Chalkbeat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catch up on the full panel discussion here.

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 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.

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.

How dubious high school credentials like ladder safety are boosting Pennsylvania’s graduation rate

2026-04-09T18:39:08+00:00

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When Pennsylvania introduced new graduation requirements four years ago, lawmakers said there would be options for students who struggled with standardized tests to show they were ready for college or careers.

Monica Hawk, CEO of Philadelphia’s One Bright Ray Community High School, understood the aim. But in her role running six accelerated high schools, she also had concerns. Some of her students were months or years behind in school before returning to get their diplomas. Few could pass state tests.

In addition, the new requirements would mean a new bureaucratic headache. And she wouldn’t have more money, staff, or resources earmarked to help.

So Hawk focused her team on a graduation pathway established by the requirements that she called her school’s “fail-safe plan.” Students still have to pass their main classes. But the pathway’s additional requirements have nothing to do with academic achievement.

Instead, it hinges on students presenting three pieces of “evidence” that they’re ready to graduate from a state-approved list. In practice, it means a student can take a couple of quick online courses to earn a few industry-recognized credentials, count those as evidence, and then be dubbed graduation-ready. This pathway has quickly become the most common way Philadelphia students are graduating.

Since the state introduced the “evidence-based” pathway as part of its graduation overhaul, starting with the Class of 2023, graduation rates have improved. But at the same time, high school students’ scores on state math and reading tests have declined. And educators who spoke with Chalkbeat said they’re seeing a troubling trend: Students are getting low-value credentials just to check off requirements, especially in schools with large shares of high-needs students and resource-poor districts.

“Credentials are often the tail that wags the dog,” said Adriana Harrington, managing director of policy at ExcelinEd, a nonprofit that has compiled nationwide data on credentials. “Folks will decide what (career and technical education) programs they want to offer by which credential they think they can get a student to pass.”

Educators did say they appreciated that students who may be poor test takers have another path to graduation, unlike other states where passing state tests is required. And they were glad more students were graduating. A high school diploma means more opportunities and better pay on average.

Still, they worry that schools are incentivized to push students to earn these credentials by state and district officials who want to see graduation rates continue to rise. Many of those credentials — like a popular one in ladder safety — have little value or relevance to students after graduation.

One Bright Ray Community High School's Elmwood campus on April 8, 2026. All but one of the school's 29 graduates last year used the "evidence-based" pathway to fulfill requirements.

It’s unclear whether students are any better off after they graduate because of these changes. Today, no one at the state or district level is analyzing which credentials students submit to meet graduation requirements. Many of the lawmakers who championed the requirements under a state law called Act 158, including former Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, are no longer in office.

Erin James, press secretary at the Pennsylvania Department of Education, said the state works to ensure all graduation pathways are “equally rigorous.” She said students graduating via the evidence-based pathway can use credentials to “step directly into the workforce.”

“A ladder safety credential is not ‘low value’ if the student wants to be a firefighter or is doing an internship with a roofer. It may actually be required for that student’s job,” James said.

Philadelphia district leaders said they were not focused on analyzing credentials students use to fulfill requirements.

Adam Zeiser, principal of One Bright Ray’s Elmwood campus in Southwest Philadelphia, was blunt about the typical value of many of the credentials students use to fill the evidence-based pathway’s requirements.

“The short answer is, no, I don’t think they help prepare them for much,” he said. “But I think that we help prepare them, as much as we can.”

Pushing Philadelphia students towards credentials now routine

Since the state’s graduation overhaul, graduation rates have improved every year. Last school year, nearly 90% of Pennsylvania students graduated within four years, up two percentage points over three years.

The evidence-based pathway is one of five options students can use to fulfill graduation requirements. It’s quickly become the most popular one in many Pennsylvania districts.

Statewide, around 20,000 students met the requirements through the evidence-based pathway last school year, equal to around one-fifth of all students in districts where data was available. At some schools, more than three-quarters of students used this pathway to graduate, including at several cyber charter schools.

In Philadelphia, around 40% of all graduates fulfilled requirements via this pathway. At One Bright Ray’s Elmwood campus, all but one of last year’s 29 graduates used the evidence-based pathway, according to district data.

The other pathways largely require students to earn certain scores on standardized tests, or to be enrolled in a specific career and technical education program or pre-apprencticeship.

Several Philadelphia high school educators said that creates a simple problem: Many seniors can’t earn those high scores or access those career and technical education programs. But it’s a virtual guarantee students can pass the evidence-based pathway by submitting easy-to-earn credentials.

Many options for “evidence” can count towards the requirements, including a full-time job offer, a dual-enrollment credit, and an AP or IB score. But by far, the most common kind are industry-recognized credentials. Last year, in districts where data was available, 85% of students statewide who graduated via this pathway submitted at least one credential. Some met the requirements solely by submitting credentials.

Researchers have found some credentials do lead to better paying jobs, but they’re often the ones that are more expensive and difficult to get.

At One Bright Ray, Hawk said schools offer credentials in CPR, workplace safety, mandated-reporter training on how to spot and report suspected child abuse, and ladder-safety training. “If we had a really dedicated student, and they absolutely wanted (something else), we would find a way,” she said.

But for the most part, students don’t know of other options. And even if the school helped out a single persistent student access more costly options, doing so for all students is an expense that One Bright Ray can’t afford, she added.

Teachers at several Philadelphia high schools who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak about the issue publicly described similar challenges with the lack of funding and time.

One district teacher said the pathway system created “a host of work arounds that schools have to go through to get kids to graduate.”

Unlike dedicated career-and-technical education programs, for example, standard high schools don’t get money specifically to spend on credentials.

That’s part of why the ladder safety credential — a free, two-hour online course — is so popular, teachers said.

But even though many students take the ladder-safety course, teachers said they’ve had trouble persuading students that the course is truly worthwhile. How do you convince a teen who wants to be a cosmetologist, for example, that ladder safety will be a key step towards that goal?

Pennsylvania does not appear to be studying whether the new pathways have benefitted students, or if more credentials mean better outcomes for graduates. Philadelphia school district officials said they’re not tracking long-term data about the credentials students use to fill graduation requirements.

“I couldn’t answer why a certain school would give them ladder safety, if it’s not linked (to their interests),” said Michelle Armstrong, the district’s director of career and technical education. “But our advice has always been: the certification that you offer young people, try to align to their interest.”

Armstrong said the Philadelphia district consults with industry experts to determine which credentials to offer. For students in career and technical education programs, the district has spent decades ensuring students get credentials that are useful and pays for all of them.

But for students not in those programs, Armstrong said she’s not focused on monitoring which credentials students get. The district leaves that responsibility up to individual schools.

Graduation requirements create unequal burden for Pennsylvania schools

While thousands of Philadelphia students earned credentials to meet graduation requirements last year, they’re not dispersed evenly across the city.

At the city’s most-selective high schools, like Central and Masterman, nearly every student does well enough on state tests to use their scores to meet graduation requirements through test-related pathways.

But for schools where most students do not pass the tests, the alternative graduation requirements require hours of staff time to manage, explain to students, and track.

District data shows that at schools like Strawberry Mansion and Vaux Big Picture, more than three-quarters of students used the evidence-based pathway to fill graduation requirements last year.

State data obtained by Chalkbeat shows a similar trend. In some of the state’s highest poverty districts, like Chester-Upland and York City, the vast majority of students graduated last year via the evidence-based pathway. The majority of those students counted credentials towards the requirements.

But in some districts in Philadelphia’s wealthy suburbs, like Radnor Township and Upper St. Clair, almost no students graduate via the pathway.

Philadelphia teachers at non-selective high schools said the new requirements amount to an additional burden on schools and teachers who are already spread thin.

Some Philadelphia teachers said students get credentials in CPR to meet graduation requirements.

One charter school teacher said many students at his school make up failed courses through quick online credit-recovery programs that experts say are often suspect. Then, those students fulfill Act 158 requirements through additional and easy online modules.

It troubled him that students could get their diploma without meeting any academic standards the school set for them.

“I feel like we’re kind of just saying, you don’t have to learn anything to graduate,” he said.

But others said they saw some value in the new graduation requirements.

One district high school teacher said the requirements meant teachers at least had conversations with students about their plans. And he’s seen that earning credentials can boost students’ confidence.

He wished his school could offer students more mentorship programs and pre-apprenticeship opportunities.

“The idea of some of this is useful,” he said. “But they don’t always set a student up for their own pathway.”

Pressure is acute on high school students close to graduation

It’s not just Pennsylvania dealing with this issue, experts say. Across the country, the number of students earning credentials during high school has shot up as local and federal legislation supports training students for careers.

Studies of workplace credentials have found that many don’t result in more opportunities for those who earn them.

In one recent study of Texas students who earned credentials between 2017-2022, the most popular ones, by far, were credentials in Microsoft Word and “floral skills.”

Matt Giani, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the study’s lead researcher, said in an email that the findings show that “the way we’ve designed accountability systems has allowed schools to game the system and pump out short-term, online, open book, low-hanging-fruit certifications.”

Adam Zeiser, principal of One Bright Ray’s Elmwood campus, and Monica Hawk, One Bright Ray Community High School's CEO, say they support students in ways outside the state's graduation pathways to help them access college and careers.

Because Pennsylvania’s requirements are relatively new, it’s likely to be years before school leaders have any sense of whether Act 158 has meant students are more prepared or successful after graduation.

At One Bright Ray, a poster in the hallway of the Elmwood campus explains the different pathways. Staff check in regularly with students about how they’re progressing with the requirements.

But none of that eliminates the pressure to take the easiest route to a diploma.

“There are some students who are right up against graduation, they need one more piece of evidence,” Hawk said. “And they’re like, ‘let me just do ladder safety.’”

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.

Philadelphia mayor increases her proposed rideshare tax to help patch school district’s budget

2026-03-23T21:16:48+00:00

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Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker wants to increase her previously proposed rideshare tax to stave off the school district’s plan to cut hundreds of staff positions.

Eliminating all those positions “is not acceptable to me,” Parker said at a press conference at Delaplaine McDaniel School on Monday. “We have to keep these staff members in schools where they’re very much needed.”

Parker’s initial blueprint for next year’s budget, which she released March 12, included a tax of 20 cents per ride purchased through popular apps like Uber and Lyft that originate within city limits. It would have earmarked the estimated $9.6 million in resulting revenues for schools.

Shortly after that announcement, district officials released their initial budget proposal for next fiscal year. It included sweeping cuts, including eliminating 340 school-based positions.

On Monday, Parker said she wanted to increase the rideshare tax to $1 per ride beginning in January, which would save 240 of those school-based positions from elimination, school officials said. That includes approximately 130 teachers, 55 student climate staff, and 55 other school-based positions.

But even the higher tax rate on rideshares wouldn’t solve the district’s budget crisis by itself. After accounting for the $1-per-ride tax, the district would still plan to cut 100 school-based positions in the coming year, as well as 130 central office staff and 220 building substitute positions. Teachers would not be laid off, but would be reshuffled to fill vacant positions.

The rideshare tax would result in $48 million annually for the school district beginning in fiscal year 2028. But the district has a $300 million budget deficit, which Superintendent Tony Watlington said is the result of decades of underfunding combined with the end of federal pandemic relief funds.

Watlington is also looking to fund a proposed $2.8 billion district facilities plan which would close 18 schools and renovate more than one hundred others.

“If we don’t do something, and we don’t get this help from the mayor’s initiative, we know that our expenditures will grow faster than our revenues,” Watlington said at the press conference alongside Parker on Monday.

Parker said she would leave it up to rideshare companies, like Uber and Lyft, to decide whether they would pass the tax onto users.

Parker announced that the new tax would also provide $3 million annually to help fund free SEPTA transit passes for some school staff, including school climate staff, support staff, and maintenance staff. But she didn’t specify what exactly would make staff eligible for the free passes.

Monday’s announcement comes weeks after Parker released her initial budget plan for fiscal year 2027 to the City Council. That plan included the initial rideshare tax increase and a modification to tax calculations for cell towers which Parker’s administration says would bring in an additional $2.4 million annually for schools.

The Philadelphia Parking Authority already charges rideshare companies a 1.4% fee on gross receipts. Two-thirds of that revenue goes to the school district. In 2023, the tax generated $6 million for the city’s schools, according to a parking authority report.

