Chalkbeat

Philadelphia’s school asbestos problem is already derailing back-to-school

2026-08-17T22:35:36+00:00

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After a $17 million HVAC renovation and nearly two years of construction, Kensington High students and staff were hoping this school year would get off to a smooth start.

Instead, they were hit with a familiar Philly school problem: asbestos, a toxic substance that can cause breathing problems and lung disease when it deteriorates and is inhaled.

During renovations at Kensington High School this summer, an asbestos inspector identified concerns about the demolition of the old HVAC system, Deputy Superintendent of Operations Oz Hill said in a letter sent to the school community last week. To remove asbestos and clean the building, the district will relocate students and staff to the unoccupied Austin Meehan Middle School building seven miles away for the remainder of 2026.

“We know this is disappointing news, but the health and safety of our students, staff, and workers is our first priority,” Hill said. He added that the district looked for buildings closer to Kensington, but none were suitable for the school’s more than 400 students and 90 staff members.

Kensington is one of many century-old district buildings where asbestos must be constantly monitored and occasionally remediated. That process is time-consuming and expensive, but failing to do so can create hazardous health conditions. In recent years, district leaders have pledged in public and in court to improve asbestos monitoring and ensure quick remediation. Still, asbestos remains a problem, raising concerns that the district isn’t doing enough to keep school buildings safe.

“This is a repeat of the playbook we’ve seen at other schools,” said Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg during a press conference Monday.

Over the past few years, district leaders have temporarily closed a handful of schools due to asbestos, including Ben Franklin High School and SLA Beeber. They’ve also shut down parts of other buildings to conduct asbestos remediation.

“Unfortunately for the staff and the kids in the community, it’s going to be a chaotic year,” Steinberg said.

Last year, the Department of Justice criminally charged the district in a first-of-its-kind case, finding that it failed to conduct proper asbestos monitoring between 2015 and 2023. To defer prosecution, the district agreed to inspect buildings every six months and regularly repair damage.

Superintendent Tony Watlington has separately said his facilities plan, which includes closing 17 schools and upgrading nearly 170 others, will ensure all students attend classes in high-quality buildings.

But the district does not yet have the funds to complete all the renovations Watlington is seeking. In the meantime, nearly 300 school buildings have asbestos that must be monitored.

District promises support for displaced Kensington High students

District spokesperson Naima DeBrest said in a statement Monday evening that the district suspects a third-party contractor improperly removed asbestos containing material during demolition work at Kensington High.

The district removed that contractor from the job, and the contractor is not working on any other district project. The district is on schedule with its regular asbestos inspections, DeBrest said.

Steinberg said district officials briefed him and other union personnel on the matter in July and allowed them to inspect the building.

Steinberg said district officials told him that a contractor who was not certified or trained in asbestos removal or remediation demolished an area containing asbestos. The contractor did not follow asbestos removal best practices, which means the materials could have contaminated several parts of the school.

“A lot was being done quickly,” said Jerry Roseman, the PFT’s director of environmental science, who inspected the damage. “It needed more careful management, knowing there’s asbestos throughout the building.”

The district will provide transportation for all Kensington students to Meehan, Kensington Principal José E. Lebrón told families in a letter over the weekend.

It will also transition the lab spaces for Kensington’s marketing, computer technology, and computer engineering programs to the new building. District officials also said they will create a school safety plan and share it with families ahead of the first day of school next week.

“Please rest assured that our dedicated team has been working around the clock to create a safe, vibrant, and welcoming space where our students can thrive from day one,” Lebrón said.

Families can access more information during upcoming meetings:

In-person information meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 18 at 5:00 p.m. at Kensington CAPA.
Virtual information meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 19 at 5:00 p.m. via Zoom.
Austin Meehan open house for Kensington High on Friday, Aug. 21 at 1 p.m.
Austin Meehan open house for Kensington High on Saturday, Aug. 22 at 10 a.m.

This story has been updated with additional information from the Philadelphia school district.

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.

Philadelphia teachers describe chaotic ‘fantasy football draft’ to get their school assignments

2026-07-08T20:23:59+00:00

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The Philadelphia school district is telling teachers to pick school placements from a list on the spot — or it will assign them one, creating what the teachers union called “confusion and exasperation” six weeks before the school year starts.

The district has more than 300 positions for next school year that it still needs to fill, according to a list in a district email sent last week to staff obtained by Chalkbeat. Teachers who do not yet have an assigned position for next year must attend Zoom meetings this week, send a proxy to select for them, or be assigned a school “based on the needs of the School District,” according to a second email the district sent to staff Monday.

“It’s like a fantasy football draft,” said one district teacher who attended his scheduled meeting on Tuesday. He and other teachers spoke to Chalkbeat on the condition of anonymity because the district did not authorize him to speak. “It’s an utter disorganized, chaotic mess,” he said.

The Zoom sessions are a culmination of what several teachers described as months of staffing uncertainty. In the spring, district officials had planned budget cuts for the 2025-26 school year that would eliminate 340 positions, and told principals to move forward with cutting roles. The district did not plan to layoff staff, but rather directed employees to find open positions elsewhere through a process called “forced transfers.”

A last-minute city budget deal last month restored those positions, but only after affected teachers had already begun applying for new positions. Schools also still have to move forward with eliminating other positions that resulted from enrollment shifts, which change schools’ budgets every year.

Teachers affected by the staffing reorganization describe chaos and uncertainty. Some say they still don’t know if they’ll be able to return to their positions that district officials previously planned to eliminate in the spring. Others have already taken jobs outside the district to avoid the frustration.

Experts say this kind of upheaval, though sometimes unavoidable, can lead to greater teacher turnover and make it harder to ensure students get the help they need.

District spokesperson Monique Braxton said in a statement that the district is moving forward with restoring positions, but that doing so “is separate from staffing those positions.”

She said the district is working with principals on staffing schools and making employee assignments in accordance with union agreements.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg said in a statement Wednesday that the district’s Tuesday Zoom session for teachers to pick their schools was “a day-long debacle that left many PFT members frustrated and disenchanted.”

The union contract requires the district to inform force transferred staff of vacancies, and to assign them to the vacancies they request, based on seniority. But it does not dictate the details of the selection process.

Steinberg said the union applauded the city budget deal. But he called on the district to correct the “administrative issues” that have left teachers with no confirmation of where they’ll be working so close to the beginning of the next school year.

The district has around 220 schools, some located nearly an hour’s drive apart.

Schools’ budgets and staff positions shift regularly based on enrollment, and forced transfers are a common part of every school year transition. But this year’s last-minute budget deal appeared to delay the timeline for finalizing placements.

Superintendent Tony Watlington previously said figuring out a way to restore positions was a “great problem to have.” Recruiting and retaining effective teachers is a key pillar of his strategic plan.

But moving teachers between schools without much input from them can lead to increased turnover, said Edward Fuller, a professor in the College of Education at Penn State who has studied teacher retention.

“The fit between a teacher and a school is really important, and you don’t fit well at every school,” said Fuller. “If you go to another school and you don’t fit, now you’re like, why am I going to do this? Like, I can just pick my own school outside of the district, or go find another job.”

Fuller’s research has found that the number of newly certified teachers across Pennsylvania has plummeted over the past decade, with too few teachers to fill the demand. That takes a toll on students’ academic performance, he has found.

Still, he said, districts with declining enrollment like Philly will likely have to increasingly make these difficult decisions more often, in order to shuffle teachers to where they’re needed most.

“I don’t think there’s any easy answer, honestly,” said Fuller.

Effective schools build strong partnerships between students, families, and staff, said Scott Gaiber, deputy chief of talent initiatives at the Philly-based education group Elevate 215.

“When you have people shuffling out and shuffling in, it’s really challenging to create those partnerships,” he said.

Philadelphia audit finds school district owes former employees $2.8 million

2026-07-02T16:41:58+00:00

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The School District of Philadelphia owes $2.8 million in delayed termination payments to more than 700 former employees, according to an audit the city controller released Thursday.

The district owes the majority of that money to employees who retired or otherwise left the district in fiscal year 2024. But it owes more than $500,000 to employees who left the district in fiscal year 2023 or earlier.

“Every employee deserves to be paid accurately and on time for the work they performed,” City Controller Christy Brady said in a press release Thursday. “When former employees are still waiting years after leaving the school district to receive compensation they earned, it raises concerns about accountability and compliance.”

The audit found the district also could not locate several expensive pieces of equipment worth a total of nearly $300,000, including printers, Smart Boards, and a piano.

Brady’s office referred to these as “deficiencies in internal control.” “Now more than ever, resources must be managed responsibly and efficiently,” she said.

The audit comes after months of scrutiny and debate over the school district’s spending. During the city’s budget cycle this spring, several members of the City Council questioned why the district asked for more funding while simultaneously planning to close schools. And a recent poll found 86% of city voters supported auditing the district.

School district spokesperson Monique Braxton said in a statement that the district was pleased the audit identified no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies, “reflecting the District’s strong commitment to fiscal stewardship, transparency, and accountability.”

She added that the district has already developed corrective action plans to address the audit’s findings, including implementing improved asset-tracking procedures and centralized oversight for its inventory management.

“We will continue working to improve our processes, strengthen accountability, and make sure public dollars are managed wisely and responsibly,” Braxton said.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers filed a grievance in May over the district’s delayed termination payments, as well as a grievance over delayed supplemental pay to current staff.

School leaders say Philly’s charter school oversight is flawed. But fixing it is hard.

2026-06-11T16:24:24+00:00

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Pennsylvania has a vision for charter schools: Improve student learning, provide families with choices, and explore innovative approaches to teaching — all while being held to high standards by the local district.

But in Philly, where one-third of the city’s public school students attend charters, some education leaders say tensions between charter and district leaders have made that vision increasingly difficult to execute.

Many charter schools have operated successfully for decades, with students doing well academically and school communities thriving. But over the past five years, around two dozen have had academic, operational, or financial problems that could be grounds for closure, based on the district’s evaluation framework. Some have suspended students at high rates, struggled to boost low academic scores, or failed to meet state laws about school operations.

Yet only one of those charters will close as of next school year due to the Board of Education’s actions. A few other charters have closed on their own accord.

Still, charter leaders say Philly’s approach to charter oversight has caused other problems. At least five have sued the district and board in expensive and lengthy lawsuits to prevent closures. Charter leaders have alleged the board’s charter evaluations are inconsistent, biased, and political. Many say they don’t get enough support from district leaders. And several point to what an independent investigation in 2023 called a “conflict of interest” within the system, where the district funds and regulates charters and traditional public schools, which all “compete” for the same students.

The resulting discord has created frustration, left families in limbo, and sucked up money and resources for schools. To some, it also shows that Philly has strayed far from the promise that charter schools and the district could collaborate to improve all students’ experiences.

Charter and district leaders seem to agree on one thing: The charter renewal process isn’t working the way it’s supposed to, with an accountability system everyone agrees on and efficient ways to resolve conflicts.

“It’s sad,” said Natalie Wiltshire, CEO of KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools, which is part of a lawsuit against the board. “Because now I feel like we have this adversarial relationship that just does not need to exist.”

Peng Chao, who leads the school board’s Charter Schools Office, said his team has worked to create a communicative and transparent accountability system. But, he said, “ultimately, what I think might be happening here is this basic perspective that accountability is inherently difficult.”

Over 5 years, Philly’s school board closed 1 charter

The board evaluates charters every few years on whether they meet academic, operational, and financial standards it sets.

If a school doesn’t meet standards, the board can decide not to renew its charter, kicking off a process that can lead to the school closing.

Over the past five years, all of the city’s roughly 80 charter schools have gone through the renewal process. The majority received scores of meeting or approaching the required standards, according to the Charter Schools Office’s evaluations.

But the evaluations also show more than 20 others received scores of not meeting requirements, which can be grounds for nonrenewal. They include schools where all teachers don’t get background checks, students’ grades are worsening, or absenteeism and suspension rates are much higher than the district average.

Still, the board has started the nonrenewal process for just six charters since 2022, including two in May. For two other schools, it’s moved to revoke charters outside renewals.

Of all those cases, only one has resulted in a charter operator losing its school. Memphis Street Academy, which sued the board in 2022 to prevent its closure, recently lost its appeal. Though the school operator will lose its charter, the school itself will transition to become district-operated for next school year.

Philadelphia's Memphis Street Academy charter school will transition to become district-operated for next school year. It's the only charter school the Board of Education has closed in the last five years.

For two of the schools not renewed, the board later reversed its decision. Others have remained open as they battle the decision in court, or wait for hearings and appeals to play out.

Philadelphia Montessori Charter School recently sued the board after it started the nonrenewal process for the school. Executive Director Amanda Wilson said the school felt turning to the courts was their only option because “there is no room for conversation or negotiation” in the board’s renewal procedures.

Chao said the state’s charter law requires districts to hold hearings over nonrenewals, and schools can appeal decisions to the state’s Charter Appeal Board. That board’s members are appointed by the governor, and they have largely sided with districts.

“There is a process for schools to put forth evidence and their side of the story,” said Chao. Lawsuits, he said, delay that.

Charter school accountability has long been fraught

Charter nonrenewal decisions are controversial across the country. But the number and frequency of lawsuits over the process in Philly sets it apart, said David Greenberg, vice president of authorizer learning and development at the National Association of Charter School Authorizers.

When authorizers and charter schools work together well, schools often do better, said Greenberg. When that’s not happening, students may pay the price.

“This kind of acrimony takes the focus away from teaching and learning,” said Greenberg.

Charter school leaders have a variety of problems with the renewal process, from how it compares schools to what some have called an “inconsistent” reaction to schools that don’t meet standards.

Some allege the board oversteps the law by requiring schools to agree to conditions, like raising students’ test scores by a certain amount. Others have alleged the entire process is discriminatory against schools that serve a disproportionate number of Black and brown students.

Philadelphia Charter Schools Office Director Peng Chao says charter lawsuits interrupt the Board of Education's process of holding charter schools accountable.

Chao said he could not comment on specific allegations. But he and the board are working to revise the renewal process.

Two years ago, the board launched a process called Project RiSE, meant to improve how it evaluates charter schools. It is expected to release the new framework in September, after delaying it from an initial release planned for this month.

“We know that accountability metrics must evolve over time,” said Board President Reginald Streater in a statement last year about the effort.

But Chao said he could not share details about how the new framework may differ from the current one.

Cassandra St. Vil, CEO of Philadelphia Charters for Excellence, a charter school advocacy organization, said she was initially hopeful the new framework could address concerns that evaluations are inconsistent and unfair. But as the district has pushed back its release date and failed to share any details about it, she no longer trusts that will happen.

Philadelphia Charters for Excellence recently sued the board to limit the requirements it can impose on schools in the renewal process.

“We are not trying to skirt accountability at all,” said St. Vil. “We’re actually trying to bring it to light and make sure that it’s mutual, across the authorizer as well as the (charter school) sector.”

52 Philadelphia schools will go virtual Friday due to high temperatures. Here’s the list.

2026-06-04T21:09:29+00:00

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The Philadelphia school district will close 52 schools Friday and move to virtual learning due to high temperatures, district officials announced Thursday afternoon.

Early childhood programs located at those schools will also be virtual, and all in person after-school programs in those buildings will be canceled.

The transition to virtual learning will hit around one-quarter of the district’s schools. Schools not on the list will continue to operate as normal. Students may also still participate in field trips.

In a letter announcing the change, Deputy Superintendent Oz Hill said the district recognizes “that unexpected shifts to virtual learning can create challenges for families.”

“While we know that in-person learning is the best environment for students, the safety and well-being of our students, staff, and families remains our top priority,” Hill said.

Temperatures are expected to hit 90 degrees on Friday in Philadelphia. Many schools lack air conditioning in all rooms.

The district also moved dozens of schools to virtual learning on May 20 due to high heat. That move came after the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers urged the district to keep students and staff safe amid soaring temperatures.

The 52 schools that will operate virtually on Friday are:

AMY Northwest
Bache-Martin*
Blaine, James*
Building 21
Catharine, Joseph*
Comegys, B.
Comly, Watson
Cooke, J.
Crossan, Kennedy
Disston, Hamilton
Dunbar, Paul
Emlen, Eleanor*
Fell, D Newlin
Fox Chase
Franklin, Ben HS
Girard, Stephen
Harding, Warren
Henry, Charles
Hill-Freedman
Hopkinson, Francis
Houston, Henry
Howe, Julia
Jenks, Abram
Jenks, John S
Lamberton*
Lingelbach, Anna
Loesche*
Ludlow, James
McCloskey, John
McClure, A.*
McMichael, M.*
Mitchell, Weir
Moore, J. Hampton
MYA
Olney Elementary
Overbrook ES
Parkway West
Patterson, John*
Rhawnhurst*
Rowen, William
Roxborough HS
Sayre, William
Sharswood, George*
Sheppard, Issac
South Phila. HS*
Spring Garden
Spruance, Gilbert*
Sullivan, James
Tilden, William
The U School
Wagner, Gen. Louis
Washington, Martha

An asterisk indicates the school has prekindergarten or Head Start on site.

Philly’s dropout rate is declining. Here’s how the district is keeping kids in class.

2026-06-01T20:30:12+00:00

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Shervon Thompson, principal of Philadelphia’s Murrell Dobbins High School, knows students are at risk of dropping out of her school for many reasons.

Some have pressure to work or have trouble finding transportation to school. Others are dealing with trauma from gun violence, a death in the family, or sickness.

Whatever the challenge, Thompson said her approach is consistent: make sure students feel like school is a place where they belong and are supported.

“The first thing is just to make sure that school is seen as a safe haven,” said Thompson. “And try to fill up as many of those resources that we can possibly do to fulfill those needs.”

Dropout rates nationally have declined steadily over the past decade. But in Philadelphia, the number of student dropouts has historically been much higher than the state average. After the pandemic pushed school online, dropout rates spiked still further.

To reverse that trend, Philly has doubled down on hiring staff and contracting with organizations to support and track down students at risk of dropping out. It also reminds families that they can opt to enroll in a district-operated virtual school if students want to stay at home.

So far, that effort appears to be working.

Last year, a record low of around 1,300 students dropped out, representing roughly 2.3% of students enrolled in grades 7-12, according to state data. That’s around half the dropout rate from a decade ago, when Philly had one of the highest dropout rates of any Pennsylvania school district. Though the district’s dropout rate remains higher than the state average, dozens of other districts are in worse shape.

This school year so far, district data shows around 1,275 students dropped out as of April.

At Dobbins, the improvement is especially pronounced: During the 2021-22 school year, 66 students dropped out, but last year, just 19 students did.

Melvin Marshall, the district’s assistant superintendent of student dropout prevention, attributes the success to the district’s increased efforts to reach kids and families before they’re absent from school too long.

“The old practice was that you would drop that student after a certain number of days (out of school),” said Marshall. But now, his team of five focuses on reaching out to those families or students who have been absent for multiple days in a row.

Some schools, including Dobbins, also employ staff to work with kids at risk of dropping out and check on them. And the district contracts with Concentric Educational Solutions, a Baltimore-based education company, to conduct home visits.

“A big part of it is just reaching out to families, finding out the core reasons why the student is not attending school,” Marshall said.

To prevent dropouts, district shares online alternatives

District officials say their success in reducing the number of dropouts is the result of several initiatives working well together.

The district’s 9th Grade Success Network operates in around 30 schools to help students during their first year of high school stay on-track to graduation. District leaders have also said they’re looking to expand a 10th grade support program to keep students on track to graduation.

That follows research from Chicago that found supporting students earlier in high school can significantly improve graduation rates.

“The sooner you can intervene or give support, so that students aren’t withdrawing, the more effective you can be,” said Elaine Allensworth, executive director of the UChicago Consortium on School Research who led the research on keeping students on-track in earlier grades.

Still, those programs don’t reach every student in the district. That’s why it’s important for schools to have good systems to monitor students who are absent and follow up with them to check in and provide support, Allensworth said.

Marshall said his team works to be sensitive and responsive to the pressures on many students and families that can lead to dropping out. Some are concerned about increased immigration enforcement. Others have to care for siblings or earn money to help their families stay afloat.

In some circumstances, Marshall said, getting a student back to their current school isn’t the best option. That’s when the district offers alternatives, like the Philadelphia Virtual Academy, a district-run online school.

When students transfer to other schools, be it within the district or outside of it, they’re not considered a dropout. Letting families know that there are other ways they can finish their degree can often make all the difference, Marshall said.

“Those are the calls that parents are appreciative of,” said Marshall. “We can assist them in pointing them in the right direction to get some of those resources our district can offer.”

Why the Philadelphia school district will phase out a special education program

2026-05-19T15:54:34+00:00

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The Philadelphia school district plans to wind down a special education program that separates some students with additional learning needs into their own classrooms.

The program, called Intensive Learning Support or ILS, is meant to boost students who are significantly academically behind their peers. Classes are generally small, with fewer than 20 students, and include special education interventions along with general curriculum instruction. The district declined to share how many students were in the program this school year.

But the district plans to end the program at the end of this school year in an effort to educate more special education students alongside their peers, said Nathalie Nérée, the district’s chief of special education and diverse learners. Many ILS students will be placed into general education classrooms, which can have more than 30 students, and will get additional services throughout the school day, she said.

“We look at student data, we look at their growth. For the growth of students in intensive learning support, it was minimal to none,” said Nérée. The district looks at students’ standardized test scores and progress on their Individualized Education Program goals to monitor growth.

The move, Nérée said, is part of her effort to end Philly’s practice of educating a large share of special education students separately from their peers. Including all students in mainstream classrooms is backed by a body of research that has found students with disabilities benefit socially and cognitively when they learn in a general education environment. But some experts contest those findings, and several Philly teachers said they feared the decision would leave students without necessary support and stretch teachers impossibly thin.

The change does not impact what services and how many hours of support students in ILS classes are supposed to receive. Rather, it would largely reorganize when and how students receive those interventions. Officials want special education teachers to “push in” support to general education classrooms and “pull out” students to receive additional services. The district would mostly reassign ILS teachers to learning support positions to provide these services.

The program supports students who are several grades behind in some academic skills, like literacy. But in some schools, ILS has “become a bit of a dumping ground” for students whose needs are not well understood, said one ILS teacher who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorized by the district to speak publicly.

The teacher said she believed some of her students could thrive in a general education classroom too, so long as they got the additional support they needed. But she feared the district does not have enough resources or staff to guarantee that.

“There are certain kids who are just going to get lost, who do need more support,” she said.

Philly wants more students with disabilities in general education

Nérée said her commitment is to work with every school and family to ensure kids get the special education services they need while accessing high-quality curriculum. But she also said she worries about how much the district has historically relied on separating kids with disabilities and additional learning needs from their peers to educate them.

Federal law requires that students with disabilities learn alongside their general education peers, in what’s called the “least restrictive environment,” as much as possible.

But in Philadelphia last school year, fewer than 40% of the district’s 23,000 special education students spent the vast majority of their school time in general education classrooms, according to state data. That’s a far smaller proportion than the state average of 60%. It means Philly’s special education students spend more time secluded from their peers than in most other districts.

Since Nérée joined the district in 2023, she said she has been working to undo a system that frequently separates special education students.

Assigning students to ILS classes was meant to give students extra help to reach grade level academic skills, “not a forever sentence of being in a segregated classroom,” said Nérée. “Unfortunately, there are places where that’s what it resulted in.”

The wind down of the ILS program doesn’t put an end to all separate special education classrooms. There will still be other kinds, including autistic support, life skills, and emotional support classes. Some ILS students could attend these classes if their evaluation team determines it would be the best fit, Nérée said.

Margie Wakelin, senior attorney in the Philadelphia office of the Education Law Center, said she supports Nérée’s focus on including more students with disabilities in general education classes. But she said the district needs to provide more resources, like staff training and support teachers, for that effort to be successful.

“It’s not just an easy, ‘Oh, we’ll close out a program, and then these kids will be included,’’’ said Wakelin. “Time and time and time again, we’ve learned that inclusion works, but it takes thoughtfulness, it takes resources, it takes support for these kids to be successful.”

Views differ on best approach to special education

The change is part of a national conversation — still hotly debated — about how best to educate students with disabilities. Many experts and advocates have long urged schools to include special needs students alongside their general education peers, and studies have supported that strategy.

But other experts question that approach. Douglas Fuchs, a fellow at the American Institutes for Research and a research professor at Vanderbilt University, said there is no conclusive evidence that students with disabilities do better in general education classrooms. Fuchs’s review of research into inclusion, published last year, found the method of how schools teach those students can make a difference.

Research shows that intensive, systematic, and consistent instruction can help boost the achievement of students with disabilities. But that kind of instruction is often difficult to provide in crowded general education classrooms, he said.

Moving special needs students from an intensive environment like ILS to larger general education classes is “precisely the wrong strategy,” he said.

That’s the concern some Philly teachers have as well.

One ILS teacher said leaders at her school have told her to recommend all her students to general education classrooms for next year. But she disagrees with that directive. Some of her students, who are middle-school-aged, are still working on writing their names and addresses.

“My kids could never be successful in those rooms,” she said.

Philadelphia City Council will explore creating an elected school board

2026-05-07T17:43:10+00:00

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Members of Philadelphia’s City Council will examine creating an elected school board, escalating their campaign to have more control over the city’s schools.

Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas introduced a resolution on Thursday to authorize the committee to conduct hearings into the school board’s governance model. The resolution was privileged, meaning it was adopted by the City Council with Thomas’s support.

The move comes after weeks of explosive fights between Thomas and Board of Education President Reginald Streater over the district’s plan to close 17 schools. The board voted 6-3 to approve that plan last week following protests from Thomas and other councilmembers.

Elected school boards can give residents more say over who controls schools, but they can also politicize the school governance process. Researchers have found that no particular governance model is associated with improved academic outcomes for students. School governance conversations have intensified across the country as districts grapple with declining enrollment, school closures, and budget problems.

Philadelphia law states that school board members serve “at the pleasure” of the mayor, unless they are elected. All members of the current board were nominated by Mayor Cherelle Parker. Most were also confirmed by City Council through a vote, except member Joyce Wilkerson. Wilkerson’s presence on the school board has created tension between the City Council, Parker, and the board.

Thomas’s resolution directs the Education Committee to explore options for an elected school board or a hybrid of elected and appointed members.

In response to questions from Chalkbeat, Streater said in a Thursday statement the board voted to approve school closures “grounded and guided by our commitment to increasing access and opportunities for all students.”

“As a Board, we will continue to call on our city and state partners to work alongside us to ensure that every student receives the investment and support they deserve,” he added.

The resolution calls out the board’s approach to school closures — including initially scheduling a vote on the closures with only 72 hours notice — as a reason for why the governance model should change.

“These actions and the context of these decisions should remind Philadelphians that the governance model of the Philadelphia Board of Education is unique among municipalities in Pennsylvania,” the resolution states. “Considering a more traditional elected or hybrid model of governance may compel the Board to be more responsive to students and families’ concerns than the Board has proven to be.”

In every Pennsylvania district except for Philadelphia, the state’s largest district, school board members are elected. Those elections are partisan. Boards have key powers over districts, including hiring a superintendent, various policies, and the budget.

Seven other members of the City Council cosponsored the resolution from Thomas. It does not state when the Education Committee’s hearings over school governance would begin.

Philadelphia Education Committee chair says he’s ‘prepared to sue’ to stop school closures

2026-04-30T15:06:29+00:00

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Philadelphia Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas says members of City Council are “prepared to sue” if the Board of Education approves the district’s school closure plan — and that they’ve got several state representatives on their side.

“We’re prepared as a legislative body, working with our members in Harrisburg, to do everything in our power to make sure that this plan is not implemented,” Thomas said at a press conference outside of Paul Robeson High School Thursday morning. “We’re not going to let this go.”

The escalation comes just hours before the school board is set to vote on the district’s proposal to close 17 schools beginning in 2027, including Robeson. Superintendent Tony Watlington has said that the plan is necessary to better distribute resources, improve the quality of school buildings, and provide more educational opportunities.

The City Council does not get a vote on the plan. But the 10 members of the City Council and two state representatives outside of Robeson on Thursday said they will fight the closure plan in every way possible.

“We’re prepared to shut that meeting down,” Thomas said. “This is civil disobedience today.”

Thomas said he would work to ensure any board member who votes for the closures is not confirmed to serve another term on the Board of Education. Board members are nominated by the mayor and are supposed to be confirmed by City Council, although one current member, Joyce Wilkerson, was never confirmed by members.

Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, who initially appeared to support the district’s recent changes to the closure proposal that would funnel more resources to her district, said she strongly opposed the plan to close Robeson and repurpose it for community use.

“We’ve made some progress since this fight began,” said Gauthier, who represents parts of West and Southwest Philly. “But the fact that the district secured the land, the funding, and is even exploring building a new school here, but won’t call it Robeson, is a slap in the face to this community.”

Several City Councilmembers said they also were strongly against the proposal to close Lankenau Environmental Science High School. The district has said it would keep the school’s building for student use, but it would not remain a school. Instead, Lankenau would become an honors program at Saul High School.

Councilmember Curtis Jones said he planned to introduce legislation Thursday related to investigating the school district’s spending.

“You want to talk about savings? We have the savings,” Jones said. “It’s in the house, but they won’t let us come in and audit.”

Rep. Rick Krajewski, a Democrat who represents part of Philadelphia, said he understood some of the district’s money challenges come from years of under-funding from the state. But he said that does not mean closures are the answer. “The call from our students, our neighbors and our teachers is to stand tall and fight back,” Krajewski said.

Board members have not indicated how they will vote on the proposal, but President Reginald Streater has previously said that the district must address its facilities problems. They were initially scheduled to vote last week, but postponed it after intense criticism from the City Council.

Vote on Philadelphia school closures canceled by Board of Education

2026-04-23T18:15:02+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education will not vote on the district’s sweeping school closure proposal Thursday as previously planned, the board announced.

Board Chief of Staff Sithi Bucciarelli said in a statement Thursday afternoon the board will now meet April 30 to consider the resolution that includes the closures.

The board will still meet on Thursday at 4 p.m., as scheduled, to consider other business not related to the closures, Bucciarelli said.

On Monday, the board announced the plan to close 17 schools beginning in 2027 would be on Thursday’s school board meeting agenda. The reversal comes roughly two hours before that meeting was set to begin.

The resolution included changes to the facilities plan that the district had not shared previously, including removing one school from the closure list. It also included modernizing nearly 170 other schools.

In the last few days, members of the City Council have pushed Superintendent Tony Watlington and Board President Reginald Streater to delay the vote. During two days of tense hearings on education spending, elected officials told school leaders the facilities plan as written has major flaws.

Councilmembers and educators also said the plan’s timeline has been rushed, which meant many people did not have time to review the plan or reschedule their weeks to attend the meeting.

Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, who represents parts of West and Southwest Philadelphia, told Watlington and Streater during a Wednesday hearing that delaying the vote would show they were working in “true partnership towards the benefit of our kids.”

On several occasions during the hearing, Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas asked Streater directly if he would delay the vote. But Streater said he could not make that decision unilaterally and would have to consult with other board members.

All 17 councilmembers signed a letter dated Thursday requesting that the board postpone the vote until its May 28 meeting, at the earliest.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers also harshly critiqued the district’s quick timeline for the scheduled vote.

On April 30, the board will only consider the facilities plan vote and a resolution related to issuing bonds.

“We recognize that the future of our school facilities is a matter of significant interest that requires the highest level of collaboration,” said Board President Reginald Streater in a Thursday statement. “In the spirit of partnership, we are taking this time to ensure our stakeholders understand the proposal” before the Board votes.

This story has been updated to reflect that the Board of Education still plans to meet April 23.

Chalkbeat Philadelphia Bureau Chief Carly Sitrin contributed to this story.

Your guide to Philadelphia’s upcoming school closure vote

2026-04-23T14:53:50+00:00

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Update: Board officials announced Thursday afternoon they will now meet April 30 to consider the resolution that includes the closures.

The Philadelphia Board of Education is moving ahead with plans to vote Thursday on the school district’s proposal to close 17 schools.

The closure plan, which the district first announced in January and initially targeted 20 schools, has received major pushback from school communities and local officials who worry shuttering schools will destabilize students, spark bullying and fights, and rob communities of vital resources.

“If we slow down just a little bit and just took more account for what the community says, what students say, we might get better results on how we should move forward,” said Overbrook Elementary School Principal Kenneth Glover at a Wednesday rally to save his school, which is on the closure list.

This week, students, educators, and policymakers launched a full-out campaign for the board to delay the vote. At the City Council earlier this week, members blasted School Board President Reginald Streater and Superintendent Tony Watlington, saying they were not sufficiently consulted in the planning and selection of the schools to be closed and modernized.

But Streater declined to postpone the vote. He said only that he would bring their concerns back to the other board members.

Watlington and district officials have said the closures and general rightsizing of the district are necessary and will expand educational opportunities for students. Over the past decade, enrollment in Philadelphia’s public schools has declined by more than 17,000 students. That’s left many students to learn in half-empty, inadequate school buildings that are costly to maintain.

District leaders say their facilities master plan, which includes the closures, will offer students safer school environments and will help the district better serve the needs of Philly students and families.

Here’s some additional information about the closure vote, and how you can get involved.

Where’s the most updated list of which schools would close?

The district is proposing to close 17 schools, modernize 169 schools, and colocate six schools.

The district’s facilities master plan website has more information about plans for each school.

Where is the vote happening and how do I participate?

The vote is part of the Board of Education’s Monthly Action Meeting, which is held at 440 North Broad Street and livestreamed online here. The meeting begins at 4 p.m.

You can submit written comments here (you must include your name and the subject line “Board Comments”). Or you can drop a statement off at the board office at the North Broad Street address.

What happens if the board votes yes?

If the board approves the resolution, the district and board will then move forward with required legal steps to close schools. The district may still make changes to the plan during that part of the process.

Per the plan, most closures would not go into effect until 2027. District officials have promised that schools identified for closure will have a planning year, during which staff and families will work with a “transition team” to ease students and teachers through the changes.

What other actions could the board take?

The board could decide to table the vote to give the district more time to receive community input. Board members could also vote against the closure plan and send it back to the district to make changes.

However, Watlington has said this version of the plan is the “final, final set of recommendations” he is putting forward.

How much will the facilities plan cost?

The district doesn’t have a firm plan to fund the proposal, which comes with a $3 billion price tag. Alongside the closures, the broader facilities master plan includes renovations to nearly 170 schools. That means fixing bathrooms, painting walls, and patching ceilings, among other repairs.

Watlington said the funding will come from a combination of philanthropic donations and district funds. However, the district is also facing a $300 million budget shortfall, which Mayor Cherelle Parker hopes to partially close with a controversial rideshare tax.

What will happen to teachers if their school closes?

Watlington has said no teachers will lose their jobs due to the closures. But the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers union has not thrown their support behind the plan.

PFT President Arthur Steinberg joined calls this week to delay the vote and is planning to host a protest outside of the district building ahead of Thursday’s vote. Steinberg said the union is working on an alternative proposal that it plans to release in the next few weeks.

Sammy Caiola covers solutions to gun violence in and around Philadelphia schools. Have ideas for her? Get in touch at scaiola@chalkbeat.org.

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

Feud over Philadelphia’s school closure plan leads to threats against district funding

2026-04-22T22:08:29+00:00

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In the hours before the Philadelphia Board of Education is scheduled to vote on its school closure plan, political threats and finger-pointing have reached a fever pitch.

City Councilmembers who say they were caught off-guard by the board’s sudden decision to hold the vote to close 17 schools this week have summoned Superintendent Tony Watlington and Board President Reginald Streater to multiple budget hearings, where they have threatened district funding. They say they felt misled by district leaders and — as Councilmember Nina Ahmad put it — “sandbagged.”

Meanwhile, at rallies to save individual schools from closure, state lawmakers have declared that they have long memories and will not forget the outcome of Thursday’s vote. They’ve said if the board votes to close beloved schools in their districts, they’ll be less likely to advocate for increased state aid for Philly schools.

“The administration, the legislative body, and the school district all look like you’re fighting against each other,” said Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, who at a Wednesday hearing asked Streater to delay the planned vote as a signal of political goodwill.

Streater refused to accept or reject the request, saying he would confer with the board members and come to a decision before Thursday.

The fiery political rhetoric signals that the relationship between city government, school board members, and district leaders has been damaged. Still, there are few alternate proposals to get the district the money it says it would need to maintain buildings and close its budget hole. And as angry as elected leaders are about the situation, many of those same officials are among the biggest champions of education funding who might be loath to punish the district by cutting school aid or withholding their support for increasing it.

“I don’t want to talk about school funding until we get a facilities plan that we all agree upon,” Councilmember and Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas told Chalkbeat. “You can’t tell us that we have to get in line with your facilities plan and then tell us we have to get in line with your funding plan. That’s disingenuous.”

The only proposal to increase city funding for the school district on the table right now is Mayor Cherelle Parker’s $1 rideshare tax, which at least one councilmember has said is “dead on arrival” if the closure plan moves forward as written. That proposal would provide an estimated $54 million to offset 340 planned staff cuts — a drop in the bucket for a district facing a $300 million deficit and which has been chronically underfunded by some $1.8 billion annually, according to a Commonwealth Court judge.

Members spent Tuesday and Wednesday questioning and excoriating Watlington, Streater, and the city’s Chief Education Officer Debora Carrera. But when it comes to voting to send the district money, “we always come through,” Councilmember Cindy Bass said at Wednesday’s budget hearing.

At that same hearing, Parker called for unity but did not back down from her tax proposal that has become increasingly unpopular at the City Council.

“I know it’s good theater for people to see what they consider to be our going to war, the administration, versus the council, the legislative branch versus the executive branch in opposition, with the school board in opposition with the school superintendent,” Parker said.

For many elected leaders, the issue might be a defining feature of their time in office. Their speeches over the last few months at rallies to keep schools from closing may help them get attention from families and latch onto a cause that’s spurring civic engagement across the city.

Parker, who appointed all of the board members, is up for reelection in 2027. All 17 City Councilmembers have indicated they intend to seek reelection in 2027, and this year, every member of the state House of Representatives is on the ballot.

“As we go through budget season in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, we will remember that vote on Thursday,” state Rep. Morgan Cephas, a Democrat, warned board members at a Tuesday rally to keep Lankenau Environmental Science High School open.

Still, no City Councilmember has put forth a plan to help the district close its budget deficit or allocate more money to prevent closures.

“It’s complex for y’all. It’s complex for us. We’re trying to work as a partnership, and everybody’s gotta do a little bit of give and take,” Council President Kenyatta Johnson said Wednesday.

Education advocates say councilmembers could draw on the city’s budget surplus, shift the amount of tax revenue set aside for the district, or adjust the split of the city’s soda tax revenue to send more money to schools, for example. Thomas told Chalkbeat Wednesday he won’t entertain alternatives until they reach common ground with the facilities plan.

But holding up all city funding for the district appears unlikely.

Bass said Wednesday that not one councilmember “has taken a single vote against any level of funding” for the district in the past.

Thomas said if the board moves forward with a vote on the closure plan Thursday, he’s prepared to consider “plenty of options.”

Chalkbeat reporter Rebecca Redelmeier contributed to this story.

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

Sports, AP, and the arts: Here are the looming budget cuts Philadelphia school leaders aren’t discussing

2026-04-22T15:20:13+00:00

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Philadelphia school leaders have repeated one stat since the district’s budgeting process began last month: 340 full-time school-based positions will be eliminated next year if the district doesn’t get more funding.

But those cuts are only one piece of the puzzle. Now that principals are making their budgets, educators said the result is that schools are planning to cut many additional positions and programs that district officials are not talking about. Teachers and principals say that means tougher times for students and staff: crowded classrooms, more dangerous hallways, and fewer opportunities for learning.

Some schools are cutting class offerings, like art and Advanced Placement courses. Others say their schools will eliminate after-school programs. And though district leaders have promised no teachers will lose their jobs, some worry that there won’t be appropriate openings for them — leading to teachers leaving the district.

The breakdown of cuts the district shared with Mayor Cherelle Parker’s office and some members of City Council last week, which Chalkbeat obtained, largely focused on cuts resulting from the elimination of pandemic relief funds and extra funding sent to a few struggling schools.

It showed that fewer than five positions would be cut at most schools to plug the district’s funding hole.

But that breakdown did not include budget reductions from schools’ enrollment decline and other funding changes that happen annually. The amount of money the district allocates each school is largely determined by how many students it projects will enroll there.

Funding staff positions has also become more expensive, meaning the same budgets from last year won’t stretch to cover the same number of staff.

At Science Leadership Academy at Beeber, for example, teacher Alex Kopp, the teachers union representative in the building, said around 10 staff — including nine teachers and one climate staff — have received notices that they must find positions at other schools.

“It’s completely chaotic in terms of us planning anything,” Kopp said. The school will lose its athletic director, which means the school would offer no sports. It is also cutting all extracurriculars next year because there is no funding for them. Beeber’s principal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Over the past decade, enrollment in Philadelphia public schools has fallen by around 17,000 students, a roughly 13% drop. As district enrollment is projected to continue to decline over the next decade, some schools will likely continue to be hit hard by the resulting enrollment-based budget cuts.

Schools generally have to rework their budgets every year based on enrollment, and some make cuts. But educators said this year, the additional cuts from the district’s plan have made matters much worse.

At Olney High School, Principal Michael Roth said the school — which has lost around 200 students over the past two years — is cutting more than a dozen staff members next year. That’s due to a combination of the district’s budget cuts and enrollment-related funding changes at the school.

Roth said the cuts include teachers who offer AP courses and are involved with the school’s dual enrollment college credit program.

“It’s not just that you’re losing staff, you’re losing a piece of your community that families and students have connected to or related to for a long period of time,” Roth said at a City Hall press conference Tuesday. “We’re losing people but we’re also losing excellence.”

District leaders have said the budget cuts this year are financially necessary. “Without these interventions, future District expenditures will grow faster than revenues due to rising salaries, charter school payments, and healthcare cost increases,” district spokesperson Monique Braxton said in a statement.

Some cuts could be reversed if the city or state allocates more money to the district. But principals and educators have told Chalkbeat the uncertainty has already started to drive teachers out of the district.

“Who’s going to want to work in the district?” Kopp asked.

Schools lose programs under planned budget cuts

Some students say they’re already mourning the teachers and programs their schools are set to lose.

Adrianelly Mercado, a 10th grader at Olney High School, said before joining the school, she didn’t know much about dual enrollment programs and Advanced Placement courses that would help her earn college credit. But one of her teachers helped her access those opportunities.

Now, that teacher’s position would be eliminated under the school’s budget for next year. The future of Olney’s dual enrollment program is uncertain as well.

“It doesn’t make sense to me,” Mercado said during a rally against the staffing cuts outside Olney on Tuesday. “I hope that these teachers can stay here and help us have a great education.”

Students at Philadelphia's Olney High School say they worry they'll lose access to the school's dual enrollment programs due to the school's planned staffing cuts.

The Board of Education hasn’t yet signed off on the budget. But school leaders have already told teachers if their position is planned for elimination, and that they should apply elsewhere.

Emily Griest, a high school art teacher at Hill-Freedman World Academy, said that right before a parent-teacher conference with a family whose kid thrived in her art class, her school notified her that it’s planning to eliminate her position. If her position disappears, her students would not have access to an art curriculum.

“I was working really hard to expand the art department there to give kids more opportunities,” she said. “And instead, it became a conversation of, well, the choice is being taken away from students.”

Now, her plan is to look for another position teaching high school art in the district and “hope for the best,” she said.

There’s a chance schools end up getting more money next year if the City Council passes Parker’s proposed $1-per-ride tax on rideshares. The tax would funnel $48 million annually to the district. Superintendent Tony Watlington has said that would enable the district to avoid cutting 340 school-based positions.

But during a hearing on the rideshare tax at the City Council on Tuesday, many members seemed skeptical. Councilmember Curtis Jones labeled the proposal as “DOA,” or dead on arrival, and that by his count the proposal did not have the votes in council to pass as written.

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

17 school closures: Philadelphia Board of Education to vote on new facilities plan Thursday

2026-04-20T17:39:10+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education will vote Thursday whether to move forward with the school district’s school closure proposal, according to a resolution the board published Monday.

The latest version of the plan district officials released Monday would close 17 schools beginning in 2027. That’s down from the initial 18 school closures Superintendent Tony Watlington presented to the board in February.

The district’s updated proposal takes James R. Ludlow School off the closure list and nixes the plan to turn John Moffet Elementary into a middle school. Moffet would now become a K-4 school, with students attending Ludlow for middle school.

It also increases investments in some parts of the city where members of City Council have vehemently fought the plan. And although the district still plans to close Lankenau Environmental Science High School and Paul Robeson High School, it now plans to hold onto those two school properties and eventually repurpose them for community or student use, rather than sell the buildings or convey them to the city.

The plan, which includes colocating some schools and modernizing nearly 170 others, has a $3 billion price tag — up from an initial $2.8 billion. But there’s no guarantee the district will be able to foot the bill. Watlington said during a press briefing Monday that the district will put $1 billion towards the upgrades and hopes to raise additional funding from government and philanthropic grants.

The plans’ ultimate goal, Watlington said, is to increase educational opportunities for all students. Too many students are in half-empty, crumbling buildings that are not offering them the academic opportunities they sorely deserve, Watlington has said. And district enrollment is projected to continue to decline.

Board President Reginald Streater appeared supportive of the plan at the press briefing Monday, but it’s still unclear how other members will vote.

“We can’t expect a different result doing the same thing, understanding our budget realities,” Streater said. “We have to reorganize and go through this reform of how we do things in Philadelphia if we expect to provide our babies the resources they need to be who they want to be and who they can be when they grow up.”

If the board approves the resolution, it will kick start another process for the district and board to complete required legal steps to close schools. One of those steps will likely be additional public engagement.

Streater said the district could alter the plan again, based on enrollment or budgetary changes. But for now, this is the version the board will consider.

“This is the final, final set of recommendations that I’m presenting to President Streater and his Board of Education for consideration,” Watlington said.

Councilmember who fought closure plan now supports it

The district’s decision not to sell Paul Robeson High School seems to have swayed at least one city councilmember: Jamie Gauthier.

Gauthier had previously fiercely opposed the district’s plan. She had organized rallies against it and proposed rezoning the land for Robeson and other schools in her district to prevent them from being redeveloped into commercial or residential buildings. But on Monday, she said she supported the changes.

“This proves that you’re listening. It proves that you care about equity in this plan, and I and my community are grateful,” Gauthier said at the briefing Monday.

The $200 million increase to the plan’s price tag largely stems from bigger investments in Gauthier’s district, which includes parts of West and Southwest Philadelphia. These include modernization projects at Anderson Elementary, Bryant Elementary, and Mitchell Elementary, and a pool renovation at Motivation High School.

The plan increases spending in Councilmember Jeffery Young Jr.’s district in North Philadelphia as well. Young had also fought the facilities plan and said he was considering his own rezoning proposal.

On Monday, Young said in a statement that he welcomed the decision to remove Ludlow, which is in his district, from the closure list. But he called the move “clear proof that the school facilities plan is flawed and isn’t based on any sound rationale.”

“I remain firmly opposed to the Facilities Master Plan as a whole,” Young said.

Education Chair Isaiah Thomas calls closure vote ‘rushed’

Philadelphia Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas immediately critiqued the district Monday for giving Philadelphians only three days notice of the vote.

People had been pleading with the board for months to give them significant advance notice for any vote on the plan. On Monday, several educators told Chalkbeat they worried the tight timeframe would make it difficult for people to reorganize their week to attend the meeting.

“More information needs to be communicated to our communities before a vote is taken, and the school board should not take a vote on this plan until that has happened,” Thomas said in a statement.

Thomas said the vote as scheduled would be “rushed” and would “only further reduce public trust and fear about this plan and its impact on our young people.”

Teachers union opposes plan, is working on alternative

Arthur Steinberg, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said his team did not receive prior notice of the plan’s changes or the scheduled vote.

“I think the timing is awful,” Steinberg said.

The City Council plans to consider a $1 per ride tax on Ubers and Lyfts on Tuesday that would funnel $48 million annually to the district and prevent some staff cuts. With the closure vote now looming, “it’s going to be more difficult to get the public on board and to keep people enthused about” the proposed rideshare tax, Steinberg said.

Steinberg said the union cannot comment on the substance of the plan because district officials did not “show their work” about how they decided which schools they planned to close. The union is working on an alternative proposal that it plans to release in the next few weeks, he said.

The $3 billion price tag is also a major concern, Steinberg said. He worries the district will not have the money to make all the investments and modernizations it has promised.

“My greatest fear is the closures will go ahead because they’re in place and they’re scheduled,” said Steinberg. “You’ll get three or four years down the road, and they’ll say, ‘Oh, well, we don’t have the money. We’re gonna have to stop here.’”

This story has been updated to include comments from City Council Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg, and Councilmember Jeffery Young Jr.

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

Philly mayor now says proposed Uber tax could save all school-based jobs on the chopping block

2026-04-15T20:02:18+00:00

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Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker and Superintendent Tony Watlington say they’ve found a way to save all the school-based staff the district is planning to cut.

But the district’s proposal to preserve those jobs hinges on Parker’s proposed $1 per ride tax on rideshare companies like Uber that the tech company is already fighting to stop. And the City Council must still approve the proposed tax hike.

Parker and Watlington’s announcement Wednesday doesn’t change how much the tax would generate for the district. But Parker said the district “was able to make adjustments” to their budget that would save all school-based positions from elimination if the tax goes through.

In the meantime, without a guarantee of more funding, schools are telling some teachers their positions are likely to be eliminated.

Watlington’s draft budget for next fiscal year that he shared last month slashed school spending by $225 million. The proposal included cutting 340 school-based staff, 130 central office staff and 220 building substitute positions, as well as some contracts.

Watlington said the aim was to eliminate the district’s $300 million budget deficit by 2030, and close the funding hole left from pandemic relief dollars drying up.

But Parker later said she opposed the sweeping cuts and proposed a $1 rideshare tax to funnel $48 million annually to the district. At the time, school officials said the tax increase would save 240 school-based positions from elimination, but 100 positions would still be cut.

Without providing more details, Parker and Watlington now say they’ve found the money to prevent all of the proposed cuts to school-based positions.

“That is something for us to be proud of,” Parker said Wednesday. “That’s if we can actually make it a reality.”

