposed to three areas of study. The first year focused on safety and theory. The second year focused on implementing that theory and reading more in depth. By the third year, Maldonado was doing hands-on work in the classroom.

Maldonado also took state tests to get credit for his work. He passed the NOCTI exam and graduated from Edison in 2014 with an EPA license, which allows him to work in the refrigeration field.

Maldonado, 19, is now an HVAC mechanic at the Philadelphia Water Department.

“I enjoy it. The HVAC field is ever-expanding and, with the Water Department, I get to keep on top of that.”

Maldonado said he landed the job through connections that his CTE teacher had. Maldonado and several other students interned in the Water Department while in high school, working once a week. Just a week after graduation, Maldonado said, they all had job offers.

Maldonado credits his experience in the CTE program with getting him to where he is now. He said some did not expect him (or anyone in the program) to get a job in the field because they were so young or lacking experience.

“We beat the odds, and I’m really proud of that. I’m really proud of myself to have gotten this far.”

Michaela Ward was an intern at the Notebook.

Making career and technical education into a first-class option

2015-08-28T11:35:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

David Kipphut has a mission: to transform what used to be called vocational education from a second-class backwater to a first-class pathway to prosperity in Philadelphia.

One grad joined the military to specialize in aircraft repair. Another has a well-paid job at the Akers Philadelphia Shipyard, after a successful internship.

And a third is going to college in Virginia to study advanced manufacturing.

“Of course we run into the issue where everyone says, ‘You need to go to college,’” Kipphut said. “In the world of CTE, we say, college is an option, but it’s not the only option.”

When Kipphut, a former principal, took over the CTE office, he found serious problems: out-of-date courses, equipment shortages, unsupportive principals, and flagging enrollment.

The mission is far from fully accomplished, but principals say good things are happening.

The basics: What is CTE?

Real-world work experience is a central goal. Culinary students cater events. Design students run print shops. Horticultural students work on the Philadelphia Flower Show .

One Philadelphia charter school, Universal Audenried in South Philadelphia, offers state-approved CTE programs, qualifying it for federal funds.

How well do the programs work?

Many of the problems, including the need for better training for principals, were identified in a 2011 evaluation; 42 principals are now certified in CTE administration.

Still, a 2015 District evaluation of CTE showed several positive trends:

CTE students graduate at higher rates. The graduation rate for CTE students was 84 percent, compared to 62 percent citywide, and they were more likely to graduate on time.
The racial “achievement gap” for graduation is almost eliminated. Black and Latino CTE students graduate at almost the same levels as White and Asian students.
CTE students report better “soft” outcomes. The students reported more positive experiences than non-CTE students in areas like goal-setting, planning, recovering from setbacks, and staying engaged with classes.
CTE students are “typical” students. Positive results for CTE are not explained by pre-selecting for high-achieving students; those who choose CTE tend to be academically average, but with better-than-average attendance. (Attendance is a factor in admissions.)

What needs to be improved?

Despite progress, CTE programs still face obstacles.

They need high-quality teachers, support from counselors and principals, and effective private-sector and community partnerships.

Because of shortages in counselors and support staff, CTE underserves ELL and special education students.

“That’s our biggest challenge,” Kipphut said. “In the middle years, we do a terrible job of informing young people about career pathways.”

Even when students show interest in a trade by applying to a CTE school, there is inadequate follow-up to inform those who don’t get in about similar options elsewhere, he said.

Creating a “comprehensive” K-12 counseling plan for all students that includes CTE is one of Kipphut’s primary goals.

But for now, recruitment falls largely to overworked principals and counselors, among whom knowledge of and support for CTE varies.

Likewise, the student who gets a full-time job through CTE is in better shape to go to college part-time, he said.

Bill Hangley Jr. is a freelance contributor to the Notebook; on Twitter @BillHangley.

This article will appear in the Notebook’s upcoming Fall Guide to High Schools, due out next Friday.

CTE Success Stories: ‘Like we were actually managing a business’

2015-08-27T10:35:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

It was Andrea Seitchik, a George Washington High School Career and Technical Education teacher, who first approached Dylan Henry about taking CTE classes.

As a 10th grader, Henry decided to give Seitchik’s Sports Marketing and Management program a try. He said he liked the first class, an introduction to the program.

“It made it seem like we were actually managing a business,” he said.

But the transition into the CTE program was challenging for Henry. He said that Seitchik helped him get through his rocky first year by working with him to develop the computer skills that were critical for the course. Another CTE teacher, Sheryl Kirby, also supported him, providing advice and information about job opportunities after graduation.