Parker’s proposal is not a done deal. The new tax will need City Council approval. The city’s deadline to pass a budget is June 30. The school district is expected to release its own budget summary for the upcoming fiscal year later this week.

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

Pennsylvania’s teaching workforce is in trouble. ‘Strategic staffing’ could change that.

2026-02-23T22:41:50+00:00

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Teaching in Pennsylvania is at a breaking point, according to a new report.

The rate of educator attrition is rising, turnover is disproportionately impacting urban and rural districts, and on the ground teachers are reporting feeling burnt out, overworked, and underprepared.

All of this creates an inhospitable environment for student learning, according to new research from PA Needs Teachers, a statewide coalition led by the Teach Plus advocacy group and the National Center on Education and the Economy.

Their solution is to radically reimagine what it means to teach in Pennsylvania schools. The report’s authors, including Philly teacher Trey Smith, are proposing shifting from a traditional one-teacher-in-front-of-one-classroom approach to something that’s more collaborative that would help students as well as educators.

In the various models they propose, small groups of educators and support staff work together to schedule, plan lessons, give constructive feedback on their teaching, and help each other grow.

New teachers would receive mentorship and guidance, experienced teachers would be compensated and recognized in their schools, and paraprofessionals and tutors would pay extra attention to struggling students.

In practice, a group of 100 students may share a team of six educators who get guidance and support from a “lead teacher.” That would replace a model, for example, of four teachers each responsible for their own separate classroom of 25 students with little feedback on their individual teaching styles.

The report authors call it “strategic staffing.” Smith thinks of it as a teaching team. And schools in Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia, are primed for this sort of innovation.

“I really want us to think about, how are we honestly accounting for what teachers know and how they can grow?” said Smith, who teaches at Marian Anderson Neighborhood Academy in Southwest Center City. “Teachers are not all the same, so whatever system we design, we can’t treat teachers like widgets or cogs in a big machine.”

Smith said any new teaching model has to “maximize the talent we have,” including teachers with varying levels of experience and classroom management skills.

New teachers with the least classroom experience are often given the most challenging school assignments. Black or Hispanic students and those from low-income families are therefore the least likely to receive the most experienced, qualified teachers in Pennsylvania.

And Philly, which employs less than 20% of the state’s teachers, accounts for 30% of statewide attrition, according to the report.

As a digital literacy teacher, Smith is a specialist. That means when other teachers need coverage, either because they’re absent or trying to find time to plan ahead, he’s often the first to get the call to step in. But what he said he really wants is to be in constant conversation with other teachers to game-plan and get creative about ways lessons can interlock and students can engage with the same ideas across multiple subjects.

“I have no collaborative planning time with my colleagues and my grades because I’m their coverage,” Smith said.

Doylestown middle school teacher Jill Weller-Reilly, another co-author of the report, said if the state wants teachers to stay in the field, schools need to provide educators with opportunities to grow and advance in their careers.

“We don’t lose new teachers because they can’t do the job. We lose them because we don’t help them learn how and set them up for success,” Weller-Reilly said.

According to Teach Plus polling from 2025, 70% of educators nationwide said they “definitely” or “probably” would want their school to adopt such an approach.

The report authors note there are no state-level limits on class size at the K-12 level, and the state does not mandate a specific student-to-teacher ratio. As a local control state, Pennsylvania school districts have a fair amount of autonomy for things like budgeting, teacher time, and compensation. Those factors could make “strategic staffing” easier to implement.

However, union negotiations and limited district resources do mean districts like Philly would have to get buy-in from multiple parties to launch a strategic staffing model.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg signaled some interest in the idea, saying in an email to Chalkbeat that “districts including ours must be more innovative with resource allocation to improve hiring, retention, and professional support.”

But change can be notoriously hard for educators, administrators, and school communities. And the report’s proposal comes with a cost.

While most strategic staffing models are intended to be budget-neutral after schools have gone through the design process, the Teach Plus advocates said, there are significant up-front costs to getting one of these models off the ground.

Teach Plus wants state lawmakers to establish a grant program and a way to evaluate the effectiveness of Pennsylvania’s programs alongside similar models like North Carolina’s Advanced Teaching Roles program. State evaluations of the North Carolina program are beginning to show promise, with some data demonstrating it helped improve students’ math and science scores and teachers’ perceptions of their jobs. North Carolina’s program costs about $16.5 million to run annually in 17 districts.

Another major hurdle to establishing strategic staffing in classrooms is simple exhaustion with new initiatives. Philadelphia, like other major city school districts, has experimented with innovative teaching and learning models in the past, only to have them fade away or lose funding and attention.

But Smith said if the changes are born from the bottom up, and truly take educators’ ideas into consideration, it could make Philly a prized destination for future teachers.

“I still am hopeful if the approach is such that it really honors what teachers know and think, that’s how the model can work,” he said.

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

Pennsylvania is getting closer to passing a bell-to-bell cellphone ban

2026-02-05T19:30:30+00:00

This story was originally published by The Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

Legislation that would mandate a universal bell-to-bell cellphone ban in public and private schools across Pennsylvania now heads to the House after getting the nod from senators.

A bipartisan group of senators petitioned their colleagues Wednesday to move the proposal, noting that Gov. Josh Shapiro has already endorsed the idea.

“We are spending nearly $12 billion here in Pennsylvania on K-12 education this year alone, but we’ll be flushing it down the drain if we can’t recapture our students’ attention,” said sponsor Sen. Devlin Robinson. “Our schools are for learning, and our kids need a break from these devices.”

In particular, lawmakers shared concerns about the addictive nature of smartphones and how they disrupt learning in the classroom. Sponsors pointed to numerous studies linking cellphone use with poor mental health and worse academic performance.

Combining a pocket-sized handheld computer with addictive apps creates “the perfect storm … not just for kids, but frankly for adults too,” said Sen. Steven Santarsiero, a cosponsor.

“Kids actually have to be able to pay attention in class, to absorb what’s happening,” said the former teacher. “But more than that … those hours, the minutes between classes and the time spent in recess or in the cafeteria at lunch, that’s time when young people need to be talking to each other. They need to be having those relationships.

“Saying, ‘From bell to bell, you’re not using (a phone),’ is what will enable them to do that,” he added.

Proposed ban includes exceptions for students with disabilities

Some early pushback came from parents, including legislators, worried about contacting their children during an emergency, such as a school shooting.

Santarsiero shared a story from 17 years ago during a 90-minute school lockdown, back when students started using flip phones. As it stretched on, kids texted each other rumors, convinced that a gunman was roaming the halls.

“Kids were understandably becoming hysterical, and it made my job in keeping them calm and quiet much more difficult,” he said. “It turns out that the lockdown happened because there was a burglary a couple blocks away … there was never anyone inside the school who had a gun.”

“From my personal experience, these things are not helpful in those circumstances; they are an impediment,” Santarsiero continued.

In a November hearing, school safety experts echoed the need for students to listen to their teachers and school officials in emergencies — and not be distracted by their cellphone.

The bill does include exceptions for students with individualized learning programs or other medical needs. Teachers can also request to incorporate the devices into a lesson plan with administrative support.

Over three dozen states and Washington, D.C. have enacted statewide phone restrictions for students, including 18 with full-day bans or other comprehensive prohibitions.

Senate Bill 1014 advanced on a 46-1 vote over the opposition of Sen. Dawn Keefer. In a December committee, Keefer hesitated to support a one-size-fits-all approach, noting maturity differences between middle grades and high school, and pushed for schools to adopt their own policies.

Kelly Marsh, a mother of three outside of Pittsburgh, is one of the leaders of parent-led PA Unplugged pushing for the law. She called it the “gold standard,” noting the increasing amount of time students report spending on their phones during the school day.

“Teachers, kids, and parents have been tasked with managing the unmanageable. It’s time to recognize that our current approach isn’t working,” said Marsh. “This type of legislation is an important first step for a much-needed cultural change.”

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.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro proposes $151 million funding boost for Philadelphia schools

2026-02-03T20:59:56+00:00

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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s newly proposed budget would add $151 million more for Philadelphia schools and increase public school funding statewide by more than $660 million.

The Philadelphia school district would get a total of $2.2 billion in general funding under the new proposal, including money for basic education and special education, and funds meant to go to the state’s highest needs school districts.

Shapiro is also seeking $420 million for publicly funded pre-K programs, $158 million for career and technical education programs, and $35 million for the popular student teacher stipend program.

Speaking at the state Capitol Tuesday, Shapiro said the new proposal follows his administration’s promise to make school funding statewide more fair after a judge ruled in 2023 that the state’s previous school funding formula was unconstitutional.

“We’ve invested a record amount of money in public education, and created a brand-new formula that drives that money out to the schools that need it most,” Shapiro said.

But the proposal still leaves poor school districts, including Philadelphia’s, underfunded and leaves out funding advocates say is essential for some education programs.

In addition, Shapiro is calling for further reform to how school districts fund cyber charter schools. In last year’s budget, lawmakers reduced the amount districts had to reimburse cyber charter schools compared with brick-and-mortar schools. That change was estimated to save school districts at least $178 million statewide.

The new proposal would allow school districts to write off more of the money they used to send to cyber charters and creates new limits on how cyber charter schools calculate tuition rates. It’s estimated to save an additional $75 million for districts.

Shapiro called for several changes to statewide education law in his address. He called on lawmakers to move forward with legislation that would ban cell phones use for kids while they are in school. And he said he has directed members of his administration to explore legal options to require the developers of AI chatbots to require age verification and parental consent.

Shapiro also said he has directed the State Board of Education to develop recommendations for schools to guarantee recess for all students.

The spending plan comes at a crucial time for Philly schools. Superintendent Tony Watlington last month released a wide-ranging facilities plan that would downsize the district, close 20 schools, merge others, and renovate some buildings. But even with Shapiro’s proposed funding boost, the district would still need to find more government and grant funding to pay for the $2.8 billion facilities plan.

Philadelphia is in a unique and difficult funding position. It’s the only school district in the state that cannot raise its own revenue and, as such, 99% of its operating budget is controlled by state and city officials.

Mayor Cherelle Parker in 2024 increased the district’s share of city property taxes from 55% to 56% in the 2025 budget, which her office claimed would send an additional $250 million to the city’s schools through 2030. Parker said she would increase that percent again in 2030, but her four-year term concludes in 2027. There’s no guarantee that a 2030 increase would materialize.

Still, the district is staring down a multimillion annual deficit. And Shapiro’s proposed increase is not a done deal. The state Legislature will deliberate and must offer its own spending plan by July 1. Last year, the final budget arrived four months overdue, forcing school districts to take out millions in loans.

Shapiro’s proposal leaves districts underfunded by more than $3 billion

Many education advocates welcomed the increased investment in education and said they would urge state lawmakers to support the proposed boost to school funding.

“The governor is making good on his commitment to fully fund our public schools and bring real opportunity to kids in Pennsylvania,” said Laura Boyce, Pennsylvania executive director of Teach Plus. “We will be fighting alongside him to ensure these commitments are passed into law in this year’s budget.”

Still, Pennsylvania schools remain underfunded by more than $3 billion compared with what they should get under the state’s adequacy formula, which was developed by a bipartisan commission to determine how much money schools need to operate. Some groups also worry the proposal leaves some education mandates unfunded.

Last year’s budget, for example, created new requirements for all districts to use evidence-based reading curriculums and implement new literacy training for teachers. But the new budget proposal does not include more funding for early literacy initiatives. The Pennsylvania Literacy Coalition, which has advocated for increased early literacy support, has called on state lawmakers to invest $50 million in those initiatives.

“In recent years, our commonwealth has taken important steps forward, but there is more work to be done,” said Pennsylvania Literacy Coalition leader Rachael Garnick. “We must meet this moment with the urgency, leadership, and sustained investment required to ensure that no child’s future is determined by whether the system was prepared to teach them to read.”

Some advocates also say the student teacher stipend program needs more money to effectively address the state’s severe teacher shortage. Though this proposal boosts funding for the program by $5 million, Lenny Sweeney, a leader with the group PA Needs Teachers, said in a statement the program needs further investment to meet the need.

The group is calling for state legislators to commit $40 million toward the program. “It is a practical, cost-effective, bipartisan strategy to rebuild Pennsylvania’s educator pipeline, bolster local economies, and support student success across the commonwealth,” Sweeney said.