Since Parker proposed the rideshare tax, Uber has mounted a hefty ad campaign against it.

In a statement, Uber spokesperson Jazmin Kay pushed back on Parker’s assertion that rideshare companies have the option of absorbing the cost for their customers.

“This is a tax on the rider’s transaction, not a fee on the business, despite the administration’s attempt to frame it otherwise,” Kay said.

Watlington said if the City Council approves the tax, the district would reverse the budget cuts that would result in schools losing climate staff, teachers, counselors, and other school-based staff. The district would still eliminate building substitutes and central office staff.

Wednesday’s announcement was also Parker’s attempt to signal to state lawmakers that the city is doing its part to fund its schools. “We’re not just going hat in hand to Harrisburg,” she said.

As Philadelphia advances $225 million cut to school spending, teachers worry learning will suffer

2026-04-07T21:07:11+00:00

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Larger class sizes. Less support for students with disabilities. Fewer school climate staff to help kids in need.

Philadelphia teachers say this is the future they’re preparing for as school leaders move forward with their plan to reduce spending by $225 million next fiscal year. The budget proposal — which the board gave preliminary approval to last month — would eliminate 220 building substitute positions and cut another 340 school-based positions, including climate staff, special education aides, and teachers.

The Board of Education has yet to adopt the budget, which will be subject to a hearing at City Council later this month. But Superintendent Tony Watlington has directed principals to move forward with drafting budgets that cut spending. His goal, he recently told the board, is to plug the district’s $300 million budget deficit while providing essential services to support student achievement.

But more than a dozen educators Chalkbeat spoke with said the plan threatens to upend their schools, leaving students and staff with less help during a time when many are already struggling. They said the plan has decimated morale inside their buildings and resulted in deep anxiety for which positions would ultimately be eliminated.

“They’re taking away all the care from outside the classroom and putting more problems in the classroom,” said one middle school teacher, who like other educators asked not to be named because she was not authorized to speak on the matter

District leaders have said no teachers would lose their jobs due to the cuts, and instead those in positions that get cut could move to other open ones.

The city’s teacher shortage means that the district generally begins the school year with many openings. But teachers said it remains unclear who would ultimately need to find a new position, and where they would be.

“We understand the district is facing significant budget cuts, but staff have been asking for clarification on placements for several weeks without updates from our principal,” said one elementary school teacher. “It’s a mess all around.”

The proposal comes as the district seeks approval from the Board of Education to close 18 schools beginning in 2027. District officials have said the closures are not meant to be a cost-saving measure, and that schools slated for closure will not be impacted by next fiscal year’s budget cuts.

But at a board meeting last month, Board President Reginald Streater acknowledged the combined strain both proposals could cause.

“It’s been less than 30 days and we are being given another presentation that could require us to make potential, tough decisions,” Streater said. He said he knew the cuts could be painful, but that something must be done to address the budget deficit.

District officials did not respond to questions about the impact of the cuts, saying that the proposal is now in the hands of the Board of Education.

Teachers worry about cuts to building substitutes, climate staff

Along with cuts to school-based staff, Watlington’s budget proposal includes eliminating 130 vacant central office positions. The plan would also cut some contracts that Watlington said aren’t directly improving students’ educational outcomes, though he has not elaborated on which contracts those may be.

Still, teachers and advocates say the cuts would inevitably impact student learning.

Many teachers said they were concerned district leaders may not understand the value of some of the positions they plan to cut. Building substitutes, for example, are full-time staff at schools that provide consistent support to kids who may have their main teacher out for days or weeks. And climate staff step in to keep hallways calm and students focused on learning.

One teacher said in her middle school classroom, a student has a meltdown nearly every day. When that happens, the climate staff at her school step in to take the student out of the classroom to calm down.

By cutting the number of climate staff at her school — she’s still not sure how many would be left after the budgets are finalized — she worries she and other teachers would have to choose between continuing their lessons and supporting a child having an outburst.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker has said she does not want the school cuts to go through. She has proposed a $1 per ride tax on Ubers and Lyfts to funnel more money to the school district in order to prevent many of them.

The tax would save 240 school-based positions from elimination, but it’s unclear if members of City Council will support the new tax.

In the meantime, Arthur Steinberg, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said teachers are bracing for a challenging year ahead.

“The district itself is fond of saying that the most important variable in how kids achieve and grow is the teacher in the classroom,” said Steinberg. “So any reduction in services to kids is going to slow down the learning and really be an obstacle to further growth.”

No more diapers or sweeping punishments: How Philly parents helped guarantee student bathroom breaks

2026-03-27T17:23:20+00:00

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On an unseasonably hot March day outside of Bluford Elementary School, Philadelphia mom Cat LaTorre hustled from car to car handing out flyers.

The bold purple lettering spelled out the school district’s new wellness policy guaranteeing kids daily recess, regular bathroom breaks, and more. But to LaTorre, they represented something on top of that: victory.

“These are the things we won for you, mama,” she said to a parent and her daughter driving off at dismissal time. “We’re trying to do bigger and better things for you.”

LaTorre is one of dozens of parent volunteers with the grassroots advocacy group Lift Every Voice Philly. They’d spent the better part of two years confronting district officials and city leaders with stories of students wearing diapers to school because of insufficient bathroom breaks. They sent letters and testified in meetings about entire classrooms of students being punished for a single kid’s bad behavior. They showed up to Philadelphia City Council meetings demanding joy for their children, and said they didn’t think that was too much to ask.

Cat LaTorre, a member of Lift Every Voice Philly, shares a flyer about the district's new wellness policy with a parent at Bluford Elementary School.

Lift Every Voice’s work shows how hard it can be for parents in the city to affect change, but also how it can be done. It took a lot of advocacy, false dawns, and more than one tearful school board meeting to do what at one point felt impossible to the group. These parents, most of whom had little formal history or background in activism, ultimately had a major influence on policy in the big bureaucratic system that is the Philly school district.

And other parents are starting to take notice. The district’s proposal to close 18 schools has spurred hundreds of Philly families who’ve never considered themselves education activists to look for an advocacy playbook that gets results.

Following a Board of Education vote last month, it’s now official district policy that all students will get daily recess, regular movement breaks to stretch, as well as access to water and bathrooms that can’t be restricted as punishment. In addition, teachers can no longer collectively punish groups of students for the actions of a few, and students can’t be forced to have “silent lunches” where speaking is prohibited.

“We navigated something that is so significant, that is life-changing for our kids and for our families,” LaTi Spence, a member of Lift Every Voice, told Chalkbeat.

Councilmember praises Lift Every Voice’s ‘community power’

Just days after the school board’s vote, in a blur of metallic purple pom-poms, members of Lift Every Voice celebrated the landmark policy change at the district’s headquarters. Superintendent Tony Watlington and other local dignitaries stood arm-in-arm with the LEV parents.

“‘Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will,’” Watlington said, quoting the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. “I wish we had done this much sooner. But I’m pleased that we’re doing it today.”

Of course, “power” over Philly public schools resides with district leaders like Watlington and the school board.

Superintendent Tony Watlington celebrated the Philadelphia school board's vote to approve the wellness policy at the school district headquarters in March.

The board’s Feb. 27 vote to adopt the policy was perfunctory and took place without debate. But for months before that, it appeared and then disappeared from school board meeting agendas.

The Lift Every Voice parents discovered there was always another survey to fill out, another person they should meet with, or another time for public comment.

The process was exhausting and at times, demoralizing, they said. But it wasn’t unfamiliar.

The wellness policy was not Lift Every Voice’s first demand from those in power in Philly schools.

The group began in 2022 as a grassroots gathering of Black parents who said they felt ignored and shut out of important conversations about public education in the city. Lift Every Voice’s 2023 campaign to expose the school nurse staffing shortage forced a public reckoning and gave the advocates their first taste of success.

Since then, moms and grandmas in their signature purple shirts have canvassed neighborhoods, visited with members of the City Council, and roamed City Hall.

Carrera Wilson, center, said Lift Every Voice Philly helped her build confidence and get more involved in her children's education.

“They testify, they build power,” Councilmember Kendra Brooks said at the celebration of the board’s wellness policy vote. “That’s what community power looks like.”

And their success comes as community organizing around public education is seeing a resurgence in the wake of the district’s closure proposals.

At several community engagement meetings and rallies across the city protesting the closures, many parents and public school advocates have accused the bureaucracy of Philadelphia schools of creating a wall between families and the district.

But it’s not insurmountable, parents said.

“We don’t win all the battles. But this one’s really significant,” Spence said. “I think it’s giving people and parents hope to know that, especially with the news around the school closures, that there’s a piece of joy that we did get and we can hold on to.”

Cat LaTorre spread the word about the new wellness policy by talking to parents at dismissal at Bluford Elementary School.

Changing policy in Philly public schools isn’t easy

Lift Every Voice Executive Director Shanée Garner said changing how the district works can be messy because “our systems are not built to respond to people.” She said the school district has been historically underfunded and has cycled through different leaders, board members, and various amounts of state oversight.

The core of LEV’s work has been about fostering relationships, Garner said. “If we want to build a future where everyone is looking out for each other,” she said, it requires elected officials, school leaders, and parents to take the time to get to know each other.

Julie Krug, another parent in LEV, said she thinks the group was able to move hearts and minds by choosing policy priorities drawn from stories rooted in their personal experiences with their kids and their schools. “What I’ve learned is how powerful that really is,” she said. “It’s irrefutable.”

Members of Lift Every Voice say their advocacy work's goal is to create better school environments and more joy for Philly students.

Building sustained parent power also requires educating families about the levers of control and the city’s political hierarchies, and how to navigate them.

At meetings, volunteers run through scenarios about issues like bullying, vaping, and advocating for resources for students with disabilities. They discuss how to find the right person to reach out to whether that’s a teacher, counselor, assistant superintendent, or administrator. They practice writing an email or note that will best convey their concerns.

The goal is to demystify the system and arm parents with the knowledge and skills to advocate for what their children are owed.

Carrera Wilson, another founding Lift Every Voice member and mother of five, said prior to joining the group, she was an activist in her heart and in her mind, “but actually making moves, making changes, connecting with people that actually can do things? That have some pull? No.” she said.

Wilson said LEV helped her build her confidence, learn how to organize, speak in public, and grow her skills as a community leader.

“We had to fight. It took a lot to get here,” Wilson said. “I just was a parent that cared and didn’t like what was going on in my kids’ school. And now I can actually go home and tell my kids, look on the news, Mommy did this. We won this.”

Lift Every Voice's members say they want their numbers to grow. They're also working with the district to ensure Philadelphia schools have the resources to implement the new wellness policy.

In many ways, LEV’s work is just beginning. The group is now working with the district to help develop a plan to ensure the wellness policy is followed, and that schools have the resources they need to follow it.

The parents’ goal is “bigger numbers, more power, more success,” said Wilson. They want parents to start expecting better of their schools and holding their district accountable.

Wilson said there was a time where she and the other parents felt like “we can’t do anything, we can’t bust through that wall.” But Wilson said that to be standing outside Bluford with a list of guarantees they fought for made what she and others in Lift Every Voice did all worth it.

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

Plan to slash Philadelphia school budget by $225 million moves forward

2026-03-27T00:06:02+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education adopted a preliminary plan Thursday to cut district spending by $225 million next fiscal year.

The plan follows the budget cuts Superintendent Tony Watlington proposed earlier this month. Watlington said the cuts are necessary to plug the district’s $300 million deficit and to prepare for the projected rising costs of salaries, charter school payments, and health care.

“It is not because of waste,” Watlington told the school board Thursday. “It is not because somehow we’re not managing the public’s tax dollars wisely. It is because over the next five years, our expenditures will grow faster than revenues.”

He also said the district’s funding challenges are largely a result of underfunding from the state and the end of post-pandemic federal aid.

The preliminary $4.5 billion spending plan, called the “lump sum” budget statement, isn’t finalized. It will be presented to Mayor Cherelle Parker and City Council, and there will be public hearings before the board’s final vote in May.

If the plan passes, the district will eliminate all of its approximately 220 building substitute positions, reassign another 340 school-based positions, and cut 130 vacant central office roles. The district would also cancel some contracts that Watlington said aren’t increasing attendance or student performance in reading or math.

Those cuts, along with additional spending reductions over the next few years, would enable the district to eliminate its structural budget deficit by 2030, Watlington said.

Board President Reginald Streater acknowledged that the budget cuts could be painful for the city’s schools. “It is clear that [students] are worth the investment,” Streater said. But he added that the board must consider what needs to be done to address the budget deficit.

There’s a chance the cuts could be much lower. Earlier this week, Mayor Cherelle Parker proposed a $1-per-ride tax on Ubers and Lyfts to generate $48 million annually for schools, which would save 240 school-based positions from elimination. But it’s unclear if members of the City Council will support that plan.

In the meantime, Watlington said the district is advising schools to plan budgets that would not include that extra funding.

The school board also approved the following contracts:

$84.5 million for preschool programming at three dozen providers for income-eligible children.
$390,000 for a pre-K marketing campaign to promote enrollment.
$18.8 million in payments to other educational institutions, including hospitals, private schools, and other districts where students are placed by the Department of Human Services, Community Behavioral Health, or the courts.
An additional $175,000 with David Geppert Recycling for asbestos disposal services on top of an initial $150,000 contract.

Students fear Philly school closures could spark bullying and violence. Here are possible solutions.

2026-03-13T16:15:00+00:00

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Philadelphia students and community members want to know how schools will prevent fights, bullying, and other conflicts that could stem from the district’s proposal to close 18 schools.

Experts say there are ways to prevent such violence — if planning begins now.

People have brought up safety at many of the roughly 40 community meetings the school district has hosted at schools that would close beginning in 2027. Usually it’s parents and students at smaller, specialized schools who would be moved into bigger neighborhood high schools with violent reputations.

April Anderson voiced concern at a February community meeting about plans to close Parkway Northwest High School, which her child attends, and move those students to Martin Luther King High School, which is about a half-mile away and happens to be Anderson’s own alma mater.

“There are fights at King,” she said. “If you put kids from Parkway in King you don’t think that’s going to start issues?”

Several Parkway Northwest students who attended the meeting echoed that sentiment, including freshman Dane McFarland, who runs on MLK’s track and said he gets bullied there.

Dane McFarland, holding up a megaphone, was among the students who walked out Parkway Northwest High School on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026 to protest the Philadelphia school district's plan to close the school.

A rough reputation can stick with a school, even when data about student conflicts doesn’t tell a simple story. MLK High School does have a higher rate of group assaults than Parkway or Building 21, another school that would also merge into MLK under the district’s closure plan.

But Parkway has higher rates of fights between students, according to the district’s data on serious incidents from 2021 to 2025.

At a City Council hearing about the closures on Feb. 17, Council President Kenyatta Johnson asked district Superintendent Tony Watlington to ensure “that we have a game plan to make sure our young people are safe.”

Watlington answered by pointing to Safe Path, which stations trained adults around the perimeters of campuses to break up dismissal-time fighting and escort children home as needed. But that program was delayed at some schools this year, and moreover doesn’t directly address the climate inside buildings.

At a recent school board meeting, the president of the School Police Association of Philadelphia, Bernadette Ambrose-Smith, requested that the district do a safety analysis of the closure plan, due to concerns about students losing “safe havens.”

Officials said every school receiving new students would have a “transition team” but have not specified how those teams would help defuse tensions and prevent violence stemming from closures and displacement.

Asked about the issue, district spokesperson Monique Braxton contended that the district already has adequate resources in place, writing in an email: “We don’t anticipate violence between existing students and incoming students at receiving schools.”

But combining student groups and their social hierarchies means the first few months of mergers and co-locations would be an adjustment for kids, and that schools should “plan ahead for the social aspects of the transition,” said Tracy Waasdorp, director of research, school-based bullying, and social-emotional learning at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Center for Violence Prevention.

Waasdorp said that before schools merge or co-locate, one initial step could include gathering school staff, parents, and community members to discuss existing dynamics and tensions.

She also recommends starting with adult-led and supervised summer activities that require kids from different schools to interact, a strategy that she calls a “no-brainer.”

And once the school year starts, administrations should point out to students which adults they can talk to if they are experiencing bullying, conflict, or other stressors, Waasdorp said.

“Some of these children already have been struggling, and they may continue to struggle once they get to this new setting,” she said. “Make sure that whoever that one person is is available and known to the kids, like, ‘I’m the social-emotional person. I’m here for you.’”

Prioritizing the role of trusted adults is also one of several strategies being used by Bartram High School, which until recently was a hot spot for violence, including an average of five students who were shot each school year from 2017 to 2022.

Since implementing a pilot of the Youth Violence Reduction Initiative about three years ago, shootings are down 80% and fights not involving guns are down 31%. It could serve as a strong model for schools confronting mergers under the closure plan to consider, in part because of its focus on gangs.

Students worry about crowded hallways making fights worse

The pilot at Bartram could have been seriously tested by the district’s initial school closure plan.

The district’s original plan, which it released in January, would have closed Motivation High School and relocated its students to Bartram. When he heard the news, Bartram ninth grader Hanaij Fulton was concerned that hallways would become hot spots. He doubted school safety officers would be able to control crowds if more students packed in.

“It’s like nothing they can really do when they fight, because the whole hallway is just full of people,” Fulton said. “They’d have to push past people. People wouldn’t be moving.”

After criticism about the plans for Motivation High, the district scrapped the proposal to merge students there into Bartram. It also nixed plans to close Paul Robeson High School and merge students there into William L. Sayre High School. But other schools will still have to deal with increased student traffic and related concerns if the Board of Education approves the closure plan.

Before the district backtracked, Tenneh Conteh had similar concerns about Sayre High School, where she is a senior.

She said school safety officers there already struggle to maintain order at the metal detectors, where kids try to sneak in vapes and sometimes guns.

“If they can barely handle the students who do come to school, they can’t handle new kids,” she said.

She feels funding related to the closures should be spent on extra security guards and additional training at the receiving schools.

But Waasdorp said neighborhood volunteers, not just extra security staff, can play a helpful role in and around buildings in such situations.

“It’ll be really important for schools to increase adult supervision in unstructured areas as the school year begins,” she said. “It’s showing all of your adults around you care about how you guys get along, and we intend to make sure everyone feels connected.”

How violence plummeted at a Philadelphia high school

The district believes the Youth Violence Reduction Initiative — or YVRI — contributed to an 80% decrease in firearm assaults by students at Bartram. In addition, there have been no shooting deaths and far fewer fights at the school since it began using the initiative in 2023. Shootings also went down citywide at that time.

“Most of the people that was really starting stuff with a lot of people, either they calmed down or they not here no more,” said Jamer Heard, a Bartram senior.

The initiative is designed for students who are part of, or are at risk of being part of, group-on-group violence. In addition to building relationships with trusted adults, it relies on a combination of conflict deescalation strategies and cross-agency collaboration.

Since the program started, there’s been a 67% drop in student-on-staff assaults, a 62% decrease in incidents involving police, and a 92% decrease in gang-involved group assaults at Bartram High.

A quote displayed in the office of Youth Violence Intervention Program Coordinator Kevin Rosa at Bartram High School on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024 in Philadelphia.

Such declines were “much larger than we expected,” said Dr. Brandy Blasko, a senior research associate in the Office of School Safety. “We’re seeing that the model we chose is actually working.”

Caterina Roman, a criminologist at Temple University who helped design the initiative, said the program could “be perfect for” mitigating violence at high schools that are receiving new students after the closures.

“Because YVRI was designed on the principles of the Comprehensive Anti-Gang Model, prevention gets built right in,” she said in an e-mail.

The district recently expanded the program to Olney High School.

The Bartram program is currently funded by a $1 million grant from the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention that will expire this year. When that funding is up, administrators plan to ask Pennsylvania for additional support.

“I think given the success of the program, we’ll figure it out,” Blasko said.

Carly Sitrin and Rebecca Redelmeier contributed reporting.

This story is part of a collaboration between Chalkbeat Philadelphia and The New York Times’s Headway Initiative, supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) via the Local Media Foundation.

Sammy Caiola covers solutions to gun violence in and around Philadelphia schools. Have ideas for her? Get in touch at scaiola@chalkbeat.org.

Long-term enrollment decline is fueling Philly’s school closure plan. It’ll likely continue.

2026-03-11T19:33:10+00:00

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Philadelphia families and educators have been fighting for months against the district’s proposal to close 18 schools. They worry about taking resources away from struggling neighborhoods and limiting the choices that families have long been promised.

But there’s a basic problem driving the closures that isn’t up for debate: There aren’t enough students to fill the city’s schools. And the situation is only expected to get worse.

Over the past decade, enrollment in Philadelphia’s public schools has declined by more than 17,000 students. That’s largely a result of declining birth rates and a sharp increase in the number of students attending cyber charter schools.

At the same time, some neighborhoods’ population has skyrocketed, driven largely by arriving immigrants. That means even as the number of empty seats in some schools has grown into the hundreds, others have become overcrowded. While the district’s overall enrollment has shrunk nearly every year, the portion of English language learners has climbed.

This school year, around 117,000 students attend Philadelphia’s district and alternative schools — a 13% decline from a decade ago. Over the next decade, the state projects enrollment will likely fall by another 10%.

The Board of Education has yet to approve the school closure proposal. It plans to host a town hall on Thursday to hear more feedback.

No board member has indicated support for the proposal yet. But board members have acknowledged that the city’s declining school enrollment must be addressed.

The district already doesn’t have enough funding to meet what the state has determined it would require to adequately educate its students. Keeping buildings open with fewer and fewer kids is a cost it may not be able to bear.

“We cannot ignore enrollment shifts,” Board President Reginald Streater wrote in an op-ed last week. “We cannot wait until financial instability forces decisions upon us. But we also cannot allow financial pressure to take priority over our mission.”

School enrollment decline unlikely to reverse

Philadelphia is far from the only district in this position. Birthrates are declining nationwide, and researchers predict nationwide public school enrollment will fall by 5% between 2022 and 2031.

In Philly, that decline is made more severe due to the rising popularity of cyber charters. In 2014, only around 550 students attended cyber charters. Last school year, more than 14,000 students did, despite concerns from some officials and education groups about the quality of education they provide.

State officials predict the Philadelphia district won’t be able to recover the thousands of children it has lost over the past decade. Instead, the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s enrollment projection model, which factors in trends in birth rates and student progression through grades, predicts Philly’s enrollment will decline by another roughly 10,000 students by 2034-35.

Superintendent Tony Watlington has said he does not want to close schools. But he’s forging ahead because the proposal would improve opportunities for the students who remain in district schools, he told the Board of Education last month. The plan would also mean no students go to class in buildings rated as poor or unsatisfactory, according to Watlington.

Watlington has said he is committed to keeping and attracting students to the district. But if enrollment continues to decline, he indicated the district could be staring down even more school closures down the line.

“You just can’t lose your student population — and for whatever reason, people leave — and then expect to maintain the same level of building footprint,” Watlington said.

As school closures loom, Philadelphia district and union officials jointly call for more state funding

2026-03-04T21:32:27+00:00

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Teacher union leaders and city officials have vehemently fought the Philadelphia school district for weeks over its proposal to close 18 schools.

But on Wednesday, union, city, and school district officials stood side by side to call for more state funding for Pennsylvania’s largest school district. Together, they urged state lawmakers to pass Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget proposal, released last month, which would boost funding for Philadelphia schools by $151 million.

With more state funding, “we can move beyond difficult conversations about scarcity,” said Deputy Superintendent Jermaine Dawson at the union-sponsored event at Lankenau Environmental Science High School, which is on the list of proposed closures. “And then we can focus squarely on accelerating academic achievement.”

Superintendent Tony Watlington has said he does not want to close schools. But he has said the proposed closures, which the Board of Education has not yet approved, are necessary to ensure students no longer attend class in dilapidated buildings and have more access to academic opportunities.

The district’s funding problems seem to be the one thing everyone can agree on throughout closure debates. Repairing the district’s aging buildings would cost millions the district does not have. Already, the district is projecting a $300 million budget deficit for the upcoming fiscal year.

In addition to opposing the closure plan, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has called for more transparency about the data the district used to determine which schools to shutter. But on Wednesday, President Arthur Steinberg had a separate priority.

“We will pick up the debate over the facilities plan another day,” said Steinberg, “Today, we are unified in saying to the General Assembly they are constitutionally obligated to fund our schools fairly and equitably.”

The Philadelphia school district is the only district in the state that cannot raise its own revenue through taxes. It has endured decades of underfunding under a state funding formula that a judge ruled was unconstitutional in 2023.

Though the legislature has boosted school funding every year since then, districts still get millions fewer dollars than what a state commission determined is needed to adequately meet all students’ needs. Last year, a months-long state budget delay also required the Philadelphia district to take out loans to stay afloat, costing it thousands in interest.

In recent years, the city has slightly increased district funding, and Mayor Cherelle Parker has promised an additional increase in 2030. But in the meantime, the cost of maintaining and fixing old buildings — many of which have had flaking asbestos and lead paint — is mounting.

Even members of the City Council, who grilled school district officials last month about the closure plan, acknowledged that the state’s history of underfunding the Philadelphia school district has contributed to the building problems officials are now trying to solve.

Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas opposes the district’s closure plan. District officials recently removed one school he’s strongly supported, Conwell Middle School, from its closure list. Thomas is an alumnus of Conwell, although Watlington has denied playing favorites.

On Wednesday, Thomas said he stood with the Lankenau community in fighting to keep their school open. But he also pointed out that the state’s long-term disinvestment in Philly’s schools has strained both the district’s and the city’s finances.

“It’s not right, it’s not fair,” said Thomas. “It has put us in a position for well over a decade to be constantly in the red as it relates to public education.”

Rep. Morgan Cephas, who chairs the Philadelphia House delegation in the state legislature, said at Wednesday’s event she would urge her colleagues to pass a state budget that boosts funding for the city’s schools, although the issue could come down to Senate Republicans.

Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify the state of Philly school buildings.

Will Philadelphia’s school board approve closing 18 schools? It has a lot to consider first.

2026-02-27T03:06:52+00:00

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Philadelphia’s $2.8 billion plan to close nearly 20 schools is now in the hands of the Board of Education.

Thursday’s board meeting marked the first time most of the members spoke publicly about the proposal the district released last month. It’s likely to be the core issue of board meetings going forward.

The district’s plan would close 18 schools beginning in 2027, colocate (combine two schools in one building) and relocate others, and invest in more than 100 school buildings. Superintendent Tony Watlington announced at the meeting Thursday that the district removed Conwell Middle School and Motivation High School from the initial proposed closure list it released last month after taking community feedback into consideration. He said the district would not cut staff positions as a result of the closures.

Board members said during the meeting that they understand the motivation behind the proposal but need more information and more time before they decide whether they support it. A vote hasn’t been scheduled. The board will hold a town hall March 12 to hear more feedback.

Students, educators, and families packed the meeting, with hundreds more in an overflow room, urging the board to reject the proposal. Several union officials, state representatives, and City Council members joined them in a protest before the meeting, calling for more transparency about the data officials used to decide which schools to close and more investment in school building maintenance.

Several self-described “shy kids” testified that their schools helped them come out of their shells and improved their mental health. They asked for greater investments in their buildings and urged officials to consider students as “more than lines on a spreadsheet.”

Students from AMY Northwest and Lankenau Environmental Science High School said the district should fix the selective admission application system that they said keeps small schools’ enrollment artificially low. Parkway Northwest and Laura Waring students said by closing their school the district was closing their home.

Watlington emphasized that the plan comes after dozens of community engagement meetings and reflects feedback from Philadelphians.

Kathryn Lajara, special education compliance monitor at Stetson Middle School, said she felt like the meetings so far had been “just checking a box.”

“They keep claiming that this is what people want, but it’s actually not,” Lajara said. “They hold these community meetings, but then there’s really no comprehensive feedback from it.”

Board members ask for more clarity about closure plan

Board President Reginald Streater asked for open hearts and minds from the public about the plan. He said that chronic underfunding and declining enrollment put the district in a difficult position.

Streater said he was infuriated that the board is being asked to consider closing schools but that it is willing to make tough decisions.

Watlington told board members that the plan would benefit all students by increasing access to desirable classes and academic programs and ensuring students attend class in high quality buildings.

Several board members called for more clarity about how the district would address transportation and safety concerns and provide support for displaced students. Some said that they worry the plan doesn’t directly support student learning and that the promised new opportunities would not be equally accessible.

“If we are asking communities to sacrifice neighborhood schools, the benefit must be worth the sacrifice,” said board member Wanda Novalés.

Several board members said they worried about how the district would scrape together enough money to afford the plan’s $2.8 billion price tag. District leaders have already said they would need additional philanthropic and public funding. And they wanted to know how school leaders will prevent this situation in the future.

Watlington said he doesn’t believe in closing schools and that he wouldn’t want his own child’s school to close. He said he is committed to growing district enrollment to avoid future closures. However, he said if enrollment continues to decline — a trend largely the result of falling birth rates — “we’ll be back in this boat again at some point.”

Leaders of 5 school-based unions oppose school closure plan

Leaders of five school-based unions joined the protest before the meeting, including the heads of the teachers union, principals union, and school police officers union.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg called the plan to close schools an abomination. He said he feared students and staff would leave the district if the board approves it.

Robin Cooper, president of the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators, which represents school principals and other staff, called for more transparency from the district about the decision-making process.

Bernadette Ambrose-Smith, president of the School Police Association of Philadelphia, said she was particularly concerned about student safety. As far as she knew, Ambrose-Smith said that the district had not done a safety analysis of the closure plan.

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

Philadelphia district removes 2 schools from proposed school closure list

2026-02-26T22:00:00+00:00

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The Philadelphia school district no longer plans to close Russell Conwell Middle School and Motivation High School, Superintendent Tony Watlington announced Thursday.

The decision to spare the two schools from proposed closures comes after nearly a month of intense community pushback against the district’s sweeping facilities plan. Watlington has said the plan would help the district provide more resources and opportunities to all students, and would also include investments in schools that remain open.

The changes also follow concerns of some prominent city officials who have so far opposed the plan. The district has also altered the plan to switch the schools some students would relocate to.

But 18 schools — most of which have mounted strong protests against the closure plan — would still close beginning in 2027.

Watlington presented the updated plan to the Board of Education Thursday afternoon. The board will ultimately decide whether that plan goes through, but it’s unclear when members will vote on it.

Watlington said at a press briefing before the board meeting that the changes represent the district’s commitment to listening to community feedback.

“Our community, quite frankly, made some suggestions that had merit,” Watlington said. “The fact that we can’t make all the changes that people across this great city recommended should never mean that we can’t make some of the changes.”

In addition, under the revised plan, Lankenau Environmental Science High School would merge into Walter B. Saul High School as a career and technical education program. That’s a shift from the initial proposal to merge Lankenau into Roxborough High School as an honors program as officials initially proposed. However, the Lankenau building would still close.

Meanwhile, students from Paul Robeson High School would relocate to Motivation, rather than Sayre High School. That means rather than joining a neighborhood high school, current Robeson students would remain at a small, criteria-based school.

Lastly, Lewis Elkin Elementary School would no longer add grades to become a K-8 school. Instead, it would remain a K-4 school and students would attend Conwell after graduating. Conwell would have an honors program that students could apply for through the district’s school selection process.

In total, more than 4,500 Philadelphia students would still have their schools closed in the coming years. The plan has the same price tag of $2.8 billion, which the district says would require extra philanthropic and public funding on top of district funds.

Philadelphia City Council seeks leverage over school closures

Members of Philadelphia’s City Council don’t have any direct say over the closure plan. But that hasn’t stopped them from speaking out about it.

Last week, council members grilled school leaders over the plan. President Kenyatta Johnson said members would not “rubber stamp” the plan, and some members indicated they could withhold funding from the district in the city budget process to back up their views.

Several prominent members rallied in particular support of Conwell Middle School in Kensington. City Council Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas previously said he would “never support” a plan that included closing Conwell, a school he attended. Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, whose district includes Kensington, said Conwell “should not be on that list.”

When asked about political influence over the plan, Watlington said his team listened to all Philadelphians and “took all that feedback together.”

Watlington said his team heard from Conwell alumni and accounted for feedback that the district should invest more in Kensington, which the district categorizes as socially vulnerable. But he denied that the district played favorites.

“We landed on these recommended changes not reflecting any one voice or sector more than the others,” he added.

Fewer students would switch to neighborhood high schools

When he announced the school closure plan last month, Watlington said one of its major goals was to reinvest in neighborhood high schools. The initial proposal would have closed five criteria-based magnet high schools or citywide admissions high schools with low enrollment. Students at four of those schools would instead attend neighborhood high schools.

But at crowded community meetings, many high school families said they chose small schools for a reason. Some said they would leave the district entirely rather than send their children to larger neighborhood high schools.

Many neighborhood high schools have been in a tough position in Philadelphia, juggling hundreds of students with few resources. Some have a reputation for chaos and violence. School leaders said funneling more students into those schools would enable them to create more opportunities. But now, they seem to be walking back that strategy.

Only one closing school — Parkway Northwest — would still merge into a neighborhood high school. It would become an honors program at Martin Luther King High School, even though many families have said they would not want to send their children there.

“All children in all of our schools are important, and we think they all deserve the very best,” Watlington said. “We also won’t hide from the fact that we heard some feedback from individuals who said that they prefer the smaller, boutique high school experience.”

Philadelphia district students will have a remote learning day Tuesday

2026-02-24T00:56:29+00:00

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All Philadelphia district schools will be remote Tuesday as the city continues to shovel out from a historic winter storm, officials announced Monday evening.

All after-school activities for Tuesday are also canceled. The district’s central office and early childhood centers will operate remotely as well.

The district closed school buildings Monday after parts of the city received more than a foot of snow on Sunday night into Monday morning. Though the intensity of the storm has subsided, a snow emergency remained in effect as of Monday evening.

Tuesday will mark the fifth day this school year the district has closed schools due to snow. A storm last month led to one full snow day with no schooling and two remote learning days. The district allotted one extra day in its calendar that allowed for the full snow day.

Families and staff can stay up to date about the district’s weather-related closures on its website.

Philadelphia council members won’t ‘rubber stamp’ school closure plan

2026-02-17T21:54:02+00:00

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Philadelphia city council members are adamant that although they get no official vote, they will have a say in the district’s school closure process.

At an all-day hearing on Tuesday, council members interrogated Superintendent Tony Watlington, Board of Education President Reginald Streater, and other district representatives about the proposed plan to close 20 Philly schools beginning in 2027.

Members raised concerns about the plan’s lack of detail about student transportation, safety, changing demographics, and academic inequities. Some members said the plan feels rushed, while others took issue with what they said is a lack of consideration about the intricacies of Philadelphia neighborhood dynamics. They also said the community engagement process hasn’t made families feel included.

City Council President Kenyatta Johnson said his members will do their due diligence to elevate the concerns of students and families across the city and “will not just rubber stamp” the plan as is. But the decisionmaking power lies solely with the district and school board. There won’t be any City Council vote.

In response, district officials emphasized the plan is still a draft proposal. Watlington will formally present it to the school board on Feb. 26, but the board will not be voting on it at that meeting. Streater declined to give a timeline for the voting process, but Tuesday’s hearing made clear that changes are likely before the plan is adopted.

“If there are schools that council wants me to take off the list and add others on that list, we are open to you telling me what those are,” Watlington told council members.

Council member and Education Committee chair Isaiah Thomas said he and his colleagues intend to use their “bully pulpit” to influence the plan’s final form since they do not get a vote of their own.

“We are the checks and balances,” Thomas said, but “the crazy thing is, we don’t even have a vote.”

Councilmember Jim Harrity told district representatives he is “infuriated” that he and his colleagues will not get to vote on the plan and pointedly mentioned the upcoming city budget process as a way members will signal their approval or lack thereof.

The “budget’s coming, and we will be looking,” Harrity said.

Philly is the only school district in the state that cannot raise its own revenue, and about 40% of its $2 billion budget comes directly from the city. Last year, Councilmember Kendra Brooks criticized the city’s budget deal for failing to include a meaningful increase in funding to the school district. The lion’s share of the district’s budget comes from the state.

District officials have told community members that the closure plan is not primarily about saving money. They maintain the reorganization will focus on increasing student access to high-quality academic opportunities, clean and modern buildings, and expanding pre-K programs.

The district said it is projecting to spend $1 billion of its own resources and will seek an additional $1.8 billion in public and philanthropic funding to fund its closure, co-location, and modernization plan.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Watlington and Streater said the plan is their attempt at longterm “thoughtful” planning to stretch the resources the district has while recognizing that it has been underfunded for decades.

Watlington said Tuesday the plan in its current form already represents a careful compromise.

“We could have released a draft plan that closed twice as many schools and been able to defend it,” Watlington said.

But city council members said there is more meaningful engagement to be done. Councilmember Cindy Bass said she has not been contacted or included in the districts’ decisionmaking process. Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, who sits on the education committee, said she has noticed a pattern of district officials “dancing around” difficult questions.

More than 40 members of the public signed up to speak on Tuesday, many of whom said they are urging the district not to close their neighborhood schools, but to invest in them. Streater and Watlington said the district does not have the money to do so.

Streater and Watlington promised they’ll be listening to community feedback and council members.

Here’s a breakdown of how the district is proposing to spend the $2.8 billion officials say is needed for the closure and modernization plan:

Council District 1 would get $308,049,008. Some $57 million of that will go to making South Philadelphia High School a career and technical education hub.”

Council District 2 would get $302,284,081. About $54 million of that will go towards renovating John Bartram High School.

Council District 3 would see $204,947,677. Some $19 million of that will go to funding improved heating and cooling, electrical systems, and adding an elevator and playground space for the co-location of Middle Years Alternative and Martha Washington.

Council District 4 would get $216,819,480. About $50 million of that will be dedicated to renovating Overbrook High School.

Council District 5 would get $290,748,937. Some $8 million of that will go to renovate and add a new auditorium for Franklin Learning Center.

Council District 6 would get $55,769,008. More than $27 million will go to Edwin Forrest School to create an addition to allow it to accommodate K-8 students.

Council District 7 would get $388,795,327. More than $32 million of that will go to building an addition on John Marshall School that will include a gym and an elevator.

Council District 8 would get $318,986,215. Nearly $43 million of that will be set aside for Martin Luther King High School for construction to accommodate the incoming co-located Building 21 school, an electrical upgrade, and building upgrades.

Council District 9 would get $442,934,244. $42 million at Laura H. Carnell School. Modernization projects will include the construction of a new addition to increase the capacity and for restroom renovations, ADA improvements, exterior site improvements, and stormwater management.

Council District 10 would see $275,829,539. District statements say Watson Comly School will be modernized, including the construction of a new school building for the middle school grade students from William H. Loesche and Watson Comly.

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

Philadelphia families at small schools like Parkway Northwest fight school closure plan

2026-02-09T23:21:26+00:00

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Philadelphia students and families have packed community meetings over the past week, urging district officials not to close their schools.

At Parkway Northwest High School for Peace and Social Justice, parents and students said they valued the school’s small community. At Lankenau Environmental High School, educators said the campus had a unique location near a nature center. And at Paul Robeson High School, families worried the school’s land has been targeted for redevelopment.

But district officials have remained steadfast in their pitch: They want to close 20 schools beginning in 2027 in an effort to address declining enrollment and deteriorating buildings.

“It feels like we are grieving,” said Logan, a sophomore at Parkway Northwest, at one of the more than a dozen community meetings the district has hosted since the start of the month at schools it plans to close. He declined to give his last name.

The district’s proposal, which also includes upgrading nearly 160 school facilities, would result in nearly 5,000 students having their schools closed. Superintendent Tony Watlington has said the closures are necessary to address declining enrollment and deteriorating buildings, and will lead to more opportunities for all students.

But families and educators at the community meetings Chalkbeat attended said they worried the plan would harm students at closing schools. Many were concerned about safety issues combining students from different areas, and urged the district not to take school resources away from their neighborhoods.

Students at the meetings made an urgent case to keep their schools open, highlighting principals and teachers they loved and opportunities that made their schools special and helped them thrive. A journalism club. An agriculture internship. A sense of community and connectedness that, they said, they worried the district had not taken into consideration.

Whether their advocacy will lead to any change is yet to be seen. Key members of City Council, including President Kenyatta Johnson and Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas have said they are concerned about parts of the plan.

But so far, Mayor Cherelle Parker is standing alongside Watlington in her support of the closures. Watlington plans to present the proposal to the Board of Education on Feb. 26. The board will ultimately decide which schools close.

The district will host dozens more meetings in the coming weeks. As they face angry parents and spirited staff and students, district leaders have repeated that the plan is meant to benefit all students.

“If we accept the status quo, we will get what we’ve always gotten,” Deputy Superintendent Oz Hill told families during a virtual meeting about the proposed closure of Conwell Middle School last week. “What this plan proposes to do is to raise the bar — to raise the educational experience across the board for every student, regardless of ZIP code or neighborhood.”

Parkway Northwest students say they want to preserve small school environment

Tensions flared between community members and district staff at Parkway Northwest as district officials explained their plan to merge the school into Martin Luther King High School during a community meeting last week. Parkway Northwest would become an honors program housed on that campus.

Many of the more than 200 students and family members who showed up to defend Parkway Northwest said they intentionally chose the school for its special, small environment. The two buildings are just around the corner from each other, but Martin Luther King is more than double the size of Parkway Northwest, which has fewer than 250 students.

“If you take away this environment, you aren’t just changing everything,” said sophomore Melody Jenkins. “You’re disrupting my ability to succeed.”

Parkway Northwest High School enrolls around 250 students.

The proposal is part of the district’s promise to reinvest in neighborhood high schools, like Martin Luther King. But students pushing back against the district’s proposal said the plan felt like it didn’t consider the value of a small school.

“Parkway is more than just a school,” said sophomore Jorvan Kelley. “I feel safe coming here.”

Lankenau’s campus is essential, students and teachers say

District officials also want to close Lankenau Environmental Science High School as part of their effort to funnel more resources to neighborhood high schools. Lankenau would merge into Roxborough High School and become an honors program within the school.

Philadelphia Schools Deputy Superintendent Oz Hill, center, tells families at Lankenau Environmental Science High School that the district's closure plan is meant to benefit all students.

But that proposal “diminishes the program,” said agriculture teacher Tiffany Turrentine. She said Lankenau’s location across the street from a nature center and next to a community farm provides countless educational opportunities that students wouldn’t be able to access at Roxborough.

So many Lankenau students showed up to defend their school last week that they had to filter into the school’s auditorium in shifts. Some had to leave before they had a chance to speak because their parents had come to pick them up. Those who did address the district officials said the school’s environmental programs and staff were invaluable. Many were distraught that it could be closed.

“I’ve got to start thinking about the worst case scenario, but I feel like a lot of people are backing the school,” said freshman Aidan Frishman. “So I’m just kind of hoping that the school doesn’t get shut down.”

Conwell Middle School families say district has disinvested in Kensington

District officials have started each community meeting by explaining the closure plan and the motivation behind it to improve opportunities for all students. But at Conwell Middle School last week, families shouted down Hill, the deputy superintendent, as he presented the plan to merge Conwell students into AMY at James Martin.

Families said they were frustrated to hear the same information repeated and wanted district officials to listen to the dozens of students and parents who had gathered.

“Parents need to speak,” Principal Erica Green told Hill and other officials.

Conwell Middle School sits in a 100-year-old building just a few blocks from the intersection of Kensington and Allegheny Avenues, which is a hotspot for drug use. Many families and community members said they worried closing the school would be akin to the district deserting the neighborhood.

“Our children and our families come through all the craziness that is happening outside to get here,” said Councilmember Quetcy Lozada. She said she is urging district officials not to close the school.

Tilden Middle School principal says she is hopeful students will thrive after closure

Just a dozen or so Tilden Middle School employees and area residents attended the district’s community meeting at the school Saturday. Some attendees blamed the small turnout on the weekend timing and the frigid weather.

Tilden itself is a small community, just 266 students in a building meant for 2,000, said Principal Timeka Ford-Smith. Under the new proposal the school will stop inducting new classes in 2027. Once current students have graduated, the district plans to turn Tilden into a sports complex for neighboring Bartram High School.

On Saturday, Ford-Smith struggled to impart a sense of hope to the room. She shared her faith in the principals of the other three middle schools where neighborhood children would be placed in the future.

“I believe in my heart … that our students will be in a very, very good position to learn, to grow, and to be prepared for high school,” Ford-Smith said.

Claire Landau and Donna Ragsdale with the School District of Philadelphia take questions about proposed school closures from community members at Tilden Middle School on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026.

Still, community members were frustrated with the choice to invest in Bartram High but not Tilden, especially given that the district ranks the Tilden community as highly vulnerable due to social factors and past school closures in the area. They brought up community resources anchored at the school, such as a food pantry and a suite of housing, transportation, and health services offered by partner Methodist Services.

“It’s almost like somebody is dying and life support is their last option, and you’re choosing to withhold it or take them off,” said Najmah Ryans, the school secretary.

District representatives said they would spend the time before the closure considering how to continue offering those resources without disruption.

Robeson families worry school has been targeted because it sits on valuable land

District officials have said closed school buildings would be repurposed for district use, conveyed to the city, or sold. They have promised none will sit empty. But it’s unclear whether the city or other developers will want to take over all the buildings the district doesn’t repurpose.

Families and community members connected to the Paul Robeson High School said during a community meeting Saturday that they worried their building was targeted for closure because it’s in an area of the city where real estate is increasingly valuable. The neighborhood, which sits between the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University campuses, is full of new rental housing buildings and university developments.

The nearby University City High School, which closed in 2013, is now a parking garage connected to Drexel.

“How many more buildings do Penn and Drexel need in this community?” asked Antoine Mapp, director of the community group West Powelton Steppers, which has run programs with Robeson students since the 1990s.

Families and students at the meeting said that they did not want to send their students to William L. Sayre High School, which the district plans to merge Robeson into as an honors program. Sayre is nearly two miles away.

“The education of Black and brown students such as myself are not being taken seriously,” said ninth grader Ahrianna Deloach. “We’re watching buildings around our school get torn down and rebuilt in every direction. And somehow, our education keeps getting pushed to the side.”

Paul Robeson High School students and families said during a community meeting on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026, that the school's small size and tight-knit community make it special.

Carly Sitrin contributed to this story.

Sammy Caiola covers solutions to gun violence in and around Philadelphia schools. Have ideas for her? Get in touch at scaiola@chalkbeat.org.

These Philadelphia schools avoided closure in 2013. Now they’re on the chopping block again.

2026-02-04T17:17:39+00:00

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When Danielle Edwards, 19, heard her alma mater, Paul Robeson High School, is on the list of schools the School District of Philadelphia wants to close, she messaged former classmates she’s still in touch with.

“That was my first school that I actually loved,” she said.

The district released plans last month to close 20 schools, including Robeson, as part of an effort to address problems with school facilities and declining enrollment. It wants to move students from Robeson into William L. Sayre High School as an honors program.

It’s a familiar and painful challenge for Robeson.

In 2013, a state-appointed board closed 24 schools in a contentious decision that drew months of protests. Robeson was initially on the list of schools to be closed, but it narrowly escaped that fate after intense pushback from the community.

Back in 2013, the fight to keep schools open was fierce. Teachers, students, advocates, and political leaders formed human chains, phone banked, shut down Broad Street, and swamped public meetings demanding their schools be left alone. Mayor Cherelle Parker, then a state representative, called on the City Council to keep one school in her district from closing.

The outside of West Philadelphia University City High School in 2013.

For some schools, it worked. More than a dozen schools originally on the closure list ended up staying open and continued educating students for more than a decade.

But now, four schools or buildings that the district initially planned to close 13 years ago are back on the closure list: Robeson, Robert Morris School, Overbrook Elementary, and Lankenau High School. Mayor Parker has come out in support of the plan.

Without the same level of community pushback so far, advocates say they’re worried they may not be able to muster the support to save them again. And this time around, they have to convince members of a school board who have different aims and political influences from the several state-appointed board members of 2013.

District officials say they’ve learned key lessons from the 2013 closures when it comes to tradeoffs and consequences, and that the plan will ultimately benefit students when it comes to learning and early learning.

The outside of West Philadelphia University City High School in 2013.

The district plans to present its plan to the board, which will determine which schools to close, on Feb. 26. A vote will come sometime afterwards.

Longtime Robeson teacher Andrew Saltz, who protested the last round of school closures, said he plans to try to save Robeson once again.

A lot in his life has changed since the last protests. He’s older, and has children. Still, he said, he’s finding the energy to fight the closure plan again; he’s said he’s heard from freshmen who are scared about where they’ll go to school if Robeson closes.

“This is the right thing to do,” said Saltz. “So, OK, let’s get it going.”

School leaders say different forces are driving school closures

Just like for Saltz, a lot has changed for the city and its schools since 2013.

The mayor and city council now determine who sits on the school board, rather than some members being appointed by the state. Superintendent Tony Watlington, who joined the district in 2022, has stressed that the perspectives of teachers, families, and community members will help shape a new facilities plan.

Still, there’s an expensive and persistent challenge: repairing old school buildings and operating schools with fewer students. District enrollment has declined, leaving some schools — including two of the four on the closure list for the second time — more than half empty. Old buildings have further deteriorated. During this winter’s cold snap, the heat in several classrooms did not work properly.

A view of the demolition zone of University City High School in 2013.

In 2013, the School Reform Commission that controlled the city’s schools cared largely about saving money. The district was cash-strapped and laid off nearly 4,000 employees before the first day of school.

District enrollment was also rapidly declining at the time — though for different reasons than it is today. In the years before the closures, the School Reform Commission had ceded district schools to charter organizers and approved other charter schools to open in the city.

But since control of Philly schools returned to the city at the end of 2017, district enrollment has declined largely because of falling birth rates. More Philadelphia students also now attend cyber charters.

Researchers found that some students’ academic performance took a hit after the 2013 closures, and absences increased for students who were displaced. Several school buildings were also left empty and deteriorating. And communities’ trust with school leaders was fractured for years.

“It was not worth the cost,” Deputy Superintendent Oz Hill told families in late 2024.

School leaders say the new proposal to close 20 schools and co-locate and relocate others is meant to provide more opportunities for students and families, like increased access to pre-kindergarten and AP classes. It also would result in students no longer attending school in buildings the district deems unsatisfactory.

But many say they’re worried the same harms stemming from the 2013 closures could happen again. The plan would move hundreds of students to lower-performing schools and disproportionately affect Black students.