Eventually, Henry said, he adjusted to the program. It uses sports as a window into the fields of business and marketing, and through his classes, Henry said, he was able to begin to understand how marketing worked in the real world. The program made him think critically, even just to complete homework assignments. This was something he really liked about the class, he said.

Then there were the business-focused DECA competitions, where students strategize and promote their simulated businesses with students from other schools. DECA, previously known as the Distributive Education Clubs of America, is a national organization that aims to prepare young entrepreneurs in the fields of marketing, finance, hospitality, and business management through hosting competitive events for students across pre-professional fields.

The competition made Henry feel like his coursework and preparation were relevant to the business world beyond school.

“It made it seem like it was the real deal,” Henry said.

The competitions also gave him experience with presenting himself as a professional. He practiced everything from learning how to dress, to working with teammates, to talking in a business environment.

Henry graduated from George Washington in 2014. The skills he learned in the Sports Marketing and Management program have influenced his long-term goal to own his own gymnastics studio. Henry, who has competed in gymnastics since he was 3 years old, now coaches at Bensalem Gymnastics.

And Henry is also still a student — a rising sophomore at Bloomsburg University. Although he has yet to declare a major, he is interested in medicine and is considering becoming an anesthesiologist.

But sports marketing, he said, is also still a real option. Regardless of which career path he chooses, Henry said, he knows he can fall back on the skills he developed in his CTE program.

“It’s always in the back of my mind, that I have some knowledge, [and] that if I wanted to do that, I could.”

Michaela Ward was an intern at the Notebook this summer.

CTE success stories: Graduate helps youth make healthy decisions

2015-08-25T12:48:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia School District’s career and technical education (CTE) programs give students an opportunity to choose a career path that best matches their interests and talents, while gaining hands-on training in high school. Many students who have participated in one of the District’s 41 CTE programs have transitioned to post-secondary institutions – college, university, or technical school — and some have also gotten jobs in their chosen fields right out of high school.

The Notebook asked several graduates from a District CTE program how their participation shaped their interests and lives. We interviewed students from a variety of programs, from culinary arts to computer systems networking to autobody collision repair.

Several profiles will appear in our upcoming Fall Guide to High Schools, due out Sept. 4, and over the next few weeks, we will preview some of these students’ stories online. Our fourth profile is of Sandy Matczak, a 2009 graduate of Mastbaum’s Health-Related Technologies program.

For Sandy Matczak, a typical day at work is never a typical day. At the Youth Health Empowerment Project, she might be found at the front desk or assessing the medical and physical needs of guests, running a workshop, or helping youth get involved in safe activism.

Six years after graduating from Mastbaum High School, Matczak said she still refers to the lessons she learned in the school’s Health-Related Technologies program. From using her familiarity with medical terms to read her mother’s hospital charts to working as a health assistant to pay her way through college, Matczak attributes much of her success to her career and technical education.

“I think the CTE program and the teacher that I had made the learning really amazing,” said Matczak, now 24.

“I am still in contact with her and I try to chaperone her field trips.”

Olga Torres, Matczak’s CTE teacher, is still teaching the program. In fact, she maintains contact with the graduates of the program to offer advice, help them navigate college and to check in. Matczak says that it was Torres who made her experience unique, because she was always willing to go the extra mile, whether that meant fundraising or providing encouragement.

Torres’ influence on the lives of her students also included pushing them to get their certified nurse’s assistant (CNA) license during their junior year of high school.

After graduating in 2009, Matczak knew she wanted to attend college. With Torres’ help, she decided on Temple University. Her father had started his education at Temple, but was unable to finish. Matczak vowed to finish for him.

Matczak received her bachelor’s degree in public health in 2014. Immediately after college, she began working as an office manager for Youth Health Empowerment Project, a nonprofit that empowers youth to make healthy decisions. Matczak said that she plans to continue working while continuing her education.

She is nervous, yet excited, she said, about continuing her education, which includes taking night classes at West Chester University for a master’s degree in social work. Her next goal is to pursue her nursing degree.

“My senior year in high school, opening my eyes with the support of my CTE teacher, I realized I wanted to do so much more, but was not sure what.”

Reflecting on her path, she said that the amount of hands-on learning she received in her career and technical education really influenced her career choices.

“It felt like I wasn’t in school all the time. It felt like I was doing career stuff … like this is what the field will actually be like.”

Samantha Weiss was an intern at the Notebook this summer.