Shapiro, who is broadly rumored to be seeking a presidential bid in 2028, took several hits at the Trump administration during his address, including its move to freeze some federal education funds last year. He also highlighted statewide gains since he took office, including improved statewide attendance and graduation rates.

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

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.

Philly is expanding one of its most effective dropout prevention strategies

2025-08-27T14:20:02+00:00

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A Philadelphia program focused on addressing the city’s student dropout crisis is expanding into four new district schools this year.

Philadelphia Academies Inc. — a longtime partner in dropout prevention efforts in the School District of Philadelphia — announced this month it is bringing its 9th Grade Success Network to Building 21, Franklin Learning Center, Philadelphia Military Academy, and Hill-Freedman World Academy for the 2025-26 school year.

The program focuses on schools that serve students from traditionally marginalized groups, particularly Black students, who have faced systemic challenges to persisting in their education, leading to higher dropout rates, research has shown.

School leaders and educators in the program get specialized professional training in adolescent development, relationship building, and intervention techniques. Ninth grade assistant principals also get regular coaching and assistance analyzing student data to ensure those most at risk of dropping out get the attention and support they need.

LaTrina Stewart, ninth grade assistant principal at Franklin Learning Center, will be participating for the first time this school year. She said she’s hoping her students feel “ultra supported” this year.

“I don’t want to have to dig a child out of a hole and I don’t want children to have to dig themselves out of a hole,” she said. “That safety net to catch them before they even get in the hole — that’s what the ninth grade academy provides for us.”

With this expansion, the 9th Grade Success Network will operate in 28 district schools, with a goal to reach 32 schools by next year, said Christopher Goins, the president and CEO of Philadelphia Academies Inc., or PAI. This is the first year the program will work in selective admissions schools like Franklin Learning Center and Hill-Freedman. The program is funded through 2027 with $2.6 million from the School District of Philadelphia and $8 million from the Neubauer Family Foundation.

Nadia Schafer, director of the 9th Grade Success Network at PAI, told Chalkbeat the program is expanding because it’s working.

The program served more than 4,500 students in the 2024-25 school year, according to Philadelphia Academies data. A ninth grade student is considered “on-track” to graduation by the district and PAI if they earn at least one credit in each of the core subjects English, math, science, and social studies, plus one additional credit in a subject of their choosing. Students who earn all As and Bs in their four core classes plus at least one additional class are considered “firmly on-track,” Schafer said.

For the students the program served last year, Latino boys and Black boys improved their “on-track” rates by 5 percentage points and 4.4 percentage points, respectively.

Thomas Murtaugh, ninth and 12th grade principal at the School of the Future, said his student on-track data “drastically improved” since being part of the program. The share of students on-track to graduation went up 27% in the second year of the program and has remained consistently high, he said.

District officials noticed too, Schafer said. In fact, district data shows the “on-track” strategy contributed to a 10.2 percentage point increase in the four-year graduation rate over the last seven years. Superintendent Tony Watlington has also reported the district’s dropout rate was down by more than a thousand students last school year, due in part, to the on-track program.

There’s evidence this approach is working in other large urban school districts. Philly’s strategy was built off of a blueprint initiated in Chicago, which has also reported all-time high graduation rates.

Ebony Hollingsworth-Lowery, ninth grade assistant principal at William Sayre High School is about to start her fourth year with the program, and she said it’s been a “roadmap for success.”

As a former athlete, Hollingsworth-Lowery said the leadership coaching and regular check-ins work for her because they form a kind of “playbook” to help keep her and her ninth grade team of counselors, community advocates, educators, school staff, and administrators all focused on the same goals.

“It forces you to really look at your students, your teachers, and what systems are in place to be able to be successful,” she said. The program instills a way to “know your students, know who they are, but also, most importantly, know their needs, because if we can’t meet their needs, they’re going to retract from school.”

But not every high school is equipped to take on the program, according to Schafer, and there’s a competitive application process for schools to be selected. Schools with lower graduation rates and lower on-track rates are given priority because “we think it’s important to spend our resources where they’re going to make the most difference,” Schafer said.

Schools must also have a ninth grade administrator and a ninth grade core team of educators dedicated to teaching solely ninth grade, “not someone who is teaching English 1, 2, 3, and 4,” Schafer said.

With the ongoing teacher shortage and funding constraints in the city, those requirements can be a challenge for schools. That’s why PAI opened applications to criteria-based schools for the first time.

“It’s tough when maybe it’s not quite time” for some of those neighborhood schools to join the program, Schafer said, but she said they are working with the district to get other neighborhood schools “ready to be able to take on this work in a future year.”

For Stewart, the resources that the success network provides, “should be a part of what high schools get without it being left up to what principals have in their budget,” she said.

But this year at least, she’s hopeful.

“We need this,” Stewart said.

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

Philadelphia Board of Education indicates it will not renew 2 charter schools

2025-06-27T02:00:41+00:00

The Philadelphia Board of Education directed the Charter School Office at its Thursday meeting to draft charter renewal agreements with four charter schools, indicating they will likely vote to renew those schools’ charters.

But for two schools, KIPP North Philadelphia Academy and People for People Charter School, the board directed the Charter School Office to draft a notice of non-renewal, which kicks off a process that can ultimately lead to closing a charter.

Board members said they were concerned about the academic performance of both schools, which have test scores far below the district average and have not shown significant improvement in recent years.

The decision to pursue non-renewals came as a blow to parents, educators, and officials connected with both schools who attended Thursday’s meeting.

“As a turnaround principal, I knew the path wouldn’t be easy,” said Susanna Tagoe, who became principal of KIPP North Philadelphia last year. “I also know that this requires deep courage, deep resilience, and deep commitment to our students, our families and our staff.”

The school, which serves around 680 students in kindergarten through seventh grade, has shown poor academic performance, with only 6% of its students scoring proficiently in the state math test last year. It also suspended more students than the district average, with nearly 1 in 3 students suspended last year, including nearly a third of all second and third graders and half of its sixth grade class.

“When this many students are being removed from their classroom, something deeper is happening,” said board member Sarah-Ashley Andrews. “These numbers tell us that this school community is in distress.”

Meanwhile, Anthony Fratanduono, principal of People for People Charter School, urged the board to renew the school based on the growth it has shown in recent years in math, science, and language arts test scores. He said the school would continue to work to improve its academics.

The school “is more than just a place of learning,” Fratanduono said. “It is a second home for our students and our families. It is a space where children are seen and supported.”

But board members said the school’s slight gains recently in some subjects did not make up for years of low test scores across the board.

“After more than two decades in question and operation, there’s still no evidence of sustained academic success,” said board President Reginald Streater.

The board is considering a total of 18 charter schools for renewal this year, meaning that it must decide whether to allow those charters to continue operating or begin a process that could result in closure.

The board had already directed the Charter School Office to draft and negotiate renewal charters with 12 of those schools before Thursday’s meeting.

Robin Cooper, president of the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators, Teamsters Local 502, spoke against the charter renewals. She requested an “investigation” into how charter school supporters have been able to fill public speaking slots while district school supporters allegedly “can’t get on the list.” Her union represents school principals and other school officials.

Streater said the board “will be looking into” how the public speakers list is compiled in response to Cooper’s testimony.

District allocates $190 million to pay parents for school transport

The board also voted to approve millions in spending for transportation, school safety, students experiencing housing insecurity and more.

The full list of contracts can be found on the board’s website. Among the approved items on the consent agenda were:

$191 million over five years for the district’s ongoing “parent flat rate” program which pays parents up to $3,000 a year per household, for students who opt out of bus, van, or cab service to and from school. According to the district, 15,000 families and 18,000 students are currently participating in the program.
$34 million for SEPTA student fare cards for some 63,000 eligible students at public, charter, and non-public schools who use public transit to get to class. SEPTA adopted a budget on Thursday that plans for major cuts to its transit services, which the district said will impact the ability of 21,000 students to get to school reliably and consistently and limit students’ access to after-school programs.
Nearly $12 million in equipment costs for the district’s buses and other transportation vehicles, and another $8.4 million for yellow bus repairs.
$2.7 million to extend contracts with outside groups that provide services to students experiencing homelessness.
Roughly $366,000 for various school safety costs including contracts with the Philadelphia Police Department for increased police presence outside of schools in the Safety Zone program, security cameras near Olney High School athletic fields, and emergency lights in school safety vehicles.

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.

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

Philadelphia school district, union leaders say students need state education funding boost

2025-06-25T21:39:35+00:00

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In an unusual show of unity, Philadelphia school officials and union leaders stood side by side at the state Capitol in Harrisburg on Wednesday to call on state lawmakers to increase funding for city schools in the upcoming state budget.

They said that more money for the district would help it continue to support students, improve graduation rates and test scores, and save the government money down the road.

State lawmakers have until June 30 to pass next year’s state budget, though some have signaled they are unlikely to meet that deadline. School funding has been an ongoing flashpoint in negotiations following a 2023 court ruling that found the state’s previous school funding formula to be unconstitutional because it left poor districts severely underfunded.

Philadelphia schools got $232 million more in last year’s budget, though it still left the district with far less money per pupil than wealthier suburban districts. Democratic lawmakers argue the court ruling means the state must continue to increase funding for districts like Philadelphia that cannot or do not have resources to raise as much money through property taxes.

Some Republicans have previously resisted increasing funding for poor districts, promoting additional school choice programs like vouchers instead.

“This is no ordinary year,” said LeShawna Coleman, chief of staff of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, referring to the 2023 court ruling as well as growing concerns that the Trump administration could cut federal funding for schools.

“We’re doing this to make sure Philly public schools get their fair share of funding,” Coleman added. “Our students deserve nothing less.”

Union leaders appearing alongside district officials to lobby lawmakers together is “unprecedented,” PFT President Arthur Steinberg said Wednesday.

Their trip to Harrisburg comes days after a majority of union members voted to authorize a strike amid ongoing contract negotiations. Teacher salaries and benefits make up the largest portion of the district’s budget, so any additional state funding would likely go in part to employee salaries.

Both union leaders and district officials said they supported Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget proposal, which would increase funding for Philadelphia schools by more than $200 million.

Shapiro’s proposal includes additional funding for building repairs, school meals, student mental health support, and special education. It would also limit how cyber charter schools are funded in a way that would save the district another $50 million.

Board President Reginald Streater said increased funding would help the district maintain some of its academic gains and continue to better serve students. Last school year, the district’s attendance increased slightly, its dropout rate declined, and some student test scores increased.

“Without a continued investment, we risk stalling or even reversing the momentum we have all worked so hard to build,” said Streater.

Lawmakers battle over funding for Philadelphia schools

After the 2023 court ruling that found the state inequitably funded school districts, enabling those with large tax bases to thrive while others in poorer areas struggled, lawmakers negotiated how to close the gap.

A commission convened by lawmakers in 2023 to examine the issue ultimately defined a concept called an “adequacy target.” It measures how much money districts need to serve their students, with considerations that poor students, English language learners, and students with disabilities may need more resources.

But last year’s state budget left the Philadelphia school district with a $4.5 billion “adequacy gap”.

Several Democratic lawmakers joined the rally Wednesday, voicing their commitment to eliminating that disparity. Democratic Sen. Vincent Hughes, who represents part of Philadelphia, said the 2023 court ruling essentially requires as much.

“If the judge says, ‘You gotta do something,’ you gotta do it,” said Hughes. “What we’re saying is fund the schools.”

However, some Republican lawmakers have previously disagreed with that interpretation of the court ruling. In March, Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, a Republican, noted the court did not specifically require the state to increase funding to certain districts and questioned the fairness of the state’s adequacy funding formula.

Philadelphia schools Superintendent Tony Watlington said his plan is to steward the district’s funding to ensure students graduate prepared and do not have to rely on other costly government programs, like social services, down the line.

“We are committed to ensuring that we come back and report to you, year over year, the return on investment for every dollar you send to the school district of Philadelphia,” said Watlington.

Lawmakers eye changes to cyber charter funding

Union representatives and school officials also rallied for lawmakers to save the Philadelphia district money through legislation that would cap the amount districts pay cyber charter schools.

The bill, which could save school districts across the state more than $600 million annually, passed the state House earlier this month. It now awaits consideration in the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans, who have largely been more supportive of alternatives to traditional public schools, like cyber charters.

“We have invested in cyber charter schools and gotten nothing in return,” said Rep. Mary Isaacson, a Philadelphia Democrat and the bill’s main sponsor in the House. “Except children that are not being educated and children that are falling behind.”