Protests against some of the proposals have already begun. Some members of the City Council have spoken out against the plan, calling on the district to change which schools it plans to close.

Viery Ricketts-Thomas, a block captain in Overbrook, said she feels shocked the neighborhood’s elementary school could be closed.

Since 2013, the school has gotten a new principal, Kenneth Glover, who has launched initiatives to partner with community groups to build a new schoolyard and attract more Black teachers who reflect the student body.

Though Overbook’s building is rated as poor, the school is enrolled at nearly 80% capacity, according to district data. Its students’ math and reading scores on state tests have also improved over the past three years.

“Right now the school is thriving,” said Ricketts-Thomas. “These are kids you’re displacing.”

Teachers, students and advocates with Stand Up Philly Schools protest planned facilities closures on Thurs., Jan. 29, 2026 outside the School District of Philadelphia headquarters.

Why fighting school closures might be harder now

Philadelphia teacher Jon Hoffmeier has fond memories of his two years teaching at University City High School. It was his first full teaching job in the city, and he loved how students had space for soccer practice and football practice.

The school closed in 2013. When Hoffmeier drives by the school’s old address, he now sees a parking garage. “It’s an absolute shame,” he said.

Hoffmeier was one of hundreds of teachers who had to move schools after the last round of closure. Now at Lankenau High School, he and other teachers are already fighting to keep the school open. They’ve launched a petition, made posters, and organized a rally at their school.

But not all schools are mounting the same response. Julia McWilliams, co-director of the urban studies program at the University of Pennsylvania, said the energy ahead of the 2013 closures felt different.

Advocates had been rallying for years against the School Reform Commission, and some were already organized across neighborhoods, she said. Schools bussed dozens of students to commission meetings and some groups threatened lawsuits.

Civil action intensified. Students at the now-closed Carroll High School in Port Richmond formed a “human chain” around their school in protest. The night the School Reform Commission read the final list of closing schools, a group of protestors blocked the entrance to the meeting and 19 were arrested.

Lankenau High School juniors Tyrone Ware (right) and Niyasia Bounds say they don't know what they would do if their school closes, as the district has proposed.

Today, McWilliams said she worries there are fewer groups ready to call for changes, and many people may not have time or energy to put toward the cause. Some are busy with other issues, like organizing for immigrants’ rights. And many people may feel less passionate about protecting public education.

“What I’m seeing is just people don’t have a lot of confidence in public schools, because of what algorithms are telling them, because of what happened during COVID, because of the ways the teachers unions didn’t want to go back in-person,” said McWilliams. “People pulled their kids out and just never sent them back.”

Still, for some who plan to fight the closures, the new environment could fuel their motivation. With the city in control of its own schools, they say it’s vital for school leaders to keep many of the schools proposed for closure open to avoid repeating the mistakes of 2013.

Saltz, the Robeson teacher, remembers that ahead of the 2013 closures, it felt like “everyone already hated” the state-controlled School Reform Commission that oversaw city schools.

This time, he said it feels like the city is turning on its own schools.

“I think that made it more depressing,” said Saltz of the current closure plan. “Because you thought this school board would be different.”

Sammy Caiola covers solutions to gun violence in and around Philadelphia schools. Have ideas for her? Get in touch at scaiola@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia teachers, students call for changes to school closure proposal

2026-01-30T00:53:42+00:00

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Protestors rallied outside of the Philadelphia school district’s main office in the bitter cold Thursday afternoon, calling on members of the Board of Education to put a stop to the district’s proposal to close 20 schools in the coming years.

The plan, which district officials announced last week, would impact 1 in 3 district schools and result in nearly 5,000 students affected by school closures beginning in 2027. Students would be moved out of deteriorating old buildings to fill empty seats in many underenrolled schools. But it would also relocate hundreds of students to lower performing schools and close schools in neighborhoods the district’s own data shows are vulnerable because of social factors and past school closures.

Superintendent Tony Watlington has said closing schools and shuffling enrollment would lead to more opportunities for all students.

But inside the school district’s main building, board members — who have final say on the closures — gave no indication on how they will respond to the district’s sweeping proposal. They said they would share those thoughts at their board meeting on Feb. 28, when district leaders plan to formally present the plan.

Board president Reginald Streater said it would be “inappropriate” for him to speak about the plan’s merits ahead of the presentation. But he thanked Superintendent Tony Watlington for creating a plan for the district’s aging facilities. Streater said the board will review the proposal during its February meeting but not vote on it.

School leaders, teachers, and parents urged the board to prevent closures and to come up with a better plan that keeps schools open. During a spirited public comment session, several said the proposal would destroy tight-knit school communities and leave students with longer commutes and more crowded classrooms. Some worried the data the district used to make its decision was flawed. And others said they feared the plan reflected a disinvestment in schools where the majority of students are Black and brown.

More than a dozen students and staff from Lankenau High School rallied in front of the district’s main building ahead of the meeting.

“Our voice should be heard,” said Krysten Fanis, a sophomore at Lankenau Environmental Science High School, which the district wants to close and turn into an honors program at Roxborough High School. “How they’re trying to recommend to shut down our school is not OK.”

Board members encourage people to weigh in

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that district leaders have already said they may shift parts of the plan before they formally present it to the board at next month’s board meeting.

That may be a response to the swift pushback. Some City Council members have called for specific changes. And many teachers, students, and families have said they will fight for their schools to stay open.

Streater and other board members encouraged teachers, students, and families to attend the community engagement sessions the district plans to host in the coming weeks at each school it proposes closing. Two board members said they would make an effort to attend the meetings.

Board Vice President Sarah Ashley-Andrews stressed the importance of community input at the meetings. “We want to hear your voice, your comments and concerns,” she said.

Several educators and community members connected to Conwell Middle School, which the district wants to close, held signs during the meeting urging school leaders to keep the school open. Longtime Conwell Principal Erica Green stressed the school’s history, tight alumni network, and recent investments, some of which were funded by settlement money from lawsuits against opioid manufacturers.

“Do not let the almighty dollar drive a choice to remove a beautifully designated historic school and beautifully gifted young people,” Green said.

Representatives of other schools said that the whole district will be impacted by the proposed closures.

“This is a collective effort,” said Paul Brown, a psychologist at Roxborough High School who attended the protest. “Rather than singling out individual schools to fend for themselves, we should be all working together to ensure every student can go to their neighborhood school instead of traveling across the city.”

Board members also appointed two non-voting student board representatives: Brianni Carter, an 11th grader at Philadelphia High School for Girls; Ramisha Karim, an 11th grader at Northeast High School; and Semira Reyes, an 11th grader at The Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts.

Carter and Karim said they aimed to attend the community engagement meetings to hear what their peers and adults are saying.

Board members also voted to approve several contracts and grants, including:

$15 million for mechanical, plumbing, fire protection, and electrical engineering design services.
$3.7 million for purchasing facilities supplies, tools, and building materials
$610,000 to replace the fire alarm system at James G. Blaine School.
An agreement with the Community College of Philadelphia to use space at Ben Franklin High School.

Three of nine board members were absent from the meeting, and four called in remotely.

Sammy Caiola covers solutions to gun violence in and around Philadelphia schools. Have ideas for her? Get in touch at scaiola@chalkbeat.org.

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

Philadelphia school closure plan would move hundreds of students to lower-performing schools

2026-01-29T15:58:56+00:00

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Philadelphia school leaders say the aim of their plan to close 20 schools is clear: give all students better opportunities and support school communities.

By restructuring how the district uses its facilities, Superintendent Tony Watlington has said the district could provide all students with better buildings, more rigorous academic offerings, and more access to arts, music, and physical education.

“Part of the problem here is that there’s so much disparity in the school district of Philadelphia,” Watlington said last week when announcing the plan.

But some members of the City Council say they’re already worried that the proposal would leave students and families in some neighborhoods of the city worse off, and that areas affected by school closures previously are being targeted again.

Nearly half of the schools the district wants to close are in areas the district has identified as vulnerable, based on neighborhood social factors and prior school closures.

Some students at closing schools are also getting a tougher deal than others, because they would move to worse-performing schools, according to Chalkbeat’s analysis of the plan. That can hurt the performance of students at the lower-performing schools for years, researchers have found.

School leaders say they’re listening to communities and heeding the research about how to best go about closing schools and restructuring enrollment.

The district’s plan would mean no students would attend school in buildings rated poor or unsatisfactory, based on their cost of upkeep. And more students would have access to some highly desirable schools and programs, like career and technical education and selective admissions schools.

But as reactions to the district’s school-closure plan roll in, several officials have said they worry the proposal has left their neighborhoods shortchanged.

Several schools in Kensington and surrounding neighborhoods, for example, have a high social vulnerability rating as determined by the district based on several factors. The city also closed the area’s Sheridan West Middle School in 2013.

Still, the district has proposed closing several schools around Kensington. Students at one of those schools — John Welsh Elementary in Norris Square — would move to a school with lower performance, based on state test scores.

“Moving students out of their neighborhoods adds stress, disrupts learning, and pulls them away from the community ecosystems that support them,” said Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, who represents Kensington, in a statement. “Equity cannot mean asking the same neighborhoods to carry the heaviest burden, again and again.”

Closures would move hundreds to lower-performing schools

District officials have previously said that they would not focus on school performance in their decisions about which schools to close. Instead, their decisions hinged on factors like how much unused capacity a school building has, whether it has spaces for programming like gym classes and prekindergarten, and social factors in its neighborhood.

That’s unlike the city’s last round of school closures in 2013, when officials scrutinized schools’ test scores when making closure decisions.

Under the new plan, around 90% of the 5,000 students at schools the district plans to close would be reassigned to better-performing schools, based on last year’s test scores on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, or PSSA.

But that still means around 400 students at two schools — John Welsh and Overbrook Elementary — would be reassigned to worse-performing schools.

That could create looming challenges for those students, past research has found.

In studies of past school closures in Chicago, researchers found that one year after their schools closed, students who switched to high-achieving schools made gains in math and reading after the closures.

By contrast, students who were moved to the lowest-performing schools lost more than a month’s worth of learning in reading, and a month and a half’s worth of learning in math.

A study of Philadelphia’s school closures in 2013 also found that the achievement of students reassigned to high-performing schools improved after the closures, even though other factors, like school absences, increased for displaced students.

“We know that if the students go to really high performing schools, they did slightly better,” said Marisa de la Torre, managing director of the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, who conducted the Chicago study.

But she added that school performance is often not what matters most to families, who may care more about keeping their children close to home or in an area they trust. That means districts must balance how they prioritize school performance with other community interests in their decision making process.

The district did not respond to specific questions about the decision to move some students to lower-performing schools. District spokesperson Monique Braxton said the district plans to create a transition team to support school communities through the closures.

Will some neighborhoods go through repeated school closures?

One issue Philadelphia residents have said they care a lot about is reducing harm to neighborhoods where the city previously closed schools.

At community engagement events the district hosted over the summer to get input for its plan, several residents said they worried neighborhoods still reeling from school closures in 2013 would be affected again. That year, a state-appointed board closed 24 city schools. Empty school buildings from those closures still sit unused in some neighborhoods, slowly deteriorating.

School officials said they would factor in information about which neighborhoods were hit by closures in 2013 through a “neighborhood vulnerability” score. The district did not share exactly how it calculated the scores, but said they were based on social vulnerability data from the Centers for Disease Control and whether the school community had experienced school closures in the past.

Still, in the final list of recommendations of which schools to close, nine of the 20 closures are of schools with neighborhood vulnerability ratings of “very high risk” or “high risk.”

That has frustrated several city leaders.

“It seems like we’re headed towards the same people being disadvantaged by this process who are always disadvantaged by this process,” said Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, who represents part of West and Southwest Philadelphia.

Still, Gauthier said the district’s approach does feel like an improvement from the school closures of 2013. She said she appreciated the district’s willingness to hear feedback and host community engagement sessions.

She just hopes that leads to changes to the proposal.

“We still have the opportunity to make sure that there’s equity,” Gauthier said.

Chalkbeat senior data editor Thomas Wilburn contributed to this story.

Philadelphia parents resist district’s plans to close 2 Kensington middle schools

2026-01-28T20:10:06+00:00

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This story was originally published in the Kensington Voice.

Ashley Jenkins plans to send her 2-year-old daughter to Conwell Middle School in Kensington. Two of her sons graduated from the school, and another is in sixth grade.

“It’s a safe haven,” Jenkins said. “Conwell is not only a school to us. The teachers are their aunts and uncles … I can’t imagine losing Conwell.”

But that plan may now be upended.

The School District of Philadelphia announced on Jan. 22 that Conwell and Stetson middle schools are among 20 schools it plans to close starting in 2027. The timeline for closures remains unclear. Some schools will phase out over several years, while others will close more quickly.

The district also plans to expand Lewis Elkin and William Cramp elementary schools into K-8 schools. Conwell students would be reassigned to AMY at James Martin, on East Ontario and Richmond streets. Stetson students would be phased into Elkin and Cramp. Both middle school buildings would be converted into district swing spaces.

The proposal is part of the district’s long-awaited reorganization plan, driven by declining citywide enrollment and building issues, including asbestos and poor ventilation.

The proposal has drawn opposition from City Council members, parents, alumni, and educators, who see the schools as integral resource hubs and safe spaces in their communities.

Conwell Middle School graduates and brothers Syncere Clark Williams and Rayneal Woods Clark with brother and current Conwell student Yahshua Woods and younger sister Lailah Hall at Rayneal's high school prom in 2025.

Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, who serves on the City Council’s Education Committee and whose district includes both middle schools, said the announcement caught her by surprise.

To many community members, Lozada said, Conwell is more than school.

“They are part of a family,” she said. “Conwell should not be on that list.”

Conwell operates a food pantry twice a week. Her office just delivered a freezer to the school last week.

The district has cited underenrollment as a reason for the closures, according to Lozada. Districtwide enrollment has declined by about 17,000 students over the past decade. The drop has been steeper in Kensington: Enrollment at Conwell fell from 176 students in 2022 to 109 in 2025 — a 38% decrease.

While Conwell is a magnet school, more than half of its students live in the surrounding neighborhood.

“The reality is that it’s underenrolled because of the neighborhood,” Lozada said. “It’s a public safety issue. It’s not because successful academic learning is not happening there, or that the teachers are not coming anymore, or that the building is falling apart. It’s more about what’s happening on the outside. So, instead of responding and making the neighborhood safer, the [students, teachers, and faculty] are being compromised and almost punished.”

Santysha McDuffie said Conwell has supported her family year after year. She picks up Thanksgiving turkeys and winter coats from the school, where her kids are in sixth and eighth grade.

“Whenever we’re having issues, the school is always there to help,” McDuffie said.

Santysha McDuffie's daughter Madison sitting in the Conwell Middle School library, where McDuffie said she likes to spend time.

McDuffie lives about a 15-minute drive from Conwell and chose the school over other options after researching and receiving a recommendation from a friend for her son, Lawrence.

“He’s a smart boy, and he needed a school that was going to keep him on his toes,” said McDuffie, adding that her son has been challenged because he has been assigned high school-level work.

“He’s excelling in it, and he loves it,” she said.

McDuffie’s daughter, Madison, is also thriving.

“I know she’s safe there,” McDuffie said. “She feels more like herself. She’s opening up.”

Recent investments raise questions about school reassignment

The district’s proposal to close Conwell comes after hundreds of thousands of dollars were invested in the school in recent years, raising questions about how the closure aligns with those expenditures.

Conwell was designated $333,333 in opioid settlement funds, one of six Kensington schools to receive money from lawsuits against opioid manufacturers and distributors. As of December 2024, about $109,950 of those funds had been allocated for science equipment, including 3D printers, and for after-school programs like the Conwell Media Team. The media lab itself is a recent development. In 2023, the media lab teacher crowdfunded for gear.

Additional opioid funds were designated for a therapeutic space, student support amenities, and schoolyard improvements, including space for an outdoor farming program, and a washer and dryer for students’ clothes.

Separately, Principal Erica Green used a $20,000 Lindback Award she received in 2022 to upgrade the school’s science lab and expand STEAM programming.

Meanwhile, the school opened a new turf soccer field in 2024.

The proposed reassignment of Conwell students to AMY at James Martin also raises questions about how the district is applying its own school rankings, which are part of its decision-making process. The district ranked the building, programming, capacity, and neighborhood vulnerability for every school it operates in the city.

According to district data, AMY’s building is rated poor and its programming unsatisfactory. Conwell received higher rankings in both categories, with its building and programming classified as fair.

Superintendent Tony Watlington said during a press conference last week that no students would be moved into buildings rated poor or unsatisfactory. He also said that 90% of students would be reassigned to schools with comparable or better academic outcomes.

The district’s plan also calls for modernizing 159 school buildings, but it has not provided details on how those upgrades would affect schools slated to remain open, including AMY.

The district did not respond to a request for comment regarding this reassignment in time for publication.

Stetson Middle School is ‘neighborhood fixture’ in Philly

A majority of Stetson Middle School students live in the surrounding neighborhood. Stetson’s enrollment has declined since the district contentiously revoked the school’s charter status in 2022, after a years-long battle between the Philadelphia Board of Education, families, and the charter company, ASPIRA. Enrollment fell from 616 students that year to 511 in 2025 — a 17% decrease.

Since the district’s announcement, a petition has launched in opposition to Stetson’s proposed closure and has over 520 signatures.

The petition raises concerns about potential overcrowding at Elkin and Cramp elementary schools, where Stetson students would be reassigned. The district has labeled both schools as underutilized.

“Schools like Stetson serve as community hubs where families connect,” the petition states. “This loss could fragment our closely-knit community and erode social ties.”

Tony Rocco, who taught full time at Stetson for nine years before retiring in 2019, teaches an after-school photography class there twice a week.

“Stetson has become a fixture in the neighborhood,” Rocco said.

While the school has had its challenges, Rocco said he has watched generations of families pass through, and has seen students like Benny Martinez-Russi flourish.

Martinez-Russi, 19, graduated from Stetson and is now a first-year student at Temple University on a full academic scholarship.

“If I drive past the area, I’m gonna feel nostalgia,” Martinez-Russi said.

He was quiet when he started there, but teachers, including Rocco, whom he described as a father figure, helped him warm up.

“I see the good work that gets done in that school every day and the difference that every teacher tries to make for their kids,” Rocco said. “It breaks my heart to see Stetson and the parents, potentially again, having to go through yet another bunch of changes.”

Photography teacher Tony Rocco, left, with Benny Martinez-Ruzzi, middle, a Stetson Middle School alumnus who's now a Temple University student.

District data shows Stetson’s building faces bigger structural challenges than Conwell’s. Stetson’s building was rated unsatisfactory, with a score of 41%, and its programming received a score of 25%. The neighborhood’s vulnerability score was flagged as “high risk.”

The district defines high neighborhood vulnerability as places with many social and economic challenges, including those that may have experienced school closures in the past.

A state hearing officer’s report found that ASPIRA made progress improving Stetson’s climate but fell short on academic and financial promises. A charter appeal board voted 4-1 to revoke the school’s charter status in 2022, about three years after the school board voted to not renew ASPIRA’s contracts.

“I just hope that they’re thinking through, as much as possible, about the decisions that they make,” Rocco said. “Do you have a better plan for Stetson, or is this something that is just dollars and cents in a spreadsheet, where you’re trying to figure out how to save money? Because those are my kids.”

In Norris Square, the district plans to close John Welsh Elementary. The district rated the building as poor.

Under the proposal, Welsh students would be reassigned to John Hartranft and William McKinley elementary schools. The plan is to modernize and repurpose the Welsh building into a year-round high school.

In Frankford, the district wants to close Warren G. Harding Middle School. The James J. Sullivan School, John Marshall School, Henry W. Lawton School, and Laura H. Carnell School would expand, with Sullivan moving into the Harding building.

In Fishtown, Penn Treaty High School would also close.

Councilmember Jeffrey Young, whose district includes Penn Treaty, said the district told him Penn Treaty students would be phased into a high school in the Kensington catchment area. William Bodine High School would move into Penn Treaty’s building to expand capacity.

What’s next for the proposed Philadelphia school closures?

Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas will meet with every council member to discuss proposed closures and community needs, Lozada said.

Then, she said the education committee will review each council member’s priorities and bring them to the school board and the district.

Lozada said she will host community meetings to gather feedback. The district has also scheduled community engagement sessions for every school slated for closure throughout February.

“I would want none of them to close, but if we have to close them — if we can’t get to a point where we can’t save them — then I want the transition to be as easy and as safe as possible, not just for our children, but for our teachers,” Lozada said.

According to the district, teachers and staff affected by the plan should retain their jobs, and that principals in “good standing” would also be retained.

The district’s recommendations will be presented to the Philadelphia Board of Education on Feb. 26.

“Any changes in information that we have shared will be provided at that time,” said district spokesperson Monique Braxton in response to a request for comment.

The school board must approve the final plan and may make changes.

‘I pray it doesn’t happen’: Philadelphia reacts to plan to close 20 schools

2026-01-22T22:55:38+00:00

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The head of the Philadelphia City Council Education Committee says he disagrees with parts of the school district’s plan to close 20 schools, kicking off what may become a fraught conflict over which schools are ultimately shuttered.

The district said Thursday that nearly 5,000 students will have their schools closed in the coming years. Along with closures, the plan includes co-locating and relocating several schools and modernizing some school buildings, shuffling where many students go to school across the city.

But Councilmember Isaiah Thomas said he would “never support” closing one of the schools on the district’s list — Conwell Middle School — and has major questions about the district’s plan for several others.

Other officials urged the district to be transparent with schools and make sure students and families are supported. A spokesperson for Mayor Cherelle Parker said she was not available to comment. And union leaders said they needed more time and more information to determine whether or not they support it.

The reactions that began to trickle out Thursday will set the stage for what will likely become months of tense discussions and negotiations over what could be a jarring transformation for Philadelphia schools. District leaders say the plan would improve academics and use resources more efficiently as enrollment has declined and buildings have fallen into disrepair.

Members of the Board of Education, who were nominated by Parker, will review the plan at next month’s board meeting. The plan must be approved by the board, although Thomas and other city officials could use their political influence to complicate the plan’s path forward, or change it.

Though school leaders have said for months that closures were coming, the timing of the news still shocked many educators and families. Whispers of a list of schools the district plans to close began to spread Tuesday and Wednesday. Meetings and protests about the plan are likely to happen early and often.

Outside of Motivation High School in West Philadelphia Thursday afternoon, students said they had learned their school was closing during a meeting in the school’s auditorium earlier in the day.

“I pray it doesn’t happen,” said Journee Tucker, 16.

The district wants Motivation to merge into Bartram High School as an honors program beginning in the 2027-28 school year. The Motivation building is slated to be repurposed as district swing space.

But Tucker said she worried that Bartram is “too chaotic.” This year, it has nearly 600 students enrolled — four times the size of Motivation.

If the plan goes through, she said her mom has already said she would attend a different high school than Bartram.

“It’s going to be a mess,” Tucker said. “I just don’t see the point.”

Councilmember wants to protect Conwell Middle School from closure

Thomas’ reaction stood out Thursday, in part because several elected officials did not say if they were for or against the plan, or comment on specifics. Others weren’t available for comment.

Thomas is an influential voice in the city’s education system, and has been a proponent of several charter schools.

Thomas said he immediately disagreed with parts of the plan — especially the district’s plan to close Russell Conwell Middle School, which he attended.

“If you’re a Philly person, you understand,” he said, adding that the school’s strong alumni network and culture is a huge benefit to the community.

The school, which is in a 100-year-old building in the city’s Kensington neighborhood, is one of several middle schools the district plans to close.

Thomas said he also disagreed with the district’s plan to merge students from Parkway Northwest High School into Martin Luther King High School, and turn Parkway Northwest into an honors program in the school.

Thomas said he also did not understand how the district expects to expand Ellwood from a K-5 school to a K-8 school while the school is already nearing capacity.

“I’m not looking to completely blow anything up or anything like that,” Thomas said of the plan. “There are some things that I agree with, there are some things I have a few more questions about, and then there are a few things that I disagree with.”

Union leadership says school closures would be ‘devastating’

District leadership has said no teachers will lose their jobs as a result of the closures, and teachers at schools that close will help fill vacancies elsewhere.

Still, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg said Thursday the news has been “devastating and disheartening” for staff.

Steinberg said he could not comment on whether he supported the plan until the district shares more information on how they arrived at their decision. During community engagement events last year, the district shared the information it was factoring into the plan. But it did not explain how those factors would influence decisions.

“It’s like they took all these ingredients, threw them into a blender, and came out with a finished product,” Steinberg said.

Ultimately, Steinberg said he is never an advocate for closing a school. But he said he understood that the district has had years of “chronic disinvestment” and needs to address its aging buildings.

Robin Cooper, president of the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators which represents principals and other school staff, said she appreciated the district’s efforts to survey staff and families for feedback about facilities before announcing the plan.

But she said she still worries closures will be problematic for school communities and create uncertainty for many school staff.

“I understand the superintendent has a job to do, and I don’t think that he did it lightly,” Cooper said. “I just think it’s a no-good situation all the way around.”

Families, teachers worry school closures will be damaging

In West Philadelphia, Rhemar Pouncey is worried about what will happen to her grandson if Overbrook Elementary School closes.

In the district’s proposal, Overbrook students will be reassigned to four other neighborhood schools, and the building will be repurposed as district network offices.

Pouncey called the school “a family and a community in itself,” referencing staff who know students by name, as well as food and gift drives organized by the neighbors.

“I do not concern myself with sending my grandson to Overbrook Elementary, because I know he’ll be safe,” Pouncey said. “I know when he gets dropped off that he has an extended group of aunties and uncles.”

The district has said it will create a transportation plan for students whose schools change, but has not released more details.

Pouncey said she worries about her son walking through “danger zones” in the neighborhood to get to another school.

About two dozen schools have a Safe Path program that hires adults to patrol school perimeters and sometimes walk children home after school. Separately the City of Philadelphia runs a Safe Corridors program to escort students before and after the school day.

“What’s going to happen if one of our kids gets shot or gets killed because you close down the closest school to them, for them to have to go all the way to John Barry, or all the way to Bluford?” Pouncey said.

Several teachers said the district had forbidden them from talking to the press about the plan.

One teacher at Lankenau Environmental Science High School, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, said the entire school was taken aback to hear the school would be closed and turned into a magnet program at Roxborough High School.

Much of the school’s programming, she said, relies on its location. It organizes a beekeeping and honey collection event with a community partner, for example, that can only happen at the site. And it has other programming connected to a neighboring environmental education center.

“If you’re just talking about buildings, and you’re looking at children as numbers, then, yeah, this is what you do,” the teacher said. “But when you look at the actual educational programming and closing a site like Lankenau, it doesn’t work. You won’t be able to pick the program up and put it into Roxborough.”

Sammy Caiola covers solutions to gun violence in and around Philadelphia schools. Have ideas for her? Get in touch at scaiola@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia school district wants to close 20 schools starting in 2027, affecting dozens of others

2026-01-22T16:17:45+00:00

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The Philadelphia school district wants to close 20 schools starting in 2027 as part of a reorganization plan that will affect 1 in 3 traditional district schools and reshape the city’s public education landscape.

Nearly 5,000 students would have their schools closed in the coming years, based on this year’s enrollment counts. Another 2,800 students would have their schools moved to a new location following the district’s plan to co-locate and relocate eight current schools to different facilities.

The changes will mean major shifts for school enrollment across the city. More than 20 schools would add seats or grades to accommodate students from closed schools, and some catchment boundaries in the Northeast would shift. The district would also open four new schools in existing buildings and upgrade infrastructure at nearly 160 school facilities.

In total, the plan would affect roughly 30,000 students, or a quarter of current district enrollment. That includes students at schools that would be new co-location sites and those at schools that would add one or more grades.

The proposal would have a particularly large impact on middle schools, with more than a dozen elementary schools turning into K-8 schools to absorb students from six closing middle schools.

The plan represents the district’s effort to address some fundamental challenges facing Philadelphia’s schools. Many schools are below capacity by hundreds of students after a long-term decline in district enrollment. Over the past decade, district enrollment has declined by around 17,000 students, reflecting a citywide population decline and a jump in the number of students enrolled in cyber charter schools.

Crumbling asbestos, broken sinks, and poor ventilation plague the city’s school buildings, which are on average more than 70 years old. Fixing those problems would cost billions that the district doesn’t have.

Yet the proposal — which the Board of Education must approve — will likely ignite fierce opposition. Some have been warning the district for months about the downsides of fracturing school communities. Bitter memories from the last round of school closures could be a factor: After the district closed 24 schools in 2013 largely to save money, some students’ academic performance and attendance took a hit, and the district’s financial problems persisted.

Superintendent Tony Watlington said during a press briefing this week that the plan would improve the quality of education the city’s schools can offer.

“We must find ways to more efficiently use our resources, so we can push higher quality programming into all our schools, while at the same time addressing under and over enrolled schools,” Watlington said.

The district has begun sharing its plan with affected schools this week and will present its recommendations to the Board of Education at its February meeting. The board ultimately must approve the changes and could reshape them before any closures begin.

Teachers and staff at schools that will close will keep their jobs to help fill the district’s vacancies, Watlington said. Principals “in good standing” will remain employed by the district.

Philadelphia school closure plan likely to trigger protests

Students and staff will begin to be affected by the changes at the start of the 2027-28 school year. The exact timeline for closing individual schools remains unclear. Some closing schools will gradually phase out grades over several years, while others will close at once and students will merge into a different school.

For neighborhoods where schools are slated to close, empty buildings will likely become a looming concern. After the last round of closures, several buildings were left deteriorating for more than a decade. The district now owns more than 20 buildings considered persistently vacant, meaning they haven’t been used in several years.

Under the proposed changes, the district would close 20 school buildings over the next 10 years. It has specific plans to repurpose 12 for district use, including opening a year-round high school in one.

But the future of the other eight closed buildings is unclear. The district wants to turn many over to the city to create housing or other public infrastructure. Though Mayor Cherelle Parker has broadly supported turning empty schools into housing, those changes would require specific action from the city.

District officials say they are aware of how challenging these changes can be — and how worried many Philadelphians are after the last round of closures. Over the past year, they hosted dozens of community engagement events and sent out several surveys to solicit feedback.

Watlington said the responses helped guide the recommendations. But many educators and community members said it was difficult to give feedback without yet knowing which schools would see changes. The new list will likely result in pushback and protest as teachers and neighborhoods hope to keep their schools from closing, as some successfully did ahead of the 2013 closures.

Watlington promised students and families will be supported through the transition. He said 90% of students who will change schools will be reassigned to schools with comparable or better academic outcomes.

Watlington pledged the plan would also result in specific improvements for district students. No district students will go to a school with a building rated as poor or unsatisfactory, he said. Other improvements include:

Doubling the percentage of kindergarten students who have access to district-operated pre-kindergarten from 25% to 50%.
Increasing the number of high schools that offer five or more AP classes by 12%.
Increasing the percentage of schools that offer “robust” music, art, and physical education programming from 57% to 70%.
Increasing the number of middle schools that offer Algebra 1 from 53% to 100%.

The plan addresses some of Philadelphia families’ common concerns, like limited space at some of the most desirable magnet high schools and severe overcrowding in the Northeast. It also expands career and technical education program offerings and access to other sought-after programming, like pre-K.

Under the proposal, the district would increase the number of seats at five criteria-based schools, including Central and Masterman, which are consistently two of the top-ranked schools in the city. It would also open a new middle school to feed into Palumbo High School, another top-ranked magnet school.

In the crowded Northeast, the district would modernize several schools to expand capacity, including by creating a new building for Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush and turning its old building into a new catchment high school.

The district is also planning for some high schools that would close to live on in a different form. Lankenau Environmental Science Magnet High School, Motivation High School, Parkway Northwest High School, and Paul Robeson High School will each close and become honors programs integrated into other schools.

Still, these changes will mean huge disruptions for students and families across the city. After the last round of closures, researchers found school absences for students whose schools closed increased, and they missed more days of school and received more suspensions the farther they traveled to their new school building.

The district originally planned to release its proposal for school closures last November, but then delayed it. Now, school leaders say they’re waiting on the support of the Board of Education, Parker, and funders to move forward.

The district doesn’t have enough money on its own to fund the plan’s price tag. The school changes and upgrades would cost $2.8 billion, which the district wants to pay for with $1 billion in district funds and $1.8 billion in new public and philanthropic dollars.

Without that funding, Watlington said the district would have to “scale down” the plan and keep students at dozens of schools rated as poor or unsatisfactory.

Watlington acknowledged that many people do not want their schools to close. He pledged the district would create a designated team to help families with any transition and give them the “gold standard red carpet treatment directly from the Superintendent’s office.”

“We have one shot at this to get this right,” Watlington said.

Sammy Caiola contributed reporting.

Correction: Jan. 22, 2026: The table in a previous version of this story inaccurately stated that Laura H. Carnell School will absorb students from William T. Tilden Middle School. Students from William T. Tilden Middle School will be absorbed by Thomas G. Morton, John M. Patterson, and Joseph W. Catharine schools.

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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Philly will launch 2 schools in new Promise Zone program even as school closures loom

2026-01-07T20:59:06+00:00

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Philadelphia will open two new schools as part of the new North Philadelphia Promise Zone, which is meant to boost student achievement and provide additional support to families in one of the city’s poorest areas, Superintendent Tony Watlington said.

The program will be modeled on the Harlem Children’s Zone, a high-profile education program launched in New York City in the 1990s.

In his annual State of Schools address Wednesday, Watlington said the district plans to open the new schools in existing facilities. He did not say when the schools would open. But his announcement coincides with a facilities planning process that will lead to school closures across the city.

Watlington also said Wednesday the district will release that facilities plan — including recommendations for which schools to close, colocate, modernize, and repurpose — “this winter.”

The facilities plan is meant to better allocate building space and resources, since some schools have hundreds of empty seats and others are overcrowded, especially in the city’s Northeast. Watlington and other school officials say the aim is to provide more access to pre-K, AP classes, and extracurriculars.

Watlington did not say how the Promise Zone program will factor into the facilities plan.

The Harlem Children’s Zone organization provides charter schools and social services to families in one of New York City’s poorest neighborhoods. Researchers found it helped boost student achievement and shrunk the gap between Black and white children’ achievement. However, some experts have warned that efforts to replicate the program elsewhere have had mixed results.

Watlington said Philadelphia’s version has the support of Geoffrey Canada, president of Harlem Children’s Zone, which now runs several charter schools, community centers, childcare programs, and after-school programs in Central Harlem.

“This will be the first big city to replicate the success of the Harlem Children’s Zone,” Watlington said. “We are going to set these schools up to demonstrate to all the rest of us how to not only get better, but get there faster than our district average.”

Watlington said the schools will be staffed by the “very best, most effective” principals and teachers, and they will be “choice schools” that parents will be able to choose. Aliya Catanch-Bradley, principal of Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary School, will lead the “conceptualizing” of the zone, he added.

Mayor seeks solution for ‘persistently vacant’ school buildings

Even as the district plans to open new schools, its old facilities remain a burden.

The average school building is more than 70 years old, which has led to expensive upkeep costs along with outdated — as well as sometimes unsafe — learning environments.

The district also owns more than 20 buildings considered persistently vacant, meaning they haven’t been used in several years. One such building, Ada Lewis Middle School in East Germantown, became a crime scene last year after police found the body of 23-year-old Kada Scott buried behind the building.

Mayor Cherelle Parker said Wednesday at the State of Schools event that she is working with the district and school board to create a plan for vacant buildings, including using some to create more housing, one of Parker’s main campaign promises.

The buildings “have been red ink on the school districts’ budget,” Parker said. “We are going to find a way to do something that has never been done in the city of Philadelphia before: develop a plan for those buildings that have been persistently vacant.”

Philadelphia teachers want school staff protected amid U.S. House probe into alleged antisemitism

2025-12-05T21:02:06+00:00

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Several Philadelphia teachers urged the Board of Education Thursday to protect staff and students amid a congressional investigation into alleged antisemitism in the district.

U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee Chair Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican, launched the investigation last month, alleging that the School District of Philadelphia “employs numerous educators who allegedly promote antisemitic content in their classrooms.”

In a letter to the Superintendent Tony Watlington, Walberg said the committee has gotten allegations that the Philadelphia school district “is rife with antisemitic incidents” and targeted certain district educators who it alleges “promote antisemitic content.”

The House committee’s investigation follows a separate U.S. Department of Education civil rights investigation into antisemitism in the district that concluded last year. The department found that the district did not adequately address incidents of antisemitism. In response, the district agreed to review and revise its anti-harassment policies and provide appropriate training on racial and ethnic discrimination to all students and staff, among other commitments.

Walberg’s letter states that the term “potential antisemitic incidents” includes any incidents involving the targeting of “Jews, Judaism, Israel, Israelis, Zionism, or Zionists.” Several civil rights groups have previously urged House lawmakers not to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

The committee’s requests include asking the district to provide all communication since Oct. 7, 2023, “referring or relating to Jews, Judaism, Israel, Palestine, Zionism, or antisemitism.”

The committee also launched similar investigations into the school districts in Berkeley, California, and Fairfax County, Virginia.

The Board of Education did not address the investigation at its meeting Thursday, and a school district spokesperson said the district does not comment on ongoing investigations.

However, several teachers and community members testified at the meeting, calling on school leaders to refuse to share additional information with investigators that could put staff at risk.

“This new investigation is political theater and government overreach,” said district educator Alexandra Volin Avelin. “It is not about protecting students. It’s about intimidating and silencing teachers.”

Volin Avelin, who is Jewish, said she also opposed how the House committee defined antisemitism. “Sharing accurate information about events in Israel and Palestine is not antisemitism,” said Volin Avelin. “The district must clearly reject this attempt to weaponize antisemitism and silence dissent.”

Neither the Department of Education’s investigation nor the House committee’s investigation addressed a separate civil rights complaint alleging discrimination against Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students at a district middle school. The Trump administration closed the department’s civil rights office in Philadelphia in March, leaving cases in limbo.

District teacher Freda Anderson, who is Jewish, said she worries about rising antisemitism and reports of threats to Jewish religious schools in Philadelphia.

“Yet none of this is what the feds have chosen to investigate,” Anderson said. “It’s a witch hunt, and it will target Black, brown and Muslim students and staff, while doing nothing to protect Jewish people.”

If the House investigators target those student and staff groups, Anderson said the board has a clear duty: “It will be your job to protect these people.”

Philadelphia school board ratifies new principals union contract

2025-12-05T00:21:57+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education voted to ratify a new union contract Thursday for the 1,000-member Commonwealth Association of School Administrators Teamsters Local 502, or CASA, which represents school principals and other school staff.

The contract includes 3% annual across-the-board raises for the next four years and introduces five weeks of paid parental leave along with other bonuses and stipends. It also adjusts salary levels for several district positions, which CASA president Robin Cooper previously said is meant to create more equitable pay for staff with years of experience.

“We didn’t get everything we wanted, but we are leaving feeling heard,” Cooper told the board Thursday. “We are leaving with what we believe is a fair contract.”

CASA members had been working without a contract since the union’s previous agreement expired in August. Members showed up with posters at last month’s board meeting urging the board to finalize a new agreement.

Cooper said negotiations had “come a long way from two weeks ago” and it was “clear from actions over the weekend that we were heard loud and clear.” More than half of the union’s membership voted on the new contract Wednesday, she said, and ratified it with 97% of the vote.

Several board members said they welcomed the new contract and thanked union leaders and CASA members for their work.

But some board members noted that negotiations came during a difficult financial moment. The district had to borrow around $585 million to make up for delayed state funding during a four-month-long state budget impasse that ended last month.

“This year’s negotiations [were] in a very tough time,” said Board President Reginald Streater. “Late budgets, a lack of adequate funding, individuals who say that our babies don’t deserve to be invested in.”

The new contract also includes a $1,500 bonus for each member this year and again in 2028, expanded health benefits, and incentives for principals at “hard-to-staff” schools. It is retroactive to September and valid through August 2029.

The school board Thursday also voted to reelect Streater as president and to reelect board member Sarah-Ashley Andrews as vice president. Streater has been board president since December 2022. Andrews was first elected as board vice president last year.

The board of education voted Thursday to approve several other contracts. Those include:

A $3.7 million contract with Apple for computers and other devices for computer labs, staff, and administrative staff.
$2.5 million in contracts with other companies for technology hardware, software, and other supplies for the Office of Information Technology.
A $230,000 contract with the consulting firm AKRF to develop a plan for how Philadelphia’s schools could be more resilient to climate change, including how schools may prepare for extreme heat, flooding, poor air quality, and severe storms.
An additional $250,000 in the school district’s contract with Motorola Inc. for radios and other school safety communication equipment.

The board also approved a $43,390 contract with Mothers in Charge, a community group that works with Dobbins High School to respond to safety concerns and other school issues.

Last year, the first year the group was involved with school safety at Dobbins, the number of overall assaults at the school dropped by 46%, and the number of assaults resulting in injury dropped by 80%, according to board meeting documents.

Philadelphia district enrollment drops by more than 1,000 students

2025-12-02T22:32:11+00:00

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More than 1,050 fewer students are enrolled in Philadelphia’s district and alternative schools this year compared with last year, according to recent district data.

That marks a sharp contrast from last school year, when the district logged its first enrollment increase in a decade. Superintendent Tony Watlington later said increasing enrollment was one of his proudest achievements.

But since last school year, the district has returned to its previous trend of losing students each year. Over the same period, the city’s charter and cyber charter school enrollment grew by around 500 students each.

District spokesperson Naima DeBrest said in a statement that public school enrollment has been decreasing nationally due to declining birth rates “as well as families exploring alternative education options.”

The district now has nearly 20,000 fewer students than it did a decade ago and is planning to close schools in part to address the decline. Dozens of district schools have hundreds of empty seats, while some in the city’s Northeast are overcrowded.

District officials have said that early next year, they plan to release a list of schools to close and colocate, along with ones to modernize and repurpose.

The district’s enrollment decline doesn’t fully match citywide population trends. Census data shows that Philly’s population steadily grew in the 2010s and peaked in 2020. It then began to decline, only increasing again last year. The city’s population count now looks similar to what it was in 2015.

Still, some citywide demographic shifts are reflected in Philadelphia’s schools. With more immigrants in Philadelphia, around 1 in 5 district students are now English language learners. That’s more than double the share from a decade ago.

The district has three “newcomer” academies meant to support migrant students, but advocates have previously said students and families regularly run into problems accessing translation services and other supports.

The number of Hispanic students has also steadily increased over the past decade, while the number of Black students has steadily declined, which reflects the changing demographics of the city. The number of white students has remained fairly stable.

Philadelphia wants more continuity for kids with autism. It also plans to close schools.

2025-12-02T15:44:19+00:00

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Many Philadelphia school district families with children in autistic support classes have had the same frustrating experience: As their kids have grown up, they’ve had to switch schools at least once to access support services.

That’s because Philly has a limited number of autistic support classes, which provide additional educational services for some students with autism and other disabilities. Though the school district distributes those classes across its more than 200 schools, many only have autistic support for certain grades.

That can mean, for example, that a student is assigned to their neighborhood school for grades K-2, but then has to switch to a different school to access autistic support for third grade. District officials, advocates, and families all agree: Those transitions can be particularly difficult for those with autism and other disabilities.

“They get used to the teachers, they get adjusted to the room, they get adjusted to the school,” said Jen Fischer, program coordinator at Vision for Equality, a Pennsylvania-based advocacy organization for people with disabilities. “For some people, just when that happens, they’ve got to move.”

Since Chief of Special Education and Diverse Learners Nathalie Nérée joined the district two years ago, reducing such transitions for students with disabilities has been one of her priorities, she said.

“My goal — and it has been very clear to my team, to all schools — is that we build a continuum of programs within all of our schools,” said Nérée. Nérée said students at only one or two schools last year had to change schools for this school year to access autism support.

But creating continuity is no easy task. The district is expanding autistic support offerings. It’s also planning to close schools — and the autistic support classes in them — as part of its facilities planning process. District officials have not yet announced which schools may be closed or colocated. Yet some worry such changes could force students with autism and other disabilities to change schools once again and further disrupt their education.

In a city where families of students with disabilities often feel that there are few desirable schools, “it’s a battle of your life for each transition,” said Luisa Velasquez-Maher, a mother of a student with autism in the district and an education advocate. Ultimately, “less transition means less stress,” she said.

Nérée said she is not part of the team creating the facilities plan. However, she said she has met with them extensively to share the vision “that all of our students will have the opportunity to attend any school that they want across the city.”

But, she added, the breadth of services the district can provide is sometimes limited by cost and coordination challenges.

To build out more programs for students with disabilities, Nérée said, “it’s going to take time.”

Number of autistic support classes limited but growing

A decade ago, families sued the district over its policy of automatically transferring students with autism to new schools without significant parent involvement. The district settled and agreed to notify parents in advance of any transfer and provide them with an opportunity to discuss the decision.

Since then, the number of students with autism in the district has more than doubled, according to state data. Last school year, there were around 5,000 students with autism in Philly schools.

Not all of those students participate in autistic support classes. Some may instead participate in general education classes or receive other forms of assistance, like a one-on-one aide.

Last school year, around 4,000 students enrolled in one of the district’s more than 500 autistic support classes, according to district data. That number continues to grow, Nérée said. The district added about 33 new classes in August to meet the increased need.

The classes provide specialized instruction to help students build skills in communication and behavior along with math and reading. The state limits the number of students that can be assigned per autistic support teacher, and how many grade bands can be mixed in each classroom. (In high schools, autistic support classes include a mix of students in all grades.)

However, neither state nor federal law dictates how support classes must be distributed throughout a school district. That means those decisions are largely up to Nérée and her team.

Nérée said that each winter, her team examines where students may need autistic support classes the following school year and which grade bands they fall into, including coordinating with the city’s early intervention provider to determine how many kindergartners may qualify. The district then opens new classes or changes the grade bands a school serves based on that information.

But it’s tricky to track exactly where students will have autistic support needs by the beginning of the school year. Some families move around, or join the district over the summer. Some students also move from autistic support to general education, while others are found to be eligible for the program as they age.

That can mean regular changes in how many students the district needs to find available autistic support spots for, said Nérée. “We’re trying to put things in place so that our students can go to any school they desire, and that they feel welcome and they’re supported, and that their needs are met.”

Several advocates Chalkbeat spoke with said they’ve noticed improved continuity for students since Nérée joined the district.

Still, more than 30 of the district’s 164 elementary and middle schools do not have any autistic support classes, according to a list of school programs the district shared with Chalkbeat. That includes several elementary schools considered highly desirable, like William M. Meredith and Penn Alexander.

As well, around 25 elementary schools only have autistic support for students in grades K-2, even though most of them enroll students up to at least fifth grade, and many go to eighth grade. Other schools only have autistic support classes for higher grades.

Schools without autistic support still have other offerings, like a special education teacher or aide, Nérée said.

Jamiel Owens, an advocate who works with parents of students with autism in the Philadelphia area, said he appreciates the ways the district has worked to provide more consistency and support for families.

But fully addressing the challenges of transitions would mean providing more resources for families, better trained teachers, and more options for students with disabilities, he said.

He said he feels the district is still trying to fit students with autism into a school system not primarily focused on serving their needs, “instead of looking at how we can actually reshape the school system.”

Why school closures can harm kids with autism

School closures have been found to be disruptive for all students in various ways. Researchers recommend creating robust support systems for students who must change schools.

Many advocates say that kind of support is even more urgent for students with autism or other disabilities. Changing schools, or having a flood of new students join their schools, may be even more destabilizing for them than other children.

“A lot of people think transition is only when a young adult goes into adulthood right after high school, into the new world,” said Owens, who has a son with autism who graduated from the district. “But every year — every grade achieved and going to the next one — is a transition stage. How are you preparing for that?”

District officials say the point of the district facilities plan, which will lead to closing schools, is to better distribute district resources to provide more opportunities for all students.

Though district officials have not yet shared details about which schools could close, Superintendent Tony Watlington has said repeatedly that the final plan will reduce the number of grade bands to limit school transitions.

But the proposal to close schools is ringing alarm bells for some parents of students with autism. Some say the harm of closures — which would inevitably affect students with autism and other disabilities — is not worth the risk.

“When you move kids that have issues with flexibility, [who] need patterns and routines — which is a very classic need of an autistic child — you change their whole world,” said Marissa Post, a parent of a child with autism in the school district.

“They have to learn new routines. They have to learn new settings. They have to redo skills that they already mastered in whatever setting they were in previously,” said Post, who’s also an advocate who works with families.

Post said she also worries that schools with many autistic support classes may appear underenrolled because of how the state limits the number of students assigned to each autistic support teacher.

The district has not shared how it is factoring autistic support classes into the facilities plan. District officials said they reviewed building utilization data with principals before publishing the data they say will inform school closures.

Spokesperson Christina Clark said that as the district implements the facilities plan, it will continue to open classrooms as needed “to make sure that students’ needs are met.”

Luisa Velasquez-Maher, the parent of a student with autism, said she hopes the facilities planning process takes the needs of each community into account and considers the needs of families with students with autism and other disabilities.

So far, she said she’s worried that hasn’t been the case. She’s gone to community meetings where she said information has been limited, and she has found the data the district is using to inform its decisions difficult to parse.

But she said she also understands the district’s need to address underutilized school buildings and better distribute its limited resources.

She hopes officials ask questions sincerely, listen to community members, and craft a plan that preserves strong support for students with autism. “If that’s their response, I will help,” she said.

Carly Sitrin contributed reporting.

Philadelphia is going to close public schools. Here’s how you can weigh in on the process.

2025-11-19T20:25:37+00:00

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The School District of Philadelphia is knee-deep in a process to close, colocate, and renovate schools in the coming years. And district officials say they want to hear more public feedback on how that process is going.

This month, the district announced it would delay the release of a draft plan outlining proposed outcomes for every school, in order to gather more community responses through a survey it launched this week. Superintendent Tony Watlington told City Council members on Tuesday that such a plan would be put before the school board sometime this winter.

“We know that many of the district’s aging and unequal facilities are underenrolled or overenrolled,” Deputy Superintendent of Operations Oz Hill told reporters on Monday ahead of the survey’s release. “This process seeks to more efficiently use our limited staff and facility resources to improve and enhance the quality of education for our students.”