CTE success stories: Hooked on fixing cars

2015-08-17T14:35:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The Notebook asked several graduates from a District CTE program how their participation shaped their interests and lives. We interviewed students from a variety of programs, from culinary arts to computer systems networking to auto body collision repair.

Several profiles will appear in our upcoming Fall Guide to High Schools, due out Sept. 4, and over the next few weeks, we will preview some of these students’ stories online.

Our third profile is of Kadeem Carter, a 2013 graduate of Randolph’s Auto Body Collision Repair program.

Kadeem Carter knew by the time he was in 7th grade that he wanted his career to involve cars. Carter’s father, who grew up in Germantown and had heard about CTE automotive programs, told his son that he could actually study automotive repair in high school.

“I was really into cars. … When I found out I could go to school for it, I was hooked right there,” he said.

In 10th grade, Carter began taking classes in the Auto Body Collision Repair program at Randolph Career Academy. The summer after he took his first auto-collision class, Carter was able to get a job working in a shop. But he spent time in the shop even before he started his summer job.

“I went there every day after school to just watch them work.”

Carter, a 2013 graduate of Randolph, has begun to build a career in auto repair with the skills he developed in the CTE program. He’s also taking classes at the Pennsylvania College of Technology and plans to get his associate’s degree in collision repair in May.

Carter received a $15,000 scholarship to attend the school, because he placed second at a SkillsUSA competition. SkillsUSA is a national organization that provides support for students entering technical, skilled, and service career fields.

“I went to SkillsUSA for the first time in 11th grade. It was a big deal, because my school never competed in that before. I was able to win third place," he said. "Senior year, I came back and took second place. I might do it again at the college level.”

The competition is divided into several sections. The first task is hands-on and requires students to fix a dent in a fender. Competitors then need to come up with a handwritten estimate on a car. There’s also a written assessment and an interview process.

Carter said he accepted the SkillsUSA scholarship because he wanted to do more than use the skills he already had.

“I wanted to continue my education, because I wanted to be above the competition. I wanted to show I not only have skills with my hands, but that I’m smart, too,” said Carter, who is also a resident assistant on campus.

This past summer, Carter balanced his coursework with an internship at Faulkner Collision Center, an auto body and repair shop in South Philadelphia. He said he did a little bit of everything during the internship, including detail work and painting. He planned to start working there full-time, mainly as a painter, after his summer classes end.

Carter said the biggest challenge he faces in working in the automotive industry is that people don’t expect him to be capable of good work because he’s so young.

“People try to take advantage of my age. … My biggest obstacle is trying to break down those barriers.”

In the future, Carter said he’d like to open his own body shop or become a high school shop teacher. Having mentored younger students while he was in high school, Carter still returns to Randolph periodically to help. He said he’d be excited to teach others what he was taught and to help younger students achieve their own career goals.

“I think it’s cool teaching people about this because I like it so much.”

Michaela Ward was an intern at the Notebook this summer.

CTE success stories: Bernard Buie, Applied Visual and Interactive Design graduate

2015-08-14T15:01:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Several profiles will appear in our upcoming Fall Guide to High Schools, due out Sept. 4, and over the next few weeks, we will preview some of these students’ stories online.

Our second profile is of Bernard Buie, a 2008 graduate of Northeast High School’s Applied Visual and Interactive Design program.

Northeast High School graduate Bernard Buie launched a fashion career before he was 20 years old using the skills he learned in Applied Visual and Interactive Design (AVID), one of the high school’s career and technical education programs.

“When I was 19, I opened my first clothing retail store, to push my career,” he said.

Buie started the store right after graduating from Northeast in 2008. At the same time, he headed to American Intercontinental University in Atlanta. Balancing the business with college proved difficult, so Buie let go of the store. But he continued his studies and graduated in 2010 with an associate’s degree in business administration.

Today, Buie, 25, runs his own clothing line called SOS by Bernard Buie. The line features boxer briefs with a lower-leg pocket for condoms to promote safe sex. Buie credits his business success not only to his college education, but also to the experience he gained in his CTE program.

In the AVID program, students learn about a range of design elements, such as graphics layout techniques, printing, and web design. They use industry-standard technology and apply what they’ve learned, with coursework in graphic design and in other applications, according to the District’s course description.

Buie said that starting the applied design track in high school was an easy decision because he had always liked technology.

“The program had Macs, which have more visual and design software, instead of PCs,” he said.

Early on he knew he wanted to get into business, and he also knew that the other programs that his neighborhood high school offered just weren’t a good fit.

“I liked math and money but never was the Algebra II type,” Buie said.