Cyber charter schools are currently funded with the same formula as brick-and-mortar charters. As more cyber charters have opened in Pennsylvania in recent years, some lawmakers and advocates worry that they receive surplus funding as they do not have the same building maintenance needs as traditional schools.

Cyber charter schools have performed worse than the state average, with lower graduation rates and lower test scores in some subjects.

Isaacson’s bill would also introduce additional oversight for cyber charter schools and require them to pay back some of the money from the past school year that they did not spend.

Though the bill has been championed by Democrats, it has some support from Republicans.

This Philly principal overcame bullying and wants to create a safe haven for her students

2025-04-24T10:00:00+00:00

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There’s nothing Philadelphia Principal Nichole Polk dislikes more than a blank, beige wall.

One of her first priorities when she became principal of North Philly’s Potter-Thomas School in 2019 was to fill her hallways with vibrant colors, positive affirmations (”be kind — all are welcome here”), and towering murals of basketballs, paint tubes, open books, and chemistry flasks.

Polk said she wanted every student and every staff member to get excited about being in the building. Because growing up in Philly, Polk’s own school experience did not make her feel welcome.

Polk said she was made fun of by her classmates and teacher when she developed a stutter in fifth grade. She became terrified to speak and withdrew within herself, suffocating the part of her that liked to pull pranks on her younger sisters and joke around with her friends.

“I didn’t necessarily want to be there, but I knew that I had to be,” Polk said of her time in school. Her mom, Alfreda, placed a lot of importance on all three of her daughters getting a good education and insisted that Polk be held back a year to get speech services.

“I really didn’t see myself going to college, because my relationship with school wasn’t good,” she said.

Potter-Thomas School Principal Nichole Polk wanted to cover her beige school walls with colorful murals and positive messages.

Prior to becoming an educator, Polk tried out nursing, did a stint at TV Guide, and held other odd jobs around the city. It wasn’t until she had her first daughter that something clicked: “I need a life with purpose, because now I’m about to be a mom.” she said.

She found her way back to education as a therapeutic support staff member working with an eighth grader at another district school. It was there that Polk said she noticed some of the same behaviors from students and teachers that so upset her during her own time in school.

“I was like, wow, this is not good for these children,” she said.

From there, Polk became a literacy intern teacher, then a classroom teacher, school-based teacher leader, assistant principal, and eventually took her place at the helm of Potter-Thomas as principal.

Now, she said her goal is to create a safe haven for all her students, more than 100 of whom are learning English and may need extra support to speak up for themselves, just like she did.

Her work earned her a coveted Lindback Distinguished Principal Award this year, and the honor came with $20,000 to be used for her school community.

Among Polk’s favorite phrases on her school walls is one about embracing the “power of yet” and the bright future that she said all of her students (and staff members) contain within them.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What was your own experience with school growing up in Philly?

I never saw myself as an educator because of my own educational journey, it wasn’t a good one. It was good up until fifth grade. In fifth grade I developed a stutter. Back then, we did round-robin reading, and just knowing that my turn was coming up — I knew that the anxiety makes my stutter more challenging. No matter how much I try to prepare, I would stutter. I was made fun of, unfortunately, by my classmates and my teacher, and it silenced me for the year. I just showed up to school every day and didn’t say anything. I didn’t participate. No one came over to me to say, “Hey, is everything okay?”

I got F’s all the way through, and when it was time for promotion, my mom said, “Absolutely not.” I was left back. My mom got me speech [therapy]. I stayed in speech up until about 10th, 11th grade. I learned how to [emotionally] regulate, and I was also becoming more secure in myself — that made it a little easier dealing with the stutter.

I always felt like my mother, my parents, kept me safe and that I could go to them, but at the same time, I didn’t know how to articulate that and bring that to her to say, “Mom, I’m going to school and not talking because the teacher is making fun of me.”

Adults are supposed to make me feel loved, and like this is a safe environment for me. So how can I say this is not safe? I was really confused.

One of Potter-Thomas school's mottos is "we achieve as one team, one goal, no excuses."

How do you think your experience with school impacted the leader you are now?

Looking back on it, it was unfortunate, but it was such a blessing because without the experience, I wouldn’t be where I am right now.

My leadership “why” is to ensure that every staff member, student, parent, and community member who comes in this building feels safe, loved, and is always learning.

To have a growth mindset, I have to feel safe and loved in the space in order to do that, and I have to feel safe within myself. Once that happens, it’s like the sky’s the limit.

I have seen children coming into school for the first time or coming into Potter-Thomas for the first time and not knowing that this is a safe space. Because they think, “Hey, I don’t know you. You don’t know me. I need more than a hug on this first time to know that I feel loved and feel safe.” At first, they’re going against, they’re crying. They don’t want to be here. Then, as they see what our school is about, it’s like wow, look at them. It’s a beautiful thing.

We also love up on our teachers in the same way. I’m still learning and growing. I also show up as an example to say, “I’m here to coach you, but here, this coach is here to coach me because I’m learning and growing, too.” You’re not going to be ridiculed for not knowing. You’re not going to be looked down upon for not knowing. You’re going to be supported through not knowing until you know.

Is there anything in the outside community that impacts what goes on at Potter-Thomas?

For a brief moment, the ICE situation had impacted us. Students and families were afraid. Families were afraid to send their students to school. They were afraid to walk them to school because they didn’t know what was going to happen when they got here. Fortunately, that has subsided.

Our parents sometimes have bad experiences too. So we love up on them consistently, so they can drop their barriers and know that this is a safe space for their children and also for them.

Although there is a lot going on out there, we have come a long way for our community to see that that’s out there, but in here, it’s something different. It’s a haven.

What’s the best advice you’ve received?

Be self-reflective. That is very important and is something I do every day, because it keeps me grounded. It also keeps pushing me to learn and grow. One of the best ways to self-improve is to make the decision. If it’s good, you can learn from that. Taking that chance, being a risk-taker, by making the decision and having a good turnout, that’s great. On the flip side, if it didn’t work out, what do you need to do to make it better?

You can go back and forth, you can think the worst, you can even go around calling a bunch of people for feedback, but it’s like, just do it. You’ll be proud of yourself afterwards.

What advice would you give to your younger self in school if you could?

I wonder if I would have known that I was enough earlier on and that I did deserve a seat at the table, what I would’ve realized about my fifth grade experience. Would I have shared what was going on?

Life, we’re living it, so as you continue to move and grow in your journey, how can you do things differently, and then how can you support others along the way?

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

Teacher ‘rubber room’ hearings called off by Philadelphia City Council after officials cite progress

2025-04-15T20:27:36+00:00

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The chair of the City Council Education Committee has called off plans for public hearings on a controversial teacher discipline process in the Philadelphia school district, following what officials say is significant progress for the system’s efficiency.

The hearings would have focused on what’s formally called the reassignment room — but what’s commonly called the “rubber room” — for teachers accused of misconduct. Last year, Isaiah Thomas, the committee chair, said his concerns about the lack of transparency and costs related to the rubber room led him to request hearings about the process.

But at a joint press conference with Superintendent Tony Watlington on Tuesday, Thomas said he’s satisfied with how it’s changing and no longer thinks hearings are necessary, at least for now.

The rubber room is in fact a series of windowless rooms at the school district’s headquarters. Teachers who have been accused of misconduct are removed from their classrooms by the district and assigned to these rooms while the district investigates their cases. While they wait, teachers have reported catching up on reading, pursuing professional development opportunities, exercising, napping, or scrolling social media.

The first part of those investigations is supposed to take anywhere from 60 to 90 days, depending on the nature of the accusations, according to district policy. But some educators have claimed their investigations have dragged on for months or years with no resolution while teachers collect full pay.

There are some 75 people currently in the rubber room according to district spokespeople. That number is down from 84 in July 2024. Watlington said Tuesday the number is “fluid” as people move in and out of reassignment.

Watlington said at Tuesday’s press conference that the district has “overhauled” parts of its investigation process and has been able to clear 87% of the backlogged cases since July 2024 — ones that have been open for longer than the 60- to 90-day window. Of the 46 backlogged cases from last year, the district said it reduced those to six by January 2025.

District staff are more closely tracking the timelines of these cases, working with a new case management system, and are improving their transparency and communication with teachers in the rubber room, Watlington said.

“We’ve had a number of cases where individuals have been in that reassignment room process well beyond 90 days, and some were quite egregious,” Watlington said. “We’ve taken steps to clean all of that up.”

While most of the policies and practices that have allowed the district to clear many of those backlogged cases are not new, the district is now doing a “better job at adhering to them and having expectations that follow our policy procedures,” Watlington said.

Thomas said he was pleased with how the process has changed.

“We already see the difference,” Thomas said. “We already see more timely investigations. We see that it’s become more efficient.”

Still, both Watlington and Thomas said more work needs to be done to further improve the process. Watlington also confirmed that the district’s inspector general has been looking into the rubber room.

Thomas said Tuesday teachers in the rubber room have complained about a lack of communication regarding their cases, and that they often don’t know what they are accused of or how long they would be removed from their classrooms. Educators have reported feeling like they are in jail when sent to the rubber room.

Watlington said Tuesday the district has not hired any new staff to help work through the backlogged cases but is looking to fill two administrative roles to oversee the investigation process. The district currently has five people — including supervisors — responsible for investigating cases of teachers in the rubber room, Watlington said.

One of Thomas’ key reasons for demanding public hearings on the issue last year was to assess “how much money we’re wasting” by paying teachers’ full salary and benefits while they are in the rubber room while also paying substitutes to cover their classes.

Thomas said Tuesday it is “especially important to members of City Council” that the district work to improve their processes before seeking more funding.

Watlington said the district is analyzing how much the current process is costing the district but did not have a cost estimate available on Tuesday.

“I do not believe that every problem can be solved by more money and more people,” Watlington said.

Still, Thomas said he and his staff have talked to teachers in the rubber room and though they said they are “not necessarily satisfied” with their situations, they are “happy to see the progress that’s been made.”

The City Council had not put the planned hearings on its calendar before Tuesday.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers also said there is much more the district should be doing to reinstate teachers who are not found guilty of wrongdoing.

“Amid a district-wide staffing shortage, the absence of just one educator from our classrooms is one too many — especially in light of the fact that a majority of staff are eventually cleared of any misconduct,” said PFT President Arthur Steinberg in a Tuesday statement. “Even staff who are cleared are not returned to classrooms right away due to bureaucratic inefficiencies within the administration.”

For now however, Thomas said he will not be calling for hearings — “unless I change my mind.”

This story has been updated to amend the number of people currently in the rubber room upon receiving new information from the school district.

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.

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.

Pennsylvania Education Secretary Khalid Mumin is stepping down

2024-11-22T20:33:36+00:00

This story was originally published by The Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

Pennsylvania Education Secretary Khalid Mumin will resign from his position in Gov. Josh Shapiro’s cabinet next month, the governor’s office announced Friday afternoon.

Mumin was confirmed in June 2023 about six months after Shapiro took office and has presided over some of the administration’s early successes such as increasing funding for K-12 public schools by $1.5 billion over the last two budgets and providing free breakfast for 1.7 million public school students.

Mumin will resign Dec. 6 and Executive Deputy Secretary of Education Angela Fitterer will take over as interim secretary. A statement from Shapiro’s office did not say why Mumin is stepping down.

Shapiro said in a statement that Mumin has dedicated his life and career to ensuring that Pennsylvania children have a quality education that sets them up for success.

“He has led the Pennsylvania Department of Education with passion and integrity. I am grateful for his service to Pennsylvania’s students and educators and wish him great success in his future endeavors,” Shapiro said.

Mumin said it has been the honor of a lifetime to serve as education secretary.

“I began my career as a teacher in a classroom, and those early experiences watching students get excited about learning inspired me to become a principal, a superintendent, and ultimately Secretary of Education, so I could continue to fight for those students to get more support and more opportunities,” Mumin said. “I’m so grateful to Governor Shapiro for this opportunity to lead the Pennsylvania Department of Education and help build a bright future for Pennsylvania’s students and educators.”

State Sen. David Argall (R-Schuylkill), chairman of the Legislature’s education committee, said he wished Mumin the best and added, “I look forward to working with Acting Secretary Fitterer and the governor’s nominee to improve our education system, from Pre-K to graduate school.”