Over the past year, district employees and consultants have hosted some 47 “public listening and learning sessions” and have received over 5,700 responses to an earlier survey about the closure process. But many parents, advocates, and community members say despite all that, the process has come across as vague, frustrating, and overly controlled.

Parents and neighbors at an event Chalkbeat hosted in partnership with Germantown Info Hub last month said it felt like the district was front-loading community engagement early on without providing tangible information about plans for each neighborhood school.

What they want, community members said, is to know what the future holds for their school, not general information about district-wide processes. And they want time to weigh in on those individual school plans before anything is set in stone.

District spokesperson Alex Coppadge told reporters on Monday that principals have made it clear that school-level engagement and partnership will be critical once the draft plan is released.

“We get it. People want to know exactly what’s happening to their specific circumstance, and so we want to be empathetic towards that” Coppadge said. “We want to create space and ample time to make sure that whatever that engagement looks like, is thoughtful, is meaningful, allows us the opportunity to take their feedback back and really try to move forward as partners.”

Once the district releases plans for individual schools, Coppadge said there will be an “extensive engagement period,” but declined to say how long and when that would be.

“I know that it will not be a rushed process, and that we will try to do it as thoughtfully and meaningfully as possible,” she said.

You can respond to the new district survey here.

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

Philadelphia City Council turns up heat on school district over charters, principals’ contract

2025-11-18T22:45:38+00:00

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Philadelphia City Council members questioned school leaders during a Tuesday hearing about several longstanding issues, like decisions to send non-renewal notices to two charter schools and fiscal concerns.

But they deferred asking questions about one pressing issue: the district’s facilities plan, which officials have said will lead to closing schools.

District officials were initially scheduled to release recommendations of which schools to close, colocate, modernize, and repurpose earlier this month. But they delayed the announcement to conduct a community survey.

Superintendent Tony Watlington told the City Council on Tuesday that the district is “committed to bringing recommendations this winter.”

Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, who chairs the council’s education committee, said the council will hold a hearing in January to focus on facilities once the draft plan is public. He urged council members to hold their questions about the plan until then.

With that issue essentially off the table, council members questioned school officials about other simmering concerns. Here’s a breakdown.

Council presses district on overdue principals union contract

District principals have been urging the school district for months to agree on a contract with their union, the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators, or CASA. The union has been without a contract since its last one expired in August.

Thomas questioned Watlington about why negotiations have stretched on so long.

Watlington said he could not share details while contract negotiations are ongoing, but that he is “optimistic” about reaching a contract deal in the “near term.” When asked by Thomas for a deadline, Watlington said it would not be appropriate to set one.

Several school district principals attended the hearing, wearing T-shirts branded with the CASA logo.

“We’re here in support of our district,” said CASA President Robin Cooper during a break from the hearing. “But also to be clear that we need a speedy resolution to our contract.”

Cooper also declined to share details about how negotiations are going.

Thomas asks about fate of 2 charter schools

Thomas also pressed board members about steps they’ve taken to not renew the charter agreements of KIPP North Philadelphia Academy and People for People Charter School.

“We’re still here today with the possibility of Black-led institutions being closed while their white counterparts are allowed to stay open,” said Thomas, who has previously criticized district leaders for closing other Black-led charter schools.

Thomas said he was concerned about the board’s decisions because “it’s not clear cut that the Black-led institutions were doing a worse job than their white counterparts.”

Board of Education President Reginald Streater said the board has tried to be more transparent about its non-renewal decisions by hosting several public meetings about charter renewals. During those meetings, board members said they were concerned about both schools’ low academic performance.

Streater also clarified that the board has not made final decisions not to renew both schools. Instead, he said, the board has triggered a non-renewal process mandated by state law to review the schools. He did not say when the board will make the final decisions.

People for People Charter School sued the school board in September following the board’s move towards not renewing its charter. The lawsuit focuses on the role of board member Joyce Wilkerson, who the school alleges is an “unlawfully seated member” of the board.

District leaders commit to eliminating budget deficit by 2030

The district’s budget presentation to the council showed it is expecting a $341 million deficit in fiscal year 2026, and will need to use around half its reserve funds to cover that cost.

During recent years, federal COVID relief funds helped fill such funding gaps, said the district’s Chief Financial Officer Michael Herbstman. But since that funding ended last year, the district has “a deficit in our budget that looks very similar to where we were before” it got those dollars, Herbstman said.

This year’s delayed state budget has added to the district’s financial difficulties. The district received additional $193 million in the 2025-26 state budget, which passed last week. But it had to take out around $700 million in loans during the four-month-long budget standoff, Herbstman said.

Herbstman said he estimated interest on the loans will cost the district around $7.5 million, which it must pay by April 1.

Superintendent Tony Watlington said one of the district’s priorities is eliminating its budget deficit by 2030, which will mean cutting some spending.

“We have to take some austerity measures over the next several years,” Watlington said. “We’ve got to balance our budget, and we’ve got to get our house in order.”

Mayor cautions against ‘political fights’ over school closures

Although City Council members held off on pressing Watlington and other officials about school closures, Mayor Cherelle Parker said she supports the district’s approach to the issue.

“I know that change is hard,” Parker said at Tuesday’s hearing. “I want every parent to know that I want what every parent wants: our children to have something better than what we had.”

Parker said she hopes to turn some underutilized school buildings into housing to help achieve the goals she has laid out in her housing plan, which some City Council members oppose.

When the district last closed schools more than a decade ago, the city council passed a nonbinding moratorium on school closures.

Parker said she would not stand for anyone trying to “manipulate” the process. “I support Dr. Watlington and President Streater enough that I’m going to fight tooth and nail to make sure no one attempts to bring them into any political fights,” Parker said.

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

Philadelphia councilmember ‘supportive’ of selling vacant Ada Lewis building to a charter school

2025-11-14T19:56:04+00:00

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A member of the Philadelphia City Council and leaders of West Oak Lane Charter School have quietly discussed a plan for the charter school to acquire the vacant Ada H. H. Lewis Middle School building.

“I have had conversations with leadership from West Oak Lane Charter School, who have expressed their interest in acquiring the property,” Councilmember Cindy Bass — whose district includes Germantown, where the school is located — told Chalkbeat in a statement Thursday. “Many community members have voiced support for returning the site to educational use. While the final decision rests with the School District, I am supportive of that direction.”

But any sale of the Lewis building to a charter school would need the school district’s approval — as Bass acknowledged — and a school board vote. There’s no sign that board members would approve any such sale.

The district is undergoing a long-term planning process to take stock of its buildings and consider school closures, co-locations, and renovations. It intends to submit recommendations to the school board this winter.

“The Board of Education has not been involved in any discussions about the potential sale of the Ada Lewis building, nor have we received any recent proposals regarding a sale or transfer,” said Imahni Moise, a spokesperson for the school board, in a statement. “All decisions about District-owned facilities will be made through our ongoing comprehensive facilities planning process, which is still underway.”

The crumbling building that once housed the school has gained renewed attention in recent weeks after police found 23-year-old Mount Airy woman Kada Scott’s body buried in the woods behind the building. Lewis closed in 2008 but the district still owns the building and is tasked with inspecting it. Neighbors and Germantown community members say the building and surrounding grounds have attracted graffiti, squatting, and other criminal activity.

Bass has publicly called for the school district to demolish the building, saying “the risks posed by this abandoned building are no longer hypothetical. They are real and they are unfolding in front of us.”

In 2020, developer Ken Weinstein proposed clearing the Lewis campus to build homes and negotiated a letter of intent with the school district to do so. Despite his proposal receiving “near unanimous consent from the community,” according to Weinstein, the proposal was quietly tabled at a May 2021 school board meeting and hasn’t been taken up again.

Some community members claim Bass stood in the way of that sale, but the councilwoman has repeatedly denied doing so. She wrote an op-ed for the Chestnut Hill Local this month appearing to connect Weinstein’s plan with gentrification efforts in the Germantown community.

Debbera Peoples-Lee, chief executive officer of West Oak Lane Charter School, told Chalkbeat in an email that the school has “expressed interest” in acquiring the Ada Lewis building.

“The Ada Lewis site represents an unparalleled opportunity for WOLCS to expand its mission and meet both student and community needs,” Lee wrote in an email.

As the school district considers closing more buildings — it already has 20 vacant properties in its portfolio — Weinstein said in an interview this week that he hopes the Lewis sale goes through. But he said he’s skeptical that a charter school would be able to raise the more than $87 million he estimates it would take to renovate the building.

“I don’t care who redevelops or reinvests in that blighted site, it just needs to be done,” Weinstein said.

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

How should Philadelphia handle school closures? Here’s what parents, educators, and others say.

2025-11-05T21:43:45+00:00

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Philadelphia school officials say they want more feedback before they announce which schools will close in the coming years — and educators, families, and other city residents hope they plan to listen.

At an event Chalkbeat hosted in partnership with Germantown Info Hub on Saturday, people reflected on the last mass school closures in 2013, when the district shuttered 23 schools despite community protests. Many said those closures left deep scars across neighborhoods, fractured trust between residents and the district, and left neighborhoods without key community spaces.

In Germantown specifically, the district closed the nearly 100-year-old Germantown High School. That experience shows what could go wrong — and what could be improved — this time around, residents said.

School officials have promised this upcoming round of closures will be different from what happened in 2013 — in large part, they say, because robust community engagement will inform the process.

Already, the district has assembled advisory groups and hosted community engagement sessions that school leaders say will inform the facilities planning process. On Tuesday, district officials said they were delaying a long-awaited facilities plan announcement to conduct a districtwide survey to gather more feedback.

Still, some residents of Germantown and other Philly neighborhoods said on Saturday they remain skeptical about how the district will factor community feedback into its ultimate recommendations.

But, they said, if the district genuinely intends to listen, they have lots of feedback to share. Here’s what some of the more than 20 people who attended Chalkbeat and Germantown Info Hub’s event said the district should keep in mind.

Philadelphians urge district to continue meaningful community engagement

Several Germantown residents said that even though the district has made efforts to solicit feedback, it must do much more to ensure families feel like their perspectives are considered in the process.

Janice Tosto, who moved to Germantown seven years ago, said families at the schools the district wants to close “have to be front and center in all of this.” That’s why, she said, it’s essential that the district stay in touch with families at schools affected by closures.

“They need to be prepared to have conversations with people,” said Tosto. “And to check in with people to see how they can be supportive of people who are really dealing with that trauma.”

Some people said it seems like many Philadelphians still don’t know closures are coming — or if their schools will be affected.

“People need to ask, ‘Which schools are you closing in my neighborhood?” said Cecelia Thompson, a former member of the Board of Education. “Stop being sketchy with it.”

Philadelphia residents said they want district leaders to give serious weight to community feedback in their school closure plan.

Advocates worry that even language the district is using to describe what’s happening, like the term “facilities planning process,” does not make it clear that school closures are coming.

“Nobody knows what it is,” said Ilene Poses, a member of the advocacy group Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, which opposes the closures. “They all think it’s going to be about making the schools environmentally better, less toxic.”

Fate of closed schools concerns many Philadelphia residents

District officials have said the aim of the process is to create better educational environments for students, with more access to programming like AP classes and extracurriculars. Superintendent Tony Watlington has said that to do so, the district needs to reduce the number of empty seats and close some schools.

But Watlington and other school officials have shared very little information about what would happen to schools after they close.

Longtime Germantown resident Jill Saull was involved in community pushback against the closure of Germantown High School in 2013. As part of the Philadelphia School Closings Photo Collective, she documented that school and Fulton Elementary to capture what the schools looked like before they shut down.

She said after the school board voted to shutter Germantown High School, she and other neighborhood residents organized to propose alternatives for what the building could become.

One idea, she said, was to turn part of the building into a small career and technical education program for hospitality and restaurant management. Another part of the building would be turned into a boutique hotel that students would help run and attract more visitors to Germantown.

At first, Saull said she remembers the school board and the developers who ultimately bought the building seemed interested in the community’s feedback and ideas. At one community meeting about the future of the school property, she said, more than 400 people showed up.

But ultimately, the developers nixed each idea from local residents. The building is now largely market-rate apartments.

“There was a moment where we did feel we came together … we were able to communicate,” said Saull. “But as the process went on, things kind of fell apart.”

At community engagement meetings over the summer, district officials said all options remain on the table for closed school buildings. But some worry the district will prioritize selling the facilities for top dollar instead of what local neighborhoods want.

Facilities planning process seems rushed, some say

Some advocates have welcomed the district’s delay for announcing the facilities plan. To them, it indicates the district is taking more time to consider what Philadelphians want from schools.

But others want the district to release a draft list of schools to close, so that Philadelphians can know what’s at stake and provide feedback that could make a difference before it’s finalized.

In 2013, the district held hearings about schools initially slated for closures and had time to come up with alternative plans. Officials ended up closing many fewer schools than the district initially proposed.

But this time around, officials appear to be front-loading community engagement, said Adam Blyweiss, a district parent and teacher who has been involved with the Stand Up for Philly Schools group, which opposes school closures. He worries the district may rush the process after it eventually releases the list of recommended schools to close.

Separately, the district needs better partnerships with external groups to make sure students who must change schools are supported, said Justin Ennis, executive director of Philadelphia Outward Bound School.

Ultimately, Ennis said the lessons from what happened in 2013 could help shape a much better process this time around — just as long as the district makes genuine progress building trust with communities and partner organizations.

“There is an opportunity to harness all of the folks in a community,” said Ennis. “So it’s not like 2013, which felt like a cold and sterile financial decision.”

Germantown Info Hub’s Rasheed Ajamu and Pryce Jamison contributed to this story, along with Sara Shahriari from Resolve Philly.

Sign up for Germantown Info Hub’s community texting project here.

Philly families say they have enough school choice. What they want is help navigating the system.

2025-10-02T19:33:55+00:00

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Shonique Hennigan attended Philadelphia district schools as a young person. There weren’t many other choices at the time, she said.

But her kids — like other Philadelphia students — have hundreds of possible options, one advocate estimates.

The challenge now, says Hennigan, is figuring out what school to choose: Which is the right fit? The right location? Which will offer her kids the safest, best chance of succeeding academically?

Those are the questions facing not just Hennigan, but families across the city as school selection season gets underway. Parents and experts say Philly families are often overwhelmed by their choices and the complicated systems necessary to choose a school — and they want more help navigating the process.

That means stress and anxiety for parents and students, and the potential to miss out on opportunities because the system can favor those with the resources, time, and means to fully engage with it.

At this year’s K-12 School Fair at the Philadelphia Convention Center on Sept. 20, Chalkbeat spoke to more than two dozen families about school choice in the city and what it feels like to go through the school selection process. The district’s application process — which allows pre-K through 11th grade families to choose a school outside their designated neighborhood catchment school for the 2026-27 school year — closes on Thursday, Oct. 23 at 11:59 pm.

“The reality of it is we have lots of options,” said Stacy Holland, executive director of Elevate 215, a nonprofit education advocacy group in the city. Between traditional neighborhood schools, charter schools, magnet schools, citywide schools, cyber schools, and private schools, Philly has “over 400 options for kids,” she said.

And for scholarships and tuition assistance at private schools, Pennsylvania already has two tax credit scholarship programs. Still, lawmakers in Harrisburg remain deadlocked over the state budget, driven in part by a lack of agreement over school choice policies. State Senate Republicans have repeatedly pushed for a new taxpayer-funded voucher program for private and parochial schools.

“This choice conversation has almost just gotten totally commandeered by the politics of vouchers,” Holland said.

Holland said it’s time for officials and experts to stop looking at choice as a “political issue and more about just a user issue.”

“We need to build a system where parents have an ease of access,” she said.

This month, Elevate 215 launched a new tool called Philly Schools Compass designed to simplify the selection process by allowing families to compare schools and search by grade level, neighborhood, and school type — district, charter, private, and virtual.

The school district also launched its own new Explore tool this summer that allows families to see each district school’s academic and extracurricular offerings.

But even with the tools available, many families told Chalkbeat they’d like the process to be simpler and more straightforward.

Ninth grader Cherish Davis said the school selection process has been “kinda stressful” to go through so far, even with her dad Damon Davis doing his best to support her through the process.

She said she feels like she “partly” has an understanding of what factors would make a good school for her, but she knows there are a lot of options and schools she has never heard of or considered.

School choice process is demanding and complicated

From start to finish, Holland said, the existing school choice process asks a lot of families.

First, parents have to explore “what are the questions you should be asking” to determine what type of school environment would help their children thrive. Are they interested in environmental science? Do they prefer a big school or a small school? Do they want to be close to home or use SEPTA public transit to travel? Do they want to play basketball, join a bowling league, or take up robotics?

Once parents figure out “what I think my kid needs,” Holland said the next step is to determine “how do I go about educating myself” as a parent. That can mean connecting with an organization like Elevate 215, contacting the school district with questions, building a detailed spreadsheet, talking to fellow parents, or visiting different schools in-person. But all of that takes significant time and energy — for working parents and those with fewer resources, those barriers can be prohibitive.

After a family has a list of schools they like and fit their needs, they can apply through the district’s school selection application where they rank their top five choices of district schools. For charter schools, families can use the Apply Philly Charter application system and apply to up to 15 schools through that process. Both applications rely on a lottery system but have different deadlines.

Most private schools have their own, separate application process and may require a parent interview. Neighborhood catchment schools do not require any application and families can simply go to that school to enroll.

Once the application process is concluded, accepting a seat can be an additional challenge. Students can be waitlisted or receive multiple offers from various types of schools and tight deadlines to accept.

At the school fair, parents Stacey and Brock Marshall said Philly offered a good variety of choices for their two sons in the ninth and fifth grade, but they wanted help navigating the system.

One thing that could be useful, they said, is more “bullet-pointed information” in an easy-to-digest format.

Nicole Marion, who has a ninth grader, said she definitely feels overwhelmed by all of the options. She said the pressure to make the right choice for her child led to her feeling “a lot of anxiety” this year.

Parents also told Chalkbeat they worry about school safety, low reading and math scores, and crumbling facilities — all of which adds to the stress and pressure to choose a “good” school.

Philly families are looking for more clear-cut information

Some of that anxiety has been ramped up by conservative messaging from local groups and the Trump administration.

The conservative Commonwealth Foundation has lobbied aggressively for expanding Pennsylvania’s school choice policies in recent years, saying in several press releases that students are “trapped in failing schools” across the state.

Last year, the Commonwealth Foundation debuted digital billboards over major highway routes in Philly urging Pennsylvanians to support a proposed state-backed scholarship that eligible students could use to pay for tuition and fees for attendance at participating private schools.

Philly families already have access to the Children’s Scholarship Fund of Philadelphia, a privately funded program that gives scholarships to low-income families to attend tuition-based schools via another lottery process.

But the families Chalkbeat spoke to say they’re not looking for an escape from the current school system — they’re looking for help navigating it.

Holland said to help relieve some of the stress and uncertainty from parents’ shoulders, the city’s number one priority should be improving the quality of schools currently available to families, as well as making the system more user-friendly.

“We have work to do,” Holland said. “But it doesn’t mean there’s not options for families to choose from.”

Parents Jessica and David McDermott said the school choice process can be overwhelming. They want to give their daughter agency in the decision-making but they said they’d appreciate more clear-cut information.

The McDermotts said they’re “still confused” about the district’s ranking process. They feel like there is “plenty of choice” but not enough transparent information about all of the offerings.

“No one can say which school is going to be good,” Jessica said. “You have to think about your core values and what’s important to you.”

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

Watlington gets contract extension to be Philadelphia schools superintendent through 2030

2025-09-25T22:57:32+00:00

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Members of the Philadelphia Board of Education voted unanimously to extend Superintendent Tony Watlington’s contract through 2030 on Thursday.

Watlington’s original contract was set to expire in 2027 — one year shy of the scheduled completion of his five-year strategic plan. Thursday’s vote signals near-unified support for the superintendent from local officials including the board, Mayor Cherelle Parker’s office, and union leaders as the district confronts significant financial and political obstacles.

“Extending your contract now ensures that we will move forward with stability, clarity and continued and renewed momentum,” Board President Reginald Streater said before the vote. “Not saying we’re a Super Bowl team yet, but I’m seeing signs of winning.”

Board Vice President Sarah-Ashley Andrews praised Watlington for making efforts to be present at district events. She said his leadership is “the kind that’s visible, approachable, and rooted in community and we’re keeping the ball rolling with student achievement.”

At the district’s relaunch of the district’s Parent and Family University program on Wednesday, Debora Carrera, the city’s chief education officer, said that “we are in lockstep with the school district.” Parker has called Watlington “my guy” and “the best school superintendent in the country” in her two budget addresses to the City Council.

Watlington’s current annual salary is $367,700 and under the extension he will get a 3% raise annually.

Watlington thanked the board for its confidence in him on Thursday and vowed to “roll up our sleeves” to tackle the district’s challenges ahead.

“We’re going to work hard,” Watlington said following the vote.

Throughout his tenure, which began in June 2022, Watlington has navigated the district’s many challenges with what’s become a signature style of polite and measured stoicism.

At every public appearance, Watlington repeats a specific refrain: Dropout rates are down, attendance and graduation rates are up, and so are some student test scores thanks in part to a complete curriculum overhaul. However, Philly students’ math and reading scores are still below their peers’ scores in Pennsylvania, below the average for all large cities, and below national averages.

Politically, Watlington has few, if any, public detractors. He earned praise for settling contracts with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers – which said it was on the verge of striking — and the School Police Association.

He assuaged the concerns of City Council Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas enough to avoid public hearings examining a controversial teacher discipline process. And his administration has entered into an agreement with the federal government to avoid being prosecuted over the district’s multi-year failure to properly address concerns about asbestos in schools.

“For the first time in a very long time, there is stability in school district leadership and an alignment in values,” Arthur Steinberg, president of the PFT, said in a Thursday statement. “Superintendent Watlington has demonstrated his respect for our members in the only way that matters: a strong, on-time labor contract.”

But the district’s challenges are far from settled and the next five years will test Watlington’s leadership.

This fall, district officials are expected to present their plan for school closures, renovations, and co-locations. That’s already elicited some concern from community members. The ongoing state budget impasse, combined with uncertainty about federal funding, has district officials projecting a multi-million dollar budget deficit. Board members last month approved the district to borrow up to $1.55 billion just to pay its bills through December.

And as the Trump administration continues to target large urban school districts for their equity policies, Watlington’s response to national politics will be closely watched, especially if federal officials put pressure on Philadelphia schools.

“In the lean times ahead,” Board member Crystal Cubbage warned, “it’s going to be really important to embrace partnerships” as a district.

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

Philadelphia school district relaunches Parent and Family University

2025-09-24T22:46:19+00:00

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Philadelphia school leaders say they’re reinvesting in parent education to improve student outcomes and build trust between families and the district.

School officials on Wednesday announced the relaunch of the district’s Parent and Family University program — part of fulfilling a longstanding promise from Superintendent Tony Watlington to help parents and families engage with their children, schools, and communities.

That means parents will be able to access new resources, like online classes, physical and mental health information, and tools to support their children’s learning. In-person sessions will feature free babysitting and child care services, food, and other resources. The program will launch in eight schools on Oct. 14, with plans to expand.

The program shows “that we are wrapping our arms around our children and our families,” Watlington said at the launch event at Lewis C. Cassidy Academics Plus School Wednesday.

Watlington said a key pillar of the program is to provide families with support and resources to increase student attendance and joy in school — something advocates have long been pushing for. He said he hopes more outreach to parents and families helps build trust in the district.

“This is not just parent involvement,” said Watlington. “This is an equal partnership.”

The program also includes access to adult classes on financial literacy and money management, ways for families to connect with community service opportunities, and voting information. Watlington said some organizations, like Scholastic and Philadelphia Financial Scholars, have partnered with the district to deliver these services.

But the courses and resources are “not just about sharing information,” Board of Education President Reginald Streater said at the launch event, “it’s about building trust.”

The district first introduced Parent and Family University in 2009 under then-Superintendent Arlene Ackerman. By 2010, the program had more than 12,000 participants.

At the time, parents took classes in person, and attended a graduation ceremony at the end. The theory was that investing in parents would mean better outcomes and experiences for students.

But under new district leadership, the program slowly wound down, and by 2015 it had ended.

After Watlington became superintendent in 2022, he pledged to relaunch the Parent and Family University as part of the district’s new strategic plan.

School officials conducted a parent and guardian survey earlier this year about potential offerings. The survey showed that parents were interested in information about school-specific topics like school selection, report cards, and college and career readiness. Some also said they were interested in topics like mental health, nutrition, and digital literacy.

The survey results showed that few parents said they would be likely to attend in-person sessions, while more than half said they would attend virtual sessions.

“Your feedback mattered,” Streater said. “We are here to deliver.”

However, the survey respondents did not reflect the demographics of the school system. Of the roughly 1,750 respondents, white families, those earning more than $100,000 and those who live in South Philadelphia were overrepresented. The majority of students in the district are students of color.

Michelle Gainer, a parent of a student at Eleanor C. Emlen Elementary, said she plans to take advantage of some of the new programming. She said she thinks parents like her could benefit from more help accessing resources about housing, utilities, financial literacy, and mental health.

“I’m just looking here at some of the resources, and like, these are all great,” said Gainer. “I wish I would have had that when I was younger.”

Gainer said she hopes programming is available in person and in different communities across the city: “I think that’s the best way to really connect with parents and families.”

As kids danced to music and snacked on cookies at Wednesday’s event, parents milled around picking up resources about Parent and Family University.

Doretha Crooks, whose son is in fifth grade at Cassidy, said it would be useful to be able to listen along to sessions while she’s cooking dinner or finishing another task.

Crooks said she’s glad more resources will be available for parents. Her son recently switched from virtual school to return to a brick-and-mortar school, and she said she looks forward to more opportunities to learn about curriculum and support her son’s education.

“Everything is changing,” said Crooks, referring to new technology students use to learn and new research on what works best. “Parents need to be reeducated.”

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

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

Philadelphia school district releases data that will inform school closures

2025-09-10T19:42:22+00:00

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The Philadelphia school district released a long-awaited data repository Wednesday that officials say will help guide decisions about which schools it will close and which ones it will invest in.

But for those waiting for concrete information on how school data will inform the district’s facilities plan — and which schools it will shutter — details remain scant.

The data website includes information on school enrollment and capacity, and gives schools utilization scores from “severely underutilized” to “severely overcrowded.” It also scores schools on a 100-point scale for building condition, neighborhood vulnerability, and whether a school’s space meets the needs of students. Schools receive ratings per category between “unsatisfactory” and “excellent” based on those scores.

However, the calculations behind those scores are unclear. If a school’s building quality is rated as “poor,” that means a building requires “moderate repairs,” according to the district’s data FAQ. But that could be because of a lack of adequate air conditioning, or the presence of toxic materials like friable asbestos or lead. Or it could mean the building’s electrical system is outdated.

The data shows the scope of many schools’ problems. Forty buildings are rated as having an “unsatisfactory” building condition. Fifty-five are enrolled at less than 50% capacity.

District officials say an “unsatisfactory” score does not mean a school will close, but that instead it will help officials understand different needs.

“This is the first time that we have one repository with all of our data that informs what the needs are,” said Deputy Superintendent Oz Hill. “It really paints a very broad and comprehensive picture, or mosaic, of what the school’s needs are, where we’ve been making investments, and how we move forward with this process.”

On mobile devices, the dashboard was difficult to view when it launched; graphics often overlapped, for example.

Throughout the facilities planning process, which began in 2022, Superintendent Tony Watlington has repeated that the aim of the facilities plan is to provide more resources and better opportunities to all public school students. The data, he said, will help ensure the district spends its limited resources well. He also said he can’t provide further details about how the district weighs different factors.

“We’ve got to better utilize our budgets, our people, our buildings, all of our resources in service of providing more high quality academic and extracurricular programming across all the neighborhoods of Philadelphia,” Watlington told reporters in a briefing before the data release. “That’s what this is about.”

The district began sharing initial data during more than a dozen community engagement meetings over the summer at schools across the city. Many educators and families Chalkbeat spoke with said they appreciated learning more about the process. But some voiced concerns that the district’s data did not accurately reflect their schools.

District officials said they met with principals over the summer and walked through dozens of schools to ensure the data is accurate. Some updates are now apparent.

At a community meeting over the summer, for example, the district’s handouts showed that Feltonville Arts & Science middle school was at 62% utilization, with 542 students enrolled in a building meant for 874. But many educators connected with the school said that did not seem accurate. In the new data release, Feltonville Arts & Science’s capacity is listed as 756, and its utilization score is 72%.

District officials say they plan to host more engagement sessions this fall, and have met with principals to explain how they can share information with families.

Time is limited. Watlington said the district still plans to share recommendations for which schools to close, colocate, repurpose, and modernize to the Board of Education this fall. They plan for the board to vote on the recommendations by the end of the year and roll out changes starting next school year. Some recommendations, he said, will be phased in over a longer term.

Still, Watlington said, “there are no fixed decisions at this point.”

Philadelphia teachers union ratifies new contract that gives teachers raises, parental leave

2025-08-29T01:28:27+00:00

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Members of the Philadelphia teachers union voted to ratify the union’s new contract with the school district Thursday that includes annual 3% raises for three years and a $1,400 bonus for all members.

The vote, which comes days before the union’s current contract expires, puts an end to concerns that a teachers strike could disrupt the beginning of the school year. The union’s nearly 14,000 members include teachers, paraprofessionals, counselors, school nurses, and other school staff.

“Our goal for this collective bargaining agreement was really to set a floor for the future and build on the educational program for our members and for the children of the city of Philadelphia going forward,” said Arthur Steinberg, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

Steinberg said Thursday that about 4,500 members voted to ratify the three-year contract, or about 70% of all votes.

Along with raises, the contract ends the district’s controversial leave policy, often referred to as 3-5-7-9, that penalized teachers for taking sick leave. The new contract will include a new set of absence guidelines that “significantly improves” that policy, Steinberg said. A copy of the contract, along with the absence policy, was not made available to the press Thursday evening.

“The number one request from them was, I want to be able to use my 10 sick days without any consequence of discipline,” said Steinberg. “Now they can.”

The contract also introduces five weeks of paid parental leave for all new parents. Previously, teachers planning to take parental leave had to use sick time or take unpaid leave.

Teachers in Philadelphia’s public schools earned on average $85,719 last school year, according to state data. But some other school staff made considerably less, with paraprofessionals’ salary starting at $24,618 and secretaries’ starting at $27,669 for a 10-month school year, according to the union’s previous salary bands.

The new contract provides additional benefits to many members in those positions, including additional raises for some paraprofessionals and secretaries. It also creates limits on the hours paraprofessionals can work.

School district officials welcomed the contract when they announced the tentative agreement Sunday.

“We are pleased that we have reached a tentative three year agreement that both honors the hard work of our educators and maintains our record of strong financial stewardship,” Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a statement.

The school district will have to pay for teachers’ raises and other benefits while its own funding remains in limbo. State lawmakers have not yet finalized a state budget, which was due two months ago, leaving districts across the state uncertain about how much funding they will receive.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed a budget that would include more money for Philadelphia’s schools, partially in response to a 2023 court decision that the state’s school funding system was unconstitutional because it left poorer districts underfunded. But some Republican lawmakers have resisted providing additional funding to the state’s largest district.

The delayed budget also means that school districts have not received expected payments from the state. The Philadelphia school district is waiting on around $465 million in expected payments, according to an analysis by the Pennsylvania State Education Association, a statewide education union.

It’s Philadelphia’s first day of school. Here are 3 things we’re watching.

2025-08-25T17:56:25+00:00

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Nearly 118,000 Philadelphia students headed back to classrooms on Monday. Some celebrated birthdays. Others were thankful for the relatively cool weather. And more than a few wished summer could’ve lasted just a bit longer.

With a new tentative teachers union contract agreement under their belts and the threat of a strike all but forgotten, Superintendent Tony Watlington, Mayor Cherelle Parker, Board of Education President Reginald Streater and other elected officials greeted arriving students at Edward Steel Elementary School in Nicetown with cheers and metallic red pompoms.

“This is a school year where we have wind underneath our wings, even though we have a lot of challenges in front of us,” Watlington said Monday.

Indeed, the district is staring down a multi-million dollar budget deficit worsened by a lingering state budget impasse that’s likely to delay crucial payments to Pennsylvania districts. That delay has also caused public transit cuts that are already disrupting students’ rides to and from school. And the district’s ongoing facilities planning process will come to a head this fall when officials are expected to release their plan for school closures and renovations.

Despite the challenges, school leaders opened their doors on Monday with optimistic messages.

Edward Steel Elementary School students are expected to repeat the school motto: "Safety first, respect always, and striving for achievement.”

Steel Elementary Principal Angikindslows Senatus said this year, he’s leaning into his school’s three core principles: “safety first, respect always, and striving for achievement.”

“We want to make sure that regardless of the challenges and the issues that we face, that we make sure that we cross the boundary and meet each other,” Senatus said.

Here are three things we’ll be watching this school year.

Philadelphia school closures are likely

District officials have said the structure of the city’s public school system needs to fundamentally change. That means school closures are likely coming.

As enrollment demographics shift, some schools have become overcrowded, forcing students to learn in hallways and trailers, while other buildings are more than half empty and are costly to maintain. Some schools have temperature-controlled spaces and proper equipment for gym class, career and technical education programs, and prekindergarten. Others have been repeatedly closed for asbestos remediation and inadequate heating and cooling.

As a result, district officials have been drafting a plan to close, repurpose, colocate, and remodel each of its more than 300 buildings. That plan is expected to be presented to the Board of Education in November.

Painful SEPTA cuts could impact student attendance

In the absence of a state budget deal, SEPTA has moved forward with massive cuts, service reductions, and fare increases, including the elimination of some 400-series bus lines, which specifically serve schools at the beginning and end of the school day.

Educators, parents, and advocates told Chalkbeat they’re worried the transit changes will mean students will have a harder time getting to school and participating in internships and extracurricular activities.

The SEPTA cuts are adding “chaos” to the school year, said Sean Vereen, president and CEO of Heights Philadelphia, which connects Black, Latino, and first-generation college students from low-income communities with workforce and college attainment programs.

“There are already too many barriers to young people accessing their opportunities, and this seems to be another place where we’re putting up barriers that we don’t need to,” Vereen said. “Young people require stability and investment, and all these things send the opposite message.”

Watlington has emphasized increasing student attendance rates during his time in office. He said last week that no students will be penalized if they’re late because of transit issues, but it remains to be seen how the cuts will affect district attendance rates.

Teachers welcomed students back to school on Monday with cheers and red pompoms.

School choice programs continue to dominate the conversation

The perennial push for new voucher-like school choice programs and funding are among the issues at the root of Pennsylvania lawmakers’ budget stalemate.

Emboldened by the new national federal tax-credit scholarship program, Pennsylvania Republicans are resurrecting a plan to allow families to use state money to pay some private school tuition and other education costs. While Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro supported a prior voucher proposal, he subsequently backed down and vetoed such a proposal in 2023.

Meanwhile, Democrat legislators have said increasing funding for public school districts is not only their budget priority, but also constitutionally mandated.

At the same time, Philadelphia school officials are trying to balance growing demand for traditional and cyber charter schools with their desire to boost enrollment at neighborhood public schools. The Philadelphia Board of Education voted last May to approve the city’s first new charter school in nearly a decade, but members last week also voted to move forward with the nonrenewal process for two underperforming charters.

While the leaders of one charter school have already said it will close next year, those in charge of another, Memphis Street Academy, have vowed to continue fighting a judge’s closure order.

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

Philadelphia’s Frankford High School reopens after $30 million asbestos remediation project

2025-08-18T22:08:17+00:00

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The Philadelphia school district reopened Frankford High School on Monday after completing a nearly $30 million renovation to remediate asbestos that had posed a health risk to staff and students.

The renovations, which included adding air conditioning and new lighting, kept the school closed for more than two years. The building’s reopening marks a big step for the district’s aim to modernize its aging infrastructure — and shows the great cost of maintaining buildings built more than a century ago.

The district has closed several schools in recent years due to concerns over exposure to asbestos. In June, the U.S. Department of Justice announced criminal charges against the district for failing to follow laws that require timely asbestos inspections between 2015 and 2023. The district reached an agreement with the Justice Department to avoid prosecution.

“We are reopening possibilities and opportunities for our students and our educators,” Board of Education President Reginald Streater told an audience of Frankford educators in the school’s refurbished auditorium on Monday. “When we open the doors this fall, our students return to a school that is safe, welcoming and healthy.”

In April 2023, inspectors found that asbestos had been flaking from the walls and ceiling of the 115-year-old Frankford High School building, posing a health risk to staff and students. Exposure to asbestos is associated with many health concerns, including lung cancer.

After the discovery, students attended class virtually through the end of the school year. For the following two school years, ninth graders attended class at nearby Roberto Clemente Middle School. Older students were restricted to part of the school called the “annex,” which was built in the 1950s.

“It was very stressful, and it was a little sad, just to see that we were closed because of the asbestos,” said physical education teacher Terry Ward. “But now to see it opening is amazing.”

Ward, who graduated from Frankford in the 1980s, said the school feels transformed from when she was a student. The building has freshly painted walls, new windows, refurbished floors, and new LED lighting. The district also installed more than 80 new air conditioning units and dozens of new Smartboards. Some rooms, like the cafeteria, have gotten new furniture as well.

Still, pieces of the school’s history remain. Stained glass windows circle the school’s auditorium, and old paintings line part of the first floor hallway.

When classes start next week, Ward will be teaching in the school’s third-floor gym. She said she remembers how hot the room would get during basketball practice when she was a student, with no cooling and windows that wouldn’t open. But with the new air conditioning, she said she looks forward to spending the school year teaching in the space.

“The kids’ eyes are going to be bright,” said Ward. “It brightens the community.”

District agrees to asbestos inspections every 6 months

The reopening of Frankford High School required the installation of wall and ceiling paneling throughout the building to protect the plaster beneath. In some areas, that plaster contains asbestos, which is only safe when it’s contained.

The district’s agreement with the Justice Department includes the district’s commitment to inspect buildings every six months and regularly repair any damage.

Adam Anderson, who teaches media and television classes at Frankford, has worked for the school since 2009. He said he’s aware that means he may have been exposed to asbestos particles during the years before the school closed, and has even talked to his doctor about it. But for now, he said, he’s not scared.

“Is it something that I’m gonna monitor for the rest of my life? Sure,” said Anderson. “Is it something that I’m thinking about at this moment? No, because I’m kind of just excited to be back in the building.”

To Anderson, the asbestos remediation has brought other benefits too. He used to worry about the creaky floorboards in his classroom, which would often disrupt students during recording sessions. But with refurbished floors, the classroom stays quiet.

The new space, he said, “actually represents what our students can do.”

After school officials cut a ribbon in front of the school’s main doors Monday, Frankford staff returned to their work of readying the school to welcome students on the first day of class Aug. 25. In an office upstairs, Yanelle Boyd, a student climate support staffer at the school, said one of her aims for the school year is to help infuse the school’s spirit into the renovated building.

Boyd graduated from Frankford in 2017, and remembers the hallways covered in student murals and trophies. Though the district says those items have mostly been preserved, they are no longer on prominent display.

“We have to make new memories — and I’m excited to make those new memories,” Boyd said.

More Philadelphia high schoolers who plan to go to college don’t matriculate

2025-08-12T16:24:02+00:00

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At the end of each school year, school officials in Philadelphia ask graduating seniors what they plan to do after high school.

Thousands report that they plan to go to college.

But when the fall rolls around, hundreds of those students do not end up matriculating in a postsecondary program, according to a new report from the School District of Philadelphia.

District data shows that the phenomenon, called “summer melt,” has increased in recent years. In the Class of 2024, 40% of students who initially planned to go to college did not follow through on their plans, according to the district’s research, marking an increase of 10 percentage points from 2016.

In the report, district researchers say that’s important information for guidance counselors, school leaders, and college readiness partners to be aware of as they support students in completing tasks required for college matriculation.

But a major challenge, according to some advocates, is that the requirements and costs of matriculation can overwhelm students over the summer when they lose many of their school-based supports.

“There’s just so many young people that say, ‘This is way too much work,’ and it is … it’s an absurd amount of work,” said Bryan DeFoney, vice president of programs at the Philadelphia Education Fund. “If you have never navigated this, it feels like a Herculean task for a young person to complete.”

Around 44% of Philadelphia high school seniors in the Class of 2024 matriculated at a postsecondary institution last fall, according to district data.

DeFoney oversees federally funded programs in several public Philadelphia high schools that help support students to graduate and access postsecondary education. In his work with teens, he said he’s seen students who are initially interested in attaining a degree after high school get frustrated by the bureaucratic hoops they must jump through over the summer, or choose instead to work fulltime.

Problems with the financial aid system during the past two years have added to those challenges, DeFoney said. Since the pandemic, he said he has also noticed fewer students are interested in going to college.

“The entire tone around the college-going culture has just shifted, because school became optional for a lot of young people,” DeFoney said. “Part of our work is we try to help families and students understand why that investment is still worth it.”

The Philadelphia district’s analysis found that students who were male, English learners, or receiving special education services were more likely not to go to college after graduation even though they said they intended to.

Students who intended to matriculate at a four-year college were consistently more likely to matriculate than those intending to attend community colleges or other two-year institutions.

Nationally, between 10% and 40% of students who aim to enroll in college do not immediately do so after graduation, according to research from the Harvard Center for Education Policy Research.

Looming SEPTA cuts could mean many Philly kids miss class as lawmakers bicker over funding

2025-08-11T19:42:36+00:00

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Major transit cuts are poised to derail Philadelphia’s start of the school year as state lawmakers squabble over funding for SEPTA, which more than 21,000 Philadelphia students use to get to school.

On Monday, the House passed a bill that included funding for the transit system, as well as new money for roads and bridges. But Senate Republicans have rejected the past four versions of the funding package that would include investments in SEPTA.

If the transit authority does not secure more funding by Thursday, massive system-wide cuts at the beginning of the school year are unavoidable, SEPTA officials have said.

“When things are down to the wire, I’m just so concerned about how this will affect our students and our families,” said Bianca Gillis, principal of Baldi Middle School in Northeast Philadelphia.

Baldi is one of the schools slated to be most affected by the potential cuts, with four bus lines that serve the 1,500-student middle school scheduled to be discontinued in the coming months unless lawmakers strike a funding deal. Three of them are part of the SEPTA’s 400-series lines, which specifically serve schools at the beginning and end of the school day.

Gillis said she worries that losing those buses could lead to students being late for class and increased absenteeism.

“It would just create unreasonable demands on children with those kind of necessary pivots that families would have to make,” Gillis said. “So I hope they come to a decision before the first day of school.

Students in Northeast Philadelphia will be affected most by the cuts. They will have to wait longer for transportation and change buses more frequently to get to school, SEPTA officials have said.

But no part of the city will be immune, according to SEPTA officials, with longer wait times and more crowding expected throughout the transit system that provides key transportation services for students.

Though the district provides school buses to elementary school students and some students with disabilities, most students in grades six and up are expected to walk or use public transportation to get to school. The school district provides students who live at least 1.5 miles from their school with free SEPTA cards to pay for the transportation.

A district spokesperson said district officials are monitoring the budget negotiations and SEPTA’s plans. In documents shared before a June school board meeting, district officials acknowledged that transit cuts could affect on-time school attendance and limit access to after-school programs.

During a virtual information session organized by the school district in late July, SEPTA Chief Planning and Strategy Officer Jodie Holton told educators that the transit authority is working with lawmakers to secure more funding.

“We have hope that the state will pass a budget, and I know the school district is anxiously awaiting that as well,” Holton said. “We have hope that funding for transit will be included.”

The transit authority has been planning for two separate scenarios. In one, it does not receive more state funding and begins a 20% service cut across the system. In another, it can continue its service without changes. SEPTA is also raising fare costs by around 20% on Sept. 1.

The service cuts are scheduled to begin on Aug. 24, but for planning purposes, SEPTA officials have said they need confirmation of funding by Aug. 14. Without additional money, the transit authority will have to start service cuts that could take months to reverse even if funding does eventually come in.

Over the weekend, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro called on lawmakers to pass the transit budget immediately.

“Every day, hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians rely on SEPTA to get to work, take their kids to school, and keep their lives moving,” Shapiro said in a statement. “We need long-term, recurring funding for SEPTA and for every transit agency in our Commonwealth — and the time to act is right now.”

The district is still hiring bus drivers for school bus transportation for elementary school students. Families eligible for school bus services may apply to the district’s parent flat rate program that pays eligible families $300 per month to drive their children to school.

However, the majority of middle and high school students who commute to school will still be expected to take SEPTA on Aug. 25, the district’s first day of school.

Here’s the data Philly is using to pick which schools close — and here’s what’s missing

2025-07-24T23:32:20+00:00

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School officials in Philadelphia say closures are coming — and they’ve promised to use data about building needs, enrollment, and neighborhoods to decide which schools shut their doors.

But more than a year into the district’s facilities planning process, details on which schools are desperately in need of repairs and which ones are struggling most with enrollment remain murky.

For months, the district has pushed back a promised release of the information officials have said will inform its recommendations of which schools to close, colocate, modernize, repurpose, or maintain as they are. And the data the district has shared — which officials have only made available via printouts at community engagement sessions — includes serious limitations and inconsistencies, according to principals and educators in attendance.

At community engagement meetings held by the district this month, some educators pointed out that the district’s stated capacity for their schools did not seem accurate, based on their experiences in their buildings. Others noted that the data creates an incomplete picture about the city’s enrollment, as it only captures a moment in time and does not include charter or parochial school enrollment.

Ultimately, some principals worry their schools could be targeted for closure or colocations based on data that does not accurately reflect their schools. And some community members said that failing to holistically review their schools’ strengths and challenges could result in decisions that harm children and neighborhoods.

Deputy Superintendent Oz Hill has been telling community members "nothing is etched in stone" and that their input is still valuable.

Many educators and community members attending meetings also asked for clarification about how the data would be used to determine school recommendations. Despite assigning scores and color codes to different school factors, the district did not explain how these scores and codes could make different outcomes for schools more or less likely.

District officials said there was no formula, but that they would take many factors into account including comments and concerns shared at the meetings.

“Nothing is etched in stone,” Deputy Superintendent Oz Hill told a group of educators and community members at an engagement session at Thomas K. Finletter School. “We are still at a point where your input can make a difference.”

Chalkbeat’s analysis of the district’s data revealed further inconsistencies and gaps. The district provided Chalkbeat with a list of each district school’s capacity based on its current metrics. But the figures provided did not match the numbers shared during the engagement meetings. For example, the Abram S. Jenks School is 87% full according to the spreadsheet given to Chalkbeat. But in the printed handouts from the engagement meetings, the school has the same number of students enrolled but is marked “severely overcrowded” at over 130% full.

The data the district gave to Chalkbeat also did not include information for several schools, including schools that recently returned to district control after being operated by charter organizations.

The capacity figures the district provided to Chalkbeat and the capacity figures shared at the community meetings were “collected at different points in time,” according to Monique Braxton, a district spokesperson. The district did not further explain the discrepancies. And updated capacity data for the schools “will be available when we launch the public website,” Braxton said.

District officials have repeatedly said the data they have shared during engagement meetings is preliminary and will be updated after walkthroughs of each school and a review by principals, some of whom have been away on vacation this summer.

The new data will be released before the facilities plan is made public, several district facilitators at the meetings said.

But time is running out. The district plans to solicit feedback on a draft facilities plan beginning in October, which it will then present to the Board of Education in November.

At a session at Thomas K. Finletter School, several teachers and school leaders affiliated with Feltonville Arts & Sciences expressed concerns about the school capacity numbers the district shared at the meetings.

If the district doesn’t have accurate information on its buildings, the educators said, they have serious reservations about the validity of the process overall.

“Don’t make it neat on paper,” said Malcolm Cooper, a music teacher at Feltonville Arts & Sciences, at the risk of making things “messy in real life.”

District’s scores for schools spur confusion, concern

Throughout July, district officials hosted more than a dozen engagement sessions to explain the facilities planning process, solicit feedback, and share printouts of school data. Chalkbeat attended half of these sessions, speaking with parents, educators, community members, and district officials in attendance.

The data printouts included enrollment and capacity numbers, as well as color-coded designations for each school based on building quality, neighborhood vulnerability, and program alignment.

District officials said that school building scores were based largely on a 2024 building audit.

Program alignment scores reflected whether a school’s space adequately serves its programming needs, like having a gym or space for prekindergarten programs.

Neighborhood vulnerability scores combined two factors. One is the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s social vulnerability index data for a school’s neighborhood that considers poverty and housing density. The other is whether a neighborhood has experienced a district school closure in the past.

For example, a school with more students enrolled than its building capacity allows may be marked “red” for overcrowding, but have a program alignment of “good,” and a neighborhood vulnerability score of “moderate risk.”

In the community meetings, district officials have said their decisions will primarily consider the neighborhood vulnerability score, then a school’s capacity, utilization, and building’s structural condition, and then the further “nuance” of a school community, including where students could be moved and what special programs schools offer.

But the officials did not make a direct connection between how schools were ranked on these different factors and how likely it is that the district would decide to close, colocate, or modernize them.

But at every session Chalkbeat attended, at least one person asked for more clarity about how the district arrived at the summary scores for each school and raised concerns about their accuracy.

Luisa Velasquez, co-director of the Friends of Vare-Washington nonprofit that raises money to support the elementary school, said she believed the “moderate risk” vulnerability designation assigned to the school didn’t reflect the school’s real needs.

Velasquez noted that though more wealthy families have moved to South Philadelphia, many have chosen to send their kids to private schools, charter schools, or selective admissions schools. As a result, the demographics of Vare-Washington Elementary’s neighborhood don’t necessarily reflect the school’s demographics, she said, “because we have kids from all over the city coming to us to get a decent education.”

In a similar vein, others have noted that the data doesn’t capture the location of charter schools.

Velasquez told Chalkbeat she left the community meeting skeptical of how the district will use its data for decisions about schools.

School data reflects limited timeline and scope

Deputy Superintendent Oz Hill said the engagement sessions so far have been eye-opening. He urged families to attend more meetings, which district officials have said will continue throughout the fall.

“Every single engagement [session], I learn things about these schools and the communities that I didn’t know before,” Hill told Chalkbeat at one such meeting on Monday.