Buie didn’t start in the school’s CTE program until the 11th grade, one year after most students begin. He said that he got a late start because he spent his first two years of high school trying to find the right school. He attended Gratz for 9th grade and then Delaware Valley Charter High School for 10th grade. After discovering that Northeast was the best option for him, his family moved from North Philadelphia to be closer to the school. Once there, Buie said, he was able to jump right into the program and its specialized courses.

“I got to learn HTML and play with the school website. I got to learn a little bit about Photoshop,” he said.

His CTE program included what Buie described as an apprenticeship with Xerox. He said this apprenticeship was the highlight of his time in high school. With the company, he was able to learn more of the nuts and bolts of design and to work directly with industry products, such as new types of printers and inkjets. The apprenticeship also connected him with opportunities to learn not just from current technology, but from people in the business.

“Xerox would come into the school and would allow us to work on projects and would mentor us.”

Buie said his CTE teachers also served as mentors, which at the time he didn’t realize was unique.

“I thought that because they were teachers, they had to mentor. Later on, I realized they didn’t have to do half of what they did. I looked at teachers primarily for the skills I learned,” he said. He still counts on those skills today.

Buie found that his CTE coursework was the bridge to the design work he now does with his clothing business.

“CTE laid down my foundation for what things should look like. I learned font types, how to cut business cards, and where different logos should go on business cards,” he said.

He also said he realizes that knowing the ins and outs of the design world has helped him with his career. So, in addition to running his clothing business – which also provides graphic design services like business card design – he’s teaching these skills to young people who want to enter the industry.

“Right now, I have two design interns, and I’m actually teaching them what I learned in high school [because] had I not gone through CTE, I don’t think I’d be where I am.”

Michaela Ward was an intern at the Notebook this summer.

CTE success stories: Precious Terry, culinary arts graduate

2015-08-11T19:14:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Several profiles will appear in our upcoming Fall Guide to High Schools, due out Sept. 4, and over the next few weeks, we will preview some of these students’ stories online.

Our first profile is of Precious Terry, a 2012 graduate of Randolph Career Academy’s culinary arts program.

For some, starting on a CTE track is not simply about making money after graduation; it’s also about pursuing the chance to do something you love.

Precious Terry, now 20, chose to join the culinary arts CTE program at Randolph Career Academy because of her love for TV cooking shows and for making meals at home.

Initially, Terry didn’t know that she would come out of the program with certification that would allow her to work in her field. Instead, she enrolled to explore what she could do in the kitchen.

“I kind of got interested in what I could actually make,” Terry said.

According to the District, the culinary arts program at Randolph prepares students for food industry careers, including positions in institutional, commercial, or self-owned food establishments. In the classes, students study culinary theory and gain laboratory and work experience preparing and serving quality food. Students also learn to use commercial equipment and are taught industry safety guidelines.

Although Terry entered the program without any expectations of where her interest might lead, her open-mindedness led her to success. She earned state certification in culinary arts and the highest National Occupational Competency Testing Institute (NOCTI) score in her class. The NOCTI exam is required by the Pennsylvania Department of Education for CTE students to measure job readiness.

After graduating from Randolph in 2012, she won a fellowship that covered her full tuition to Monroe College in New York City. This past April she graduated with two degrees: an associate’s degree in baking and pastry, and a bachelor’s degree in hospitality management. She said that support from her culinary arts teacher, Erik LeBlanc, was crucial to her getting to college and earning the fellowship.

“My chef LeBlanc helped me from start to finish. He showed me the skills they wanted, [and] how they wanted it to be done. He’d tell me, ‘Try using less of this or more of that,’ or ‘Make your cuts a bit thinner,’” she explained.

LeBlanc was also responsible for getting Terry to make her first dessert, a chocolate lava cake. It was a hit, Terry said. She said the experience was pivotal, as it shifted her passion from cooking to baking.

In July, Terry accepted a job as a line cook on Spirit Entertainment Cruise Line. She’s excited about the job, though it means flipping back from sweet to savory kitchen work. The new position will allow her to brush up on the original skills she learned at Randolph.

“I decided to take the job because my culinary arts skills are a little rusty. It will give me a chance to renew what I know,” she said.

“I [also] like the fact that it’s fast-paced. It gives me a chance to experiment with the recipes.”

She’s not about to give up her passion for baking, though.

“On the side, I have my own business. I make cupcakes [and sweets] that friends and family order.”

Michaela Ward was an intern at the Notebook this summer.

Notebook coverage of career and technical education is supported by a grant from the Lenfest Foundation.