Before Shapiro tapped Mumin for his cabinet, he served as superintendent of the Lower Merion school district in Montgomery County. Mumin, who began his career as a classroom teacher in the Franklin County community of Scotland in 1997, also has served as superintendent of the Reading public schools.

Mumin’s tenure coincided with the resolution of a decade of litigation over the state’s public education funding formula, which a group of school districts, parents and advocates argued put students in less wealthy areas at a disadvantage because of its reliance on property taxes.

A Commonwealth Court judge ordered Shapiro and the General Assembly in February 2023 to correct the inequities and a interbranch commission found the state needed to invest $5.4 billion in underfunded schools to bring them up to par with the state’s most successful school districts.

This year’s budget includes about $526 million toward that goal, but lawmakers were unable to reach a compromise that would guarantee future installments to close the gap.

Shapiro also touted the education department’s success in strengthening career and technical education programs, investments in student mental health, repairs for schools and providing free menstrual products for students.

The governor’s office also credited Mumin with bringing together higher education leaders together to rethink higher education in Pennsylvania, establishing a state Board of Higher Education to provide more support for public universities and make college education more affordable.

Philly’s Central High is named a national Blue Ribbon school for a record third time

2024-09-23T22:29:49+00:00

Just two years into the tenure of its first Black and first woman principal, historic Central High has been named a national Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education — for a record-setting third time.

Central is the country’s second oldest high school in continuous operation. Along with Masterman, it is also among the city’s most selective. It is the only school in Philadelphia to win the award this year.

Students and staff with tubes of confetti gathered to celebrate on the south lawn of the school at Broad and Olney as Kate Davis, whose title is president rather than the principal, made the announcement.

“This is an achievement that recognizes the continued academic excellence of Central High School,” Davis told the crowd. “This is an achievement that celebrates the dedication of our faculty, our students, and our families.”

Confetti in red and gold, Central’s colors, soon filled the sky.

Davis, an alumna of Central who was named its president in April 2022 at age 34, is expecting a baby. She will be going to Washington, D.C., in early November to formally accept the award, three weeks before her due date. Her parents were among those in the crowd Monday.

“This is only one small moment in our school’s storied legacy,” Davis said.

To cheers, Superintendent Tony Watlington said the achievement reminded him of basketball legend Michael Jordan, whose Chicago Bulls teams had two separate “three-peats,” or strings of three consecutive championships.

The Blue Ribbon program honors high-performing, often innovative schools, especially those that show progress in closing achievement gaps based on student race and economic status.

Central was one of 356 schools nationwide given the honor this year and one of four in the Philadelphia region. Private and charter schools are also eligible.

Founded in 1836 as a school for boys, Central was first named a Blue Ribbon school in 1987, just four years after the school started admitting girls as the result of a lengthy court battle. It was honored again in 2011.

Since the Blue Ribbon program began in 1982, 15 Philadelphia district schools have been given the honor. Six besides Central have been designated twice, and five of those are high schools with citywide or special admissions criteria. The other is Penn Alexander elementary school, which has a partnership with the University of Pennsylvania. Central is the first city school to be cited three times.

The last Philadelphia district school to get the designation was the Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush in 2022.

Schools don’t apply for the honor. Someone unknown in the Department of Education nominates schools, to which officials send “a comprehensive application about your instructional program, extra curricular programming, mission and values and beliefs,” Davis said. “You engage honestly in a dialogue that goes on for months.”

The last requirement is to meet all the state’s targets for standardized exams, which Central did this year.

The latest information on the district website on student test scores shows that in 2022, just 42% of Central students scored proficient on the state math test — a huge drop from its usual near-perfect figures. District spokesperson Christina Clark said this was because most ninth graders starting high school after the pandemic year chose not to take the state Keystone algebra test that year, as they usually do at Central. They have until 11th grade to sit for the test.

Davis said that this year’s test scores, which will be released to the public soon, will show a huge rebound.

The latest honor also comes after the district moved to an admissions system that puts all qualified students in a lottery, prioritizing students from traditionally underrepresented ZIP codes, rather than relying largely on principal choice. And it is still struggling with significantly increasing the proportion of Black and Latino students to more closely match districtwide enrollment.

“We know as young people came back from COVID, you see real challenges with standardized exams,” she said. “My school has been impacted just as other schools have, but we continue to see improvements.”

Jake Benny, a Central junior who last week was named as an alternate student member of the Board of Education, was among those cheering the announcement.

“It just shows that Central is back, better than ever,” 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’s newest teachers share their hopes and fears for the coming school year

2024-08-16T18:38:26+00:00

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Some 800 new teachers are entering Philadelphia classrooms for the first time this year. They come from a variety of backgrounds, but share a desire to inspire their students and make an impact on young lives.

Philadelphia’s newest educators are arriving at a crucial time for the school district. School leaders have been dealing with significant challenges including an ongoing teacher shortage, decades of underfunding, aging facilities, new curriculum mandates, and a rising number of students experiencing homelessness.

At a new teacher orientation at The School of the Future this month, Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington said this year, he wants new teachers to focus on their “ambition and joy.” But above all, Watlington said he wants those joining to stick it out — even when things get tough.

“You’re gonna have some great days, you’re gonna have some good days and there are going to be some challenging days,” Watlington said. “Whatever you do, don’t go home and quit.”

According to Watlington, the district will be starting the school year with 95% of teaching positions filled. But that still means thousands of students may find themselves without a permanent, certified teacher this year. And those vacancies will also mean heavier workloads for other teachers, paraprofessionals, and other school staff.

The journey to the classroom has looked different for every new educator this year.

Many came through traditional college degree programs and are taking teaching roles as their first jobs, while others got a taste of the classroom experience as paraprofessionals and pursued their full-time certification through teacher pipeline programs offered by the district, charter schools, and colleges like Cheyney University.

Some new educators never considered teaching until they stumbled upon alternative programs like Breakthrough of Greater Philadelphia’s student teaching fellowship program.

Watlington said the district will be there as well to support teachers who struggle.

“You chose us, we choose you back and we’re gonna have your back.” Watlington said.

Chalkbeat spoke to several new teachers this year to get a sense of how they’re feeling, why they decided to become educators, and any advice they’d give to others considering joining the teaching workforce. Here are five of their stories.

How broken water fountains influenced a teacher’s approach

Kenny Chiu says his background as a child of immigrant parents gives him a special connection to students from different cultural perspectives.

Chiu’s parents immigrated to Philadelphia from China a few years before he was born. Chiu grew up in Chinatown and South Philly and said he’s a proud product of the city’s public school system.

He’s currently a senior at The University of Pennsylvania and said he is “99% sure” he’ll be pursuing his certification to teach full-time when he graduates. He’s been teaching seventh grade history to Philadelphia public, charter, and parochial school students at Germantown Friends School this summer through Breakthrough’s teaching fellow program. Chiu said it’s been an eye-opening and fulfilling experience.

Chiu said he remembers attending school with 35 kids per class, broken water fountains, and out-of-order bathrooms, with no school nurse on duty. It’s that personal experience and understanding he hopes to bring to his students.

“There are a lot of issues outside of teachers’ control that teachers have to deal with,” Chiu said. “It’s a lot of pressure also to have such a big task of educating young people in our city.”

Chiu said he learned a lot through Breakthrough’s fellowship program this summer. He found it useful to get a sense of classroom teaching — with a lot of mentorship and support — before he has to make any big career decisions.

Chiu said he is “really looking forward to being someone that students can look up to. Whether you’re struggling in school or struggling with things outside of school, I really want to be a solid mentor and solid support for them.”

Students will ‘see through’ BS from teachers

This is technically Mark Bey’s 27th year teaching, but it’s his first time teaching in his home city for many years.

Bey will be teaching Spanish at Paul Robeson High School this fall. He first started teaching in the Philadelphia school district in 1998 but moved to New York City where he taught for several years. Now, he said he’s looking forward to being back home.

Bey said he missed Philly’s “diverse population” both in terms of demographics of the students and the teacher and school leadership population, which he “found lacking in New York City.”

Despite his experience, Bey said he still gets nervous for the first day of school.

His advice for other new teachers: “Be your authentic self.”

“If you present BS to the students, students will see through it,” he said. Bey recommends incorporating your passions into lesson plans. For example, as an avid photographer, Bey said he starts every class off with a photo prompt and discussion. Many of the images he’s taken himself on his travels.

Bey said his students really engage with the exercise because it’s clear he’s sharing something he cares about and it gives his students permission and encouragement to share things they care about as well.

Longtime paraprofessional transitions to full teaching job

Dontaya Sellers, a longtime paraprofessional in the district, will be teaching fourth grade English Language Arts and Science at Joseph Pennell school for the first time this fall.

Sellers is a Cheyney University graduate who was a paraprofessional for many years before pursuing her full teaching certification this year. She said that because of her history with the school district and her connections at Cheyney, she was able to get her certification fully paid for through the district’s Para Pathway program.

“I love kids. I’ve always loved kids,” Sellers said. She said with all of the news about national teacher shortages, and the calls for new teachers, “I felt like this was the time to do it.”

Sellers said she’s “really excited” to get to know her students, parents, and staff, but she’s also feeling some anxiety.

“I know things don’t always happen the way our minds think they’re gonna happen,” she said.

‘This is our classroom, this is our home’

Marissa Rivers is another former paraprofessional entering the 2024-2025 school year as a fully certified elementary school teacher at Universal Alcorn Charter School.

Teaching is a second profession for Rivers. She started off in human resources and management, in charge of recruiting and interviewing job candidates. Rivers said when she was interviewing new, younger employees — mostly 17- and 18-year-olds — she realized they were “lacking in certain areas” that made companies pass them over.

“I felt that it was important for me to go back and want to be a part of resolving that problem. And how do you do that? You go back in the classroom,” Rivers said.

Rivers made the transition from the business world to the classroom as a paraprofessional in a second grade classroom in Philadelphia. But because her school was short staffed, she was asked to step up to serve as a full-time second grade teacher while she was in the process of getting her degree and certification.

“I was able to take everything that I was learning in my classes and directly apply it,” Rivers said. She said when she saw her students struggling, she was able to reach out to her teacher training mentors for help.

Her advice for other new teachers is to get students involved in the classroom rulemaking process.

“What I like to do at the beginning of the school year, we all come up with the class rules together, and that makes them a part of the classroom,” Rivers said. “It’s not like a directive, but it’s more of ‘this is our classroom, this is our home, and these are the rules that we are going to follow.’ And when we come up with it together, it’s easier for them to remember.”

Rivers said she’s most nervous about helping students behind in their reading catch up to their peers and to grade-level expectations.

“I want to make sure that I do everything that I can to get those students to go above and beyond,” Rivers said.

Two young women share a passion for teaching

Dena Hill, 21, is originally from Germantown, just recently graduated from Cheyney and is entering a classroom for the first time this year. She’ll be teaching special education, one of the hardest to fill positions in the district.

The shortage of Black teachers is also something Hill, who is Black, has been thinking about.

“I know how much my teachers impacted me,” Hill said, " I would love to do the same for children that look like me.”

Hill said she is looking forward to “actually seeing that ‘aha’ moment on [a student’s] face when they actually grasp a concept.”

Hill attended new teacher orientation this month with her friend and Cheyney classmate Brooklyn Stanback, 22. Both young women share their passion for the profession. Stanback will be teaching fourth grade math.

“I still have good connections with all my teachers, especially from preschool,” Stanback said. “I want to be that next impact for somebody else. I want to be the person they look up to.”

For Stanback, she’s most excited about bringing a new energy to her classroom.

“I’m somebody that’s really energetic, I like to get everybody hyped,” she said.

But it’s the unknown that makes Stanback and Hill nervous.

“Not knowing how I’m going to reach the kids or what type of situation I’m walking into,” Stanback said. “That’s what every teacher is really nervous about.”

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

Gov. Josh Shapiro awarded $1.5 million to grow Pennsylvania’s special ed workforce, but Philly’s public schools didn’t apply

2024-08-15T20:12:01+00:00

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A new $1.5 million state grant offered school districts and universities across Pennsylvania a chance for funding to grow their special education workforce. But, despite a dire special education teaching shortage, the Philadelphia school district chose not to apply.

The Developing Future Special Educators Grant, awarded by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, provides school districts and universities with up to $20,000 over a two-year period to establish “experiential learning” programs for high school and college students interested in pursuing a career in special education.