Some attendees also worried that the capacity data was too rigid. In Northeast Philadelphia, for example, school leaders said a growing immigrant population means a school’s enrollment can fluctuate throughout the year. If Feltonville Intermediate School filled its classrooms to 100% capacity on the first day of school, educators asked what would happen after winter break when a handful of new students want to enroll.

A community engagement session about school closures, colocations, and modernizations at Philadelphia's Andrew Hamilton Public School on July 17.

Sabrina Scott-Feggins, principal of General Philip Kearny Elementary who attended a session at the district’s headquarters, said she still has questions about the district’s process and calculations.

For example, since COVID, her school decided to take two underused classrooms and turn them into a makeshift library because the school didn’t have one. Though on paper those rooms may count as empty, she noted that they are in use and provide a vital resource.

But she said she was heartened by the opportunity to provide feedback directly to district officials. And as a principal, she can get on board with a decision that benefits students — even if it means reconfiguring schools.

“I feel hopeful,” said Scott-Feggins. “I feel like this is the beginning of being heard.”

Clarification: This story has been updated to more accurately reflect Principal Sabrina Scott-Feggins’ comments about the district’s planning process.

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

Q&A: What Philadelphia can learn from Washington, D.C., about fixing crumbling schools

2025-07-18T19:22:58+00:00

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The School District of Philadelphia’s facilities planning process aims to “rightsize” school buildings across the city by renovating some, co-locating or repurposing others, and likely closing some schools.

District officials have promised they’ve learned their lesson from the previous closures in 2013 that had detrimental effects on student academics and cratered community trust in school officials. This time, they said, they want community members to better understand the district’s challenges and involve the public’s input in the decisionmaking.

The district’s decades-long neglect of its facilities coupled with years of unconstitutional underfunding at the state level has had significant costs. The current price tag to make all needed repairs and upgrades to Philly school has ballooned to $8 billion. Of that total, some $4.5 billion is needed for deferred maintenance. Teachers and students say they have been sickened by asbestos and lead. And a number of schools have closed after the discovery of damaged asbestos.

Last month, the Department of Justice filed criminal charges against the district for its multi-years failure to conduct timely asbestos inspections.

Still, some community members have criticized the district’s ongoing facilities engagement process as opaque, perfunctory, and overly controlled. District officials are conducting more community engagement sessions and intend to present their plan to the public this fall.

Given the increased attention on school facilities, Chalkbeat’s partners at Swarthmore College spoke with Mary Filardo, executive director of the 21st Century School Fund and a parent activist who was instrumental in the facilities planning process in Washington, D.C. Since the 1990s, District of Columbia Public Schools has invested over $6 billion to modernize 70% of its public schools. In many respects, Washington, D.C., has accomplished what Philadelphia experts say they hope to achieve.

Washington has also grappled with many of the same challenges Philly has: stagnating student enrollment, a previous closure process that traumatized communities, and difficulty obtaining state or federal funding.

Filardo said Washington has lessons to offer about organizing across the city, securing money to modernize and maintain buildings, and how to build a robust community engagement process.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Roseann Liu and Abby Hong: Given the financial constraints of a lot of urban school districts, what do you think would make the biggest impact in remediating toxins in school buildings?

Mary Filardo: Philadelphia is one of the great cities of the United States. It can manage big problems, but it can’t accidentally fix toxic schools. You actually have to purposefully fix toxic schools. You can’t accidentally make things equitable and high quality. You have to purposely do it.

And so that means you have to put on the table what actually is the problem, not what you politically wish the problem was.

Liu and Hong: Reflecting on your experience with the D.C. Public Schools, what do you think are the top ingredients for a robust community engagement process?

Filardo: You have to do whatever processes are going to be required for your particular neighborhood or community to build trust. You have to have to be open, you have to share data, you have to share information, you have to share it in a timely way. And you have to be willing to not know. The system itself has to say, “I don’t have the answers. I want your input in the answers.”

You also have to share your technical people. You can’t hoard the technical people. They have to be used by the community and the administration.

You have to have a dialogue, you have to actually talk to each other and wrestle together. It isn’t just like, I’m going to get input from you, and then I’m going to put it together. The community actually has to be in dialogue with you and with the support of technical folks.

Liu and Hong: If you were in a room with the Philadelphia school district how would you advise them?

Filardo: I remember in Washington, D.C., we had a lead in the water tested, and it tested really high, so they just turned off all the water and they didn’t want anybody to know. I said to the head of facilities, “The public should know that we’ve got lead pipes, lead service, lead everything, and this is a problem. Why are you trying to hide this? You should be using this to make the case.” They didn’t know how to make it public, because of course, one of the main things schools are responsible for is healthy, safe environments for kids.

And you’ve got to engage your people, whether they’re custodians or building engineers or principals or teachers, or whatever, and kind of put it out there. How can we get this done? What can we do to help? It’s very tricky. But it doesn’t go away when you ignore it.

And so that to me, that’s the first thing. You’ve got to sit down, you’ve got to do plans, and you’ve got to try to prioritize, and you have to get the dollars.

Liu and Hong: One of the ongoing challenges of urban school districts is underfunding. How did the D.C. public schools get the money it needed to fix school buildings?

Filardo: You don’t get money unless you have a vision and a plan. You have to do the planning work. It’s not like the building industry or the real estate sector doesn’t understand what it costs to do the work that you’re describing that needs to be done.

So that’s partly where we got our real estate and our building industry saying, “Yes, this is what needs to be done. Yes, you should be doing it.” And realizing, of course, that they were going to benefit from it.

Liu and Hong: What do you think are the biggest lessons that Philly can learn from D.C., both as a cautionary tale, but also maybe some things that we can imitate?

Filardo: I think that a parallel push that we spent some time on, but not nearly enough on is this planning on the day-to-day operations and maintenance. That, too, really requires that the stakeholders engaged, communities looking at it, technical people, trying to figure out, okay, how do we manage this? It’s a little bit like being in an emergency room.

We actually put a lot in our City Council legislation. I think you’re not going to get it unless there’s some requirements for planning, requirements for hearings, requirements for some kind of engagement. Now it doesn’t mean that it gets done well, but it’s a tool.

Liu and Hong: Can you provide a big-picture timeline of the efforts to improve DCPS buildings?

Filardo: [School district] enrollment had been declining and there had been a huge amount of white flight from desegregation. In the early ’90s, they said, “We have to close schools because we can’t afford to fix them.” So they set out to close 10 schools. They put 40 schools on the list and told the community that you had to pick the 10. Well, [there was] a huge outcry.

We essentially looked at the vision from an educational perspective, from an environmental perspective, from a financial perspective, and we worked with the task force. We had utilization data.

The District [Congressional] Committee was a very prominent, powerful thing at that time. They put in the budget bill that there had to be an update of this plan. It became an accepted part of what was going to be happening in the city. From a financial perspective and a management perspective, it was messy, people were still trying to figure out, well, how do we get the work done? And where exactly is the money coming from?

[Eventually the mayor at the time] got how powerful it is from a political perspective to do infrastructure work. People care about the schools in their neighborhoods. So he helped push that and also helped identify a more stable funding source, which was the real estate transfer tax for commercial real estate. We didn’t have any federal money. This was all local money that was going into our renovations and modernizations and all of the repair emergencies.

Philadelphia school officials eye closing standalone middle schools

2025-07-02T17:29:50+00:00

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The Philadelphia school district intends to reduce the number of standalone middle schools as part of its plan to cut the number of empty seats and support student achievement, Superintendent Tony Watlington recently revealed.

The district currently operates 14 standalone middle schools, enrolling students from fifth or sixth grade through eighth grade. Watlington said his aim is to reduce the number of grade bands so that students move from one school to another less frequently, and to use district resources more efficiently.

“I want to be clear that does not mean that the traditional middle school is good or bad,” said Watlington at last month’s Board of Education meeting. “We want to limit the number of transitions that our students have to make from one school to the next, as a strategy to continue to keep our enrollment and to build the enrollment and to meet our young peoples’ needs.”

Watlington’s comments about standalone middle schools were part of an update about the district’s facilities planning process, which officials have indicated will lead to school closures — as well as new co-locations and building modernizations — as a way to “rightsize” the district. They’ve also stressed that there is no list yet of which schools may be closed, and that they will continue to engage families and community members in the process before they make any decisions.

The district plans to consider multiple factors, including which neighborhoods have previously experienced school closures, in its recommendations about which schools to close.

There’s a longstanding debate over whether sending students to separate middle schools helps or harms them.

Watlington said that studies of district data show that students in Philadelphia do better with fewer school transitions. One study from 2001 found that Philadelphia students who stayed at their elementary schools for middle grades generally performed better. Some national research has found similar results.

But other studies that compared outcomes of students who attended standalone middle schools with those at K-8 schools found that there was not a significant difference.

Watlington said reducing the number of grade bands also aligns with the facilities planning process’ emphasis on ensuring students get better access to school programs, like AP classes and arts programming.

“Our school district needs to increase access to high quality academic and extracurricular programming across all neighborhoods,” said Watlington. “Because right now, there are huge disparities based on where you live.”

Many school board members expressed support for reducing the number of middle schools, noting that they hoped it would result in better academic opportunities for students.

“I am really happy to see the reduction on the grade bands,” said board member Wanda Novalés. “I think we’re going to see a great benefit from that in our schools.”

Majority of Philadelphia’s standalone middle schools are underenrolled

District officials have said one goal of its facilities planning process is to ensure that there are enough seats for students in crowded schools and fewer empty seats in schools where enrollment has shrunk over the past decade.

The district’s middle schools show how lopsided the city’s enrollment has become in terms of geography, with enrollment numbers peaking in the Northeast while falling elsewhere.

The majority of the district’s standalone middle schools enrolled less than half the number of students their buildings had capacity for last school year, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of district data.

Tilden Middle School, for example, had just over 260 students in a building meant for 1,200. At the Academy for the Middle Years at Northwest, which enrolled 150 students last year, nearly a quarter of its seats were empty.

But the two middle schools that were overcapacity last year were both in Northeast neighborhoods, with Baldi Middle School enrolling 200 more students than it had space for.

Board President Reginald Streater urged families and community members to attend upcoming engagement events to voice their feedback.

“There is no secret plan hidden in a drawer somewhere,” said Streater. “This is really, truly intended to be a process that’s co-created with the public.”

The district plans to hold 16 engagement sessions in July, in-person and virtually, about its facilities planning process. See the list of those events here.

Justice Department brings criminal charges against Philadelphia school district over asbestos

2025-06-26T23:33:50+00:00

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The Department of Justice filed criminal charges Thursday against the Philadelphia school district for not meeting requirements to keep students and staff safe from asbestos exposure.

The Justice Department found that the district failed to conduct timely asbestos inspections, as mandated by federal law, and that district officials “purposely” delayed inspections and “knowingly and regularly failed to make necessary repairs,” according to the agreement.

However, the school board voted unanimously Thursday to enter into an agreement with the Justice Department to resolve the investigation and avoid being prosecuted at least for now, in what the federal government called a “conditional release of liability.”

The details of the yearslong investigation were made public Thursday. Philadelphia became the first district in the country to face criminal charges over this type of environmental violation, the Justice Department said.

Nearly 300 schools the Philadelphia district owns contain asbestos, a common building material that can cause breathing problems and lung disease when it deteriorates and is breathed in. Federal law requires school districts nationwide to regularly monitor for asbestos and to ensure they repair any damage quickly to reduce exposure risk.

Many Philadelphia school buildings are aging and in desperate need of repairs. In recent years, the district has closed several schools due to asbestos, forcing students to relocate partway through the school year.

The Justice Department’s investigation, which began in 2020 and examined the district’s asbestos monitoring program between 2015 and 2023, revealed “a longstanding and widespread problem of asbestos contamination in Philadelphia schools,” according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

The district’s approach “endangered students and teachers, and, in some cases, foreclosed any education at all by requiring the closure of the school,” the statement said.

Failure to abide by the Justice Department agreement may result in criminal sanctions against the district.

In exchange, the district has committed to complying with asbestos-related laws, including inspecting buildings every six months and regularly repairing damage. The agreement also requires the district to report updates about its asbestos program to the court twice a year.

Superintendent Tony Watlington, who has led the district since 2022, said in a statement that since the investigation began, the district has “rebuilt” its asbestos management program. All district-owned school buildings are now inspected twice per year, and the school district has increased its investment in environmental management, according to Watlington.

DOJ finds major problems with Philadelphia’s asbestos monitoring

The Justice Department’s agreement details a long list of problems with how the district ran its asbestos monitoring program, including failing to supervise the team in charge of handling asbestos and inconsistently inspecting schools with major asbestos problems.

In 2019, for example, staff at Laura Carnell Elementary School found several areas where asbestos that should have been encapsulated to prevent it from breaking down into the air had been left exposed. In one area, the crumbling asbestos had been merely wrapped in duct tape, according to the agreement.

Separately, in 2020, a teacher was diagnosed with mesothelioma, an incurable form of cancer frequently caused by exposure to asbestos.

According to the agreement, there were 31 schools affected by the district’s inadequate approach. Several had widely known asbestos issues, including Building 21 Alternative High School, Southwark Elementary, Universal Vare Charter School, Frankford High School, and Franklin Learning Center.

Special Agent in Charge Allison Landsman of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division said in a statement the agency is committed to prosecuting environmental law violators, especially when students and teachers are at risk.

“This resolution requires additional accountability on the School District of Philadelphia to ensure protections are in place to prevent future asbestos exposure,” she said.

School district promises to improve asbestos monitoring

In the agreement, which the board had initially planned to vote on at its previous meeting in May, the district committed to following federal asbestos monitoring laws and agreed to increased oversight.

The school district will now report to a court about its asbestos remediation process for up to five years. After three years, the district can request early termination of the agreement if it has complied with the law for at least six months.

In the agreement, the Justice Department recognized the district had improved some of its asbestos monitoring practices since the investigation began, including hiring more staff in its Office of Environmental Management and Services and tripling its budget for environmental work from $21 million to $61 million.

The agreement also states that the district has updated its software to track asbestos data and is regularly sharing related information with the public. A list of the district’s annual asbestos inspection reports for each school is available on its website.

The district’s current facilities planning process, which board members have said will likely result in some school closures, is also partially meant to address buildings’ environmental problems.

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

Concerns grow over potential plan to close Philadelphia schools

2025-06-10T20:17:43+00:00

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The Philadelphia school district has pledged that any future school closures — which officials have said are likely — will be markedly different from the last, brutal battle over shuttering local schools more than a decade ago.

Rather than impose the district’s closure plans onto Philadelphians, officials have said that moves to close, colocate, or repurpose schools would be guided by local community members and experts. They also pledged the process would be data-driven and transparent.

“This isn’t the district’s plan. This isn’t the Board of Education’s plan. This is Philadelphia’s plan,” Deputy Superintendent of Operations Oz Hill said at a November community meeting. “These are our children that have to live with this plan.”

But several parents and community leaders participating in the district’s formal advisory groups say the facilities planning process has already become opaque. After sitting through meetings filled with PowerPoint presentations that lack crucial financial or school-specific data, some advisory group members have called for an overhaul of the district’s approach and more clarity.

“It’s been extremely frustrating how little our input actually gets heard,” said Elaine Simon, former co-director of the Urban Studies program at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the community leaders advisory group. “Meetings are overly structured and artificial, because we never get information or understanding of what their process actually is.”

Advisory group members said they took time off work and rearranged their schedules to attend the meetings, often scheduled for the middle of the day. But to Simon and several other members of the parent and community leader groups who spoke with Chalkbeat, the time has felt wasted by bureaucratic presentations and unspecific brainstorming sessions. Many worry the district is using them to add credibility to a flawed process, without considering their feedback about how to prevent closures in the first place.

The district’s final facilities plan is due in December, but the district has missed some of its own deadlines related to various parts of the process.

In an email, Alexandra Coppadge, the district’s chief of communications, said the district’s aim is to create a facilities plan that supports communities and student achievement, maximizes the use of school buildings, and provides more access to programs like prekindergarten and arts classes.

“The District is committed to completing a facilities plan that includes deep and thoughtful community engagement,” Coppadge said. She added that the district plans to host additional listening and community engagement sessions and will share more data in the coming months.

Since January, Simon and other advisory group members have met with district staff for an hour around once a month on Zoom, with one recent meeting scheduled in-person at the district office.

The advisory board members Chalkbeat spoke with emphasized that they want the process to go well. As the district tries to address a budget deficit, deteriorating infrastructure, and some school buildings with hundreds of empty seats, several members said they understand the district’s challenges and hope to contribute to a thoughtful solution.

“We do want a facilities plan,” Akira Drake Rodriguez, an assistant professor of city planning at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of one of the advisory groups, told the school board last month. “But we want one that prioritizes community needs and not just the district’s.”

Philadelphia district officials indicate school closures are likely

School districts across the country, including Denver and New York City, have been mulling school closures to cope with enrollment drops since the pandemic. But some people in those communities have urged districts to invest in their neighborhood schools and keep up regular building maintenance, rather than resort to closures.

Around 115,000 students now attend Philadelphia district schools, marking a 12% drop from a decade ago. Though enrollment grew slightly last year, several schools have hundreds of empty seats, while others are at capacity or are overcrowded.

District officials have said school closures are on the table. But they’ve stressed that they plan to avoid repeating the mistakes of the last round of closures in 2013, when 23 schools closed. That process decimated community trust in the city’s schools. And district officials readily admit it had a negative impact on students. The performance of displaced students declined, the performance of students attending schools where those displaced students were reassigned also declined, and student absences increased.

“It was not worth the cost,” Deputy Superintendent Hill told families last year.

This time, officials say the aim is to improve students’ learning environments, not just save money.

Last year, the board hired a public relations firm at the cost of $179,500 to facilitate community outreach and feedback sessions, and hosted more than 30 in-person public listening sessions. More than 500 people participated, according to the district. But several of those meetings that Chalkbeat attended consisted of mostly district representatives, with few parents or other members of the public in attendance.

Then, last November, the district launched its advisory group process, asking community leaders, parents, and educators across the city to attend regular meetings with district officials.

But those meetings have been extremely disappointing, Rodriguez told Chalkbeat. “We don’t ever get our questions answered,” she said.

Generally, advisory groups spent at least half of each meeting listening to district presentations of information that could mostly be found on its website, according to several group members Chalkbeat spoke with.

Though district representatives attended the meetings, several members echoed Rodriguez’s concern, saying their requests for more detailed information went unanswered.

Rodriguez said meetings have focused more on closing and colocating schools, instead of maintaining buildings. She wants the district to avoid closing schools entirely. Ultimately, she worries that her participation may be used to rubber-stamp a plan she does not agree with.

Other advisory members who don’t want closures say the focus on school closures and colocations in some meetings have made them worry the district has already decided that some closures are inevitable.

“At best, we are being given a window into a process,” said Adam Blyweiss, a member of the parent advisory group and a teacher at Jules E. Mastbaum High School. “At worst … we are being given the data-driven tools to effectively have us be the hatchet man instead of the district.”

School district behind on its own deadlines

The district has already missed some of its own deadlines to share key information, leaving advisory group members concerned that any proposal will be extremely rushed.

In May, the district was set to share a community update about its plans. But at that month’s board meeting, that didn’t happen.

Reporters were scheduled to receive a briefing about a new data website about the district’s facilities in April, with a public launch scheduled for Monday, April 7. The district told advisory group members that it would provide them with data in April too, according to an official document Chalkbeat obtained. But neither reporters nor advisory group members ever got access to the website. Advisory group members that Chalkbeat spoke to said their April meetings were cancelled.

Coppadge said the district plans to provide an update on the facilities planning process at its June board meeting. She said the district “held the release” of the data tool “in order to not disrupt our focus on accelerating academic achievement and state testing,” and that it plans to release the tool later this month.

Some advisory group members say that delay has undercut their ability to provide feedback and recommendations.

“We don’t have enough information,” said Kristen Goessling, director of participatory research at Pennsylvania State University and a member of one of the advisory groups. “Where is the data? What are we actually considering?”

Goessling said she understands that school closures are a sensitive issue. But she worries that the district’s concern about how it presents information could undermine its ability to form useful partnerships.

“I have more confidence than I can contain about us solving this problem,” said Goessling. “But we are not looked at as resources. We are looked at as obstacles.”

Mayor Cherelle Parker has also missed her own related deadlines. In December, Parker announced her administration would convene a committee of elected officials and labor and business representatives to review the district’s planning process. Parker said that committee would be formally introduced last winter. But today, no such committee exists.

The city’s Deputy Chief Education Officer Sharon Ward said in an email that Parker is “finalizing the membership list and intends to announce the group soon.”

The district has now begun gathering advisory group members in person at its headquarters.

Melanie Silva, a parent of a student at Rhawnhurst School who is also a member of the parent advisory group, attended the first round of those meetings on Monday. She said the meeting was the first time she saw preliminary data about potential schools that may be considered for closure or colocation. The district insisted information shared remain confidential.

Silva said it was useful to finally see some data, but it largely consisted of summary scores that rated the condition of buildings and the vulnerability of neighborhoods, without explaining what the scores were based on. It was the kind of information Silva thought the district would have prepared before starting its community engagement process.

To Silva, the experience leads to a bigger question about the district’s approach to potentially closing schools: “It’s like, do you want to be transparent or not?” she said. “Do you want people to know or not?”

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

Philadelphia school district under federal investigation for asbestos monitoring

2025-05-29T19:05:28+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education was scheduled to consider and vote on an agreement Thursday with the U.S. Department of Justice related to an investigation into how it manages asbestos in its buildings.

But by the noon board meeting — which members rescheduled at the last minute to address the expected DOJ agreement — the two sides had not finalized an agreement, Board President Reginald Streater said.

“We were informed just before this meeting that the Department of Justice is not ready to proceed today and additional reviews may be required,” Streater said at the beginning of the meeting.

Although there’s no deal to address or resolve the DOJ investigation, the situation highlights an ongoing challenge for district school buildings. The district has temporarily or partially closed several schools to remediate damaged asbestos in the last few years. Schools in Philly are on average 73 years old, and some 300 buildings contain asbestos — which builders used frequently for the first several decades of the 20th century — according to the district.

Details on the DOJ’s investigation into the district’s asbestos monitoring program remain unclear. Streater said the board was unable to comment further on the investigation and will “follow up at the appropriate time.”

The DOJ did not immediately respond to Chalkbeat’s questions about its investigation into the district, its findings, or why the expected agreement was delayed.

Streater added that he recognized that changing Thursday’s meeting time created inconveniences for some who wanted to attend, including several students who signed up to speak but were attending class during the meeting.

Following Streater’s announcement, jeers erupted from members of the advocacy group Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools. “We don’t understand,” several members of the group shouted.

Earlier in the day, the group called on school board members to resign their positions over concerns that their decision to change the meeting time at the last minute may have left people who registered to speak unable to attend.

“Any board which silences its own constituents, and the people of Philadelphia, works against the best interests of the schoolchildren of the city,” said Lisa Haver, the organization’s coordinator.

Ongoing concerns over asbestos in Philadelphia schools

The investigation into the district’s asbestos management program comes as the district is undergoing a major facilities planning process that was in part initiated to address ongoing environmental issues with its buildings that involve lead, mold, and heating and cooling problems, as well as asbestos.

But the district is also staring down a budget deficit, and previously estimated it needs close to $5 billion to address the most pressing structural needs.

Asbestos was a common building material used in insulation and paint for decades until the public became aware that it can cause health problems in the 1960s. When asbestos breaks down, it can release microscopic fibers into the air that can cause breathing problems and some forms of cancer.

Most people are exposed to asbestos in their daily lives without becoming ill, according to national research. However, those who are exposed to the substance regularly can face serious illnesses.

One Philly teacher is currently suing the district after he was diagnosed with cancer following years of working at Frankford High School. The district closed Frankford in 2023 to remediate damaged asbestos.

It’s common for districts nationwide, especially those with older buildings, to have asbestos-containing materials in their schools. Completely removing those materials is often impossible without costly and extensive renovations. The federal government requires districts regularly inspect schools for asbestos and prepare management plans to mitigate the risk, including removing or enclosing asbestos so that the material cannot break down into the air.

When districts find damaged asbestos-containing materials, they are supposed to immediately implement remedial measures to reduce exposure risk for staff and students.

The district publicly posts detailed asbestos inspection reports for each school on its website. It also created a “swing space” plan to identify buildings where students and teachers could be moved if their schools are closed due to damaged asbestos or other environmental hazards.

The district’s website used to host a user-friendly map with information about each school’s building conditions, but the district replaced that site with lengthy PDF documents of each inspection report.

Pennsylvania Republicans resurrect school voucher plans as state budget talks heat up

2025-05-20T17:04:21+00:00

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As Congress considers establishing a national school choice program, Pennsylvania Republicans are trying to revive plans for a statewide school voucher program.

State Rep. Martina White, who represents parts of Philadelphia, organized a Republican policy committee hearing on Monday to examine the School District of Philadelphia’s finances, staffing, and possible “waste, fraud, and abuse.” But no school district leaders were present at Monday’s hearing to answer lawmakers’ questions.

White and at least one fellow lawmaker said they came away from the hearing with a renewed belief that private school vouchers would benefit Philadelphia families who are unhappy with the condition and performance of their city schools. White told Chalkbeat on Monday that schools in her Northeast Philly neighborhood are overcrowded, and she would like to see “basically a school voucher” be made available to those parents “to be able to use that for the child to go to the school of their choice.”

Earlier this month, the state Senate education committee approved legislation to create a new voucher program called the Pennsylvania Award for Student Success — or PASS — Scholarship.

The bill would establish state-backed scholarship funds that eligible students could use to pay for tuition and fees for attendance at participating private schools. This year’s PASS legislation is nearly identical to last year’s proposal and very similar to a program called Lifeline Scholarships from two years ago.

Republicans’ support for private school vouchers is important because, as lawmakers decide on the state budget and how much money to provide public schools, state GOP leaders also say they are unconvinced that increasing funding to school districts will improve student outcomes. While Republicans control the Pennsylvania Senate, Democrats control the House.

When schools get more money, students tend to stay in school longer and score better on exams, according to a 2023 review of dozens of studies.

Vouchers have a questionable track record regarding their ability to improve student outcomes. But private school choice programs have proliferated at the state level in recent years. President Donald Trump supports vouchers. And a Republican budget bill in Congress would establish $5 billion in annual tax credits to fund private school scholarships, although the future of that provision of the bill is also unclear.

Pennsylvania Republicans have tried but failed for years to create a new voucher program at the state level. Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, at one time supported legislation to establish vouchers, but he subsequently backed off that position and vetoed the Lifeline Scholarships proposal in 2023. State Sen. Anthony Williams, a Philadelphia Democrat, has also supported state GOP voucher proposals, including this year’s PASS legislation.

Pennsylvania already has two programs that use tax credits to fund scholarships: the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit and the Education Improvement Tax Credit.

Philadelphia school leaders say district needs more funding

The Pennsylvania House policy committee, which White convened Monday to discuss Philly schools, has no legislative or administrative power over the school district. But White said what she and other lawmakers need to see in Philly are “real results for kids and families.”

Though White said school district representatives were invited to the hearing, none were available to answer lawmakers’ questions in person and submitted written testimony instead.

Superintendent Tony Watlington and Board of Education President Reginald Streater wrote in their testimony that the district has made “significant” progress improving student attendance, decreasing the number of students who have dropped out, improving third graders’ reading scores, as well as students passing their career and technical exams.

They also wrote that the district has “stabilized its finances,” received a positive credit rating affirmation, and are in need of more funding — which state lawmakers are in a position to provide or withhold.

“Despite making academic gains and appropriately managing our finances, decades of chronic underfunding continues to be a critical challenge for the district,” Watlington and Streater wrote.

White expressed disappointment that no district officials appeared in person to testify. District spokesperson Monique Braxton said in a Monday email that officials have invited White to meet with district leaders.

The policy committee did hear testimony from one Philadelphia parent as well as Christian Barnard, a policy analyst with the libertarian Reason Foundation think tank who criticized the district in several ways.

For example, Barnard (and White) said they were unhappy with the level of fiscal transparency publicly available for individual schools. However, school-level budgets are on the district’s website and include line-item descriptions of funding allotments for staff, extracurriculars, special education, and more.

Barnard also said the district is being inefficient by not reapportioning staff to account for school enrollment changes. Though the district recently ended the controversial practice of reassigning teachers once the school year has begun, Braxton said that staff are still moved around according to school needs and budgets. And Barnard said he was “skeptical” about the district’s assertion that it is underfunded, a claim backed up by a Commonwealth Court judge’s 2023 opinion that found the state system of funding schools was unconstitutional.

The Philly district, which is facing a growing annual deficit, is also undertaking a “rightsizing” process that the school board has warned will likely result in some school closures, colocations, or repurposing buildings.

Ultimately. White said the district is working through its challenges, but she would like to see the district embrace more choice for families — starting with approving additional charter school proposals or seat expansions. The school board has not approved a new charter school since 2018 but it has added more than 2,000 charter seats over the same period of time.

White also said that lawmakers “need to know that taxpayer funds are not being wasted or misallocated.”

She said she hopes to collaborate on that effort with the school district and bring that message to the state capitol.

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

Philadelphia adopts preliminary schools budget as it eyes long-term deficits, Trump uncertainty

2025-03-27T23:18:02+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education has adopted a preliminary $4.6 billion budget for the school district in the upcoming fiscal year — but financial pressures on city schools are intensifying.

The budget approved unanimously by the board Thursday is roughly the same size as this year’s budget. But the district is staring down a growing annual deficit that is slated to reach $466 million in 2027 and $774 million in 2030.

The district will adjust the preliminary budget as state lawmakers and city officials finalize their own budgets this summer. The district is planning to use 40% of its “rainy day” fund to cover a $306 million budget deficit, which officials say is the result of decades of unconstitutional underfunding by the state.

“We’ll get through this year just fine,” Superintendent Tony Watlington told reporters earlier on Thursday. But he added that going forward, if state and local lawmakers don’t increase funding for Philadelphia’s public schools, cuts will have to be made.

“If we did not use the fund balance, quite simply we would have to make people and program cuts,” Watlington said.

Watlington is adamant that the district is making incremental but sustained progress under his leadership, and that he’s been a “good steward” of state and city funding. He says that’s a crucial message for state lawmakers as they draft Pennsylvania’s budget, and amid a federal government intent on eradicating what it calls waste, fraud, and abuse. That focus by the Trump administration has led to — among other things — the gutting of the federal Office for Civil Rights in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia is the only school district in the state that cannot raise its own revenue, meaning 99% of its operating budget is in the hands of state and city officials.

During the COVID pandemic, the district used federal relief funds to plug prior budget holes, allowing it to accrue some money in its reserve fund. Because those COVID dollars expired at the end of 2024, the district is now dipping into that reserve fund to support the same programs and continue progress on Watlington’s ambitious five-year strategic plan.

Importantly, the preliminary budget does not account for labor union contract negotiations, or the district’s ongoing facilities planning process that will likely result in school closures and infrastructure changes. It also doesn’t factor in an estimated $50 million the district would get if Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed reforms to the way cyber charter schools are funded.

The majority of district spending goes towards employee salary and benefits. The district is negotiating a new contract with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers — the union’s current contract expires in August 2025. It will also negotiate new contracts with several other unions over the next two years. Mayor Cherelle Parker, who enjoys the support of many labor unions in the city, has indicated she would like to see the district increase teacher salaries in the near future.

The district would receive some $160 million more funding from the state this year under Shapiro’s budget proposal. But even in that scenario, when the loss of federal COVID relief funding is also accounted for, the district’s overall revenue would rise just 1%, while spending on items like charter school payments is outpacing that.

As the Trump administration looks to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and reshape the federal government’s K-12 priorities, Watlington said there’s corresponding uncertainty about the district’s federal funding. The district receives some $500 million annually from the federal government that supports students with disabilities, English learners, prekindergarten programs, reimbursements for student meals, and other programs.

Overall, Watlington said the district is heading in a positive direction but that progress is precarious.

Among the encouraging signs Watlington highlighted: District enrollment is up by 1,800 students, the number of students attending school regularly has increased, third graders are improving their reading and math scores, the graduation rate is up, and the number of students dropping out is down by 1,400.

Board members Joyce Wilkerson and Wanda Novalés said the looming deficits and uncertainty at the federal level are “stomach turning” and will demand increased advocacy from district and board leadership.

“I think it’s time for us to make some noise, for our babies and our students,” board Vice President Sarah-Ashley Andrews said. “These may be scary times, but it’s not the time to back down.”

The board must adopt a final budget by May.

The board also approved a $26.8M “donation” to the district from Mastery charter schools that represents an estimated value of building improvements that Mastery intends to pay for.

These building upgrades will take place between April 2025 and December 2026.

Because Mastery charters occupy district-owned buildings, improvements to these buildings will together be considered a donation — an unusual arrangement, as one public speaker said.

Board President Reginald Streater said the vote to approve the donation is not a “signal” about any future board decisions regarding those building improvements.

Construction and renovation projects at charter schools must be voted on by the board.

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

Trump attacks on DEI could impact Philly African-American history class, admissions, charters

2025-02-25T18:59:30+00:00

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In 2005, Philadelphia became the first major city in America to mandate that all students take an African American history course in order to graduate. That landmark class could now be on shakier ground due to national politics.

Philadelphia district leaders haven’t said much about the impact of President Donald Trump’s actions on city schools. But the African American history course mandate is one of several city policies — covering issues like selective admissions and charter schools focused on Black students — that are potentially threatened by the Trump administration.

Early in his second term, Trump has pushed to reshape K-12 schools through a flurry of actions. One of his executive orders seeks to ban policies that could be construed as promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, which the president called “radical indoctrination.”

A subsequent “Dear Colleague” letter from the U.S. Department of Education’s top acting civil rights official warned education leaders that school diversity efforts could violate federal civil rights laws, even if such efforts don’t rely directly on race. Both the letter and Trump’s executive order threaten schools with the loss of federal funding if they don’t comply.

And in her mid-February confirmation hearing, Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for U.S. education secretary, would not tell senators whether schools or districts might put their federal funding at risk by teaching an African American history class or other ethnic studies course — a response that U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, called “chilling.”

Amid the rapid-fire Trump education news, the biggest concern among educators is that the administration will try to withhold federal aid from districts that don’t follow its directives. Such aid is primarily intended to help students from low-income backgrounds and those with disabilities, and to bolster career and technical education programs, among other priorities.

Opponents of Trump’s policies scored an early win late last week when U.S. District Court Judge Adam Abelson issued a preliminary order blocking parts of the DEI ban, calling it vague, unconstitutional, and “pernicious.”

“If an elementary school receives Department of Education funding for technology access, and a teacher uses a computer to teach the history of Jim Crow laws, does that risk the grant being deemed ‘equity-related’ and the school being stripped of funding?” he wrote.

Even with that initial court victory, the potential for the Trump administration to wreak havoc on school budgets and policies is still worrying officials.

If federal funding were revoked, “it would be nothing short of catastrophic,” acting Pennsylvania Secretary of Education Carrie Rowe told state lawmakers Monday during her department’s House budget hearing. The loss of millions in funds for students with disabilities “would cause irreparable harm,” she said.

But federal funding isn’t the only concern.

Another Philadelphia policy that could come in for scrutiny is the admissions process to the district’s four most selective high schools — Central, Masterman, Palumbo, and Carver High School for Engineering and Science. The lottery system adopted three years ago gives automatic admission to all qualified students from certain ZIP codes that rarely send students to those schools. Most of the residents in these ZIP codes are from low-income backgrounds and are Black or Latino.

In addition, several of the city’s charter schools, including Sankofa and Imhotep, were founded specifically to prioritize Black history and culture in their curriculum and to focus on combating racism. Charter leaders are planning to discuss this topic at their next meeting, said a spokesperson for Philadelphia Charters for Excellence.

Then there are the worries of teachers and principals about students in their schools who may be undocumented immigrants or have undocumented family members, and are on the alert for possible ICE arrests.

Other districts have already entered the harsh new political spotlight on schools. In Chicago last week, an outside group immediately challenged the district’s new Black Student Success Plan, a long-awaited blueprint meant to address persistent disparities in test scores, graduation rates, and other student outcomes.

“My concern is about what it means to teach African American history,” said Ismael Jimenez, Philadelphia’s social studies curriculum director. “Are we not able to talk about systemic racism? We can’t tell students that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves when we talk about the country’s 250th anniversary next year?”

Jimenez said he can’t imagine that the federal government would prohibit educators from teaching about Black people in America and leaders like W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington.

“Structural or institutional racism still exists,” Jimenez said. “They are viewed as divisive concepts. I guess that’s the argument why [Trump officials] don’t want those things taught.”

Educators fear ‘chaos’ driven by Trump directives

Tim Boyle, the principal of Science Leadership Academy Middle School, recalled that mandating African American history was a “big deal” two decades ago. Now he worries about the scrutiny such a class could draw from unsympathetic federal officials and others, especially as Philadelphia becomes the center of attention during America’s 250th anniversary celebration in 2026.

“The fact that we are celebrating America’s [250th] birthday next year … folks who would not normally be paying attention to Philadelphia are paying attention to Philadelphia. And that presents opportunities and challenges,” Boyle said.

In interviews, other educators said that they feared that any initiative focused on equity, such as transgender rights and even what books are stocked in libraries, could be subject to a federal civil rights challenge like the one against the Chicago plan for Black students.

“How safe is it for us to continue doing what we’re doing?” said Boyle. He wondered whether he’d have to worry about the district’s general counsel “giving me a call because some person is complaining about something I do here? It’s fuzzy now, and it was not fuzzy a year ago.”

Some are focused on ways to resist Trump’s actions. Kristina Moon of the Education Law Center said the Trump orders violate a congressional statute prohibiting the federal government from dictating local school curriculum, as well as safeguards against the withholding of federal funds for political reasons.

“Chaos, confusion and fear, that is really the purpose here,” Moon said of the executive order and the “Dear Colleague” letter from Acting Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights Craig Trainor. “It’s important to note that there is a long process for rescinding federal funding as a punishment, and it has rarely been invoked.”

There is a legal difference, she said, between discriminating against an individual due to race and acknowledging that systemic racism exists.

In a press conference Monday, Gov. Josh Shapiro made it clear that he would aggressively fight against any attempt to withhold federal aid due the state, although he did not specifically discuss education funding.

He said that as a result of his mid-February lawsuit and his personal engagement with Trump’s team, the administration has unfrozen $1.2 billion in aid that it sought to withhold, mostly for environmental projects.

Federal education aid accounts for about 10% of the Philadelphia district’s budget of more than $4.5 billion. The biggest program is Title I, which prioritizes school districts with high levels of poverty; Philadelphia received over $193 million in Title I aid in its most recent budget.

At her confirmation hearing, McMahon declared that “it is not the president’s goal to defund the programs,” but that he wanted more efficiency.

Even if the attempt to tie federal education aid to curriculum mandates fail in court, education funding is still under threat, To help pay for tax cuts Trump has promised, a budget framework introduced by House Republicans would reduce federal education aid by $330 billion over 10 years, although much of it would focus on higher education, Inside Higher Ed reported.

The GOP budget blueprint would also cut money for Medicaid, which the families of many students rely on for health care.

Policies on admissions, equity could be scrutinized

A variety of other Philadelphia district policies could also come under scrutiny.

The district implemented the revamped admissions lottery at four of its most desirable schools in 2022, declaring it to be more fair and equitable than the prior system that relied heavily on principals’ judgement.

Some parents have filed a legal challenge against the lottery, arguing that the ZIP code preference is racially discriminatory. When the lottery was adopted, some parents noted with dismay that white, privileged residents in gentrifying pockets within these ZIP codes would also benefit from the new policy. But the ZIP code strategy was adopted by the Board of Education precisely to avoid accusations of racial discrimination.

In a decision last October, a judge with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania sided with the district, stating that the process was “race-blind.”

However, the “Dear Colleague” letter interprets current law to mean that schools cannot use non-racial criteria to meet diversity goals, a legal position many say is misguided. In theory, that could put the 2022 admissions changes in jeopardy.

Meanwhile, the Philadelphia school district has not scrubbed its website of references to DEI, and it still employs a chief equity officer.

Its website maintains information about its diversity, equity and inclusion work and says its purpose is to “cultivate prosperity and liberation for students and staff, starting with historically marginalized populations.”

But since Trump’s election, some educators feel that a lot of work they’ve done in that vein over the past few years might be at risk.

“We’re in an era where a family can call downtown and say, there’s a Pride flag that’s not allowed,” said Boyle, the principal of SLAMS. “Or, my kid is reading this book, and I wasn’t given an opt-out form.

“There’s not a lot of terra firma now,” he added.

Philadelphia Bureau Chief Carly Sitrin contributed to this story.

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.

School calendar news: Philly schools could start before Labor Day for the next 2 years

2025-02-11T18:15:00+00:00

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Philadelphia students could head back to classes before Labor Day for the next two years, according to proposed academic calendars the district released Tuesday.

The pre-Labor Day start for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 calendars will allow for longer spring and winter recesses as well as additional cultural and religious holidays throughout the year, district officials said this week.

Superintendent Tony Watlington also confirmed Tuesday that district schools and offices will be closed on Friday for the Philadelphia Eagles celebratory Super Bowl parade.

“We look forward to celebrating the Eagles’ victory as a community, and we hope that our students, staff and families will do so safely and responsibly,” Watlington said in a statement.

The question of whether to start before or after Labor Day has rankled families and district leaders in recent years, in part because many Philly schools do not have adequate air conditioning. That has forced some buildings to close or dismiss students early due to excessive heat in the first week back.

This school year, the first day back landed before Labor Day, and 63 schools without air conditioning dismissed students early, during the first week of classes. However, school started after Labor Day in 2023-24, and heat closures still impacted students’ learning time that first week.

Watlington said at his state of the schools address this year that over the past three school years, the number of schools without air conditioning has shrunk from 118 to 57 thanks in part to a donation from Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts.

Shakeera Warthen-Canty, assistant superintendent of school operations and management at the district, said their academic calendar recommendations this year are built off of a survey and several in-person feedback sessions.

The majority of parents and caregivers who responded preferred a post-Labor Day start, the survey found. But students, teachers, school staff, and community members reported they overwhelmingly preferred starting the school year before Labor Day.

Some 16,400 parents, students, school staff, principals, and community members responded to the survey the district sent out last September, Warthen-Canty said.

Respondents also said they wanted more frequent breaks for longer durations to accommodate family vacations, as well as time to rest, support mental health, and prevent staff burnout.

State law says districts must have a minimum of 180 student days, or a minimum of 900 instructional hours for elementary school students and 990 hours for middle and high school students. The district’s collective bargaining agreement with the teachers union also requires 188 teacher work days, as well as a minimum of 28 professional development hours.

The district officials’ calendar recommendations will go to the school board for a vote before they are enacted.

If approved, winter recess would be seven days in 2025-26 and eight days in 2026-27, while spring break would be five days both years.

In addition to the five state and national holidays (Memorial Day, Independence Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s Day), Philadelphia school district school holidays in 2025-26 and 2026-27 would include:

Labor Day
Rosh Hashanah
Yom Kippur
Indigenous Peoples Day
Veterans Day
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Presidents Day
Lunar New Year
Eid al-Fitr
Good Friday
Eid al-Adha
Juneteenth

This school year, both Indigenous Peoples Day and Veterans Day were school days.

As for how the new calendar may interact with Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker’s commitment to “extended-day, extended-year” school: Deputy Superintendent Jermaine Dawson said this week the district has ensured any expansion of that program will work “alongside our calendar of school days.”

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

Philadelphia’s schools are 'turning the corner,' superintendent says

2025-01-30T14:30:00+00:00

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Philadelphia schools Superintendent Tony Watlington is remaining optimistic in the face of an uncertain and chaotic national education landscape.

Watlington delivered his second annual “State of the Schools” address today as the dust still stirs from Trump administration actions that have cleared the way for immigration arrests at schools, attempted to freeze all federal grants, withhold federal funding from K-12 schools that teach “critical race theory” or “radical gender ideology,” and sought to use presidential power to target transgender people and restrict their rights to health care.

His address hewed close to familiar talking points Watlington has repeated at school board meetings and press conferences since he took office.

Student attendance is marginally up. The four-year graduation rate is up. The dropout rate is down by more than a thousand students. Fourth grade math scores are improving thanks in part to a curriculum overhaul. District officials are relaunching Parent University. They’re working on improving their customer service via a new platform they say has already received tens of thousands of responses. They’re in lockstep with Mayor Cherelle Parker on her commitment to extended day, extended year school.

In his speech to district, city and state officials gathered in the auditorium at School of the Future, Watlington posed the question: “Are the children well?” His answer: “I am here to tell you all of our children are not well yet, but …. more of our children are well.”

In brief remarks before he spoke, Mayor Cherelle Parker said she was “proud” of the progress that the city’s students and Watlington were making. “I am here to confirm the commitment to keep public education at the center of all work being done by the Parker administration,” she said.

Watlington made no mention of President Trump or the potential impact of his second administration on education — even as rumors circulated in the room about ICE agents being spotted near two city schools. A district spokesperson told Chalkbeat those rumors were false.

As some educators, lawmakers, and families press the school district to do more — such as make bold political statements, take firm stances, and declare itself present on the national stage — Watlington is remaining focused on his strategic plan.

“We’re turning the corner. We’re making some significant progress,” Watlington said in a recent interview with Chalkbeat ahead of his address. “We believe that the progress to date positions us to be one of the fastest improving large urban school districts in the country.”

Watlington is no stranger to navigating politically fraught worlds. In his previous positions as a veteran educator and school leader in North Carolina, he told Chalkbeat, he had to learn how to work with a divided legislature in the American South. His secret? Focus on the data.

“What conservative legislators always said to me is, ‘Look, what we care about most is the bottom line. What’s the return on investment for every penny we spend?’” Watlington said.

In his address and in conversations with lawmakers in Harrisburg, Watlington said he would “make the case that we’ve made good investments” with the federal, state, and city money they’ve been allocated, politics aside.

“Some of it came from President Trump. The lion’s share came from President Biden. Regardless of where it came from, we made good use of those dollars,” Watlington said. “The district is accelerating. We’re getting better.”

On specific issues such as the threat of immigration raids at schools and explicit orders to eradicate programs that promote diversity, equity, or inclusion or adhere to policies Trump deems “woke,” Watlington has stood firm but stuck to his talking points.

“We’ve prepared our school leaders to comply with the laws of the land, even those that change from time to time … and to do it with respect to protecting the rights of our immigrant students,” he said. “We are not going to gin up extra levels of anxiety. In a very professional and strategic and appropriate manner, we will address those issues” when and if they arise.

“While the mayor and [school] board lead advocacy, my job is to make the case about the data,” he said. “We’re absolutely committed to doing all that we can to ensure safe and welcoming schools.”

And though Philly students’ standardized test scores on average are still well below their peers’ in Pennsylvania and across the country, Watlington said he is confident they’ll make up that ground.

“It takes time to pull all those systems together,” he said. “You’re going to make some progress. Then you’re going to ebb and flow and back slide a little bit.”

He’s planning a trip to Finland in the coming months to study their education system — one that has garnered endless fascination in the U.S. But he’s not naive about the challenges Philly students face. Watlington said Finland does not suffer from the same stark wealth disparities that we have in the U.S., and Finnish people have more reliable access to better health care.

“When I look at the bigger context, it’s not just the school district’s responsibility to improve academic performance,” he said. “It requires us to address wealth attainment and health care in tandem with us in the school district during our job to teach kids to do reading, writing, and arithmetic.”

Nevertheless, he said he believes the state of Philadelphia’s schools is strong.

“We are absolutely where we should be at this time,” he said. “Maybe a bit ahead.”

Chalkbeat Philadelphia Senior Writer Dale Mezzacappa contributed reporting.

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

Protesters disrupt Board of Education hearing over teacher discipline, 76ers arena vote

2024-12-13T00:25:55+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education briefly recessed a public hearing Thursday when protesters objected to heightened security, including extra school safety officers, city police, and big written warnings ordering people not to stand in the aisles.

When former teacher Lisa Haver and others defiantly stood in the center aisle holding signs, city police surrounded Haver and other members of the public, insisting they vacate the aisle. Board President Reginald Streater then called a recess and the seven attending board members left the room at 4:31 p.m., about a half hour after the meeting started.

Many of the 42 speakers registered Thursday evening railed against the board members for blocking free speech at a meeting dedicated to public testimony.

This is the second board meeting in two months that board members have left the room to deal with protesters. In October, supporters of suspended Northeast High School teacher Keziah Ridgeway forced the members to leave the room during its regular monthly meeting, at which they take official actions, and continue their meeting elsewhere in the building. Their votes were livestreamed, but people were not allowed in the room where they took the votes.

Thursday’s interruption happened after two students from Palumbo High School tearfully excoriated the board for a vote in November that paved the way for the controversial Philadelphia 76ers arena in Center City, and for “censoring” and disciplining teachers, including Ridgeway, who had expressed pro-Palestinian views.

“I’m ashamed of this board,” Aster Chau, a student at Academy at Palumbo, said at Thursday’s meeting. “Why are you stripping your students of their teachers?”

“Obviously you don’t care what we think,” said student Joey Zhou, also from Palumbo.

The hostile atmosphere continued when another speaker, Kristin Luebbert, pointed out that if the board was concerned about fire safety — the reason Streater had given to keep the aisles clear — it had blocked access to one of the two entrances to the room to the public. She also blasted the board, among other things, for enabling systemic racism.

Haver, a co-founder of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools advocacy group who speaks at every board meeting, continued the verbal onslaught. “The Gestapo tactics of this board are a disgrace and they have to end,” she said.

At that point, as a clamor broke out, Streater called the recess and the members left the room. They came back about 20 minutes later, and Streater gave a short statement saying he had determined that “the aisle is not a safe space for people to congregate during an action meeting.”

But Haver and Luebbert didn’t move. Streater repeated: “There are designated places for people who carry signs.”

He repeated his admonition several times. But Haver stood pat, holding her handwritten poster saying “We will always cause good trouble for our students,” a reference to the famous saying of the late John Lewis.

Two city police officers then joined the school safety officers already in the room and several stayed in or near the meeting room as the meeting progressed.

Opponents of the 76ers arena plan felt that the board could have stopped or at least delayed the plan if they wanted to.

Speakers also reiterated pleas to return librarians to schools, getting advocates from the Main Line area and New Jersey to join that campaign.

“You used to be on the board of ACLU, and here you are intentionally trying to quell protest,” teacher Charlie McGeehan told Streater. “This board is one of the most exasperating I’ve ever experienced.”

Haver remained standing in the aisle for the rest of the meeting, which is one of two public hearings a year the board is required to hold.

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.

Q&A: Lessons learned from Philly’s school closures

2024-12-11T19:49:15+00:00

Next year, Philadelphia school leaders have warned their “rightsizing” process will likely result in more school shutdowns for a city that’s still recovering from the last painful spate of closures.

School buildings in Philly are on average 73 years old and are ridden with asbestos, lead, aging electrical systems, nonoperating bathrooms, and a host of other major issues. Demographic shifts have also meant several schools in the Northeast region of the city are bursting at the seams, while others stand nearly empty.

Superintendent Tony Watlington has said reorganizing the district — and closing some buildings that are too costly to renovate — will allow resources to be spread more equally. But Watlington and city residents are haunted by the last school closure process in 2013, which negatively impacted students’ academic performance and mental health.

This time, district leaders have sworn, things will be different.

In light of the district’s promises, our partners over at Shelterforce spoke with Akira Drake Rodriguez, an assistant professor of city planning at the University of Pennsylvania, about how school closures in Philadelphia affect neighborhoods, what alternative visions could be for those schools, and how communities are starting to organize to change the way school facilities planning is done.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Read the full interview here.

Shelterforce Editor-in-Chief Miriam Axel-Lute: Thank you for joining me, Akira, to talk about school closures and equity. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into studying this topic.

I started looking at public schools as infrastructure, whether it’s physical infrastructure or social infrastructure, in Philadelphia. We had this earlier experience in Philadelphia in 2013, where about 30 schools were closed. [I looked at] what changes to the neighborhood and the community and the built environment followed after the closures, and how to incorporate those lessons into future school facility planning processes.

You’ve said, “A good school is an open school.” Let’s look at a neighborhood and talk about what can happen when a school closes. I know you have some examples of some different ways that it happened in Philadelphia in the 2013 closures.

The 2013 closures were initiated through a private process. It could be framed as a planning process, but there was no community engagement or even a broad awareness that this was happening. The school district of Philadelphia engaged Boston Consulting Group to write a report on school facilities in the city. This looked at very technical data, such as what we call Facilities Conditions Index or FCI, which analyzes the systems of a school — plumbing, roof, electricity, etc. — estimates the condition of them, and then estimates the cost to get it into good condition.

If the cost of the repair is higher than its replacement, usually you’re going to remove that system. If enough systems need to be removed, then that translates into the closure of the school.

Another data point that they used was this idea of utilization. Philadelphia is a very old city. We had massive school construction at the turn of the 20th century and mid-century as the city is growing. It reached its peak of about 2 million residents in 1950.

We had high schools that were constructed for 2,000, 3,000 students that, by the time this planning process is happening, are serving literally 200 students. In addition to closures, a lot of the recommendations in the Boston Consulting Group report [were for] consolidation.

There were about 250 schools, and about 60 schools were [recommended] in this report for a closure or consolidation. The board, at the time, was a state-run board. The school district’s local control had been taken away by the state in 2001.

At that point, people are organizing to counteract these closures and consolidations. Some schools are saved, but are still what I consider to be vulnerable in future processes; others are closed or consolidated.

This caused some destabilization. One of the areas that was hardest hit was an area that’s on the border of one of our more affluent suburbs, the western part of our city, an area known as Overbrook, which borders Montgomery County, a very affluent county. Residents and organizers have actually done a school funding walk where they walk from Gompers Elementary in Philadelphia over to Lower Merion School. In that 1-mile walk, there is a disparity of basically 100 percent in additional funding for the suburban school student versus the one in Philadelphia.

That particular area saw a great deal of school closures and populations have continued to decline in those areas. North Philadelphia was also an area that was hard hit. Within a few years, you see the rise of school choice in these neighborhoods. A great deal of charters reappear in the wake of these closed schools.

I recall you telling me that in some of the different neighborhoods there were different effects on the housing market when their schools closed, some of them really deteriorating, some of them actually seeing some gentrification. Can you talk about the different kinds of things that might happen?

It’s funny, I’m at home right now. I live right across the street from a school that is closed. The house that I live in is my grandmother’s house that we moved into. I was actually supposed to go to this elementary school before my family moved out of Philadelphia. During 2013, this elementary, Smith Elementary, closed. The building has been converted into rental units, market rate. The playground and parking lot are about 12 single-family townhomes that average about $650,000. The house that was my grandmother’s house, [is] worth about $150,000, to give you some comparison.

There has been a lot of development in this area, which brings a lot of young couples that eventually become young families. There’s no school. This is happening further east in South Philadelphia with a school known as Southwark, which is a K-8 school.

Right across the street is a school known as Bok, which was a technical high school. It closed in 2013 and was repurposed into a bunch of different things — a maker space, a kiddie care center and gathering spot, a place that sells soccer equipment, a cafe, and at the top, a beautiful restaurant and bar.

This space has attracted a lot of families into the neighborhood. Southwark, which was never fully utilized, especially during the closures, but was not up for closure, is now overcrowded. Ironically, they lease the gym space from Bok because they don’t have room for all their activities.

In Overbrook, we see population decline and growth of school choice. In South Philly, we see a gentrification that’s happening as a result of the closure of this inefficient state good, the redevelopment of it into housing or to new uses, the attraction of a new type of resident and homeowner, and then the slow depopulation as families move away because they don’t have school options in this neighborhood.

Are there alternatives to closing underutilized schools that would preserve the public infrastructure for public good in a different way?

Sure. We had a public housing development in North Philadelphia that was demolished and redeveloped in a HOPE VI Choice Neighborhoods initiative approach. Part of that demolition included the closure of a local school. Then this school was actually purchased by the housing authority. They put a new school in. They hired teachers from the union. It’s effectively operating as a public school, drawing students from the neighborhood. Because the space was still so large, and the population was not utilizing that full space, they started leasing to other nonprofits that had connections to [the] school — after-school program for writers, different job training [programs], different public goods and services and advocacy groups. The results have been successful; they’ve been retaining teachers and students. You’re seeing above-average graduation rates and completion rates. This is how to adapt a public school and still keep it a public good.

Communities are going to change over time. We know that. It makes sense to adapt the public good in the public space to fit the community needs. That way you’re not having to lease auditorium and gymnasium space from private developers because you’ve sold your public good.

In contrast to the planning process in 2013 that led to all those school closures, Philadelphia has been working to embark on a different kind of school facilities planning process recently. Can you tell us about how that is going and how it’s different from what happened before?

Philadelphia schools were returned to local control in 2017. The school reform commission dissolved itself, and now we have a school board that is appointed by our mayor. This school board rightly understood that populations were still continuing to decline, and traditional public schools were underutilized and also in poor condition.

The planning process that began in 2019, when it was announced, said, “You can expect some closures and you can also expect some changes in our catchment areas, which determine, based on your address, where your local school is.”

Surprisingly, in 2019, the first reaction to this announcement was not from school organizers or teachers, but from real estate developers. The one or two really good K-8 schools in the city are highly advertised and signaled in real estate ads. The idea that some catchments would be redrawn was a little frightening for the real estate industry.

With this announcement, there was also the idea that there would be a public process. The consultants from the school district would form stakeholder groups by study areas, which were geographic areas containing about six or seven K-8 schools. They would produce some recommendations that would be presented to the public, adopted by the school board, and implemented in the following year. It was a pretty traditional planning process.

The study areas were very different from each other. For instance, that Overbrook area that I mentioned, where there were very few schools, and many were in bad shape and underutilized as a result of the previous closures. An area in North Philly that also had a lot of school closures, a rise in charter school options, but also a growing immigrant population, and new schools actually being constructed. And a third area in South Philadelphia, pretty close to our downtown, where populations were growing to the point where a new middle school was under discussion.

So we have one area where school closures are pretty imminent because we have a history of declining population; one area that’s growing, but is pretty marginalized within the city; and another area that is gentrified and growing, and needs new school options.

From the start, there was a lot of suspicion, obviously because of the legacy of school closures, which had really just happened six years before. If you’re a child whose school was closed in second grade, you’re in eighth grade now and facing possibly another closure. This isn’t a long time at all. People were a little upset about how the stakeholder groups were handpicked by principals. Elected officials and community planners dominated within these stakeholder groups.

Parents, teachers, and school advocates who were left out of the stakeholder groups took a few different approaches to improving the process. First, they pushed for stakeholders to hold community and public meetings to provide what they were learning to the public before the mass public meeting.

Second, communities that were not included in the first round of study areas were beginning to hold their own meetings and discuss the alternatives so they could prepare a counter-narrative when it was their turn in the facilities planning process.

Then a third group formed, drawing in a councilmember and three parent and neighborhood groups, which was focused on the idea of working across these study areas, instead of fighting about closures within a constrained geography — thinking about the resources we have across the city and how we can start to reallocate them more effectively.

Through this disruption of the school district’s planning process, we were able to insert some more participatory opportunities, such as expanding the number of meetings, and removing the idea of closures from the list of recommendations that were provided to stakeholder groups to start with.

This all sounds fairly similar to a lot of things that housing and community development groups get involved in, wanting to have more neighborhood input in a planning process.

Community quality of life was really centered in these discussions. I’m thinking about a group in the North Philadelphia, the high immigrant population area that I mentioned earlier. They were really concerned about school closures translating into gentrification. I felt that one of the most striking takeaways during these different meetings across the city was that people could draw a really straight line between a school closure and the construction of $400,000 townhomes in areas where that was not the median home value.

They saw this [process] as just a further coalition or growth machine that’s emerging between downtown and the school district. That was really a primary concern.

You also have concerns about segregation. There were parents — particularly in the growing neighborhood near the downtown, who didn’t like that there was a big racial divide across one street in Philadelphia — who said, “We’re going to build a middle school. Can we draw that catchment for the middle school across this racial divide so that we can have an integrated school and set that tone?”

These were discussions that were really thinking about “We have a lot of power in this conversation. How can we set a model for something that reflects the community’s needs?”

That makes a lot of sense. It also strikes me that they could maybe step into a conversation about school closure with some of those ideas you were talking about earlier, about other ways to use underutilized space.

Yes, the co-location is, I think, so critical. Key to why [the housing authority school is] so successful now was that thoughtfulness of “this is not just an asset to monetize and sell off to fulfill our bottom line . . . this is a key public good.”

One of the hardest things is breaking through to people who have no skin in the game of the public school. You really have to sell it as, like, “These are your tax dollars, this is what your tax dollars is going to support. You shouldn’t see a school closure as something that improves your property value. You should think about how can you improve the school and your property value at the same time.”

People don’t get upset when you close a public school, but they would get upset if you closed a public park. You have to think about them in the same way: you may not directly engage with it, but it serves a broader good and anchors your community.

This story was originally published by Shelterforce as part of their Under the Lens series, exploring the ways the educational justice and housing justice movements overlap. Sign up for their newsletter here. And if you prefer listening to the series, you can do so here.

School closures ‘likely’ in Philadelphia in next few years, school board president warns

2024-09-17T22:03:16+00:00

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Several Philadelphia public schools will “likely” close over the next few years, the city Board of Education president said Tuesday, stating that the school district’s leadership is “done kicking the can down the road” regarding school facilities planning.

President Reginald Streater told reporters the board intends to vote on several items at its Thursday meeting that would commit the board and the school district to involving community input in figuring out how to upgrade the city’s aging school buildings and how to use them more efficiently.

“The time is right” to do this now because of the district’s improved financial situation, Streater said.

Streater said the idea is to figure out “the best way possible so that we can best deliver our resources to our students,” while involving community members and city leaders. “It’s not just ceremonial. It is an actual document that will be signed and will bind the board to a process to include the community,” he said.

As district enrollment has shrunk with the rise of charter schools and stagnation of the overall city population, several Philadelphia’s school buildings now sit mostly empty. Others have been closed for extended periods of time due to costly renovations or environmental hazards. Streater said closures, co-locations, and “repurposing” buildings will be part of the facilities plan: “We have schools that have 200 students in them, or 100 students in them.”

Today there are just under 120,000 students in district-run schools, with another 64,000 in charter schools. In 2000, there were over 205,000 students in 261 district schools, according to district data.

Streater said the board, in cooperation with the district and Mayor Cherelle Parker’s office, will include plans for school closures as part of the final step of its process to produce a facilities master plan.

Since he took office, Superintendent Tony Watlington has been promising to produce such a plan that would set a timeline and budget for repairs and renovations to Philadelphia’s deteriorating school buildings. Watlington repeatedly pushed back the deadline for completing such a study, as did his predecessor, William Hite.

The district has some recent and controversial history with school closures that grew out of facilities planning. In 2013, the district initially planned to close 37 schools and relocate or make other changes in dozens more, based on a report from an outside consulting group that included minimal community input. At packed and often emotional meetings across the city, residents pleaded that their schools be kept open. Ultimately, 23 schools were shuttered.

“We do understand this is going to be tough work … what I think the board can say is this will not be like 2013,” said Streater, who attended Germantown High School, one of the schools that closed in 2013. “We will engage the community … to make sure we give students what they deserve.”

As temporary school closures due to flaking asbestos, inadequate air conditioning, and other structural issues have plagued the district, City Council members led by Education Chair Isaiah Thomas have ramped up the pressure on Watlington to produce a facilities plan. Watlington told the council in April it could take an additional two years to finalize it. He had previously promised the plan would be ready by June 2024.

“Our school facilities are one of our city’s most pressing issues and families across the city have been sounding the alarm for years about it,” Thomas said in a statement to Chalkbeat Tuesday. “While this crisis has a hefty price tag, I am glad to see it getting the attention it deserves.”

Streater said despite delays, the facilities planning process work “didn’t stop.” He said for the past two years, the district has worked to write a five-year strategic plan, create a “swing space” plan for temporary school closures due to environmental hazards, and begin the work of building a “data warehouse” for facilities information.

Information about school facilities hasn’t always been especially easy for the public to access. The district took down a previous website that housed information about facilities earlier this year because it was “not owned by the district.”

Meanwhile, on the first day of school this year, all 63 schools without air conditioning dismissed students early due to excessive heat concerns.

Prior estimates have found it would cost nearly $8 billion to fully upgrade and modernize the district’s buildings, which are on average over 70 years old.

There are two resolutions on the agenda of Thursday’s board meeting about facilities plans.

The board plans to contract with an as-yet-unnamed communications consultant for “community engagement and facilitation support”, and with another unnamed firm for “facilities planning services.”

The resolutions for these services do not have a price tag attached.

This story has been updated to include an additional comment from Board of Education President Reginald Streater.

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

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

Q&A: Philly schools chief Tony Watlington addresses teacher shortage, goals for this school year

2024-08-20T11:00:01+00:00

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Tony Watlington is starting his third year as Philadelphia superintendent of schools — but he is not above going back into the classroom himself.

In discussing the district’s persistent teacher shortage, Watlington acknowledged the gravity of the situation, and that some central office administrators may find themselves deployed to classrooms this year, at least on the first day of school.

Which, he said, wouldn’t be all bad.

“If Tony Watlington showed up to teach a few social studies classes, I think they would still get some great instruction,” he said as part of a wide-ranging interview with Chalkbeat about his plans and challenges for the upcoming school year.

Watlington assumed leadership of the country’s eighth-largest school district in June 2022. He has prioritized improving academic achievement, making the district’s “customer service” — as he put it — more welcoming and helpful, and increasing the presence of district officials in neighborhoods to build partnerships with families.

There’s been notable progress on his watch. Some test scores have improved. More students attend school regularly. And the four-year high school graduation rate has increased, albeit gradually. He likes to say that Philadelphia is on its way to being “the fastest improving urban school district in the country,” citing a study from this year.

At the same time, some key high school academic indicators are stagnant or declining, and a large share of students still miss a lot of school. Perhaps most crucially, the district has been consistently unable to hire enough teachers.

Watlington noted that as of mid-August, its “fill rate” for all teacher positions is 95%, which means the district still has more than 400 vacancies. That translates to some 14,000 students lacking a permanent teacher when they return to school, a number that by itself is big enough to rank among the 10 largest districts in Pennsylvania. These issues are dominant as the district and teachers union prepare to negotiate a new contract.

Ahead of the new school year, Watlington shared his hopes and concerns for what’s ahead.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you update us on the issue of teacher vacancies?

The reason we’re not at 100% is in part because there is a decline in the number of people who are choosing to get a teaching degree in Pennsylvania. So generally, when people ask me, have you filled all the positions, sometimes we’ll say, I think you’re asking the wrong question, because we need to make sure that we’re recruiting and hiring people who are prepared to do this job.

We’ll be deploying individuals from district headquarters to provide some help with classroom coverages as we continue to hire.

That still means that many students will start the year without a regular, long-term stable teacher.

I have a teaching license. I may have to suit up and go teach a few myself.

The biggest shortages are in science, technology, engineering, and math, foreign language, and special education teachers. Those are some of the toughest areas to fill, partly because you can make more money in the private sector. That’s why we have to pay our teachers more.

If you’re a teacher in the South or the Midwest, and you have the credentials, come on to Pennsylvania. We welcome you with open arms and not have to test and go through all these hoops. I thought it was the craziest thing when I came here as superintendent, and I had to sit for a three-hour test with a camera on, watching me the entire time.

We are investing resources and getting more of our paraprofessionals through a degree program at no cost.

The district is also starting a new English Language Arts curriculum this year. Are teachers adequately trained?

For a district of our size to launch a new curriculum in math in kindergarten through 12th grade in all district schools last year, and to then launch an English language arts and reading curriculum for the next year, is somewhat unprecedented. But it’s the right thing to do. Eighty-three percent of our teachers last year reported that they felt competent to teach the new math curriculum, but what they told us is that they needed more time.

We did a much better job this year of supporting our teachers to be able to teach the new English curriculum. And I’m really proud of our teachers, because they understand that we’ve got to make sure that poor kids who move around the city don’t have to learn different curricula. Either we are going to be a system of schools or we’re going to be one united school system.

What else are you planning to focus on this year?

Number one, we are going to focus on accelerating achievement. We’re also teaching our teachers how to engage students more effectively.

Number two, we’re going to focus on improving our customer and constituent service. We will expand the two-way communication system that I piloted in my office all last year.

The third thing we are going to focus on is building stronger partnership with our families, and we’ll do that by relocating the district assistant superintendent offices to 15 areas throughout the city, many housed in schools. If you’ve got a concern about the lunch menu, transportation, academics, or you feel like your child’s paper wasn’t graded appropriately, you’ve got one place in your community to go straight to the person who supervises those schools.

And in addition to that, we’re going to do a good job of executing Mayor Cherelle Parker’s priority for extended day, extended year pilot schools.

Could you explain a little more about how that kind of responsiveness translates into better achievement for kids?

When I give you better customer service as a parent you’re more likely to talk to the teacher, to talk to the principal, to read my communications. You’re more likely to feel like you’ve been heard, and when you feel like you’ve been heard homes and schools can work as partners in children’s learning.

We’re going to lead in improving those relationships, and we’re going to win our parents and families over because they see that we care about their children and about them.

We’ll be providing training on little things, how to say “good morning,” “thank you,” “it’s been a pleasure to work with you today.”

Tell me more about plans for extended-day and year-round school.

In year one, we have not made any changes to teachers’ or principals’ daily schedules. The before- and after-school programming is being run by outside providers, in partnership with the city and district.

Attendance data is going to be so important for us to see which parents participate and which don’t. We’ll be surveying parents about what they like, what they don’t like. We’ll also be getting feedback from the schools in terms of what’s working or not.

We know that it will be a help for kids who will not be on the streets, instead being with competent, caring adults in the early morning or late afternoons. Enrichment will be available during vacation breaks.

While you have seen some positive trends under your tenure in achievement and attendance, it is still true that only about a third of third through eighth graders are reading on grade level, and less than a fifth have grade-level math skills. Have you set improvement targets for the coming year?

We’re talking with principals and we will begin setting academic targets for the district, for each learning network and for each school, something that’s not been done in recent history to my knowledge.

Even though we were among the fastest-improving school districts post-COVID in third through eighth grade reading and math, we didn’t do well in the high schools. In the 2023 school year, in biology and Algebra 1, we actually went in the wrong direction.

We’ve got to continue to invest in third through eighth grade so that we’re sending stronger students to our high schools. We’ve got to continue to support and invest in our teachers in the high schools so that they have the best-in-class curriculum. And then we need to help our teachers to be able to fully understand the curriculum standards and how to teach them, and also how to teach kids in a way that engages kids in the learning. That’s a hard thing to do.

Violence in the city overall has been trending down, but there have been high-profile incidents like the shooting of eight Northeast High school students at a bus stop. What is the district doing to combat violence?

Attendance really does matter. Kids who come to school at least 90% of the year, and who are making sufficient progress in their academic classes, are less likely to be victims or perpetrators of violence. It’s why we’re so focused on it.

In 2022-23 in the district, just 57% of students attended school 90% of the time. Last year it went up to 60%.

Part of our underachievement is explained by: Our kids just not being in school enough. Kids learn more in brick and mortar schools with a teacher than they do on a computer. Every year that we improve, we have to say, “good job, schools,” “good job, young scholars.” Our kids need to hear more positive messages from us adults in the city, and we can do 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.

Website on Philadelphia school building conditions goes down

2024-06-13T18:55:07+00:00

An interactive website that gave families crucial information about the physical condition of Philadelphia public schools went down last month.

The site contained data on 211 schools, more than two-thirds of which were found to be in “unsatisfactory” or “poor” condition, according to a previous analysis by the Logan Center. Parents could use the site to see the results of their school’s latest inspection and which aspects of the school were in the best and worst shape.

The district is currently developing a “warehouse” for data on all schools’ academics, environments, educational suitability, safety, maintenance, and enrollment, among other data points, said Alexandra Coppadge, the district’s head of communications. They anticipate it to be completed by December.

The website going down “is deeply problematic,” said City Councilmember Nina Ahmad, a member of the Education Committee. “This lack of information is very disempowering, and I think our constituents just feel like, what is going on?”

The district’s aging infrastructure is one of its most pressing issues as it faces billions in maintenance costs to repair buildings that date as far back as 1878. Students, parents, and teachers have raised concerns over environmental hazards in their schools, such as flaking asbestos, which has forced seven school buildings to close since the start of the 2022-2023 school year.

Meanwhile, pressure is mounting on the district to release its comprehensive assessment of school buildings it promised last year. Superintendent Tony Watlington warned the City Council in April it could take an additional two years to finalize it.

Following this story’s publication, Monique Braxton, a spokesperson for the district, insisted the district was being “fully transparent” and said the interactive website was discontinued because it was not owned by the district.

“As we have updated many of the District webpages to be more transparent, easy to navigate and customer-friendly, we moved all of that information onto a district webpage,” Braxton said. “Now, the information should be easier to access for students, families, staff and community members.”

Braxton said facilities reports remain available via PDFs.

PDF reports from the most recent round of inspections are accessible on an older district website, but for only a fraction of the schools included in the interactive website.

That means thousands of Philadelphia families do not have access to updated information on structural problems in buildings or whether schools had suitable lighting, ventilation, and classroom equipment.

Parents complain to Councilman Mark Squilla’s office when they hear rumors about asbestos, lack of heat and air conditioning in schools, Squilla said in a statement.

“They deserve to know about the buildings that their children are in daily,” said Squilla, also a member of the Education Committee.

The facilities website, which was online until at least May 20, assigned scores to schools based on the quality of their infrastructure and whether the buildings adequately supported instruction.

The buildings with the lowest rankings, according to the district’s metrics, included the former Our Lady of Pompei building, which houses Bayard Taylor Elementary’s annex; The Isaac Sheppard School Building; and the former William Hunter building, which formerly housed El Centro De Estudiantes. Those buildings were constructed in 1926 or earlier.

“It is frustrating that, you know, one of the biggest crises that we’re facing in the city of Philadelphia doesn’t necessarily have a course of action,” said Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, who chairs the Education Committee. “We have people going into buildings and facilities not necessarily knowing what condition all of them are in.”

Delays hurt plans to repair Philadelphia school buildings

The facilities master plan has been hounded by delays.

Following the last district-wide assessment in 2017, which identified $4.5 billion in deferred maintenance costs, the district began a “Comprehensive School Planning Review” in 2019 but halted it in 2020 due to the pandemic.

The district, then led by former Superintendent William Hite, restarted its assessments in March 2022. It released the interactive website the following month.

Watlington took the reins as superintendent in June 2022. The following November, he told the Board of Education that the district would pause the facilities planning process until the district was closer to completing its five-year strategic plan.

Some teachers like Kate Reber at William W. Bodine High School wanted to use the data to organize families and community partners to pressure the district to fix problems at the school. In the past, there have been water leaks and ceiling tiles have fallen in classrooms at Bodine, Reber said.

“There was supposed to be a multi-year facilities planning process, and it was like, dates for meetings and all that, just disappeared,” Reber said.

After the school board’s approved the new strategic plan in June 2023, Watlington told the City Council two months later that the district would complete its facilities master plan by June 2024. But in April’s hearing, Watlington said it could take 18 to 24 additional months to complete it, noting the district had constructed a a pilot data warehouse for 30 schools but needed time to launch a project team.

The Facility Condition Assessments (FCAs) paused by the district in 2022 are more comprehensive than the asbestos-related inspections that were at the center of last year’s legal dispute between the City Council and the Board of Education.

FCAs examine a school’s major systems, like roofing and ventilation, and help the district prioritize what to repair and when, said Jerry Roseman, the director of environmental science for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

“It’s the only really standardized information and dataset about the comprehensive condition of the schools,” Roseman said.

When the district first released buildings data in 2022, Reber was astonished to see Bodine’s facilities score: 60 out of 100, putting it in the “poor” conditions category. A more detailed report scored Bodine in a category of schools that “should be considered for major renovation.”

“When the planning process happens, we’d be happy to speak about it, advocate for our school, advocate with our families and students,” Reber said. “I just felt like we started something and didn’t get to see it through.”

Clarification June 14, 2024: This article has been updated to add statements from spokespeople for the School District of Philadelphia regarding how they publicize facilities data and district plans for a new data “warehouse.”

Meet the new boss: Philly school board picks leaders after clash over nominees

2024-05-09T21:53:53+00:00

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After a campaign to oust him from the Philadelphia Board of Education failed, Reginald Streater was unanimously reelected president of the body on Thursday.

At their first meeting as a new board, members also made a surprising decision by electing first-time board member Wanda Novalés to be vice president. The position was contested and required the board to vote twice. Members Sarah-Ashley Andrews and ChauWing Lam were also nominated but did not garner enough votes.

“I have no written comments as I didn’t think this was going to happen,” Novalés said after she was elected. “But I am so excited to serve the students.”

Speaking before the vote, Streater hinted at the potential for holding board “office hours” and “reimagining” meetings in the future, as well as focusing on “our facilitation of tough and public conversations that we must have.”

Philadelphia’s school board nomination process became Mayor Cherelle Parker’s first big political struggle with the City Council. Although the council approved Parker’s eight other school board nominees, several members strongly opposed Joyce Wilkerson’s nomination. Their reasons for doing so remained relatively vague, but allegations of racial bias in the charter school authorizing process came up during a tense council hearing on Parker’s nominees.

Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas also indicated a desire to seek accountability for the actions of earlier iterations of the board and its predecessor, the School Reform Commission.

Wilkerson is the longest serving board member and has been both board president and chair of the School Reform Commission.

Ultimately, a behind-the-scenes campaign to oust Wilkerson and Streater fizzled. After Wilkerson’s nomination stalled for several days, Parker announced that she was asking Wilkerson to remain on the board anyway — without the council’s consent. Wilkerson agreed to do so. In response, Thomas has called for hearings to “explore possible reforms to the school board nomination, confirmation, and governance processes.”

All eyes will be on this new board in the coming months, and special attention will undoubtedly be paid to their votes on whether to approve applications for new charter schools, or proposed charter expansions.

Novalés, the new VP, founded Philadelphia’s Pan American Charter School.

With budget negotiations ongoing in the City Council and in the state capitol, the school district’s financial position is also being scrutinized by councilmembers and legislators. Several state lawmakers on Tuesday signaled their support for Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed increases in education funding that would benefit Philadelphia schools. But until the budget process is settled, those increases are far from secure.

One concrete piece of good news for the district came on Wednesday, when the credit ratings agency Fitch Ratings upgraded the district’s outlook. But Fitch cautioned that the district’s enrollment has been “adversely impacted” by a soaring number of students switching to charter schools and cyber charter schools over the past decade.

“This shift has led to an increase in spending to fund charter schools which accounts for a significant portion of the district’s spending,” representatives from the credit ratings agency wrote in their explanation for the rating change. “These charter school payments pose a significant limitation on the district’s ability to manage its expenses.”

Former board member Mallory Fix-Lopez wished the new members well and cautioned the board Thursday to “please be mindful of even the appearance of improprieties” because of its negative impact on the district’s primary mission and its students. She also issued a warning.

“You are in for a wild ride,” Fix-Lopez said.

The new board’s first action meeting will be on May 30.

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

Philadelphia’s charter school authorizing process complies with state laws, audit finds

2024-05-07T22:23:19+00:00

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Amid charges from some advocates and City Council members that the Philadelphia school board is biased against Black-run charter schools, Pennsylvania’s Auditor General has found that Philadelphia’s authorizing, evaluation, and renewal process complies with all relevant state laws, regulations, and guidelines.

The audit, released Tuesday, highlighted some areas for improvement, but did not raise concern about discriminatory practices. The purpose of the audit was not to explicitly respond to or investigate the allegations of racial bias.

At a press conference, Auditor General Timothy DeFoor said the audit represented “good news to share” because the Charter Schools Office “complied with all state laws and guidance, as well as its own internal processes regarding new applications.”

He also said that it was “important to note that the school board, not the charter schools office,” approves new charter school applications.

The audit scrutinized the procedures followed by the Charter Schools Office for the academic years 2022 and 2023, a period that saw seven new charter applications, none of which were approved, and four charter closures. Two of those closed had Black leadership. It also reviewed the October 2023 investigative report by the Ballard Spahr law firm into the allegations of racial bias. That report found no “intentional bias” in the authorizing and evaluation process, while calling the rate of closure of Black-led charters “concerning.”

The state audit said the office could make some improvements to its Charter School Performance Framework, such as including the responses of charter operators to its findings in the evaluations it makes public, and better monitoring of charter school admissions practices.

In explaining that recommendation, DeFoor cited the problems with Franklin Towne Charter High School, where an investigation found it had excluded students who live in certain ZIP codes with mostly Black students, “in violation of the charter school law and its own charter.”

While the 80-page audit mentions the Ballard Spahr report, it does not describe any independent investigative findings of its own on the topic of racial considerations or bias on the part of the charter schools office.

On the principle that “the oversight body and management should demonstrate a commitment to integrity and ethical values,” the audit found “no issues.”

Last week, city council approved eight of Mayor Cherelle Parker’s nine appointees to the Board of Education, which has direct control over charter school monitoring through its Charter Schools Office. It declined to vote on the nomination of former board president Joyce Wilkerson after charter school advocates mounted a letter-writing campaign against her. Council president Kenyatta Johnson gave no explanation for refusing to consider her nomination except that she “didn’t have the votes.”

During questioning of the nominees, Council member Isaiah Thomas, chair of the education committee, raised angry allegations about bias against Black-led charters, which he said have been closed at a disproportionately higher rate than others. In response, board president Reginald Streater, who had also briefly been the target of the charter advocates, told council that the charter schools office followed all applicable laws and procedures.

Parker then did an end run around council by declining to appoint anyone to replace Wilkerson and announcing that she would continue serving on the board. In response, Thomas said he will convene hearings on whether the city should move to an elected or partially-elected school board, as is done in several other cities.

Peng Chao, the chief of the charter schools office, appeared with DeFoor at the press conference in Harrisburg Tuesday. He said he was “pleased the Auditor General found that our office complied with all applicable legal requirements … in Philadelphia we have a robust evaluation system that … holds all charter schools to the same set of performance standards to foster high-quality education options and improvement outcomes for all of our students.”

Saying “there is no perfect system,” he noted that “a strong system is self-reflective.” The office will “continue to learn, reassess and develop best practices as the landscape of public education evolves.”

A spokesperson for Thomas said they wanted to study the report more before responding.

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 school officials face budget questions

2024-04-30T21:22:49+00:00

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Philadelphia City Councilmembers on Tuesday questioned Superintendent Tony Watlington and his staff about ongoing facilities issues, teacher vacancies, resources for unhoused students, and more as they begin to shape the city’s budget for public education.

The district and school board have already held several meetings and votes on their $4.5 billion budget, but Tuesday’s hearing was the first time councilmembers could publicly interrogate Watlington, Board of Education President Reginald Streater, and other district staff. The city’s budget process is ongoing and no vote was taken at Tuesday’s hearing.

Over several hours, councilmembers pressed the district to present a comprehensive facilities plan, do more to keep students safe from gun violence, and fill teacher vacancies among other issues.

Philadelphia’s school district only controls some 10% of their budget, with the remaining 90% divided up in union contracts and under the control of city and state leaders – that means the Council’s relationship with Watlington is critical. Whether councilmembers trust his leadership and financial decisions can drive their budget decisions.

Tuesday’s hearing also comes on the heels of controversial political maneuvering this week that secured Mayor Cherelle Parker’s school board nominee, Joyce Wilkerson, over the heads of council leadership.

Parker delivered an impassioned speech at the start of the hearing, urging councilmembers to look past the school board nomination drama and work with her.

“I didn’t usurp a process,” Parker said. “I respect this institution, I respect the body.”

But she added her administration’s agenda could just as easily be “torpedoed” by Council President Kenyatta Johnson’s leadership.

“I can’t do it without you. And you can’t do it without me,” Parker said. “I don’t want to fight. I want to get things done.”

Here are some takeaways from the hearing:

‘We can’t just let kids disappear’

To start the hearing, Watlington provided a similar presentation to ones he’s delivered on multiple occasions to the school board, and in his “State of Public Education” address. The highlights are: Yearly revenue is falling behind expenditures, student achievement is making some limited progress, the number of students dropping out has fallen since last year, and Watlington is continuing to follow his strategic plan.

However, councilmembers and Watlington agreed, the district is not where they want it to be academically.

“Scores are still too low,” Watlington said.

Watlington said he intends to “shine a big, bright, spotlight on our dropout problem.” He said he’s added an assistant superintendent to his team who will focus on dropout prevention to “find every single kid’s record,” and hold face-to-face meetings with them and their families.

“We can’t just let kids disappear,” Watlington said.

Facilities concerns are ongoing

Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, chair of the education committee, led the line of questioning on the condition of school facilities.

“I think the most severe catastrophe that we’ve seen are the issues related to our facilities,” Thomas said. Several schools have closed in the district over the past year due to damaged asbestos and other environmental hazards. Watlington said Tuesday only 47% of schools in the district have adequate air conditioning.

Thomas and Johnson, the council president, pressed Watlington to produce a facilities plan for the district sooner rather than later.

Watlington said his office has been working to produce a comprehensive facilities plan, but that plan has been delayed. He previously estimated that renovating and modernizing the school district’s infrastructure, whose buildings on average are 73 years old, would cost nearly $8 billion.

Watlington told Thomas “we intend to move quickly,” but stopped short of laying out a timeline for when that plan would be produced.

According to Watlington’s opening presentation, the district is currently compiling a “data warehouse” on their facilities conditions and plan to launch a facilities plan “project team” starting this December.

Recruiting teachers remains a ‘struggle’

Councilmember Kendra Brooks asked Watlington about competitive salaries for teachers, paraprofessionals, custodial staff, and other school employees.

Watlington said he is “confident” the district has the resources to meet the district’s hiring demands, but he did not give data on the vacancy rate in the district.

“I would not have come to work as superintendent if I thought I was going to walk into a place that was going to implode,” Watlington said.

Still, he cautioned “we are going to continue to struggle” recruiting teachers in Philadelphia as the country battles an ongoing teacher shortage.

Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke asked what Watlington has heard in exit interviews the district has conducted when teachers leave their positions in the city. Watlington said the primary reasons teachers leave are low pay, a lack of support at the school level, and some struggles with classroom management.

Year-round school will start slowly

Councilmember Cindy Bass asked Watlington about ongoing plans for year-round school — one of Parker’s mayoral promises.

Watlington said for now, year-round-school will mostly resemble “beefed up” out-of-school opportunities and summer programming, but in the 2025-26 school year, the district will be piloting longer days and an extended academic year in some select schools.

Watlington would welcome forensic audit

During the six-hour hearing, councilmembers also asked about selective school admissions, improving communication between the district and public, and other issues.

Johnson asked if Watlington would “welcome” a forensic audit of the district, and Watlington said he would. Johnson also expressed an interest in involving more faith-based organizations in schools to help with students facing trauma due to gun violence.

On the district’s new $70 million curriculum package that launched this school year, 83% of teachers reported in a recent survey that they felt they are “equipped to deliver” it, Watlington said. But he also said that many teachers didn’t feel they had enough time with the new materials before the school year started. For the English Language Arts curriculum rollout scheduled for next academic year, the district is starting training now to prepare teachers. Training will also be offered in the summer, he said.

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

Philadelphia will stop the teacher shuffle between schools known as ‘leveling’

2024-04-16T18:36:13+00:00

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The Philadelphia school district will stop shifting teachers around between schools after the academic year starts, a dreaded practice known as “leveling,” Superintendent Tony Watlington announced Tuesday.

The longstanding procedure reassigns teachers based on actual enrollment for each school, instead of predicted enrollment. But teachers and parents have long complained that the annual teacher shuffle at the end of October disrupts and harms student progress as well as school stability.

This school year, 59 schools lost teachers under leveling, according to the district, and 88 teachers changed schools.

In a letter to parents and a video posted on social media Tuesday, Watlington said the district “will reallocate up to $8.8 million from Central Office cuts and energy savings to fund the discontinuation of leveling in any schools or classrooms after the beginning of the school year.”

Christina Clark, a spokesperson for the district, said it’s the district’s intention to eliminate leveling permanently “unless there are significant funding reductions.” During the pandemic, the district suspended leveling only to bring it back.

“We are committed to investing in and protecting our classrooms to the extent we can,” Clark said in a statement.

To make sure that all schools are staffed appropriately from the outset, Watlington said the district will do more outreach to families over the summer to get more accurate enrollment data. If it can estimate more precisely how many students actually show up, it can make sure that enough teachers are assigned to each school, he said.

Education, city officials and parents welcomed Watlington’s news.

“We’re relieved and excited that the district and Superintendent Watlington listened to the parents and community members’ cries to stop leveling,” said Emily Pugliese, co-president of the Houston Elementary Home and School Association, Philadelphia’s equivalent of a PTA; Houston lost a teacher through leveling last October. “We’re really hopeful we’ll see the end of it forever and our students won’t have to go through the damaging process of losing a teacher and being in a classroom with too many kids.”

Why parents worry about the teacher shuffle

During the leveling process, some schools gain teachers, if their enrollment has been underestimated, and others lose them if it has been overestimated.

Because teachers are allotted according to strict class size limits — 30 students in grades K-3 and 33 above that — the lack of two or three students could mean the difference between losing a teacher and keeping one. It could mean the difference, for example, between having two fifth grade classes with 17 students each, or one with 33.

But due to requirements of the teachers contract, if a school loses a position, which teacher relocates has been based on seniority rather than on a principal’s judgment. This meant that if the fifth grade was not large enough to support two teachers, it would be the second grade teacher who has less seniority who is reassigned, resulting in disruption for more than just fifth grade students.

The leveling practice also doesn’t take into account whether the rising fifth grade in the school is large enough to accommodate two teachers the following year, leading to further instability.

The practice has occurred in Philadelphia since the 1970s, but in recent years there have been efforts to dial it back. The district suspended leveling during the pandemic but resumed it in 2022.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan said Tuesday that Watlington’s decision would promote school and classroom stability. Katherine Gilmore Richardson, the City Council’s Democratic majority leader, issued a statement saying she supported the district’s decision, as did Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, the chair of the education committee.

“I have spoken with countless families on how their children have been impacted by leveling,” Gilmore Richardson said, adding that smaller class sizes in early grades were particularly beneficial for students of color and those from low-income families.

The district’s federal pandemic aid is ending and it faces a budget shortfall without significant funding increases. But the $8.8 million cost Watlington said is sufficient to stop leveling is a tiny fraction of the district’s $4.5 billion budget, and he made sure to say the money was coming from savings elsewhere. The district cannot raise its own funds and is dependent on the city and the state for most of its revenue.

In the midst of a statewide teacher shortage, the district started this school year with more than 200 vacancies for teacher positions, although it’s not clear how many of those positions have remained vacant throughout the year.

Clark said the district started this school year with “the most teachers of any fall in the last eleven years, and our teacher applications for open positions is significantly higher than this time last year.” She said Watlington’s team is confident the rate of filled positions will be even higher in the fall. Clark did not say whether the district has filled all its vacancies for this year.

Leveling has long been a sore subject for parents who say the practice harms students and is something the district should be able to avoid.

During testimony to the City Council in February, Seleny Fernandez, a parent of a 7-year-old at Clara Barton Elementary School, testified in City Council about her concerns that leveling had on her children’s education.

“A lot of those kids, they have big problems learning,” Fernandez said, “And then if you [take] away their teachers, what is going to happen? More problems.”

Fernandez’s husband, Luis Ramirez, told the council that at Clara Barton, their daughter was regularly in classes of 28 kids or more. He argued that this situation in the richest nation in the world “cannot be a money problem.”

“As a concerned parent, I get emotional because my daughter is in this mess,” Fernandez also said.”To me leveling is the same thing as looting. The school district is coming to my school and looting us of the most valuable resources.”

This story has been updated to include comments from a spokesperson for the school district.

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.

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

Philadelphia Mayor Parker’s ‘enhanced’ safety plan for schools relies heavily on police

2024-04-11T20:55:57+00:00

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Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker marked her first 100 days in office by unveiling a public safety plan that includes increasing police presence in and around schools and social media surveillance.

Speaking at Russell Conwell Middle School in Kensington on Thursday, Parker released her 53-page plan which focuses on strategies to reduce gun violence citywide. Those strategies include hiring more police officers, expanding and deepening community partnerships between police and residents, and modernizing police technology.

She said her plan is an effort to “make good on the promise” that she made to Philadelphians during her campaign: to “deliver a government that they can see, touch, and feel in the neighborhoods where they live where they can see their tax dollars at work.”

Parker’s focus on addressing gun violence comes in the wake of two shootings last month that killed one Philadelphia student and injured ten others near their schools. Two groups of young people were also responsible for a shooting in a West Philly park this week.

“It is our mission to stop gun violence in Philadelphia once and for all,” said Adam Geer, Parker’s chief public safety director. “I will not rest until that work is done.”

Here’s what’s in Parker’s so-called “enhanced school safety plan”:

It adds more police in and around schools. The plan says these officers will be “additional specialized unit personnel” that will be paired with existing officers assigned to schools to “enhance deployment and visibility” during dismissal times at “high priority schools across the city in 13 police districts.” Those schools were not named in the plan.
Those 13 police districts are expected to get “upwards of two to three officers and supervisors” from specialized units at each school from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily through June 2024.
Noting that “gun violence in our schools …. often begins online,” Parker’s plan says the Philadelphia Police Department will be increasing its social media monitoring efforts to “possibly preempt shootings before they occur.”

Parker also reiterated her calls for “year-round school,” which she and her Chief Education Officer Debora Carerra said has the potential to reduce crime. Young people are less likely to get in trouble if they are engaged in positive activities in school, Carerra said.

Though gun violence in Philadelphia declined last year overall, shootings involving young people have been rising steadily since 2015, according to police data released Thursday. The percentage of people arrested who are 18 or younger has risen from 7% in 2015 to 11% so far this year.

Every year since 2020, 80% of young shooting victims in the city have been students, according to a gun violence data analysis by the school district included in Parker’s plan.

That analysis also shows students are more likely to be shot during weekdays between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. And the majority of student gunshot victims were shot in five of Philadelphia’s 48 ZIP codes — all in North and West Philadelphia. The district also found students are more likely to be shot closer to school than to their homes.

Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, who was formerly chief of school safety at the school district, said at Thursday’s event that part of his expanded community policing initiative will include closer partnerships with schools to divert young people from ever entering the juvenile justice system.

Dale Mezzacappa contributed to this report.

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

Parker’s picks for Philly school board back her vision for year-round school, longer days

2024-04-02T22:24:45+00:00

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Mayor Cherelle Parker introduced her nine nominees for the Philadelphia Board of Education Tuesday, saying they represent the diversity of talent, experience, backgrounds, and neighborhoods needed to bring Philadelphia’s school district into a “new era.”

Shaping the school board “is the most important decision I have to make,” she said.

“The unifying factor of the nine, they put children first, they all had that in common.”

Parker, whose picks must now be approved by the City Council, opted Monday to nominate four current members and name five new people.

Seven current members had sought reappointment, but she decided to replace Leticia Egea-Hinton, Lisa Salley, and Cecelia Thompson.

The new board, slated to take office May 1, will face major challenges in a district that has long struggled to provide a quality education to all its students, many of whom come from families in poverty and from neighborhoods plagued by violence. On Tuesday, Parker highlighted aging facilities and a teacher shortage as two such issues facing the board.

Any plan for improving schools needs to include “facilities modernization … more career and technical training, and quite frankly a diverse and a stable teacher workforce that gets the respect that it deserves,” Parker said.

Parker also spoke highly of Superintendent Tony Watlington, who was at her side during the event. She made it clear that she approved of his leadership and wants him to stay.

“I have been impressed with his innovative thinking, also the competitiveness when he describes the potential of the School District of Philadelphia to be the largest fast-improving school district in the nation,” she said. “You have to have that kind of belief in our young people and the people that keep our educational system going.”

Parker also reiterated her commitment to seeing through major education proposals she made during her 2023 campaign: a longer school day and year-round school. Her board choices echoed that priority as they were introduced, even though there has been scant discussion of how much that might cost and how to do it with a teacher shortage. Watlington has said that he plans to create a pilot program in 15 schools next year.

“I am particularly motivated by the concept of year-round schooling,” said Joan Stern, one of Parker’s nominees who would be a new member. Board veteran Joyce Wilkerson said she looked forward to “enriching supports for students before and after school and throughout the year.”

Parker noted that the state has a $14 billion surplus that could be used to provide more education aid to Philadelphia and other districts. She has also proposed increasing the city’s share of school funding by giving the district a higher percentage of property tax revenue.

She and her nominees also expressed optimism. Parker and Watlington pointed out that the dropout rate has been decreasing, and that Philadelphia has made greater strides than most districts in rebounding from pandemic learning loss.

Learn more about Parker’s Board of Education nominees and hear their comments from Tuesday’s press conference below, beginning with the five nominees who would be new to the board.

Crystal Cubbage

“I want to serve because too much intellect, creativity and raw talent in my hometown goes unrealized,” said Cubbage, the executive director of the Philadelphia Learning Collaborative.

Cubbage is an engineer who has worked at NASA and taught physics in public and private schools.

Cheryl Harper

Harper, a former teacher who worked for the district in human resources, said that she planned to see for herself what is happening in schools.

“I intend to go out into the community and sit down with principals and teachers … and talk about the things they are doing that are positive,” Harper said. “We’ve already lost part of a generation, and we need to be able to keep what we have.”

To do this, she said, it is important “to recruit the best and brightest teachers.”

Wanda Novales

Wanda Novales, who taught and led schools in the district, founded and was principal of the Pan American Charter School in Kensington, which uses the International Baccalaureate curriculum. She is now the executive pastor of City Reach Church and described her own experience as a child in an under-resourced Kensington school after moving to Philadelphia from Puerto Rico and not speaking English.

“I have found that no matter the type of school or neighborhood, a student’s progress and a parent’s hope is still the same,” she said.

Like Parker, Novales said that “I believe that we can work together to provide a standard of excellence for school buildings, even in poor neighborhoods like the one I went to school in.”

Joan Stern

Joan Stern is a finance attorney who worked for the city, state, and school district over a 50-year career. Stern was instrumental in the founding of the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, or PICA. Parker called her “the mother of Philadelphia’s fiscal stability.”

Stern said she was “particularly motivated by the concept of year-round schooling and making capital improvements that give children the best places to study at any time of the year.

She also said that “public education is a public good,” and that all taxpayers are responsible to pay for it, “whether they have children in the system or not.”

Whitney Jones

Whitney Jones said he started his career on Wall Street, but realized that wasn’t for him, and pivoted to working with non-profit organizations to shore up their finances. He has worked for charter school networks and is now chief financial officer at the Children Crisis Treatment Center.

“I decided to use my background to build generational community wealth,” he said, and pass on the “blessings” he gained from his own upbringing by parents who prioritized education.

Current Philadelphia board members also excited to continue

The four current members of the board nominated by Parker also spoke about why they wanted to continue serving.

ChauWing Lam described her own background as an immigrant and how she sometimes had to miss school to help her parents run their restaurant. “School was where I was given opportunities,” she said.

Sarah-Ashey Andrews, the board’s youngest member and a public school graduate, said she was concerned about equity. “I was the little girl from North Philly who didn’t necessarily have the opportunity of quality schools in my neighborhood,” she said.

Wilkerson led the board from 2018 to to 2023, and prior to that chaired the School Reform Commission, which ran the district when it was under state control. She said she applied to stay on because “continuity” is key, and that “how we govern the district in coming years will play a huge role in children’s outcomes for decades to come.”

And Reginald Streater, the current board president, said to Parker that he is “looking forward to promoting your vision,” including year-round school, teacher retention and recruitment, repairing school buildings, “and educating the whole child.”

An attorney, Streater is a graduate of Germantown High School whose family experienced housing insecurity when he was growing up.

“I am a living testament to the transformative power of education in Philadelphia,” he said.

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

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker picks 5 new members for school board

2024-04-01T18:13:19+00:00

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Mayor Cherelle Parker is pushing to remake the Philadelphia Board of Education by appointing five new people to the nine-member body, including two with strong past ties to charter schools and organizations.

But Parker, who released her nine appointees on Monday, also wants to keep the board’s president, Reginald Streater, along with three other current members.