Overall, 77 districts, charter schools, and universities will receive the funds including Pittsburgh public schools, but the only Philadelphia schools on the list are Lindley Academy Charter School and several private universities: Saint Joseph’s University, Chestnut Hill College, Holy Family University, and Eastern University, which has a campus in Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia school district said because the grant amounts were relatively small, it is instead focusing on applying for larger grants dedicated to improving its aging buildings.

“It seems like a grant geared more for smaller [local education agencies],” Monique Braxton, a spokesperson for the school district, said in an email to Chalkbeat. “When this grant application was due, we were very busy with applying for much larger grants from the state for facilities upgrades.”

The quality of the district’s schools has been in the news for the last few months following student protests for better facilities and school closures related to the lack of air conditioning.

Educators say the ongoing teacher shortage is putting a strain on existing classroom teachers and school staff, resulting in larger class sizes and heavier workloads.

Tatyana Williamson, a special education teacher at Frankford High School, had to take over a science course after a teacher left in the middle of the year. Retention rates are so bad that Williamson says she waits until November to gauge if a teacher is leaving or staying.

Often, Williamson said, kids will ask, “Miss, are you going to be here next year?”

Recruiting and retaining teachers has been a struggle in Philadelphia. Teacher attrition rates in the city have skyrocketed since 2018. In 2022, 13% of traditional public school teachers and 23% of charter school teachers left the classroom, according to research by Ed Fuller at Penn State’s Center for Evaluation and Education Policy Analysis. Some of the shortage stems from a lack of preparedness, low salaries, inadequate support, and more.

As a result, many schools in predominantly black neighborhoods have a high influx of inexperienced teachers and emergency certified teachers.

“We desperately need all teachers,” said Nicole Wyglendowski, a learning support teacher in North Philadelphia. “I’m wondering why when presented with solutions and money which is what we need more than anything is the funding why aren’t we helping ourselves. Why aren’t we taking the opportunity to help ourselves when we have such a big need?”

In June, the district had around 450 open teaching positions, with special education producing the highest vacancy at 150 open positions. Over the past few weeks, the school district has boasted about filling 95% of its teaching positions, but a spokesperson for the district did not immediately respond to Chalkbeat’s questions about how many, if any, of the 150 special education spots have been filled.

More than 400 open positions will mean thousands of students will start the school year without a full-time certified teacher.

Philadelphia has been trying to combat its teacher retention problems for some time – developing a pipeline for paraprofessionals to get their certification to become full-time teachers, offering student teachers stipends, and more.

In addition, the district has held hiring fairs all summer to bring in new teachers, sometimes offering interviews on the spot.

Many teachers say these attempts are futile without increasing the pay.

“There’s a lack of respect for the profession and it’s shown by the need to increase salaries. They need to give them more support in the schools themselves,” said Arthur Steinberg, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

In February, the Board of Education ratified an agreement between the union and the district that gave a 5% pay raise for teachers that will take effect in September. For teachers at the beginning of the pay scale, this increase can feel small.

Pay for a full-time special education teacher in Philadelphia starts at $52,516 — a 5% raise would equate to roughly $55,000. With the rising costs of living, many say it isn’t enough.

Wyglendowski has been asking for donations on social media to pay for supplies for her classroom. And she’s not the only one. Teachers around the country have started asking their followers to contribute to their Amazon wishlists and or donations.

“It shouldn’t rely on what kind of community resources that you have to see whether or not your kids get the resources they need,” said Wyglendowski. “Sometimes it’ll be mid-year and I’ll have to do another fundraiser because I’m like ‘guys we run out of pencils, I got no erasers, like I have a kid who needs uniforms … it’s crazy that I have to rely on that.”

Azia Ross is a summer intern for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. You can reach her at aziaross@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia school board denies Global Leadership Academy charter application for fourth time

2024-06-28T18:54:54+00:00

The Philadelphia Board of Education voted for the fourth time Thursday to deny a charter for a proposed Global Leadership Academy International High School because the revised application did not meet academic, financial, or operational standards.

The board has five new members appointed by Mayor Cherelle Parker. But the board’s vote to reject the application from Global Leadership Academy (GLA) continues a significant multi-year trend: It has not approved a new charter school since Philadelphia regained local control of its schools from the state in 2018. Still, the privately managed but publicly funded schools — including cyber charters — now educate nearly 80,000 of the city’s students.

The vote was 7-0. Whitney Jones abstained and ChauWing Lam was absent. Jones, a finance manager who has worked for charter organizations, said he abstained due to a business conflict.

The board denied the application despite a statement of support from Councilman Curtis Jones and the political connections of Naomi Booker, a veteran city educator who is the driving force behind the two existing K-8 Global Leadership Schools.

The board did vote to grant five-year renewals, with conditions, to four other charters — Ad Prima, Laboratory Charter School of Communication and Languages, Mariana Bracetti Academy, and Maritime Academy — without any dissent.

In their final action meeting of the 2023-24 school year, the board also voted to approve a $20 million contract with various external nonprofits and community organizations to fund Parker’s year-round school initiative, which is kicking off this fall at 25 pilot schools.

During her mayoral campaign last year, Parker never made clear whether she favored creating more charter schools in the city. Instead, she stressed that she wanted to see an end to any competition between the district and charter sectors. But except for Jones, her new appointees voted against the revised GLA application.

Booker, who was present at the meeting but did not speak, is the founder and CEO of Global Academies, which runs Global Leadership Academy Southwest and Global Leadership Academy Charter School in West Philadelphia, both K-8 schools.

GLA Southwest, the former Huey Elementary, is one of 21 district schools that officials turned over to charter management under the Renaissance program with the promise of rapid transformation. That promise that has not been realized.

Six students from GLA Southwest, all wearing crisp navy blue blazers with the GLA logo, pleaded with the board to approve the new high school.

“Having another option like Global Leadership Academy Charter High School is important for students like me who need a good place to learn,” said Troy Williams, who described the stressful process of applying to selective district high schools.

“Parents are struggling to find a good high school that fits what we want.”

The two existing GLA schools would be feeders for the proposed high school, although GLA officials planned to open the new school in the former Cristo Rey building in North Philadelphia, far from the other schools’ West and Southwest Philadelphia locations. The proposed school was set to start with 150 students and expand to 600.

While applicants touted the new school as a destination for current GLA students, they also claimed the school would be a separate entity from the other GLA schools, Mariel Ziegler, interim chief of the district’s charter school office, told board members.

Board member Joyce Wilkerson wasn’t buying that. “I do believe it is the same operator, and think it is important to consider the academic performance of the schools they currently operate,” she said.

Ziegler’s presentation of the charter school office’s evaluation of GLA’s revised application showed that the two existing Global Leadership schools had much lower achievement levels than the district as a whole or a set of comparison schools.

In 2022-23, while 34% of district students and 35% of students in peer schools scored proficient on the state PSSA exam in English Language Arts, just 19% of GLA Charter School students did so. That figure also represented a sharp decline from the 40% proficiency that GLA’s schools reached in 2017-18. In math, just 4% of students reached proficiency, compared to 17% in the district as a whole and 15% in peer schools.

Wilkerson also questioned Global Leadership’s financial viability, citing its shaky credit rating despite an influx of federal pandemic aid: “It’s hard to believe the schools could be at risk of defaulting with all the federal resources out there.”

Jones, the councilmember who represents the district where the two existing Global Leadership schools are located, nevertheless urged the board to approve the charter. “When I walk into Global, I feel something special,” he said, adding that many parents had called him about getting their children into the schools. “To be honest about it, the facts are that it’s a good school.”

But Lisa Haver of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, a watchdog group, cited her group’s recent findings that most charters enroll fewer students than they’re authorized to.

“No reason has been presented to change the board’s mind about rejecting this school,” Haver said. “There is no need for a new charter in any part of the city.”

Wilkerson’s positions on charters contributed to recent controversy.

In April, the City Council refused to vote on confirming Parker’s renomination of Wilkerson, who had chaired both the Board of Education and the School Reform Commission when the state ran the district. Members cited her opposition to several new charter schools. Parker responded by declining to name a replacement for her, and she continues to serve.

The district’s charter office has also been accused by some charter leaders of being biased against Black-run charter schools. But a state audit cleared it of any intentional discrimination. GLA founder Booker is Black.

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.”

This award-winning Philly principal says the key to his success was the support he received

2024-06-05T20:59:19+00:00

For Bahir Hayes, a homegrown Philadelphia principal at William C. Bryant School, names mean everything.

Hayes can recall the name of the teacher he assisted years ago as a student teacher at Robert Lamberton Elementary School (Ms. Dougherty). He remembers his first assistant principal back when he worked for the Mastery Charter school network (Ms. Murphy), the names of the kids in his first class, and the names of every district official who has lifted him up or inspired him to stay in the profession over the past 13 years.

“I believe in acknowledging people that help you along the way,” Hayes said.

But there’s one person whose name is still a mystery to Hayes.

When he was in college at Bloomsburg University, Hayes was struggling academically and was told he may have to return to his family home in Philly during the spring semester of his senior year.

“In my head, I’m like, I can’t go back home for eight months. People were dying around me, people were being shot, killed, arrested,” Hayes said. “Me being home in Philly for that long was almost like a death sentence. I didn’t know what to do.”

A young woman saw how emotional Hayes was and made a phone call to a school official. Soon after, the dean of the college called Hayes and said he was allowed to return for the spring semester.

Hayes said he never found out that young woman’s name, but he’s never forgotten what it feels like to have someone go out of their way to advocate for you.

Now, he wants to do the same for his students and staff at Bryant, an elementary school and community that’s experienced decades of significant trauma. One leadership strategy he’s poured his energy into is known as Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports. This method focuses on reinforcing good student behavior through rewards like a trip to the school store or time spent in the school’s video game lounge.

Hayes is one of seven winners of the 2024 Lindback Award for Principal Leadership this year. He spoke with Chalkbeat about his journey into education and what he hopes to impart to any young people looking to achieve success in Philadelphia.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Bahir Hayes is principal at William C. Bryant School in Philadelphia

What inspired you to get into teaching and school leadership?

When I was in 12th grade, two of my little cousins’ fathers were murdered. I had built a very strong relationship with them. I’d pick them up from day care and drop them off. At this point, I was just in high school, so it didn’t really register to me that I was having such an impact on my cousins’ lives who didn’t have a male figure formally. Then, when I worked at a summer camp and became a lifeguard, I realized that my heart was in service to students. I felt like I could be the cool guy that was a teacher.

What was your first year like at Bryant?

Bryant is the school where a child was abducted in 2013. We’re up the street from where the MOVE bombing happened [back in 1985]. I just spent a lot of time getting to know the community, and it was great. The best first year you can have, until March 13 2020, when the world stopped.

That was my reality. A first-year principal, congratulations, you will be distributing Chromebooks and preparing to do something no educational system has ever done, immediately and abruptly. My job had gone from being the principal in the building to really like the mayor of the community — dropping off Chromebooks, visiting people’s homes, educating them on how to stay safe. No one knew what to do. We were just all learning together.

We made it through that hard time. Last year, the 2022-23 school year, we started to see that we were coming out of that dark space of the civil uprising, of the pandemic, and we started to see things change and get a little bit more normal. I feel like this year was the year where all of that paid off.

What did you learn during that time?

Public education is only as good as the people running it. It’s not about this magic charter or this magic neighborhood school. Of course, there are inequities everywhere. We have to think about things that we can control.

My assistant superintendent, Sean Conley, constantly speaks about providing access. And that’s how you create equity. I feel like people like Sean are what make schools great. It’s not this machine or organization, and it’s not giving people $50,000 bonuses, though I think teachers deserve a lot of money. I think teachers should be the highest-paid workers in the world because they are affecting our community.

You faced some job rejection throughout your career on your way to becoming a principal. What made you persist?

First and foremost, the people that made me persist are the students. I’m born and raised in Philadelphia. I’m a product of the School District of Philadelphia. I went to district schools from K-12. The reason why I got into this was those kids that needed someone that they can believe in and that believed in them. Ultimately, that was the hunger to make an impact.

The “nos” actually motivated me even more because it made me realize that I’m getting a no for a reason. I have to be prepared to know that it’s going to be hard and that nothing that you want comes easy; you have to really work for it. It made me refine my skills even more.

I’m so thankful that the district saw me as a person that had value. There was value in who I was as a reflection of the community that we are serving. I want to show that our kids can be great and show the world that young, Black kids can read, they can do math, they are articulate, and they can go to college.

That’s why this [Lindback] award means so much. It’s showing that everything that I went through matters, and that you’ve got to keep going. That if you are someone like me, that’s from the inner city, that looks like me and doesn’t fit the typical role, you’ve just got to work hard and be strong in your conviction of who you are. Believe in yourself, find people that believe in you and are aligned with your vision, and keep going. Don’t stop fighting no matter what.

What will you do with the Lindback Awards $20,000 prize money?

I really would like to invest in more [Positive Behavioral Intervention and Support] initiatives for the students. We saw that they had a great impact for our entire school community. We had zero suspensions this year. That’s massive for a neighborhood school.

Just thinking, how do we invest in more trips with our students? Is there a basketball court that we could put out there to allow our kids to play? I think that’s very important. And finding a way to celebrate with the staff.

And then just rest and relax. Shoutout to my boys in the group chat about Philly sports. We share our views really openly and we speak about what really matters. I feel like without that group chat, I don’t know if I could’ve really kept going. I always told them that when I get rich, I’m gonna get us floor seats.

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

Masterman’s first Black principal departs to take over North Philadelphia high school

2024-06-04T19:23:08+00:00

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Jeannine Hendricks Payne, who three years ago became the first Black principal of Masterman, Philadelphia’s most prestigious magnet school, is leaving this summer to take over Strawberry Mansion High in North Philadelphia next year.

Her surprise departure comes after a time of controversy at Masterman. Last month, some parents filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over the district’s response to antisemitic incidents at the school following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel and the subsequent war. There’s also ongoing dissent about how the district’s new lottery admissions system has affected the school.

Payne said the move is her own decision. She noted that both she and her father, Gerald Hendricks, a legendary physical education teacher and basketball coach, taught at Mansion.

“I want to be clear, I’m not leaving Masterman out of frustration,” Payne said in an

interview Monday. “If Strawberry Mansion never had a vacancy, I would not have applied anywhere else. They had a vacancy and I love that school.”

Payne’s next job will be quite different from her role at Masterman. Mansion, as the school is universally known, is in one of the poorest parts of the city and struggles with enrollment, achievement and climate. Built to hold 1,700 students, it now has just 250, making it one of the smallest high schools in Philadelphia.

It was slated for closure in 2013 and again in 2018, only to be saved following community protests and the intervention of then-City Council President Darrell Clarke, a Mansion alumnus.

Antisemitism, admissions controversy test Masterman’s leader

Two controversies in particular made Payne’s recent tenure especially challenging.

The federal complaint from parents about antisemitism in Philly schools since Oct. 7 cited incidents at Masterman, including a swastika scrawled on an outside door and a bake sale by the Islamic Student Association that allegedly included the distribution of anti-Israel literature.

Payne said she had the swastika removed within 12 hours, but some parents wanted an in-depth probe. She said she screened the fliers for the bake sale and disallowed some of them.

But well before the Oct. 7 attack, a group of Masterman parents were unhappy with the school’s direction.

Payne took the reins at the school just as the district inaugurated a lottery admission system in 2021 for its most selective schools, which guaranteed admission to all qualifying students from certain ZIP codes. Officials hoped the redesigned system would offer more opportunities to historically underrepresented populations.

But in February 2023, a group of parents released a report arguing that the new system had lowered the school’s admission standards for fifth graders, with some students unprepared for its rigor.

It also argued that Masterman’s leadership “continues to make curricular and staff changes that are causing exasperation and despair in the classroom and the community” and that “[s]tudent, teacher and community morale is at a low point. … Increasingly parents and administration feel at odds with one another.”

The report complained about schedule changes that reduced access to art, music, and gym, and that other decisions led to the “decimation of language studies.”

In sum, the report said that instead of enhancing Masterman’s curriculum and electives that were prized by parents, the school’s administration “appears to view the middle school as no different from other neighborhood schools.”

Mitchell Orenstein was president of Masterman’s Home and School Association board when the parents released their 2023 report. While confirming some of the controversies that roiled the school, he said in response to her leaving: “Dr. Payne has a passion for education and a passion for addressing the needs of underserved students in this district.”

In response to widespread complaints, the district overhauled the 2021 lottery admissions process in 2023. So far the system, meant to be antiracist, hasn’t made a big dent in the representation of Black and Latino students at Masterman and Central High, the district’s other top magnet.

Recently, Masterman’s student demographics have not reflected the district’s. Proportionally, it has far fewer Black and Hispanic students than citywide.

Masterman has students in grades 5-12. Before the lottery, admission to the smaller high school was in effect restricted to Masterman middle schoolers. The lottery opened it up to all students who met the criteria.

This year, as part of the lottery overhaul, the district decided all of Masterman’s graduating eighth graders automatically have a spot in the high school if they want it.

Saterria Kersey, another former president of Masterman’s Home and School Association, said in an interview that she felt racial issues played a part in Payne’s departure.

Kersey, who is Black, cited pushback from some parents for decisions that for the most part were beyond Payne’s control, including lottery-based admissions. She also said she feels some parents were uncomfortable with having three Black women — Payne and two assistant principals — running the school.

Kersey said her daughter has chosen to leave Masterman after eighth grade; she will attend Parkway Center City Middle College next. “My daughter could have stayed but didn’t, and many other Black students made the same choice,” Kersey said.

“This is a loss for Masterman, and a gain for Mansion,” Kersey added. “They are lucky to have her.”

Before taking the job at Masterman, Payne was principal of Richard R. Wright Elementary in North Philadelphia.

She said she would like to restore middle school grades to Mansion and make it a coveted destination for North Philadelphia students. The school started out in 1966 as a junior high and added senior high grades in 1977.

In its heyday, Mansion had a top basketball program. Hendricks, Payne’s father, led its team to state championships in 2000 and 2003 and to the state finals in 2008 and 2010.

“I am returning to the school where I taught for five years and my father taught for over 20 years, the school that was the feeder location for elementary schools I led for 13 years,” Payne said, referring to Wright and Gideon, a K-8 school in North Philadelphia. “I’m taking advantage of an opening in a school community that I find meaningful.”

The district is starting a process to look for a new Masterman principal that will involve parent and community input.

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.

The Philadelphia mayor’s plan for year-round school is taking shape. What will it look like?

2024-05-06T11:00:00+00:00

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A plan to put in place Mayor Cherelle Parker’s promise to lengthen the school day and year — her signature education proposal — is taking shape.

But what that will look like in practice is still very much in flux.

Last week, Superintendent Tony Watlington told the City Council during an education budget hearing that a “beefed up” extended-day program will start in September in an unspecified number of schools, mostly consisting of “fun and engaging” after-school activities. In the 2025-26 school year, the district plans to offer a year-round schedule in up to 20 pilot schools, he said.

The first step of implementing Parker’s vision is adding programs and offerings this summer. But changing school districts’ traditional calendars to fully adopt year-round school is a different animal. It has typically meant shortening summer vacation and adding four week-long breaks during the school year. That shift, if it ever occurs, will not begin for well over a year, based on Watlington’s timeline.

It is very rare for year-round school to actually add instructional days. And the strategic plan adopted by the district last year cast doubt on the power of reallocating school days to improve academic achievement.

Putting in place an extended schedule — as opposed to offering more robust summer options — will need buy-in from the district’s unions, parents and other stakeholders, including agencies that now provide after-school and summer programming.

Cost has also not been discussed, though Watlington said he is seeking philanthropic help. And there are practical considerations linked to expanding programming at any particular school, such as whether it’s air-conditioned. Most city schools are not. (Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts just donated $200,000 to install air conditioners in 10 schools.)

“We have to create a demand and build partnerships,” Watlington told the council.

Watlington has mentioned the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York City as one model he’s studied. Its Promise Academy charter schools’ schedules run from September through July, with week-long breaks in October, December, April, and June. The schools don’t have a longer day, but do have extensive after-school activities, and they also offer after-school and summer enrichment programs for students in New York City district-run schools within the zone.

During her campaign, when she discussed her reasons for supporting year-round school, Parker emphasized the benefits and flexibility it would provide to parents more than the potential academic benefits for students. But she didn’t clarify exactly what she had in mind.

Since taking office in January, she has changed how she talks about the issue. She now describes her vision as giving more educational opportunities to the city’s children outside regular school hours while keeping them safe.

“School is the safest place they’ll be … Ward and June Cleaver, the Cosbys, is not the reality our children are living in,” Parker said last month at an education conference, referring to the bygone popular television shows “Leave it to Beaver” and “The Cosby Show,” which presented ideals of American family life.

Philadelphia has previously tried one model of year-round school — albeit on a very small scale. In 2000, Grover Washington Middle School in Kensington operated on a shorter summer vacation with longer breaks during the year.

The goal was to reverse the effects of “summer slide,” or the decline in students’ achievement levels after the long summer break. But just four years later, the district’s then-CEO Paul Vallas ended the program, saying that its negligible academic benefits didn’t justify continuing it.

Here’s what to know about Parker’s push for year-round schooling and how it compares to other cities’ initiatives:

What’s new — and returning — for students this summer?

Both the city and the district already have extensive summer programming.

But the Summer Achievers program, which will be new this summer, could be especially significant. That’s because the 20 schools that could eventually participate in the 2025-26 pilot for year-round school will likely be drawn from the 62 schools where Summer Achievers programs will take place.

In Summer Achievers, in the mornings, students will receive instruction from district teachers in English Language Arts and math, while the afternoons and Friday will include camp-like activities and field trips. The program will also feature music, art, and sports, as well as social-emotional learning. The district is calling it a “school meets camp” experience.

This idea isn’t entirely new. A version of such a program was offered by the district starting in the summer of 2021, as schools began reopening after COVID.

Summer Achievers will be held between June 25 and Aug. 2. (For the program’s final week, the camp activities will take up full days and there will be no academic instruction.) While children in Summer Achievers will receive breakfast and lunch, families will be responsible for transportation.

The list of providers include the Greater Philadelphia YMCA, the University of Pennsylvania, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and Sunrise Philadelphia. Summer Achievers is based on pilot programs held over the past three summers, funded in part by the William Penn Foundation. (Chalkbeat receives funding from the William Penn Foundation.)

A statement from the Office of Children and Families described Summer Achievers as “a model for what summer programming can look like … in a full-day, year-round program moving forward.”

Another new program for this summer is called “Young Entrepreneurs” and is for rising ninth graders. It will run from June 25 to July 25, and will focus on developing business skills as well as providing instruction in English Language Arts and math.

The school district already offers a considerable array of summer programming for young people between the ages of 5 and 18. They range from a two-day-a-week virtual program for students entering kindergarten to month-long courses for high schoolers to make up credits for courses they failed.

Several emphasize particular skills and interests, including music – there’s an option to join a summer orchestra and a summer drumline.

Others are focused on particular populations, including a longstanding “extended school year” program for students with disabilities to shore up their skills and a “newcomer academy” for English learners.

The city recreation department runs camps around the city, and the Office of Children and Families oversees nearly 100 programs run by Boys’ and Girls’ clubs and other organizations called “It’s a Summer Thing!”

In addition, Deputy Mayor for Children and Families Vanessa Garrett-Hartley said the city is planning to provide up to 8,000 summer employment opportunities and career exploration activities for young people ages 12 and up.

It’s “work based learning, internships, job shadowing,” Garrett-Hartley said.

What will year-round school mean for teachers?

Teachers remain wary of what officials might ultimately come up with, a sentiment rooted in last year’s mayoral race.

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said in an interview that Parker never discussed her proposal for year-round school with the union before making it a centerpiece of her campaign.

Without having more details, he said, his members have expressed concerns about how it may affect their jobs and schedules.

Some are also parents, he noted, “and if they have to work during the summer, this will totally impact their families and they don’t want to do that.”

In Philadelphia, the Belmont charter school network has its own extended-year program. Teachers in the network who sign up to teach over the summer get a few weeks off between the end of the regular academic year and the start of summer programming. They also get two weeks off before going back to Belmont in the fall.

But if parents have children in different schools on different schedules, year-round school could present more of a problem than a help.