The new names Parker chose are:

Crystal Cubbage, a former teacher and executive director for the Philadelphia Learning Collaborative.
Cheryl Harper, a former Philadelphia district employee and distinguished educator for the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
Whitney Jones, the chief financial officer at Children’s Crisis Treatment Center who has also worked for the nationwide KIPP charter network and for a charter school consulting firm.
Wanda Novales, founding CEO and principal of Pan American Charter School.
Joan Stern, a public finance attorney and former special counsel for the district.

In addition to Streater, the current members chosen by Parker to stay on the board are Sarah-Ashley Andrews, Joyce Wilkerson, and ChauWing Lam.

Parker’s picks will now be submitted to the City Council, which will hold public hearings and vote on each nominee. If the council confirms her picks, as is generally expected, then the new board will take office May 1 to start four-year terms.

The Philadelphia school board has the power to drive education decisions in the city including voting on and monitoring the district’s $4.5 billion budget, hiring the superintendent, and influencing curriculum decisions including the purchase of new materials. It also has the power to authorize new charter schools, close underperforming ones, and expand charter seats.

Education advocates have been watching Parker’s decisions closely to see whether her administration would preside over a new era for charter school expansion. Since regaining local control from the state in 2018, the school board has not approved a new charter school but has allowed current charters to grow by more than 2,000 seats.

“I said I wanted a school board with a diversity of skills, from different neighborhoods, sectors and communities, some with deep knowledge, some with new ideas, a group that truly reflects my vision of One Philly, a United City,” Parker said in a statement Monday. “I’m confident we’ve assembled that board.”

Current members Leticia Egea-Hinton, Cecelia Thompson, and Lisa Salley sought to stay on the board and were among the 27 names submitted to Parker by the Educational Nominating Panel. But Parker didn’t reappoint them. Board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez and member Julia Danzy previously took themselves out of the running.

During her campaign last year, Parker indicated she may be open to growing the charter sector, which are publicly funded but privately run schools and enroll upwards of 70,000 students in the city. Thompson and Salley, who were not selected by Parker to continue on the board, voted several times in favor of renewing or approving new charter schools that other members opposed.

“I want quality seats and I don’t care where they are,” Parker said in an interview with Chalkbeat before the election, adding that she “will not allow anyone to act as if district-run and charter schools are warring factions.”

Alongside Superintendent Tony Watlington, the new board will also be tasked with determining what Parker’s promise for “year-round school” means in practice.

Watlington has said that he plans to start piloting year-round schooling this summer at 15 schools. At last week’s school board meeting, Watlington said plans for that pilot are still “under development” and he is “not yet ready to roll anything out.”

Parker said she would be appearing alongside her nominees in a press conference Tuesday. If confirmed, the new board picked by Parker will have seven women and two men.

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

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

Here’s who could be chosen for the new Philadelphia Board of Education

2024-03-13T00:06:34+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education will have at least two new members, according to a list of candidates submitted to Mayor Cherelle Parker.

The 13-member Education Nominating Panel voted to approve its shortlist of 27 finalists at a public meeting Tuesday evening. The list includes former teachers and administrators, education advocates, business leaders, and labor union officials and appears to represent a range of ages and neighborhoods.

Otis Bullock Jr., chair of the panel, said the group was “just looking for diversity all around the board.”

“You need some folks on here with some gravitas … and legislative experience,” Bullock said. He added if the school district is looking to legislators in Harrisburg for additional funding for the cash-strapped district, “you need some folks that know how to do that.”

Parker’s board picks will have the power to set the education agenda in the nation’s eighth largest school district. Board members can authorize or deny new charter schools, hire and evaluate superintendents, guide curriculum decisions, and approve the district’s $4.5 billion budget.

Seven of the names on the panel’s list are current board members, but board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez and Julia Danzy were not on the list. Earlier this month, Fix-Lopez unexpectedly announced she would be resigning, and Danzy had previously indicated she would not be reapplying.

Which candidates Parker chooses to sit on the board — in conjunction with her budget proposal expected to be released on Thursday — will signal her education priorities for the city.

Parker has indicated she may be more open to expanding the charter school sector than her predecessor Jim Kenney. The school board has not approved a new charter school since 2018. Charters, which are publicly funded but privately run, now educate upwards of 70,000 students in Philadelphia, about a third of those enrolled in tax-supported city schools.

Indeed, many of the public comments at Tuesday’s meeting included calls for more charter seats and resources for those schools, a fair authorization process, and an end to charter school closures.

Many of the written comments, which were read aloud at the meeting, were identically worded, and echoed something Parker has said. She wants to eliminate the “us vs. them mentality” between district-run and charter schools.

Despite speculation that Parker’s nominating panel would try to load the shortlist with pro-charter activists, few of the 27 people on the list appear to have direct or deep connections to charter schools.

This is the first full school board nomination process since 2018, when former Mayor Kenney chose his nine appointees to replace the School Reform Commission. It had governed the city school district since 2001, when the state took over the district citing financial and academic distress. Since then, Kenney appointed a few additional members to replace some who resigned.

Lee Huang, a former board member, said Tuesday he would not “sugarcoat” that serving on the board was challenging at times. The position is unpaid, demanding, and comes with intense public scrutiny.

“It was long hours …. and you’ll get yelled at,” Huang said. “That’s part of the job.”

Parker will choose nine people (or request more names if she is not happy with the 27) and send those to City Council, which will hold public hearings. With its approval, the board members will take their seats starting May 1.

In alphabetical order, here’s the list. The mayor’s office provided biographies for each candidate.

Sarah-Ashley Andrews (current board member)
Nakia Carr
Timothy Crowther
Crystal Cubbage
Leticia Egea-Hinton (current board member)
Cindy Farlino
Mark Gittelman
Cheryl Harper
Keola Harrington
Michael Henderson
Jameika Id-Deen
David Irizarry
Dominique Johnson
Whitney Jones
ChauWing Lam (current board member)
Letisha Laws
Maddie Luebbert
Colleen McCauley
Cheryl Mobley-Stimpson
Wanda Novales
Michelle Palmer
Lisa Salley (current board member)
Marisa Shaaban
Joan Stern
Reginald Streater (current board president)
Cecelia Thompson (current board member)
Joyce Wilkerson (current board member)

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

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

Philadelphia teachers protest punishments for taking non-consecutive sick days

2024-02-29T23:55:53+00:00

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Philadelphia teachers fed up with a district policy that penalizes them for taking contractually guaranteed sick days decided to share their feelings publicly this week.

About 50 district employees rallied outside the Philadelphia school district headquarters ahead of the school board meeting on Thursday, demanding the district withdraw its policy that disciplines teachers for accumulating non-consecutive sick days, even though the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers’ contract with the district includes 10 sick days.

The rally represents an escalation by educators who are unhappy with the policy, which is also known as the occurrence policy or “3-5-7-9,” and comes after a year-long campaign organized by the Caucus of Working Educators, which is a group within the union. Nearly 2,000 PFT members, out of roughly 13,000 total members, signed a petition from the caucus against the policy.

Chanting teachers wore red union T-shirts and held custom signs declaring things like: “3-5-7-9 is dehumanizing.”

Charlie Hudgins, an algebra teacher at Lincoln High School who attended the rally, said the policy just “doesn’t make sense.” Hudgins is one of a number of teachers who have expressed showing up to school unwell to avoid discipline.

This week, Hudgins said he was hit with a stomach bug. He went in anyway, with a fever and a face mask. “I didn’t want anyone to give me any trouble for it,” Hudgins said.

In a statement to Chalkbeat, the district said that “the goal of these conversations is to encourage attendance and provide support when needed.” It also said suspension or termination for poor attendance is “extremely rare” and that no teacher “should come to work when they are sick.”

At Thursday’s board meeting, Superintendent Tony Watlington said, “We do not expect any teacher to come to school with the flu or to ignore a personal or family emergency ... for any teacher in the district who feels like they’ve been treated inappropriately …make that known in writing.”

Last January, Watlington told the Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board that the policy could be revised. The teachers union reached a tentative agreement with the district on a new contract this week, but it doesn’t include any changes to the occurrence policy, according to the union.

A single occurrence is one instance of taking sick time — taking one to three sick days in a row counts as one occurrence. If a teacher takes a sick day on a Tuesday, comes in on Wednesday, and takes another sick day on Thursday, that counts as two occurrences.

The occurrence policy features gradually escalating punishments for non-consecutive sick days.

After three occurrences, the policy directs administrators to hold an informal meeting with the teacher and give them a memo. By five occurrences, an administrator leaves a “warning memo” in the employee’s file. After seven occurrences, the teacher attends a formal meeting and gets a formal write-up in their file. By the ninth occurrence, the instructor receives another formal write-up, a suspension recommendation, and meetings with a principal and another higher-level administrator.

Any more absences could lead to suspension or termination.

The Caucus of Working Educators has been sharing teachers’ experiences on its social media pages, too. According to the posts, one teacher was “docked occurrences” for using sick days for cancer treatment, another was warned after taking sick days for prenatal appointments. And one instructor was penalized for taking sick time after their mother died.

Shira Cohen, a seventh grade math teacher at Feltonville School of Arts and Sciences and the school’s union representative, said the district’s description of the policy contradicts how it looks in practice.

“We work in a really punitive district, despite all of the messaging that they might put out,” Cohen said.

Cohen said she has often avoided scheduling doctors appointments over health concerns. “I was constantly in fear of this occurrence policy,” Cohen said. “I was not well. I couldn’t do my job.”

Cohen and Hudgins both said the policy drives teachers to leave the job. The district had close to 400 vacancies at the start of this school year.

Dan Reyes, an organizer with Caucus of Working Educators, said to the crowd at Thursday’s rally that “it’s a damn shame” that it isn’t addressed in the tentative contract, “but we aren’t going to wait for someone else to address it.”

The district also said in its statement this week it will “review” its processes related to the occurrence policy after this school year.

All of the school board members declined Chalkbeat’s request for comment. But during a December meeting, board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez said the policy “de-professionalizes the space that teachers work in.”

The overall message it sends to teachers, Cohen said, is: “Your health does not matter ... your humanity is not a priority to us.”

Correction: Feb. 29, 2024: A previous version of this story referred to the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers as the source of the petition against the occurrence policy. The petition came from the Caucus of Working Educators.

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s monthly text updates on the Philadelphia Board of Education

2024-01-23T14:57:46+00:00

Want to stay up to date on the latest news from the Philadelphia Board of Education and be able to text all your school board questions to Chalkbeat’s journalists? Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free texting service.

Our bureau sifts through agendas and documents, attends board meetings, and interviews Philly leaders, educators, and community members before and after the meetings. We report the important school board votes and decisions and tell the stories of the people affected by those decisions.

And with our texting service, you’ll always stay in the loop on the latest Philadelphia school board news.

This is one more way our team works to keep you informed, spark conversation, and inspire you to take action. Our team wants to hold district officials accountable for doing right by their students while also sharing what’s important to students, parents, and teachers.

Here’s how it works:

Sign up by texting SCHOOL to 215-709-9650 or enter your phone number into the box below.

Once you sign up, you’ll get a reminder text before each meeting plus a text after the meeting with the relevant news, and an occasional text when there is additional school board news.

Plus, the texts are a direct line to our journalists. If you have questions you don’t see the answers to, you can text back and ask us.

The Philadelphia school board typically meets the last Thursday of every month at 440 N. Broad Street, Philadelphia, 19130. You can learn more about the board, view its meeting schedule, and learn about public comment here.

Caroline Bauman is the deputy managing editor of engagement at Chalkbeat. Reach her at cbauman@chalkbeat.org.

North Philadelphia hails opening of T.M. Peirce, its first new public school building in 70 years

2023-12-21T20:12:57+00:00

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It was, Kendra Brooks said, a long fight.

She and other activists had advocated for years for a new school in their North Philadelphia neighborhood to replace the old T.M. Peirce Elementary building, which was built in 1909. But their pleas went unheeded — until a building engineer discovered flaking asbestos, causing community outcry.

Similar conditions at other schools have led to prolonged building shutdowns recently. In T.M. Peirce’s case, the district determined that the old building was so full of hazards like lead and mold that it had to be demolished. The Board of Education voted in September 2021 to replace it.

And on Wednesday, officials including outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney, Board of Education members, and Superintendent Tony Watlington celebrated the opening of a modern, $44 million school in one of the city’s most challenged neighborhoods, where about a third of residents live below the poverty line.

Peirce teachers and students will start using the new building in January, right after the holiday break. They have been located so far this school year in the nearby Pratt Elementary School, which closed in 2013 but has been retrofitted to serve as “swing space” while other schools undergo renovation or construction.

In fact, the new T.M. Peirce Elementary is the first new school built in North Philadelphia in 70 years, Watlington pointed out. (As of last year, the average public school building in the city was over 70 years old.)

“This school building says something about what we value for our students,” he said Wednesday.

Zamyrah Wicks, 8, left, and Ayaan Cole, 8, at the new T.M. Peirce Elementary School on Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023, in Philadelphia. Officials hailed the new school building as a big step forward for North Philadelphia.

The building at 22nd and West Cambria Street can accommodate 625 students in grades K-6, and features furniture and rooms designed for collaborative work, as well as an auditorium and cafeteria with all the most modern amenities.

The message to the students, Kenney and other officials said, was that they matter as much as those in affluent areas “like Lower Merion and Radnor.”

City Councilmember Cindy Bass grew up in the neighborhood, and described as a student moving from school to school as one after another closed. Now, she said, this state-of-the-art school “is the standard” for education. T.M. Peirce Principal Anthony Gordon called it “a historical moment in North Philadelphia.”

Kenney used the ceremony to tout the $1.5 billion increase in city funding for schools during his tenure. Board of Education President Reginald Streater called the new school a “down payment” that would help future generations.

And State Sen. Sharif Street called the investment a matter of educational equity, citing the recent Commonwealth Court ruling that the school funding system in Pennsylvania is unconstitutional and inequitable for low-income areas like the community around Peirce. .

“Our young people are worth it. They deserve this building,” said.

Meanwhile, architect Kevin Blackney, whose firm designed the building, said that the school was designed by the community. “You don’t know how rewarding that is,” he said.

Members of the Dobbins High School marching band serenaded the crowd at the festive ceremony.

Among those in attendance was Joan Monahan, 88, who graduated sixth grade from Peirce in 1946 after serving as the leader of the student body, she said. Her daughter designed the child-friendly furniture at the new school.

Brooks worked with Sylvia Simms, Quibila Divine, and Shakeda Gaines as part of a formidable contingent of North Philadelphia women to get the new T.M. Peirce built. Their fight rippled across the city’s politics and civic life.

In 2017, Brooks rode the campaign, as well as other battles on behalf of children in the neighborhood, to a seat on the City Council, where she still serves.

Simms’ advocacy got her an appointment to the School Reform Commission, which ran the district when it was under state control until 2017, where she continued to fight for a new school. Divine now works to help homeless citizens through the Urban Affairs Coalition, and Gaines is a deputy chief of staff in Brooks’ council office.

Speakers at Wednesday’s ceremony acknowledged their presence and their role. “We never gave up,” said Simms after the ceremony.

Students filled up the first two rows of seats in the auditorium after the ceremonial ribbon cutting in their spiffy navy blue uniforms with a logo on the chest that read: “T.M. Peirce, 21st Century Learning.”

“This is a first class, state-of-the-art facility just for you,” Brooks told them. “Take advantage of it.”

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

This is the Pennsylvania tax break that keeps causing controversy on Philadelphia’s school board

2023-12-13T22:07:07+00:00

Some of the biggest and best-known development projects in Philadelphia are powered in part by a state tax break called the Keystone Opportunity Zone.

The Navy Yard in South Philly, Schuylkill Yards in University City, and the massive new Bellwether District at the former PES refinery are all part of the program, which was created in the late 1990s to spur redevelopment of post-industrial buildings and properties around Pennsylvania.

What does the program do? In short, KOZs eliminate almost all state and local taxes for the owners of the designated parcels and businesses in the zones.

State officials have described it as “one of the nation’s boldest and most innovative economic and community development programs.” Supporters say it’s an essential tool for clearing blight, reinvigorating dormant land that might otherwise be too expensive to redevelop, and inducing employers to come to or remain in Pennsylvania rather than being enticed to other states with their own generous incentive programs.

How well it accomplishes those goals, and at what cost, is unclear.

While the program is overseen by the state Department of Community and Economic Development, no one keeps track of exactly how many new jobs it creates, or how much lost tax revenue the KOZs cost each year.

With few obligations attached to the designation, many property owners receive tax abatements for a decade or longer while their sites remain partly or wholly undeveloped.

Initially just an effort to revive 12 properties across the commonwealth, the program has morphed into a huge program covering more than 2,000 parcels, including some that were already being developed or are in economically booming neighborhoods.

There are currently 287 zones in Philadelphia, according to the city Department of Commerce. Their use as a general-purpose economic development incentive has led to battles over designations that seemed to favor one politically connected developer over another — and some have criticized it for threatening to sap the school district of badly needed tax revenues.

From a dozen to thousands of tax breaks

Inspired by a similar program in Michigan, the Pennsylvania Legislature created the Keystone Opportunity Zone program in 1998, under Gov. Tom Ridge. The initial legislation created 12 areas, before subsequent legislation permitted many more.

The property owners get a real estate tax abatement, and businesses located on KOZs don’t have to pay most state and local taxes for the period of designation, which is usually between 10 and 15 years and can be renewed. (In Philadelphia, however, they do have to pay the wage tax for employees.)

Each designation area must be approved by the state — and by local entities that stand to lose tax revenue. In Philadelphia, that’s City Council and the Board of Education.

Over time, the rules for KOZs were eased.

For example, the original law required a company located in a KOZ to either boost employment by 20% or invest at least 10% of its previous year revenue to receive the tax abatements. After the turn of the millennium, that rule was changed. To get the tax break, a tenant firm had only to sign a lease covering the duration of the zone and spend at least 5% of the previous year’s revenue on rent.

State: It’s impossible to collect data to assess the program cost

The KOZ program is often criticized for poor transparency and accountability, and a lack of clarity about how to measure its success. The state initially hired the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy in Pittsburgh to monitor the program but ended the arrangement in 2002.

“They weren’t really interested in whether it did any good, and that’s a shame,” the institute’s president Jake Haulk later told the Inquirer.

In 2009, a state legislative committee tried to review the program, but ended up without a firm conclusion — saying that the Department of Community and Economic Development didn’t provide reliable data.

The DCED claimed the program had created 63,966 new jobs and retained over 48,158 jobs, but reviewers concluded the data was “substantially overstated and not supportable.” The agency didn’t calculate the program’s cost in lost taxes, and declined to release the value of tax credits received by a sample of KOZ participants.

The committee report also noted that, 10 years into the program, about 70% of approved KOZ acreage statewide remained undeveloped and many participants “received KOZ benefits without having to create jobs or generate capital investment.”

Philadelphia had 2,755 KOZ acres at the time, of which 53% were undeveloped.

State officials said it would be expensive and difficult to collect tax data for all of the state’s hundreds of KOZs, and impossible to disentangle the program’s job-creation and development effects from those of other incentive programs.

City: Yes, but we can estimate — and it could take 50 years to pay off

One of the few substantial efforts to analyze KOZs — at least those in Philadelphia — was conducted in 2014 by then-City Controller Alan Butkovitz.

He concluded that the program created a major tax burden for a meager return, WHYY’s PlanPhilly reported. It had so far cost the city and school district more than $380 million in abated business and property taxes, he found, while netting $132 million in wage taxes from 617 participating businesses.

More than 70% of that came from businesses that were already paying wage taxes before, rather than new enterprises.

By analyzing tax data, Butkovitz calculated the KOZs had created 3,700 jobs, with the city waiving more than $100,000 in tax revenue for each one. At an average salary of $50,000 per job, it would take more than 50 years of wage taxes for those new jobs to pay for themselves.

Like the state legislative committee, the controller concluded that “the records necessary to provide adequate oversight of the KOZ program largely do not exist.”

IRS rules barred the city from releasing participants’ tax bills, and the only direct data on job creation was self-reported by the businesses.

The city’s Department of Commerce also commissioned a report in 2019 on the program’s costs and benefits.

From 2008 and 2017 Philadelphia had foregone between $40 million and $125 million each year in two types of business taxes, the BIRT and NPT, or $645 million total in 2019 dollars, the report said. A breakdown of the 2016 data showed that financial services firms received 70% of the BIRT abatements that year.

When other types of taxes were included, the total value of abatements over those 10 years was $627 million, while city revenues from wage, sales and other taxes from the KOZ businesses was $462 million, the analysis found. Looking over a 15-year period, the report projected $676 million in revenues, or $49 million more than the KOZs cost, and argued that meant the city would see a 10% return on its investment.

The larger businesses in KOZs together reported employing the equivalent of 9,025 full-time employees, the report said. That figure was not independently verified, and the report did not say how many of those were newly created jobs.

The study concluded that KOZ status had some influence on where businesses decided to locate, but the financial services firms that received most of the benefit created few jobs and there was no mechanism for ensuring participants delivered broader public benefits beyond developing the parcels.

It recommended approving KOZs only where new development would not occur anyway; providing prospective tenants with clearer estimates of the benefits of locating in a KOZ; changing laws to allow cities to offered tailored payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) plans to KOZ businesses; and limiting use of the program by companies that produce few jobs. The city has since established PILOTs for some of its KOZs to compensate for the loss of school district revenues.

What defines ‘blight’ when applying for a tax break?

Around 2004, Gov. Ed Rendell proposed designating proposed office tower projects in Philadelphia as KOZs, provoking a stormy debate.

Critics argued using the designation for downtown office towers would benefit politically connected developers and wealthy law firms, favor new buildings over old ones, and continue to move jobs around rather than boosting overall employment.

At the time, there were at least 112 existing KOZ properties in Philadelphia exempted from real estate taxes, per the Inquirer. Many companies had relocated to the zones from elsewhere in Philly, not from outside the city. Their combined assessed value was $38 million, which would translate to $3.2 million in foregone annual property taxes. The city’s total property tax collections that year were close to $900 million.

Only the future Cira Centre next to 30th Street Station ended up getting the designation that year.

Comcast’s planned tower at 17th and JFK Boulevard was denied KOZ status, but it received a reported $43 million in other state subsidies, and was built anyway.

In 2011, after Philadelphia’s first set of KOZs expired, an Inquirer analysis found that most of the job growth the state attributed to them came from just one site — a Marshall’s distribution center near Philadelphia Northeast Airport that employed 1,500 people. With the KOZs’ expiration, the tenant businesses would start paying $6.3 million in new property taxes.

By 2016, when there were close to 150 KOZ properties in Philadelphia, City Council passed a bill to add 80 more.

Critics noted that some of the new zones were already slated for redevelopment while others were in University City and other economically booming areas where tax stimulus was arguably not needed.

Council also approved then-Councilmember Helen Gym’s bill requiring KOZs to report how much subsidy they receive, the number of jobs they create and other information. Gym said the goal was to ensure the KOZs were creating jobs rather than just shifting them from place to place.

Lobbying reverses 382 board denials

Proposals to create or extend KOZs continue to generate pushback when they come before the Philadelphia school board.

In 2018, another 68 parcels in Philly were added despite concerns that many were not blighted. The Frankford Arsenal Complex in Northeast Philly, for example, was already developed and had recently sold for $6 million.

In an effort to protect education funding, the owners of those particular properties agreed to make payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOTs, that were 10% higher than the usual amount of property taxes reserved for the schools.

In 2020, the school board initially rejected a 10-year extension for part of the former South Philly refinery, where Hilco Redevelopment Partners is building the Bellwether District. After Hilco vowed to provide jobs for graduates of city schools, a dissenting board member changed her vote, and the extension was approved.

Another controversy arose in 2020 when a wealthy law firm, Dechert LLP, sought a second round of KOZ tax breaks by moving from the Cira Centre, whose KOZ status had expired, into a planned building at Brandywine Realty Trust’s Schuylkill Yards office tower complex near 30th Street Station.

The state DCED argued that would defeat the law’s purpose of revitalizing distressed areas, but a court ruled the KOZ statute contained no restriction on zone-hopping and allowed the move to proceed.

This past August, the school board approved extensions of several KOZs but initially rejected one for the Arsenal property in Tacony. After lobbying by the developer and a visit to the site by some board members, the board again reversed itself and approved the extension.

This article has been updated with details from the 2019 city report.

Philadelphia school board reelects president, faces $407 million budget hole

2023-12-08T00:45:39+00:00

Philadelphia Board of Education President Reginald Streater will continue to lead the board for the time being — at least until mayor-elect Cherelle Parker makes her personnel decisions.

Streater and Board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez were re-elected to their positions in the board’s annual officer elections Thursday evening. Streater and Fix-Lopez both won with 6-2 votes. Streater and Fix-Lopez were first elected to their roles last year in a significant leadership shift for the board.

Board members Cecelia Thompson and Lisa Salley nominated and voted for each other for the roles of president and vice president respectively. Both members have previously raised concerns about the board’s transparency.

It’s unclear how long Streater and the rest of the board will keep their seats. Their terms expire when outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney leaves office in January. Parker will have the power to appoint all nine members of the board.

A spokesperson for Parker declined to comment Thursday. On the campaign trail, Parker would not say what she plans to do with the board, but told Chalkbeat she “will be looking for people with a deep commitment to our city, the children of our city, and [who] share my vision for public education in this city.”

Rough financial waters ahead for Philadelphia schools

Regardless of who’s on board for the next mayor’s term, they will be confronted with a multi-million dollar budget deficit.

Chief Financial Officer Michael Herbstman gave board members an updated five-year budget outlook for fiscal 2024 through fiscal 2028 that includes additional projections for new union contracts and other costs.

According to Herbstman, just before the pandemic, the district was facing a looming deficit of nearly $300 million due to years of “insufficient funding” from the city and state. Through “effective and efficient use,” of federal pandemic funding, “the district temporarily delayed the inevitable,” Herbstman said. That led to a balanced budget in 2023 and the same projected for 2024.

But with that pandemic aid set to run out, the district is facing a $407 million budget gap for fiscal 2025. And Herbstman said that deficit is likely to grow every year, leading to a $702 million deficit projected for fiscal 2028.

Those projections could change if the state revamps its school funding formula. Earlier this year, a Commonwealth Court judge ordered the state to do so, in order to bring its funding system into constitutional compliance.

The school district has no taxing authority and is 99% dependent on state and city dollars for its operating fund, Herbstman said, meaning “how high we can climb” will depend on state and local officials.

Herbstman said if the state pitches in an additional $357 million and the city adds an additional $144 million in fiscal 2025, the district could make meaningful progress towards adequate school funding over the next five years.

Superintendent Tony Watlington said he and other district officials are trying to signal to state and city policymakers that “we are being good stewards of the public tax dollars,” in the hopes of securing increased funding in this coming year’s appropriations process. Watlington pointed to recent credit ratings reports that he said demonstrate the district is headed in a positive financial direction.

“We’re starting with the best financial investment grade credit rating that we’ve had in nearly a half century. That’s really important,” Watlington told reporters at a Thursday briefing.

The budgeting process will be “more transparent” this year, Watlington promised. He said their plan will involve more parents, students, and community members in the budgeting process through surveys and focus groups from November to March.

Board extends contract for reading services

The board also voted to approve an extension worth roughly $477,600 for the district’s contract with Curriculum Associates for the organization’s PHONICS for Reading instructional materials.

A note on the board’s website said the extension would go towards continuing to provide teachers and students with disabilities in grades 3-8 access to curriculum that’s “been successfully used” since last school year “to significantly improve the reading levels of students” in 77 schools.

Schools across the country have been reckoning with the way they teach students to read, and Philadelphia schools will be getting their own English language arts curriculum overhaul for all students starting next school year.

During the 2022-2023 school year, 2,010 students in 77 district schools had access to Phonics for Reading, according to district data. And those students “on average demonstrated significant improvements in reading fluency and comprehension, with many students moving up a grade level during this year,” the district said in its note

However, results from the most recent state standardized tests show the majority of district students are still not reading on grade level.

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

Philadelphia shares plan for relocating students and teachers if asbestos, floods close schools

2023-12-06T18:46:42+00:00

The School District of Philadelphia has shared 24 locations where students and teachers could be temporarily moved if damaged asbestos and other environmental hazards force schools to close.

The “swing space master plan” released Wednesday has been in the works for several months. It includes few details, but does feature a map of the temporary locations, which are mostly other school buildings that are either in use but have extra space, or have been closed but are still owned by the district. News that those locations were under consideration as swing spaces was first reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer in November.

Oz Hill, the district’s chief operating officer, said in a letter accompanying the plan that it will guide the district’s response to “environmental hazards such as asbestos abatement, mold remediation, building maintenance, repairs, or other safety concerns.”

Asbestos remediation has closed seven school buildings in Philadelphia since the start of the 2022-2023 year, and officials have warned more closures are likely still to come. The most recent closure was Southwark Elementary last month. District experts have said at least 293 of 300 Philadelphia district buildings contain asbestos — though they said the substance is not dangerous until disturbed.

The district has come under fire from parents and activists in the city who’ve demanded a more comprehensive and transparent approach to handling these school closures.

Hill said the new master plan comes with a commitment from the district to provide a “swift response,” “minimal disruption,” “transparent communication,” and swing spaces that have been “thoroughly assessed to meet safety standards.”

Marissa Orbanek, a spokesperson for the district, said in an email the plan could be used for anything “that renders a building temporarily unsuitable for in-person learning,” including flooding, repairs, asbestos or mold abatement, or building maintenance. It could also be used for “proactive work,” such as capital improvement projects.

Here are the locations the district will use to temporarily house students in the event of a closure:

Ada Lewis Middle School

Community College of Philadelphia’s Northwest Campus

Thomas Mifflin School

Martin Luther King High School

Roosevelt Elementary School

Austin Meehan Middle School

Washington High School

Conwell Middle Magnet School Annex

Feltonville Intermediate School

Mastbaum High School

Roberto Clemente Middle School

E. Washington Rhodes Elementary School

Penn Treaty School

Anna B. Pratt Elementary School

Strawberry Mansion High School

South Philadelphia High School

W. S. Peirce Elementary

McDaniel Annex

Bartram High School

Daroff Charter School

Robert E. Lamberton Elementary School

Morton McMichael School

Overbrook High School

Tilden Middle School

Below is a map of those locations, courtesy of the School District of Philadelphia.

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

Could an independent agency solve Philadelphia’s school facilities crisis?

2023-04-26T09:15:00+00:00

As Philadelphia schools face a growing asbestos crisis, one member of the City Council says ‘the moment is now’ to create an independent authority to handle school building construction and renovation instead of the school district.

Isaiah Thomas, who chairs the City Council’s education committee, told reporters he will introduce a resolution Thursday to hold hearings on creating such an authority.

Thomas said in a briefing on Tuesday he hopes having an independent body manage public school facilities would build trust with state lawmakers who have been wary about sending billions of dollars to repair and upgrade Philadelphia schools. And with state coffers flush with $8 billion in surplus funding for the upcoming budget cycle, Thomas said the city might not get another chance to get the money needed to update classrooms, remediate buildings laden with lead and asbestos, and build new and modern schools fit for students.

“If we can’t get this done in this budget cycle, I’m not sure that we’ll ever get the type of down payment that we need to really put a dent in the issue,” Thomas said. “If we wait until June, or July, it might actually be too late.”

Philly students, parents, and educators: How has asbestos in your school affected your educational experience? We want to hear your story.

Thomas’ proposal comes after several Philadelphia schools closed in recent weeks due to failing infrastructure that revealed damaged asbestos, and these disruptions have left families on edge. Superintendent Tony Watlington has said repeatedly the district anticipates more damaged asbestos will likely be found, but the possible scope of these shutdowns remains unclear. The asbestos problems underscore broader concerns about aging and decrepit facilities that have angered students and teachers for years. The average school building in the district is more than 70 years old.

The asbestos-driven closures have also created tension between the district and some city officials (including Thomas) who say school leaders haven’t been sufficiently transparent about the problem.

The school district had a non-committal response to Thomas’ proposal, saying it looks forward “to continuing discussions about how to improve our facilities because all students and staff should have access to 21st century learning spaces.”

The school district estimates it needs $4.5 billion to address the most pressing structural needs. Thomas is asking Harrisburg for $5 billion over five years to fix up schools, and he’s asking the district for a “safe facilities plan” detailing the building needs and costs to demonstrate how that $5 billion would be spent.

Thomas said many of the details regarding how the new authority would be staffed, managed, and funded will have to be worked out. Functionally, Thomas said it could look something like the energy authority in the city.

But Board of Education President Reginald Streater said in a Tuesday statement the board’s current partnership with the nonprofit Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation and the Philadelphia Authority For Industrial Development has been helping with school construction and facilities issues. Streater said the priority is to get more funding.

“With the infusion of more sustained, long-term funding the District has the opportunity to accelerate the work that needs to be done,” he said.

According to Thomas’ resolution, the new authority would have the ability to “bond and manage the school facilities” modernization process.

Thomas said his office is also in talks with “experts” to see how other cities and states have handled similar authorities, like New York City’s construction authority.

Across the Delaware River in New Jersey, the Schools Development Authority — an independent agency tasked with funding and managing construction for some of the poorest districts in the state — has been plagued by political scandals. The authority is also essentially out of money, and New Jersey lawmakers are now looking to overhaul it.

But Thomas said he is “optimistic” Philadelphia can get it right.

According to Thomas, some lawmakers in Harrisburg have been hesitant to spend more money to improve Philadelphia’s school buildings because the district has been accused of misspending money in the past, a charge the district has denied.

Thomas said what legislators want to see is “consistency” and a stable system that could guarantee money is spent responsibly.

“In order to get resources in this moment, we have to show Harrisburg a certain level of consistency, and reliability,” Thomas said.

Thomas’ proposed authority would build on an idea former Councilmember Maria Quiñones-Sánchez championed last year.

“We’re not going to pretend that this is a concept that we created,” Thomas said, “but what we are going to do is try to grab the bull by the horns and pull this thing across the finish line.”

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Video by WHYY Movers & Makers.

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

Philly board of education votes again to deny three charter renewals

2023-01-27T23:03:23+00:00

The Philadelphia Board of Education Thursday voted for a second time to deny renewal to three charter schools — including one that has been operating for 20 years and enrolls 1,800 students — citing concerns about potential conflicts of interest regarding their legal representation and management practices.

The nine-member board had voted nearly unanimously at its October meeting not to renew the charters of the three schools — First Philadelphia Prep Charter, Tacony Academy Charter, and Charter School for the Arts and Sciences at HR Edmunds — but made no comments at the time as to their reasons.

At Thursday’s meeting, the newly elected board president Reginald Streater made a lengthy statement outlining his objections, saying he had received feedback on the October meeting “from some members of the public, including from representatives of the impacted charter schools, suggesting I wasn’t clear. Tonight I want to elaborate.”

He didn’t say why a repeat vote was necessary, other than that his comments should be addressed to items that were on the agenda of that meeting.

“When charter schools and their charter management companies have overlapping board members or have the same legal counsel, I can’t help but question whether management fees, services, and termination provisions in these management agreements can be negotiated at arm’s length,” Streater said. “Ultimately, how are public funds being spent and what impact does this have on the educational services provided to students? Are adequate protections in place?”

Other board members didn’t speak, but the vote to deny the renewals was 7-1, with only Cecelia Thompson indicating she favored renewal. Julia Danzy was absent.

At the board’s October meeting, the votes against renewing First Philadelphia and Tacony were unanimous; the vote against renewing Edmunds was 8-1.

First Philadelphia and Tacony are managed by the charter management organization American Paradigm. Edmunds, a former district-run school converted to a charter under the Renaissance Schools initiative, is run by String Theory.

Although Streater didn’t name the firm, the law firm Sand and Saidel represents both the boards and the management companies at the three schools. All three schools also get financial services from the consulting firm Santilli & Thomson, which works closely with Sand and Saidel.

“I become concerned when I perceive charter schools’ losing autonomy to their charter management companies,” Streater said in his statement at the board meeting.

Lawyer: Charters ‘violated no law’

Sand and Saidel managing partner Daniel Saidel said in an interview with Chalkbeat that neither he nor the charter schools have violated any law or ethical principle and defended the arrangement as saving the schools money that can be applied to the children’s education.

In addition, he said, the schools signed a charter agreement given to them by the district, which subsequently sought to impose conditions.

“There’s no substance or evidence or findings of fact to show that somehow these kinds of relationships are nonviable” he said, or “illegal, immoral or unethical … Nothing was said that we did something wrong.” The denial was based on “opinion, not facts,” he said.

He pointed out that the charter schools, which are all in the northeast section of the city, can continue to operate under an expired charter.

The charter office had proposed that First Philadelphia and Tacony Academy be renewed for five years with conditions, and Edmunds for one. None of the schools fully meets academic standards set by the district, according to their most recent charter evaluations.

The summary of the charter agreements for all three schools, released as part of the meeting’s agenda before the vote, required “the submission of a conflict of interest policy that is in compliance with the Nonprofit Law and the Ethics Act and the submission [of] conflict waivers if legal counsel for the Charter School also represents the management organization for the Charter School.”

The charter office recommended First Philadelphia for a five-year renewal with conditions including the more explicit conflict of interest policy, clarity around student rights regarding expulsion, and the conduct of its admissions lottery. The K-12 school was founded in 2002 and has 1,800 students, making it one of the largest in the city, district or charter.

According to its most recent evaluation by the charter office, First Philadelphia approached academic standards for grades K-8, but failed to meet academic standards for 9-12

At the meeting, Teeona Crumpton said several of her family members who attended First Philadelphia over the last 20 years went on to college and successful careers. Her daughter is now a sixth grader there.

“This school gives youth a foundation in education that prepares them for a successful future,” she told board members. She said teachers have high expectations and students have access to arts programs, computers, tutors, and other resources.

Tacony, a K-12 school that opened in 2009, has 1,000 students. According to its evaluation, it meets academic standards for K-8, but not for 9-12. Its five-year renewal conditions were similar to those at First Philadelphia.

String Theory Edmunds, which the management company took over in 2012, is a K-8 school with 1,000 students. Its evaluation concluded that it did not meet academic standards, with scores on the Pennsylvania Performance Profile that fell below both the charter and district average.

District officials have expressed frustration that under Pennsylvania’s charter law, which has not been significantly revised since its adoption in 1997, charters can continue to operate under an expired charter unless the authorizing body moves to revoke it. By voting not to renew the charter, the board Thursday took a step in that direction.

Under the charter law, the school can appeal, with the final arbiter being the Charter Appeals Board based in Harrisburg. The cumbersome process can blunt incentive for schools and the district to reach agreement on many policies, especially complex and controversial ones around legal representation and admissions policies.

The three schools are already operating under expired charters, as Saidel pointed out. The School Reform Commission, which ran the district when it was under state control, did not act to renew these charters in 2017, when the last charters they signed in 2012 technically expired.

“This is not a new issue for the schools,” said one district official who spoke on background. “They are well aware of our issue. They have chosen not to resolve it.”

In his opening remarks, Streater also responded to criticism by elected officials to another controversial board action: its decision earlier this month to file a lawsuit against the city regarding a new ordinance that district officials say could delay the opening of school in September. The ordinance sets stricter occupancy standards for school buildings regarding asbestos and other potential environmental hazards.

After the lawsuit was filed, city officials said the district should have sought to resolve the issue through collaboration, not a lawsuit. Streater said Thursday that the district had done just that to no avail.

“This lawsuit was filed because our concerns have not been addressed,” he said.

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.

Philadelphia district seeking another consultant to help with restructuring

2022-12-09T22:03:58+00:00

Less than six months after hiring an outside firm for $450,000 to advise him on ways to improve the school district, Superintendent Tony Watlington is seeking to find another consultant to position Philadelphia “to be the fastest improving urban school district in the country,” according to a request for proposal obtained by Chalkbeat.

The document says the district seeks a consultant to review Philadelphia’s organizational structure to see how it compares to “the 25 largest urban school districts and the five urban school district[s] that are improving the fastest on The Nation’s Report Card.”

That refers to the biennial National Assessment of Educational Progress. Results released in October showed Philadelphia performing near the bottom among large urban school districts in 2022 in fourth grade math, eighth grade math, fourth grade reading, and eighth grade reading.

The district issued the request Dec. 6 and set a Jan. 17 deadline. The consultant would begin in April and work through April 2024.

Last April, Watlington and the board of education came under scrutiny for hiring the consulting firm Joseph and Associates to help with the leadership transition and aid in developing a five-year strategic plan. Joseph started work in June and will work through the end of this school year. The strategic plan is due next spring.

Watlington is conducting what he called a comprehensive, three-phase transition with committees charged with developing a five-year strategic plan by next spring. His transition team has made 91 recommendations for improving the district.

Some critics of the Board of Education and district policies wondered why yet another consultant is necessary.

“Why do we need more consultants and management companies and these out-of-town companies when we have a staff,” asked Lisa Haver of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, who regularly questions board and district policies.

But Michael Casserly, who retired after heading the Council of the Great City Schools for nearly three decades, said hiring consultants is common practice.

“My experience is that superintendents hire a variety of consulting firms for all kinds of things,” he said. They do it because they have a lean central office or are looking for an “outside more independent or objective review” in an effort to build public trust, or both, he said in an interview. “It’s really not that unusual.”

Watlington, who became Philadelphia’s school superintendent in June, has never run a district this large. He came from the Rowan-Salisbury school district in North Carolina, which had an enrollment of 18,000, a fraction of Philadelphia’s 119,000 students in district schools and 70,000 in charter schools. Before that he rose from custodian to history teacher to chief of schools in the 72,000-student Guilford County school system in Greensboro, North Carolina.

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 hits pause on blueprint for school building upgrades

2022-11-18T18:57:46+00:00

Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington said the district has paused the process it’s developed to decide on upgrades to school facilities, in order to align it more closely to the district’s future five-year strategic plan.

During a school board meeting Thursday, Watlington said the facilities planning process will be put on hold until the district adopts that strategic blueprint, but added that building work that’s already been approved will proceed.

The district’s “facilities planning process” sets long-term priorities for building and other infrastructure upgrades. In April, Philadelphia officials unveiled an interactive map that let people learn about specific conditions at neighborhood schools. And in May, the district announced public forums where people could discuss the best way to repair and upgrade the city’s aging public schools; the average Philadelphia school building is about 75 years old.

However, those moves occurred before Watlington took over as superintendent in mid-June. Since then, Watlington has focused much of his attention on trying to create that five-year roadmap for schools by — among other things — gathering input from the public and different groups and officials. The district aims to adopt that roadmap next year.

Watlington has a near-term goal of making Philadelphia one of the fastest improving large school districts, and a long-term goal of being the most improved.

Although district plans to upgrade facilities have stopped and restarted before, Watlington characterized the new pause as not just another delay.

“The difference now is that we are moving in a direction to be very clear about what our academic strategies will be,” he said Thursday.

For example, he said, if the district’s work on the five-year plan discovers a need for more advanced placement classes, career and technical education programs, or even a reconfiguration of the current K-8 structure into a middle-school format, that would dictate how and where money would be spent.

Watlington noted that he would “absolutely” consider the possibility of reconfiguring grades at schools if warranted.

“We have to take the time to identify the specific strategies and what we are going to do differently in the school district of Philadelphia to get much improved outcomes,” he said.

Here’s what Philadelphia parents think of Watlington’s listening sessions

2022-09-12T20:42:14+00:00

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

Not long after Philadelphia parent Stacey Mandel left a virtual listening session on July 27 with new Superintendent Tony Watlington, she found herself asking: Were Watlington and other school district leaders actually listening?

What spurred that question was a follow-up email she got asking her what specific actions she would like to see from the district. But the email came from a woman at a public relations firm working on behalf of the district, not the district itself.

“It’s being handled by PR professionals, not educators. The language used in parent communications sounds beautiful, but feels like smoke and mirrors,” Mandel said of the process, adding, “She asked for specifics in terms of actions we would like to see. I thought all of us were pretty clear during the session. I believe she was present during the session as well.”

Mandel is one of dozens of parents and educators who have participated in sessions where they could share their thoughts and ideas about what the district does well and where improvement is needed. The sessions are part of Watlington’s first 100 days on the job — he took over as superintendent in mid-June — and are expected to wrap up this month.

The district’s special admissions process, building safety, and staffing seem to be top concerns expressed by parents and teachers. Many families said the district has done a good job sharing clear directions about things like how to sign up for the 80 sessions and where to attend them. While some said Watlington didn’t directly address the issues they raised, others came away saying that the superintendent was friendly.

Parents also raised concerns about the district’s $450,000 contract with consulting firm, Joseph and Associates, which previously came under fire over the summer from those who see it as a poor way to use district resources.

Watlington will reveal his takeaways from the sessions in October.

According to the district, Watlington held 63 listening sessions, including meetings with advocates and community leaders, in his first 60 days. Over 28 sessions, Watlington was also in contact with 370 teachers and staff members, 380 school leaders, and 170 central office staff members.

The school district has barred media from attending these listening sessions, which have taken place online as well as in person, but Chalkbeat spoke with several people who have attended them.

In addition to the input from families and educators about what the district needs, Watlington will also hear from his 80-person transition team that includes community and education leaders, who will develop reports and recommendations for him.

Watlington and the transition team will evaluate the district’s capacity to achieve the school board’s vision through its “goals and guardrails” framework through November. Then Watlington, Joseph and Associates, and district staff will develop a five-year strategic plan by May 30.

Mixed response from parents

Parent Jenny Aiello, who has two children in district schools, highlighted concerns expressed about the consultant. Aiello said people pressed Watlington on why he isn’t relying more on people in Philadelphia to show him the ropes.

She said at one point Watlington did repeat his defense of the decision to hire Joseph and Associates, which is based in Tennessee. Watlington has previously said the consultant would help him “hit the ground running,” while the school board called hiring such a consultant “best practice.” (Shawn Joseph, president of Joseph and Associates and a former superintendent of Nashville, Tenn., schools, did not respond to requests for comment from Chalkbeat.)

Another issue that led people to push back on Watlington, Aiello said, was the number of teachers he has on his transition team. When Watlington highlighted the number of teachers on the team, and asked the audience whether people thought that was sufficient, Aiello said, “The participants thought he should have at least half of that group be teachers because they’re the ones who know the district.”

Aiello also said the sessions she attended did not have moderators and in general didn’t conform to what she was told about how they would be structured.

But Eugene Desyatnik, a parent of three students of neighborhood schools, who attended an in-person session said that when he raised concerns about facilities and the district not accepting free help, Watlington “listened, wrote down notes and genuinely seemed committed.”

Watlington said that “where he came from [his prior job in North Carolina] it was no Rockefelller-rich district, but the grass was mowed, buildings were cooled and clean, and he expected nothing less here,” Desyatnik recalled, adding that this observation from Watlington made him feel “surprisingly optimistic.”

District parent Adam Blyweiss, who also teaches graphic design at Jules E. Mastbaum Area Vocational Technical School, attended an online listening session in July for district staff, and another online session last month for parents and families, coordinated with community and parent groups. He said he was able to access both without any problems.

The staff session brought up working and learning conditions in buildings that Blyweiss felt were never adequately addressed under former Superintendent William Hite. Issues that staff discussed with Watlington ranged from aging buildings and the district’s African American history curriculum to support for English-language learners and teacher planning time.

Blyweiss said Watlington’s curiosity and personality seem sincere. But Blyweiss is concerned that regardless of how the superintendent presents himself, the district might be in a similar position to where it was a decade ago, when Superintendent William Hite took over. He said he doesn’t know how Watlington and the district will deal with the last decade’s worth of “wishful thinking, sensible ideas, and painful mistrust.”

“I feel like we’re once again staring down conditions for educational upheaval,” Blyweiss said “The last time we had a new superintendent at our doorstep with a plan for transition involving dispassionate outsiders, we lost more than schools, staff, and students. We lost a little bit of the city’s soul.”

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

New superintendent, 200 staff vacancies as Philadelphia returns to school

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kensington school first to fly pride flag

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Philadelphia school workers vote to authorize a strike

2022-08-20T23:28:34+00:00

This story originally appeared on WHYY

Workers from the School District of Philadelphia will hit the picket line one week before the school year begins.

The district’s maintenance, custodial, and transportation employees voted on Saturday to authorize a strike, as contract negotiations with the district have stalled.

The workers, represented by the Services Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 32BJ, rallied at Benjamin Franklin High School on Broad Street in North Philadelphia prior to the vote.

The current contract for the workers expires on August 31. Union members say their demands for fair pay and more training have not been met.

“We worked through COVID, everyone considered us a hero. Currently in negotiations and no one remembers that,” John Bynum, district leader for Local 32BJ of SEIU, said in an interview with 6abc last week. “We are just negotiating for a fair contract. I can’t answer for why the district isn’t listening.”

There are an estimated 2,000 Philadelphia school district workers represented under this contract. The lowest paid employees make $14.31 an hour.

In a statement to 6abc last week, a Philadelphia School District spokesperson said:

“We deeply value the work of our staff who are represented by 32BJ SEIU District 1201. We continue to actively participate in conversations and negotiations to secure a new contract as soon as possible, without disruption to in-person learning to begin the 2022-2023 school year. Schools are hubs of our community. Last year, we saw firsthand the joy and excitement of our students, families, and staff as they reconnected in person and began to re-engage in the caring school communities they missed so much. Keeping this momentum going is what’s best for our young people. We remain hopeful that we will be able to agree to fair and sustainable terms of a contract that values and supports our employees.”

The first day for Philadelphia students is Monday, August 29.

Philly boosts Black and Hispanic enrollment in top schools, Chalkbeat analysis shows

2022-08-18T23:33:58+00:00

Philadelphia’s new lottery admissions system will likely bolster the overall proportion of Black and Hispanic students in the incoming ninth grades across the city’s four most selective public schools, a Chalkbeat data analysis has found, although the picture varies significantly between individual schools.

At Central High School, for example, the largest and most well known of those four top-tier schools, the proportion of Black students in the incoming class is nearly twice as high as the prior year’s class, according to Chalkbeat’s analysis. And the corresponding share of Hispanic students has more than tripled.

Meanwhile, the size of the freshman class at Carver High School of Engineering and Science will increase by more than a third, so more students of all races will attend. But while Black students comprised 55% of last year’s class at the school, only 46% of this year’s incoming class is Black.

The changes to admissions — which affected all 21 of the district’s magnet programs — appear poised to considerably alter the racial makeup of several schools where Black and Hispanic students have been historically underrepresented compared to their citywide enrollment. Families throughout Philadelphia strive to have their children gain entry to these schools, and changes to how they work attract close scrutiny and intense debate.

Last year, the district changed the admissions process by placing qualified applicants in a lottery, rather than letting individual school principals continue to make final admissions decisions. For this year’s incoming ninth grade class, all students who met benchmarks based on grades, attendance, and scores on a writing test were entered into the lottery.

For the four most selective schools, which include Masterman and Academy at Palumbo, the district weighted the lottery to favor qualified students from six ZIP codes that rarely send students to four most selective high schools, automatically offering admission to all qualified students living in ZIP codes.

Historically, a minuscule fraction of students enrolled in those schools resided in those ZIP codes, which cover parts of North and West Philadelphia.

District officials said they wanted to make the system more equitable and antiracist. The goals of the changes were to increase access and participation among qualified students who may not have otherwise applied, and to eliminate any “implicit bias” from the selection process.

Several parents and students who live in the affected ZIP codes said they weren’t aware of the policy change and couldn’t say how it affected them. But Sheila Rosado is delighted with the new system. Her daughter, Esmeralda Miller, who lives in North Philadelphia in one of the six ZIP codes favored in the admissions process, is going to Central in the upcoming school year.

“We were worried that they changed the way they were doing things, but we didn’t have any issues. Every single school she applied to she got accepted,” Rosado said, adding that her daughter has always received top grades.

She said she thought the lottery was “awesome … it’s more fair, and more people can apply.”

A “successful” system will soon change again

Chalkbeat’s analysis of the four most selective Philadelphia magnet schools is based on the district’s tally of students who have accepted offers of admission. The students in the numbers provided by the district include only those who attended district schools prior to accepting offers, not those from charter and private schools who have sought admission.

In response to Chalkbeat’s request for comment about the analysis, the district said in a statement that the revised system had been “successful on all these fronts.”

There were disparate demographic trends for the incoming classes at Masterman and Palumbo.

The share of Black, Hispanic, multiracial, and white students at Academy at Palumbo all grew significantly from the ninth grade classes of 2021 to 2022, while Asian enrollment dipped from almost half of the student body to under a third.

At Masterman, where the incoming class is only 100 students and more subject to year-to-year fluctuations, Asian enrollment grew to 43% of the class. Meanwhile, Black and Hispanic enrollment dipped slightly, and white enrollment fell by 6 percentage points.

Between 2017 and 2021, just 1% of students at the four most selective schools came from the six favored ZIP codes. But 12% of the students in this year’s incoming class reside in those ZIP codes, ranging from 11.1% at Central to 13.5% at Masterman.

More broadly, there were 11,479 eligible applications to all 21 selective schools for 2022, nearly double the number from 2021, officials said.

Although the new system seems to have led to significantly different outcomes than in past years, Philadelphia’s selection admissions process continues to evolve.

On Tuesday, the district announced that while the lottery system for selection admissions would continue, scores from the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, or PSSA, would be reintroduced into the admissions process for the 2023-24 school year.

The state assessment, which was not administered in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, had been replaced in the selective admissions process by a separate writing test, which will now be discontinued.

District spokeswoman Marissa Orbanek said the district reintroduced the PSSA to the admissions process “because we need another criterion.” But some principals worry that using the test will whittle down the eligible pool of students.

Orbanek said the district doesn’t know the impact the elimination of the PSSA may have had on the growth of the student applicant pool for the selective schools this year, or on the higher proportions of Black and Hispanic students in the pool. But, she said, the district plans to continue studying the data and gather feedback “to continue its commitment to providing equitable access for all students.”

The district will share new minimum PSSA scores for selection admissions at the end of September.

Overall, 36% of students in Philadelphia scored proficient on the PSSA’s language arts test from 2019 (the most recent results available), while 21% did so in math, and 36% in science. But results differ markedly by race and ethnicity.

For instance, while 55% of Asian students and 42.5% of white students scored proficient in math, just 11.6% of Black students and 13.8% of Hispanic students scored at that level.

There is also concern that some students may have opted out of the PSSA last spring because they believed that the PSSA would not be a factor in 2023-24 special admissions. The district said public school students who did not take the test could substitute scores on certain other tests, although that could present logistical challenges to families.

There are three levels of so-called criteria-based schools and programs, all with differing requirements regarding grades. But all three of those levels mandate 95% attendance.

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

Philly schools chief defends $450K consultant who surrendered teaching license

2022-06-30T22:44:52+00:00

Amid dissent over his push for the district to hire a controversial education consultant at a cost of nearly half a million dollars, new Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr. said the move will enable a speedy transition and beef up a “lean” administrative staff.

In a Wednesday call with reporters, Watlington said hiring Joseph and Associates, which is led by former Nashville district superintendent Shawn Joseph, will ensure he can focus on making Philadelphia “the fastest improving urban school district in the nation.” But some have raised concerns about Joseph’s $450,000 price tag, which will cover roughly a year’s work but exceeds Watlington’s own annual salary of $340,000.

Joseph’s tenure leading Nashville from 2016 to 2019 has also raised eyebrows. It was marked by a string of disputes, including claims that he ignored and mishandled allegations of sexual harassment against a middle school principal, as well as complaints that he attempted to award no-bid contracts. Joseph agreed to surrender his teaching license in 2019 because he failed to report 12 teacher misconduct cases to the state within 30 days, as required by state rules, according to a Tennessee Board of Education official. (Joseph contends that he signed the reports but a human resources employee failed to submit them to the state.) Joseph’s license was automatically restored but has since expired.

Joseph reached a buy-out agreement with the Nashville school board before his four-year contract was up. The terms of that agreement included a provision that in general, neither Joseph nor the board would file a lawsuit or claim against the other, according to the Tennessean. Joseph told Chalkbeat June 21 that he left his Nashville post because he and the board did not agree on how to reach “a continued focus on achieving equity and excellence” in the district.

Joseph told Chalkbeat Thursday that people tried to damage his image but that he remains proud of his work in Nashville.

“It’s been three years since I’ve been in Nashville and I’ve been working to train and prepare urban superintendents like Dr. Watlington,” he said. “Sometimes wisdom comes with pain. As you learn things, you’re able to impart that knowledge onto people.”

On Wednesday, Watlington defended his choice. “Are there other consultants out there who could be considered? Absolutely,” Watlington said. “The timeframe warranted me to make some recommendations and some steps sooner rather than later, so that I can hit the ground running on day one.”

But giving a contract to Joseph means less money for priorities like school safety, buildings, and outdated curriculum, said Renee Brown, a longtime Philadelphia education activist who has sent five children to schools in the city. She also said that as someone from outside Philadelphia, Joseph can’t fully grasp the district’s unique challenges.

“I’m very displeased,” Brown said.

The Philadelphia Board of Education agreed to hire Joseph at Watlington’s request at a board meeting in late May with almost no discussion. (Watlington officially took over the district on June 16.) The board told Chalkbeat that the decision to hire Joseph’s firm — which is charged with helping Watlington develop a long-term plan for improving the district — represented “best practice.”

Current and former Nashville school officials blasted Philadelphia’s decision to hire his consulting firm and issued warnings about the legacy Joseph left in the city.

Fran Bush, a Nashville school board member, highlighted accusations that Joseph improperly steered public money to a firm he had previously done business with.

“What I have to say is they’ve got to be very careful,” said Bush, referring to Philadelphia officials.

Watlington and Joseph have a professional experience in common: the Urban Superintendents Academy at Howard University. The academy is designed for educators who want to take on leadership roles in urban areas with a focus on academic performance and leading underrepresented and diverse populations.

Watlington is a graduate of the academy, while Joseph was one of its co-directors. When he was a co-director, Joseph introduced the academy’s 2021 cohort that included Watlington.

Joseph and Associates will help Watlington develop a five-year strategic plan for the district. That plan is due by the end of next May. The firm is also charged with assembling a transition team to help Watlington assess the district’s ability to meet its overall vision for schools, which is known as “goals and guardrails.”

Joseph led the 86,000-student Nashville district from 2016 to 2019. Local media outlets reported that Joseph won praise for his focus on students of color while he led the district. Earlier this month, former Nashville board member Will Pinkston expressed support for Joseph, telling Chalkbeat that he “was trying to do exactly the right thing and, frankly, exactly what the board asked him to do.”

But allegations about his leadership decisions dogged his time in the city.

For example, the Nashville district paid out claims resulting from the harassment complaints and lawsuits during Joseph’s tenure.

And Joseph reportedly pushed the district to sign two no-bid contracts worth $1.8 million with Performance Matters — a company in Maryland with which he had previously done business. Emails obtained by a Nashville TV station showed that Joseph began discussing a potential deal with the firm two weeks before he officially started as superintendent in July 2016.

In 2018, Nashville officials expressed disappointment that the number of district schools identified by Tennessee as most in need of support and improvement nearly doubled from 11 to 21 (the state adopted a new accountability system in 2018). Joseph said this demonstrated that certain schools needed more resources.

Jill Speering, who was the vice-chair of the Nashville board for two of the three years Joseph was the district’s top official, said she was “appalled” that he had been hired to consult in Philadelphia, “given his failed leadership in Nashville where the board had to buy out his contract in order to save the district further embarrassment.”

Another former board member, Amy Frogge, said Joseph’s practices precipitated an “employee morale crisis.”

There’s no public indication that Philadelphia district leaders are reconsidering Joseph’s contract.

On Wednesday, the Philadelphia school board again defended the decision to hire Joseph, saying in a statement that in a “large and complex” district, “transition support is intended to provide an even deeper understanding of the individuals, families, and communities this district serves.”

The board did not address the controversy surrounding its decision to hire him.

Correction: July 5, 2022: This article was corrected to say that Joseph’s teaching license was automatically restored. A previous version of the article said he had to reapply. Additionally, the article was updated to include Joseph’s defense for why teacher misconduct cases weren’t reported to the state in a timely manner.

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

Consulting firm will get $450,000 to help new Philly superintendent

2022-06-21T20:19:40+00:00

At his swearing-in ceremony on Thursday, Philadelphia’s new superintendent Tony Watlington Sr. unveiled a 100-day plan to help him transition to his new role.

What Watlington did not mention during the ceremony is the consultant who will — at a cost well into six figures — support that transition. The firm is run by the former head of Tennessee’s second-largest district who left that school system before his contract was up.

Last month, Watlington asked the school board to hire Joseph and Associates, a Tennessee-based education consulting firm near Nashville, to assist with his transition. The board unanimously agreed to pay the firm $450,000 for its services with little discussion at its May meeting. Funding for the contract will come from the 2022-23 operating budget.

The board has hired Joseph and Associates in large part to help Watlington to develop a five-year strategic plan for the district. That plan is due to be finalized at the end of next May. In addition, the firm will help assemble a transition team to help Watlington assess the district’s ability to meet its overall vision for schools known as “goals and guardrails.”

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Watlington said the consultant will also help him connect with people who can identify what’s working and what’s not working in urban school districts across the country. Watlington’s aim is to make Philadelphia one of the fastest improving urban school districts in the U.S.

“I’ve asked that external consultant to be an adviser to me, as I launch my 100-day entry action plan,” Watlington said.

The school board said in a statement to Chalkbeat that hiring such a consultant is “a best practice.”

The president of Joseph and Associates, Shawn Joseph, served as the first African-American superintendent of Metro Nashville Public Schools from 2016 to 2019, leading an 86,000-student district. Local media outlets reported that Joseph won praise for his focus on students of color while he led the district, but that his response to allegations of sexual harassment against school employees provoked controversy, as did certain contracts and a clash with principals.

The Nashville school board bought out of his contract after he served three years of his four-year contract. Joseph received a $261,250 payout when he departed his position.

In response to questions from Chalkbeat about his Nashville tenure, Joseph said it came to an end because “I did not believe that the climate supported a successful continued focus on achieving equity and excellence” in the district.

Two former school board members in Nashville vouched for Joseph’s leadership skills. Current Nashville school board chair Christiane Buggs said Joseph’s departure was due to “personality conflicts.”

“There were board members who were unable to reconcile their desire for their district with how Dr. Joseph was approaching it,” she said, adding that the contract buyout was a mutual arrangement.

And Will Pinkston, who served on the board during Joseph’s tenure, said it was a “really complicated situation” and that Joseph “was trying to do exactly the right thing and, frankly, exactly what the board asked him to do on the front end.”

The Philadelphia school board’s move to quietly hire the consultant drew some criticism. Lisa Haver, co-founder of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, argues the board should have discussed the matter further and doesn’t like the price tag.

“We’ve been saying for years that the board has spent way too much money on consultants and outsourcing, so this would not be out of character for any administration in this district,” Haver said. “They should not have considered this if they picked Dr. Watlington, if he had the knowledge and experience.”

In addition to leading Joseph and Associates, Joseph is an associate with Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, an education consulting and executive search firm, and has worked and supported superintendent transition teams in two Maryland counties, Prince George’s County and Baltimore County.

Joseph founded his consulting firm in 2019, the same year he left his job as Nashville superintendent.

“We are supporting Dr. Watlington as he learns about the district quickly and aligning the work that he’s doing with goals and guardrails and facilitating the writing in a report, which will provide short-term and long-term recommendations in achieving the goals and guardrails,” Joseph said.

Joseph said the transition team for Philadelphia will have between 50 to 60 people, including committees made up of district teachers and principals in the school system. There will also be outside experts, including people from local universities who have experience in supporting education leadership transitions.

Betty Morgan, who once led Washington County Public Schools in Maryland, will be responsible for writing the transition team’s report.

Watlington’s 100-day entry plan will include a listening and learning tour, a school board retreat, a senior staff retreat, and other activities to engage with the community.

From early September until the end of November, Watlington and the transition team will evaluate the district’s capacity to achieve the school board’s vision, with specific attention to the district’s organizational structure.

Starting Dec. 1, Joseph and Associates will focus on the five-year strategic plan Watlington wants. The plan is expected to be ready by May 30 of next year.
This story has been updated to correctly identify Joseph and Associates as a consulting firm and not a law firm.

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

The exit interview: Hite talks hits, misses as Philly’s superintendent

2022-06-09T21:46:02+00:00

At his final press conference in Philadelphia Thursday morning, Superintendent William Hite was characteristically reserved and businesslike. He explained how the district is honoring LGTBQIA+ staff and students for Pride Month and spelled out how young people can access meals when schools are closed this summer.

Then he turned the focus to a few star graduating seniors who are headed off to college and the military or starting their first jobs. One of them, Sarah Church, who is graduating from West Philadelphia High School and is off to Kutztown University to study criminal justice, took a moment to thank him. She noted that when Hite took over as superintendent in 2012, she was attending Thomas G. Moore Elementary school.

“During his decade of leadership, he has worked tirelessly to provide everyone with where resources are necessary to continue our growth beyond our time here in Philadelphia. As I leave the district, I know my fellow students are set up for success because of this,” she said.

Not everyone viewed him with the same rosy glow. While he always presented an unflappable front, in 2020, the Board of Education gave him a “needs improvement” rating for academic progress and systems leadership. Another low point of his time in office was the botched relocation of Science Leadership Academy into Benjamin Franklin High School, where construction problems delayed the opening of both schools for a semester.

Hite also came in for relentless criticism over charter schools, which educate more than 80,000 students, compared to about 110,000 in the district. While he long declared himself “agnostic” on the best type of school, few new charters were approved during his tenure. And he’s come to the conclusion that the charter movement has not fulfilled its mission of transforming public education.

On Thursday, Hite was asked what he would miss most when he leaves his post next week.

“What I’ll miss most are the children and the students, I’ll be missing these young people and seeing what they’ve achieved even though they have struggles,” Hite said. “That’s one reason I wanted to finish my press conferences with stories from young people.”

Tony Watlington, former superintendent of the Rowan-Salisbury school district in North Carolina, will be sworn in as Hite’s replacement on June 16.

Hite sat down Wednesday with Chalkbeat for an interview about his tenure at the district. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Why did you want to come to Philadelphia?

I wanted to come to Philadelphia simply because I saw inner city youth that needed something very different in terms of their education, and their conditions for their education. And also, there were (school reform) commissioners who were highly professional, who were focused on creating better conditions for the district, and who wanted to fundamentally change the trajectory of things like the financing, the budget, facilities, the work conditions, and so on.

Then I started talking to people in Philadelphia and to a person, everyone wanted to see something better for their children.

What do you think your main accomplishment has been?

More children are graduating from high school, we went from having over a billion-dollar deficit to having a balanced budget for the last four and a half years, and is projected to be balanced even beyond the expiration of the federal [pandemic relief] dollars. We have new systems for support for young people, like more counselors, nurses, and more music programs. We have structures that exist that help school-based staff with dealing with the social and emotional needs of children.

We had 16 “persistently dangerous” schools when I arrived. This is the sixth or seventh year where we have none. We have hydration stations now in all schools. We have a student information system.

We have more schools now that are air conditioned. We have more children in high performing schools. We have children who will graduate high school with an associate’s degree because of the new programs we’ve established.

So I think that it’s a body of work that becomes a set of accomplishments versus one thing. Last year, the most important thing for me was getting children back in school. And that still remains the most important thing, keeping them there.

Your biggest regret?

Cutting programs for students. I had to actually cut programs for students in 2013. I thought we could solve the budget shortfall by cutting people, counselors, bilingual counseling assistants, itinerant art teachers, we even started the year without extra-curricular activities.

The second biggest regret was not getting children back in school after more than a year out during the pandemic.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently in handling the COVID crisis?

We were forced to take children out of schools. The governor made that decision. In hindsight, now we know a lot more than we did then. If we were able to get masks faster, perhaps we could have had children back in school sooner. And you know, I think people did the best they could, especially our teachers.

But I would have tried to work to get students back sooner, much sooner, because they were struggling being out.

You were Philadelphia’s first permanent Black male superintendent. How do you think you did in terms of improving outcomes for students of color, especially Black males?

That’s the basis of our equity work. And that’s the work I’m also proud of, we have to know what the disproportionate data tells us about children – who are we suspending, who is in AP courses, who’s graduating, who’s reading on grade level. And then it’s also important to look at the policies and structures that we have in place.

When I got here, we had a “zero tolerance” policy around student behavior. Who do you think was put out of schools most often? Black males and Latino males. And so we eliminated that policy, in fact, we prohibited suspensions from kindergarten through third grade.

We have more children in these categories who are accessing opportunities, like [applying to selective schools] that didn’t have access to those opportunities before.

A recent report found that schools in this region are among the most segregated in the country in terms of race and class. Do you think that desegregation is even worth talking about and that more desegregation in schools would be beneficial? And how would we try to make it happen?

I think it is worth bringing up, but in the context of equity compensation. Because there’s certain populations that need something more and different in order to be successful. The issue becomes providing every single child with what they need in order to be successful, irrespective of where they are attending schools. The whole point is having good schools close to where children live.

Lifting kids out of their neighborhood and community in some cases doesn’t serve the purpose we would like to see it serve.

So what is the biggest obstacle to providing a great school for every kid regardless of where they live?

One obstacle has always been insufficient resources, another our fundamental beliefs about what our children can achieve. And I do think we have to have a different mindset about our children in the city of Philadelphia that allows them to access all types of opportunities. In some cases, facilities become an obstacle because there’s so much work that’s needed in and around [outdated] facilities. And I think gun violence is becoming an obstacle.

What role can schools play in trying to alleviate gun violence?

We just had a meeting with students yesterday who said the only place they feel safe is at school. And in the next breath they said we need to take out all metal detectors. We can provide safe spaces and teach them ways to resolve conflict differently.

Schools have to return to those sacred spaces where children don’t have to worry about being shot at or beat up or harassed or assaulted. You teach children how to talk about their emotions. You put young people in restorative circles so they can talk about their feelings. You do positive behavior interventions. You have youth courts where students actually do the adjudication of discipline. But when children are worried about coming to and from school, it’s going to impact what happens in schools.

Last year, we lost 30 children [to violence]. This year, we already have 22. That’s 52 children over not even two complete years. So that, to me, is at a crisis level. If a fourth grader saw someone shot in the street, the trauma services will go into that school for that day. But then the next day they’re called to the next school because there’s another traumatic event, but the fourth grader still needs that service.

We need to increase dramatically the services that are available to all children. And we have to sound the alarm that the district cannot do that alone.

Philadelphia, like the rest of the country, has experienced a teacher shortage. Why is that happening?

It’s happening because people have been talking down on the profession for the last two decades. Individuals are thinking, “I don’t want to be a teacher.” So we have to lift up the teaching profession for young people and think about teaching as leadership rather than just teaching [academic] content. These are people teaching young people social responsibility and social justice. I think we have to do a much better job of rebranding what teaching means today.

The answers to the teacher shortage are sitting in classrooms right now. We have to find ways to maybe do a Middle College type program for the development of teachers.

What have you been telling the next superintendent, Tony Watlington?

I’m telling him to learn as much as he can about the city and communities here. And oh, by the way, that’s going to take time. It’s him making sure he’s not frustrated because he’s not learning fast enough. He just has to remain patient, purposeful and intentional. To the public, I would say: People have to give him a chance.

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

Philly brings process to fix aging schools to the public. Is it enough?

2022-05-18T00:02:34+00:00

As the Philadelphia district aims to tell the public how it is managing its aging infrastructure, parents and community leaders remain concerned about possible school closures, lack of enrollment data, and transparency when it comes to school building maintenance and safety.

The district is in the middle of public engagement about its long-term plan to improve school facilities. During this round of talks, which will take place over Zoom, the district’s facilities planning team is providing an overview of the process, including project goals and data collected from the district. These sessions began May 10 and are open to the public. Additional sessions are scheduled for May 18, 19, 24, and 25. To participate, residents can register online.

In addition, as part of that plan, all district school buildings will be evaluated over the next 12 months, with the goal of creating recommendations for each building.

To identify problems with school buildings and identify recommendations to address them, the district also launched a $1.3 million Facilities Planning Process last month. School officials unveiled a website with an interactive map that the community could use to access information about each school building’s condition, as well as facility assessments conducted by third-party industry professionals.

But the overall process has attracted concerns. For example, some parents have complained about the website’s lack of information, or the quality of it. There are also frustrations with the district’s past approach to buildings, and the teachers’ union is already warning the district not to consider closing schools.

Caroline Thorn, for example, said she is worried the new website doesn’t show when the district’s enrollment predictions have been inaccurate.

“The data shown has enrollment numbers for the last few years but they do not include on those graphs the projections they made for those years or any error rate,” said Thorn, a parent of two district students.

Thorn said she would also like the district to show exactly what calculations they are using to determine whether a school’s use of space is efficient.

District spokeswoman Monica Lewis said school buildings’ capacities were calculated by an engineering firm in the spring of 2021, while enrollment numbers come from last October. Lewis noted that the district’s website does not include any enrollment projections; the district will complete and share the next set of enrollment forecasts this coming fall.

Hopes that the district will be proactive

Outgoing Superintendent William Hite said last fall the district planned to spend some of its $1.1 billion in federal coronavirus relief on building repairs and upgrades. The average Philadelphia school building is 75 years old.

Eugene Desyatnik, president of the Bella Vista Neighbors Association in South Philadelphia and parent of three students of catchment schools, said he’s glad the district is engaging in a facilities planning process. He said he hopes it’s a sign that the district is becoming more proactive.

“To date … the voice of the community fell on deaf ears, even when the community was offering data points on neighborhood development in the pipeline, or when local institutions were offering expertise on environmental conditions,” Desyatnik said.

“The district’s typical response has been one of ‘we got it,’ followed by a crisis,” he added, “whether it’s over-enrollment, a roof collapse, or a diagnosis, followed by a reactive response.”

Enrollment could also be a factor. The student population is 120,000 down from 125,000 five years ago when the district recommended closing three schools a year due to declining enrollment.

At the same time, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan warned the district that in addition to the importance of transparency and meaningful investments, “School closures must not be part of this process.” Jordan stressed that closing schools would represent “a disinvestment from public education and a disinvestment from communities.”

Teachers last year protested over building conditions, specifically asbestos, and threatened to boycott at the start of this school year.

Sarah Winawer-Wetzel, a parent of a second grader, said she’s glad the district released the interactive map, but said the map itself reveals major and disturbing inequities.

“It’s troubling when you see how [the] historical inequitable distribution of funding means that one catchment has all metrics in green, and a school right next door is completely red or orange,” Winawer-Wetzel said, referring to the website metrics in which green signals a relatively strong score and red represents a relatively weak score.

Meanwhile, Sarah Kloss, a district parent, said her big concern is that the district is highlighting so many expensive issues that it’s not clear how it will prioritize which schools to fix. And like Thorn, she worries about the data the district will use when making decisions.

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

Philly’s historic Central High gets its first female, Black president

2022-04-22T23:21:07+00:00

Katharine Davis, the principal of Henry Elementary School in Mount Airy, has been named the 15th president of Central High School, becoming the first woman and the first person of color to lead the 186-year-old institution.

The historic appointment comes at a time when Central, the second-oldest high school in the United States and one of Philadelphia’s most prestigious and selective, is at a pivotal moment in its history as it is grappling with how to move forward with an anti-racist agenda. As the percentage of Black and Latinx students at the school has dropped precipitously over the past decade, students have grown more vocal in expressing concerns about discriminatory practices, and have made demands for change.

Davis, 34, who graduated from Central High in 2005, was chosen from among a pool of about 20 people who applied, said Assistant Superintendent Ted Domers, who led the search process. Superintendent William Hite made the final decision based on recommendations from a search committee made up of parents, students, and school staff. Her tenure will begin July 1.

“Kate came across as someone passionate and committed to social justice, as strategic, thoughtful, and poised,” Domers said.

Davis has been a school leader in Philadelphia for less than five years, first as co-principal at Harding Middle School in Frankford, where she was in charge of improving instruction, and then at Henry Elementary – which she also attended as a child – since 2019. She has never led a high school before.

But when the committee members compared her qualities and skill set to what they wanted in a new principal, and what 350 others said they wanted in a school leadership survey, it was no contest, Domers said.

“The best person available, that was Kate. Hands down, it was Kate,” said Domers.

Detour from a planned veterinary career

Davis grew up in Mount Airy in a biracial family, and graduated from Central in 2005 as part of the 264th class. Her father is retired U.S. District Court Judge Legrome Davis.

“When I think about what it means for me to be in this role, it feels surreal,” she said in an interview.

When she attended Central, she said, she didn’t feel at all out of place due to her racial background. “I was surrounded by a large, diverse population,” she said. “I felt accepted, I felt I truly belonged there. It was a safe space for me. I remember the vibrancy of the Black Student Union, and the initiatives of the cultural groups, and how important that is for young people.”

Davis didn’t always want to be an educator. Growing up, she set her sights on being a veterinarian. After graduating from Central, she attended Cornell University to major in animal sciences.

But she had a lot of other interests, including art, and she got an internship at the Johnson Art Museum in Ithaca, NY. There, she worked with local elementary school students and discovered that she had an affinity for teaching. “It changed my life,” she said.

She signed up for a course called The Art of Teaching, and spent two days a week in a local first grade classroom, where the teacher was a woman with many years of experience.

“I observed her love of teaching, her genuine love of working with students, how she constructed hands-on learning for the students,” Davis said. “There was a shift in my own experience. I saw the joy in teaching.”

She decided to minor in education, and on graduating in 2009 Davis headed to New York City for a year of teaching in a Bronx elementary school as a member of AmeriCorps. She enrolled at Pace University in Manhattan to get her teaching credentials, and then spent several years teaching in a bilingual school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

In 2015, she became the principal of a charter school in Brooklyn. Davis returned to Philadelphia in 2017 to participate in the PhillyPlus principal certification program.

Michele Whitecraft, the professor of education who taught The Art of Teaching at Cornell, remembers hoping Davis would pursue education as a career.

“I never said she should abandon her career in veterinary medicine,” said Whitecraft, who now teaches at Mansfield University, part of the Pennsylvania state system. “I know they say we shouldn’t say ‘teachers are born, not made,’ but this kid was amazing from day one. She’s just a natural, the most authentic, relatable person I have met in my career. Teaching was the perfect choice for her.”

Whitecraft added that Davis also has a strong sense of herself and her abilities. “She knows her power,” she said. “How beautiful for someone that young to see what she can contribute and not be constrained by society. She’s my hero.”

Davis said that she pursued being a school principal so early in her career because the opportunity arose. “I was a fourth grade teacher, and I absolutely loved teaching and thrived in the classroom, but what I found is I enjoyed working with adults and leading in spaces in schools,” she said.

“A leader works through a strong instructional lens, and believes in the diversity of the school community,” Davis added. “A leader works to honor student voices and unite the community.”

Central in the throes of change

Her leadership skills will be tested at Central, which has more than 2,400 students. Founded in 1836 to educate boys, it was the first high school in Pennsylvania. It did not admit girls until 1983, and then did so under court order. Black boys were admitted starting in the 19th century — Alain Locke, the philosopher and critic and author of “The New Negro,” graduated in 1902. By the late 20th century, the school had a student body that often came close to mirroring the city’s overall racial demographics.

But its recent history with race has been problematic, or at least more visibly difficult. Two years ago, in the wake of 2020 police killing of George Floyd, students formed a “Black at Central” group that brought attention to microaggressions and what they felt was discrimination at the school.

The students, backed by some faculty, issued a list of demands that former principal Tim McKenna agreed to meet, including implicit bias training for teachers and administrators, the hiring of a diversity, equity and inclusion officer (which has been done), and more active recruitment in schools and neighborhoods that rarely send students to Central and Masterman, the city’s other most highly selective school.

Davis’ appointment comes after a concerted effort by a group of Central students, alumni, and parents for the district to choose a Black principal. Parent Joe Quinones, a leader of this group, said he believes that “putting eyes on the process” led to a Black president of Central High.

A Black president, he said, will “leave no stone unturned relative to [improving] the diversity profile of the school.”

A big issue Davis will face is a steadily declining share and total population of Black students in recent years. In 2011, Central was 32% Black; today that figure is 18%. Just over half the Philadelphia district’s students are Black.

This year, the district revised its selective admissions system for all so-called “criteria-based” schools like Central, in an effort to improve access to students from marginalized groups. Students who meet basic criteria – in Central’s case, all As and Bs, 95% attendance, and a certain score on a controversial writing test – are placed in an admissions lottery. In an effort to eliminate bias, the system removes principals and school teams from the decision-making process that determines which students are admitted.

Until now, students had to score at least in the 88th percentile on the state standardized tests, but those tests have not been administered for the last two years due to Covid. Another demand of the Black at Central group has been to eliminate test scores from the admissions process, but the district – which will get a new superintendent later this year – has not said whether it will reinstate the test as a requirement going forward.

A report from the district’s Office of Research and Evaluation shows that more students of all races qualified to enter the lottery this year for admission to Central and other selective schools – although the report also showed that smaller percentages of Black and Latinx students, compared to white and Asian students, met the more stringent qualifications for Central and Masterman. Officials have yet to release data showing whether the new system has affected the demographic makeup of Central’s incoming ninth grade for 2022-23.

Davis is confident in her leadership skills to tackle these and other challenges.

“I know intentional decisions have been made by the School District of Philadelphia to maintain racial diversity at Central, and I look forward to being a leader to uphold and continue that work,” Davis said. “For many reasons, the time has come … for a diverse individual to lead the school. I am honored to be the first female and the first African American to lead Central.”

Philadelphia saw a surge in midyear teacher resignations, data shows

2022-02-25T23:12:25+00:00

Editor’s note: This article was updated to remove material that appeared verbatim on the PHEAA website.

A labor shortage that marred the beginning of the school year in Philadelphia has continued and could get worse, with a midyear increase in teacher resignations, according to district data presented at Thursday’s Board of Education meeting.

According to the data, 169 teachers left the school system between Dec. 1 and Feb. 15 — double the number of teachers who resigned during the same period last year. That figure doesn’t include the 178 teachers that are currently on leave or sabbatical. The district employs about 9,100 teachers.

That’s also a change from the start of the year, when resignations were largely from the central office, not the teacher workforce, officials said.

Teacher attendance is also lower this school year, with a 20% increase in daily teacher absences compared to last year. Sixty-eight percent of teachers attended 95% of class so far this year. Amid a COVID surge following winter break, for instance, many schools shifted to remote learning to cope with sick teachers and staff.

Asked if he would characterize this year’s loss of district employees as a trickle or a water main break, Superintendent William Hite said the current staff shortages were the latter and were exacerbated by other absences.

“It all depends on the positions. At the beginning of the year transportation felt like a water main break right? Because we were not able to just get candidates into those roles. But as we start to work on the problem, then it becomes more manageable, but I do think it depends on both the positions and in many cases the places,” Hite said.

Some positions are harder to fill than others, said Larisa Shambaugh, chief talent officer for the school district. The areas with the largest number of vacancies include: special education, elementary, math, English, English as a second language, and science.

Shambaugh noted that teacher vacancies vary significantly by school. For instance, 162 schools have a “fill rate” for teachers of more than 95%; the rate is the ratio of the number of hires per month to the number of job openings. Fifty-three schools have rates of 85% to 94% for teachers. And seven schools are below 85% for teachers.

Teacher diversity has also been a concern in the district’s teacher recruitment efforts. More than 70% of the district’s students are Black and Latino, yet teachers are mostly white. Black teachers make up 24.5% of the 9,100 teachers in the district, while white teachers make up 67% of the teacher population, according to district data.

The labor market also has affected school staffing, officials said. Wages are increasing, making the market more competitive for employers. Some employees who might have worked for the school district can find other jobs, causing the district to work harder to recruit staff.

To attract climate staff, for instance, a role where the fill rate dropped from 92.7% last year to 62.4% this year, the district is proposing temporarily removing the requirement for a high school diploma and conducting a ZIP-code targeted marketing campaign.

Substitute requests also are higher with 982 substitute requests, on average, per day — that’s 726 more per day than last year. It also has been increasingly difficult to get the number of substitutes needed each day, district officials said.

To address substitute numbers, the district has tried several strategies, including offering daily bonuses to substitutes and hiring 143 full-time building substitutes to support schools on a daily basis.

District officials also said they were looking at strategies to address teacher vacancies, including higher salaries, retention bonuses, a comprehensive marketing strategy, early notification of intent to retire or resign, a pipeline of teacher residency, and more staff and support to the recruitment team.

Some of those items would be subject to bargaining with the teachers union.

To attract school nurses, which also has been an area with vacancies, the district announced a student loan relief program this month.

The current fill rate for nurses is 89.4%, compared to 97.8% last year, even though the district has hired 32 nurses since August. That’s an area the teachers union has drawn attention to throughout the school year, as the COVID pandemic has increased the workload for nurses.

Hillary Linardopoulos, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said of teacher and other vacancies that “A lot of it will come down to ensuring students and staff have the resources that they need to really promote working and learning conditions that are good for staff and students. That’s critical.”

Kristen Luebbert, a humanities teacher at the U School, addressed the staffing issue during the registered speakers portion of Thursday’s meeting.

“Teachers don’t leave because of students. We don’t leave because of quote unquote tough neighborhoods or quote unquote, bad communities. We leave because of bad administration, crazy, meaningless paperwork requirements and toxic working conditions.”

At the start of the school year, a shortage of bus drivers, food service workers and others wreaked havoc on the system. Buses were late and trash piled up in school yards. Transportation and food services still were among the positions with the lowest fill rates as of this month, officials said.

From Aug. 16 through Oct. 1, the district saw a significant increase in resignations from central office and, to a lesser extent, nurses, general cleaners, and secretaries. But not from teachers, Shambaugh said.

But the district said the “great resignation” is not affecting all roles this school year.

School-based administrators were 99% staffed at the beginning of the school year and remain almost fully staffed at 97.5%. Building engineers are currently staffed at 70%, which is about what the fill rate has been for the past four years.

Anyone interested in teacher positions can visit www.teachinphilly.com or www.workinphilly.com.

Philly will announce its superintendent finalists next month

2022-02-23T00:56:41+00:00

The Philadelphia district has narrowed down its list of 400 applicants for superintendent to a small group of finalists and will announce their names in March, the city’s Board of Education said Tuesday.

Among them, 71% are male, 64% are Black, and 20% are Latino. One of them has held a leadership position in the district.

Current Superintendent William Hite will leave the job in August after 10 years to become the CEO of the educational nonprofit KnowledgeWorks and the inaugural superintendent in residence and executive fellow at Yale University. The search to find his replacement began in October with 17 in-person and virtual listening sessions across the city. A 13-member advisory committee of community leaders, business representatives, clergy, and educators was assembled in December.

The finalists will participate in meetings with district stakeholders and one public, in-person, live-streamed town hall where students, parents, teachers, and principals will be able to ask the candidates questions.

The candidates also will take part in three in-person group sessions, one for 11 parents, one for 10 students, and one for 11 teachers and principals. The board is inviting Philly residents to nominate themselves to be chosen for the small groups. Participants must be vaccinated. The meetings are scheduled to be live-streamed through Facebook.

The board will choose the new superintendent in the spring.
Bureau Chief Johann Calhoun covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. He oversees Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s education coverage. Contact Johann at jcalhoun@chalkbeat.org

Near his exit, Hite picked to teach and mentor senior education leaders at Yale

2022-02-14T21:48:56+00:00

William Hite, who will step down in June as Philadelphia’s public school leader, has been named the inaugural superintendent in residence and executive fellow at the Broad Center at Yale University’s School of Business for the 2022-2023 school year.

On July 1 he will also begin his new job as CEO of the national education nonprofit KnowledgeWorks. It’s unclear if he will remain in Philadelphia.

In his position at Yale, Hite will lead content facilitation where he will moderate discussions and introduce activities for the cohort in the Fellowship for Public Education Leadership program during the 2022-23 school year

Hite also will teach in and support the master’s in public education management degree program and be charged with providing mentorship to members interested in district leadership roles.

The departing school leader has said he will remain in his role during the search process to find his replacement. When he announced his resignation in September, after serving for almost ten years, Hite said he would remain in Philadelphia until the end of this school year.

Leaders at Yale thought Hite’s background in taking on issues of race and equity in the classroom made him a frontrunner for the fellowship.

“From his laser focus on equity and inclusion to his innovative approaches to effecting meaningful change in underserved communities, he has proven himself to be a paragon of transformational leadership,” said Hanseul Kang, assistant dean and executive director of The Broad Center at the Yale School of Management.

In 2020, Hite wrote an open letter to the school community that grew into an antiracism program, the Equity Coalition, which is a participatory, inclusive group that would set recommendations around what the district’s equity work should be. The effort is aligned with the school board’s strategic plan in its “goals and guardrails.”

“With COVID, we were all virtual. We saw that was traumatic for many of our young people and for our city. Our leadership team had begun some general equity work; then we had the horrendous murder of George Floyd,” he said in an interview with Yale last year. It was the last straw, he said then.

“His impactful, inclusive, and imaginative approach is very much in keeping with the Yale School of Management’s mission to educate leaders for business and society,” said Kerwin K. Charles, an economics professor at Yale.

Though Hite has sought to bring equity to the district, efforts to enhance the selective admissions process have received pushback. In addition to a lottery, preference is given to students from five city ZIP codes that have sent few students to selective schools. The aim of the new system is to make the demographics at the most prestigious schools more reflective of the district’s student population, which is primarily Black and Latino. Student applicants who qualify from targeted ZIP codes and choose selective schools are automatically accepted.

But some angry parents have argued that the new process also has caused problems, as some students this year received no offers at their selected schools.

“I wish to congratulate Dr. Hite on being appointed as Yale School of Management’s inaugural superintendent-in-residence, effective at the end of June,” said Board of Education President Joyce Wilkerson in a statement Monday. “We remain grateful for his continued leadership and service to the school district. Hite is a key part of the plan to onboard his successor.”
The search to find Hite’s replacement is on schedule, according to Wilkerson. Following the finalist announcement next month the school board is expected to invite the final candidates to Philadelphia for a series of meetings where the public will have the chance to address them. A final announcement is expected in the spring.

Philadelphia Parking Authority’s demand for a refund could have big implications for district, CFO says

2021-12-21T02:14:27+00:00

School officials say they are seeking more information and weighing their options after the Philadelphia Parking Authority claimed that it overpaid the district by $11.3 million in 2020 and wants a refund.

The district’s chief financial officer, Uri Monson, said that while the amount may seem small compared to the district’s $3 billion annual budget, the PPA’s move could have big implications for the district’s future planning if it is allowed to stand.

Monson said that money from the PPA, given annually as part of a longstanding revenue-sharing arrangement, is “recurring money” and adds up over time. If the annual amount can’t be predicted with some certainty, “that significantly affects how we make investments in schools,” he said.

The $11.3 million is 77% of the $14.7 million the PPA paid the district last year.

As far as Monson can tell, the PPA is recalculating what it should have paid the district in the 2020 fiscal year based on new estimates of its future liabilities, he said.

PPA’s latest action “has raised questions,” he said. “We don’t understand all the numbers and are not convinced all the things they’re putting in are supposed to be counted” as part of the state’s revenue-sharing formula.

The PPA told Monson it “does not have any supporting documentation to provide” to back up its claim of overpayments, according to an email obtained by Chalkbeat through the office of City Council member Helen Gym. But emails between Monson and the PPA’s chief financial officer suggest that the overpayments had to do with miscalculations relating to debt incurred as a result of its obligations to retirees.

The PPA also did not explain why those funds were tied to payments to the school district and not another part of its budget.

Monson has been aware of the claim since October. The issue became public after the school district presented its quarterly report to the City Council.

Gym organized a protest Monday outside the PPA office, where people go to pay and contest parking tickets. She was joined by leaders from the district’s two major unions, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators. Also, there were advocacy groups, including Children First and the faith-based organization POWER.

“The PPA wants to siphon millions of dollars from our schools where every single day students and staff … endure conditions that would never be tolerated in a wealthier, whiter school district,” said Hillary Linardopoulos, representing the PFT.

The amount that the authority wants back is equivalent to the cost of 100 teachers, counselors or nurses, or could be used to remove a lot of asbestos, mold, or lead pipes in the district’s aging schools, Gym said. She called the PPA’s action “an outrage.”

A PPA spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

In 2004, Republicans in Harrisburg engineered a takeover of the PPA, which not only hands out the tickets when meters expire but also runs the Philadelphia airport, operates parking garages across the city, regulates taxis and limousines, and manages red light cameras.

As part of that deal, some of the revenue PPA collects from parking tickets is supposed to be paid to the school district. It was expected to yield $45 million a year for schools. However, that much money has never materialized, and in some years, there have been no payments at all.

In 2014, parking fines nearly doubled, which PPA justified as a way to send more money to the schools. But after that, money sent to the district declined until the City Council held a hearing in 2016, drawing attention to the issue again.

A blistering 2017 audit by then state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale found that PPA potentially shortchanged the district by $77.9 million.

Since 2015, revenue from the PPA to the district totaled $53 million, meaning that PPA is seeking the return of more than 20% of its payments since then. The district got nothing in the 2021 fiscal year due to the pandemic, said Monson, but it had been counting on returning to annual PPA payments of about $15 million a year in its future projections.

Monson said that PPA has promised additional answers in January.

Writing test added to Philly’s selective admissions process is being misused, professor says

2021-12-09T20:57:10+00:00

A machine-scored writing exercise introduced this year as part of the admissions process for five of Philadelphia’s top public high schools is being misused, an education professor says.

Joshua Wilson, an associate professor at the University of Delaware who studies automated essay scoring, said the writing tool is meant to identify struggling learners and inform classroom instruction, not make high-stakes decisions about students’ futures.

“No one has done research on whether it can be used to make placement decisions,” Wilson said about the writing tool, MI Write, which is a product made by Measurement Inc., based in Durham, N.C. Using it this way is a “mistake,” he said.

“I believe the use of Mi Write in this context is very problematic and should be reconsidered,” Wilson told the Philadelphia school board at its Thursday meeting.

In response to Wilson’s criticism, district spokesperson Monica Lewis issued a statement to Chalkbeat saying that the district had been “assured by the vendor that using this tool to score essays as part of the application process would be appropriate.”

Lewis said that one of the five schools, Parkway Center City Middle College, had for several years been using a computer-graded writing sample for admissions with “positive feedback.”

Measurement, Inc. did not immediately respond to an email request for comment. But a document on its website says MI Write scores should not be used to grade students.

“It would be very unfair to assign a grade to a student based on its evaluation of an essay,” the document says. “One student might benefit from transferring [the scoring engine’s] scores to grades, while another might be penalized. MI Write was designed to help students practice their skills in writing and to improve them based on feedback.”

This year, the school district overhauled its selective admissions process in an effort to improve access for traditionally underserved students. Instead of giving individual school leaders final say over who is admitted, all students who meet the qualifications are entered into a lottery.

Each school can still set standards for grades, attendance, and behavior. But missing the cutoff on the machine-scored writing sample can eliminate a student from the lottery.

Concern about the writing test is only one of several issues being raised about the new process. Several parents and students registered to speak at the meeting on this topic.

Black and Latino enrollment at the district’s two most coveted and rigorously selective schools, Central High and Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School, has declined in recent years, an issue highlighted during the national protests that followed a police officer killing George Floyd last year. Alumni, students, and some faculty at the two schools demanded that the district act. Black enrollment at both schools is below 20%, in a district where more than half of the students are Black.

The goal of the new system, officials said, is to address racial disparities in admissions and open opportunities to more students by attempting to minimize any bias that could occur as school leaders shaped their next class.

“We worked hard to avoid data points that involved human assessment,” said Karyn Lynch, the district’s chief of student support services, when she announced the new process in October, on the day that the application window for fall 2022 admissions opened.

At Thursday’s board meeting, she offered a strong defense of the new process “as eliminating privilege so other students can finally have the opportunity they had not had before. We have also heard from many excited students who are suddenly are aware of a school selection process where they didn’t participate in the past but are participating now.”

As part of the new system, the district also gave preference to students living in five ZIP codes where students are underrepresented at top schools.

Wilson, the professor, called the effort to make the system more equitable “a noble goal,” but said the question was “how to get the action to match the intention with a more valid way of doing it.”

Besides Central and Masterman, the other three schools requiring the writing test are Academy at Palumbo, Parkway Center City, and Carver High School of Engineering and Science. Carver and Parkway Center City are majority Black, while Palumbo is one-third Black and one-third Asian American.

Before the change, students were admitted to the five schools based on grades, attendance, behavior, and a writing sample.

Standardized test scores were a big factor before the pandemic, but they haven’t been administered since spring 2019. Officials eliminated their use for this cycle, but have not said whether they will resume using them in the future. Standardized test results typically correlate with socioeconomic status, putting underserved Black and Latino students at a disadvantage.

The MI Write test used this year gives students a prompt, mostly on topics that don’t require detailed background knowledge. Questions might include “What is your favorite subject and why?” or “If you could go back in history and meet someone, who would that be?” Students have 90 minutes to write an essay that is immediately scored on a scale of six to 30.

To qualify for Palumbo, Carver and Parkway Center City, the student needs a score of 17. For Central and Masterman, the score is 22, according to the district.

Wilson raised concerns about how the district determined the cutoff scores on the MI Write test for admission. “Where’s the research that validates the cut scores?” he said. “I think Philadelphia has the burden of showing the proof that these cut scores are appropriate.”

Wilson said that 17 “is just below the median, and probably not that high a bar.” In a 90-minute sample, he said, “it would probably be achievable for most kids unless they really lack basic skills.”

At the board meeting, member Mallory Fix-Lopez said she had heard that some students are getting fractional scores, such as 21.9, and asked Lynch if the scores would be rounded up so students would make the cutoff for Masterman and Central. Lynch said no.

Fix-Lopez said the students she spoke with who missed the cutoff by tenths of a point are Black and Latino, “the population we were particularly looking at to address equity issues.” She said she would like to see demographic data on otherwise qualified students who fell into that kind of gap.

Student Nora Ouarirdi told the board she scored a 21.1. “I cried,” she said. “For students worked incredibly hard, this doesn’t seem particularly equitable.”

Wilson also noted that the instrument doesn’t score for content. “I can write a beautifully written response off-topic and get a good score,” he said.

Students take the computerized exercise in class, and immediately learn their score. Students are taking the test now; the testing window is between Nov. 29 and Dec. 18.

Timothy Boyle, principal of Science Leadership Academy Middle School, said that 43 of his students took the test last week, and almost all scored above 17. Based on what he knew about the students, he said he wondered what the scores actually revealed about them.

One straight-A student scored a 21, one point shy of the score that would make them eligible for Central or Masterman. Another student, with a 1.5 grade point average, scored a 20, putting them above the cutoff for three of the five schools, though they might be ineligible based on other factors. “How does this result in more fairness and more opportunity?” Boyle asked.

The scoring system is based on an algorithm derived from what trained human raters produced based on the six-trait writing model, which includes rubrics for ideas, organization, sentence fluency, word choice, and style conventions. Each trait can receive a score between 1 and 5, adding to a maximum score of 30.

Wilson said the main use and benefit of machine-scored tests is to encourage teachers to assign more writing because it helps them to pinpoint student weaknesses and guide improvements quickly. “Scoring and evaluating writing is so time consuming,” he said.

Boyle also applauds the effort to make the system more equitable. But he said if district leaders suspect bias on the part of its educators as a reason for the disparities in the demographics at its most selective schools, it needs to tackle that issue directly.

“They say they don’t know if this [new process] is going to work,” he said. “It’s like they are throwing stuff at the wall, and confusing action for strategy.”

The high school selection process includes three tiers — the five “criteria-based” ones at the top, “citywide admission” schools with a particular theme or focus, and those with catchment areas that have special programs.

In the statement, made in response to Chalkbeat’s questions, Lewis said that this year, the district received more high school applications compared to last, suggesting that the effort to broaden access is working. She said 15,382 students — from both inside and outside the district — submitted 62,591 applications (each student can choose five schools), which amounts to “365 more students participating in the process than last year.”

Lynch and Superintendent William Hite, who will end his 10-year tenure in August, have said that the intent is to continually refine the process.

“We know that change can be difficult and we also know that the time for equity-focused change is now,” the district’s statement said. “This year’s changes are a starting point” that will lead to “further enhancements...as we move toward becoming a stronger and more equitable school district.”