All teacher participation in summer programs are voluntary; it is unclear what will happen if school schedules are changed. In the meantime, Jordan is praising the addition of enrichment activities and field trips to students over the summer, because many city children never have the opportunity to visit attractions like the Franklin Institute or the Constitution Center.

“All of this is going on around them and they are just not aware of it, and parents don’t have the funds to take them to museums, they can be costly for one child much less for three or four,” Jordan said.

What are the next steps for year-round school?

The logistics are daunting and the cost considerable. But one city councilmember said that after asking Watlington about it during budget hearings, she thinks the district is moving too slowly on the initiative.

“It wasn’t as well thought out as I thought it would be,” said Cindy Bass, who represents the 8th District in Northwest Philadelphia.”It’s hopeful, aspirational, not concrete.”

“This is the mayor’s directive. I was expecting more substantive detail,” Bass added.

Parker has separately proposed giving the school district a larger share of the city property tax, increasing its share from 55% to 56%, which she said would raise $129 million over five years. Bass said that money should be used for year-round schooling.

The school district already spends $42 million on summer and after-school programming, although COVID aid that helped pay for it is about to expire

Sharon Ward, the deputy chief education officer, said city, district, and other officials are meeting to hash out the details for this summer and for the future.

Echoing Parker’s comments from last year’s mayoral campaign, she noted that parents want more safety and enriching programs for their kids that are “more aligned with their work hours.”

Ward also said that “additional academic enrichment” will be a part of whatever’s developed, and that the city will learn from the activities already available to students.

“We’re working on it. We’re not starting from scratch,” Ward 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.

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 teachers say affinity groups are capable of ‘rewriting the structure of education’

2024-03-18T11:00:00+00:00

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Can affinity groups for teachers of color help give Philadelphia a stronger, more diverse, and more stable teaching workforce? One education group is putting time and energy behind its belief that they can.

Teach Plus Pennsylvania, the state affiliate of a national nonprofit that trains teachers to advocate for policy change, launched a Philadelphia affinity group network this year that they say will provide teachers with a sense of community, belonging, and understanding in an effort to “diversify and strengthen Philadelphia’s educator workforce.”

Philadelphia public school teachers of color from traditional public or charter schools can join one of 21 teacher-led groups meeting in classrooms, coffeeshops, and other locations across the city.

The goal is to create “safe, culturally affirming spaces where educators of color can develop personal and professional connections that ultimately support and empower them and encourage them to stay in the profession,” said Andrea Terrero Gabbadon, an expert on teacher retention and an education leadership coach with Teach Plus Pennsylvania.

Any effort to tackle systemic labor force issues in Philadelphia schools faces an uphill climb. In 2022, teacher attrition rates in the city reached their highest levels since 2018, with 13% of traditional public school teachers and 23% of charter school teachers leaving the classroom, according to research by Ed Fuller at Penn State’s Center for Evaluation and Education Policy Analysis. Fuller found that the highest attrition rates were for early-career teachers with up to five years of experience.

Additionally, the share of teachers of color in Philadelphia is low compared to the student body makeup, and nationwide, they are leaving the profession at growing rates. Black students in Philly also say they want more teachers who look like them.

The extent to which affinity groups can help keep teachers on the job at scale is still unknown. Teachers leave the field for a variety of reasons, from low salaries to big workloads and a lack of support, that such groups might not be able to address. And affinity groups that are racially exclusive and officially backed by schools can be controversial and present legal issues, although the Philadelphia district is not involved in or sponsoring the effort by Teach Plus.

Laura Boyce, executive director of Teach Plus Pennsylvania, said affinity groups like these are showing early promise in other states such as Illinois. In a 2021 report on how Philadelphia could improve its recruitment and retention of teachers of color, Teach Plus and the Center for Black Educator Development recommended that they have “access to mentoring and affinity groups.”

“It’s an experiment to see, can we actually improve retention in a measurable way for the facilitators and participants in these groups and hopefully create an environment where they feel seen and valued, heard, affirmed, and supported to continue in this work?” Boyce said.

And Terrero Gabbadon said the new Philadelphia affinity groups are “part of a larger strategy” to tackle “systemic issues” that push teachers of color out of the profession.

The Philadelphia district already offers similar racial affinity groups, but they’re only for principals and assistant principals. Brandon Cummings, the district’s deputy chief of leadership development, said the district has been engaging in these group discussion sessions — which they call “think tanks” — for four years, in addition to other equity-centered initiatives.

Cummings said his office handles the logistics of finding locations, getting food, and organizing virtual meetings if needed, but that otherwise, the district doesn’t “intrude or in any way insert ourselves” into the groups’ activities. He said the district wants the people in the groups to direct their own conversations.

Morgan Craig-Williams, a kindergarten teacher at General George A. McCall School and a facilitator of the Black educators affinity group, said having a space that does not involve administrators or “anyone who will give any punitive action or higher ups in the school district” is crucial to their success.

Craig-Williams, who is in her ninth year of teaching, added that “teacher burnout is very real” in the city.

Creating community but also pushing for change

Stephanie Felder teaches African American History at Tacony Academy Charter High School and is the facilitator of the mid-career African American educator affinity group. She said the program has been “life giving.”

Though many of her peers are leaving the profession, Felder said she’s already made “a solid decision to stay.”

For her, the affinity group discussions have been “more about ‘how can we at this stage in our careers, help make it better for those coming up behind us. Help make it better for the students that we serve, and help make education across the board more than what we are seeing right now.’”

The event, "Convening of the Philadelphia Affinity Group Network for Public Classroom Teachers" on Thurs., Feb. 29, 2024 at. Cristo Rey High School in Philadelphia, PA.

Cristina Gutierrez, a bilingual educator at Lewis Elkin Elementary School in Kensington, facilitates a group of Latino and dual-language teachers of color. She said often, people get emotional in group settings when they talk about an experience in the classroom or the difficulty of advocating for bilingual education “and feeling like you’re the only one” going through it.

“We don’t have a cohesive system with bilingual education in Philadelphia,” she said.

Gutierrez said she wanted to create a space for multilingual educators to come together and discuss the challenges they face “and let our voices be heard.” But it’s about more than just talking about struggles, she said.

“It’s like the thing that you need, but you don’t know you need,” she said. “Yes, we create community, but we could also create a lot of change.”

Boyce said the aim is not to have gripe sessions or tell teachers of color to “go figure it out and solve it yourselves” but rather to develop “two-way communication and being able to elevate … some concerns and systemic solutions and really all learn from this work.”

Through her group, Craig-Williams connected with an educator who has been in the classroom for nearly 25 years. The two women text daily, she said, and swap tips about how to navigate school culture and deal with difficult days.

“She was a complete stranger before we set up these affinity groups,” Craig-Williams said. “Now, that’s a connection that I’ll probably keep forever.”

The moments she’s shared with her group members feels like the start of something bigger.

“These affinity groups are the beginning of us coming together and rewriting the structure of education,” she said.

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

What Philadelphia public schools could get in new city budget

2024-03-14T19:28:57+00:00

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Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker’s self-described “big” and “bold” first budget would increase funding for public schools, include a pilot plan for year-round learning, and create a new workforce pipeline program in the Community College of Philadelphia.

But despite ample city coffers due to post-pandemic years of unusually strong revenue collections, the proposal — and accompanying five-year financial plan — still relies on state funding to make up the district’s anticipated $400 million shortfall for the next fiscal year.

This is Parker’s first budget and the blueprint for how Philadelphia’s 100th mayor — and first woman to hold the job — intends to run the city. While shored up by temporary federal pandemic funding for the past few years, the underfunded school district is facing a $407 million gap for fiscal 2025, aging buildings, a gun violence epidemic that injured 10 students last week and killed one, a mandate to make up lost special education services for thousands of students, significant charter school costs, and teacher shortages.

Parker said her budget would increase city funding for the district, with a current budget of $4.5 billion, by $24 million in fiscal 2025. That would come partly from increasing the school district’s share of property tax revenue from 55% to 56%, which would bring in an additional $18 million. The district also gets revenue from other local sources, including an annual city grant which this year amounted to $282 million.

Parker said she also wants to increase the local contribution to the school district by $2 million each year going forward, and announced a plan to speed up the sale of delinquent tax properties, which she said would also raise more funds for the district.

Her budget proposal would bring the total to nearly $140 million in additional city funds for education over five years, the mayor said, with $129 million going directly to the school district and $10 million to a new workforce program at the Community College of Philadelphia.

Parker also doubled down on her year-round schools proposal and promised to pilot the initiative in schools starting this fall.

“On public education, our goals are high — they must be,” Parker said during her budget address to City Council on Thursday. “For far too long, our students have struggled with far too little. The days of settling for crumbs are over. Our students deserve a full loaf and they’ll get it.”

As Parker gets ready to name a new Board of Education, she signaled her support for Superintendent Tony Watlington, who was in attendance on Thursday. She told him, “You’re my guy.”

Watlington and Board of Education President Reginald Streater issued their own statements in support of Parker’s proposal following her address.

Year-round school, city workforce pipeline, and more: what’s in the budget for schools

The mayor’s major education platform during the campaign was for year-round school and a longer school day, which will be expensive and undoubtedly require union negotiation. She never put a price tag on the proposal, but both she and Watlington came out in favor of a pilot to test the concept.

Parker said her budget includes a “plan for full-day and year-round schooling — offering students educational enrichment throughout the year, with schedules that work for working families.” She said her office of education will launch the initiative in 20 pilot schools this fall.

But she did not give a dollar amount during her address Thursday.

Parker also spoke passionately about the impact gun violence has had on Philadelphia students and families. She said the recent spate of shootings at SEPTA bus stops after school dismissal has “left our city shaken.”

“Enough is enough,” Parker said.

The budget includes $33 million in new investments in public safety for fiscal 2025, increasing the total amount to more than $600 million over five years.

She said she wants to hire 400 new police officers every year and fund 100 officers doing primarily “community policing.” She also wants to add new patrol cars, unmarked cars, video software, cameras at parks and recreation sites, drones, and upgrades to investigative equipment.

Parker also said youth safety is tied to opportunities outside of the classroom which is why she proposed $3.2 million for youth sports

“I know youth sports aren’t just about wins and losses — they’re about giving children hope,” Parker said. “”We should be supporting them.”

For postsecondary education, Parker announced $10 million for the Community College of Philadelphia in partnership with the school district to “establish a first-in-the-nation City College for Municipal Employment” — a city workforce pipeline she said will prepare more students for jobs in city government. Participants will “earn a stipend while they learn and graduate into good city jobs” Parker said.

What the budget leaves out

The mayor’s plan to increase the district’s share of property tax revenue to 56% is significant, but won’t entirely solve the district’s looming shortfall. Parker had said during her campaign that she would like to see a larger share of city property tax revenue go to the school district, mentioning 58% as a goal.

Rob Dubow, the city Finance Director, said at a press briefing on Wednesday that they decided to shift the tax revenue split to 56% rather than 58% because the administration is moving “in concert” with what Gov. Josh Shapiro has proposed and what district officials said they needed in their budget presentation before the school board.

Last month, Shapiro proposed a state budget that would increase overall education spending by $1.1 billion, of which nearly $300 million in additional funds would come to Philadelphia. The city’s school costs are primarily covered by the state and the city; last year the state provided 46% and the city 41%, with federal money – mostly pandemic relief funds – making up the rest. Usually, the federal share is much smaller.

Parker cited the 2022 court ruling that Pennsylvania’s education funding system is unconstitutional and the finding by a legislative commission that Philadelphia alone needs $1.4 billion in additional state funds to meet the needs of all its students.

On the district’s aging facilities, Parker said “we need to modernize our existing schools and build new ones,” saying she would be “working with our allies on City Council” including Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas. Thomas has proposed creating an independent authority to handle school construction and renovation, but Parker did not comment on that proposal Thursday.

The primary education initiatives of her predecessor, Jim Kenney, were PHLPreK and the city investment in community schools, which bring social service resources and personnel into school buildings.

Dubow said PHLPre-K would be funded at the same level as last year. Under Kenney, PHLPreK served 17,000 students over several years, providing about 5,000 seats at any one time, and he regarded it as one of his biggest legacies.

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.

Who will be on the Philadelphia Board of Education?

2024-03-11T20:21:35+00:00

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This week, Philadelphia residents will get their first glimpse at whom Mayor Cherelle Parker could name to the Board of Education.

The 13-member Education Nominating Panel is expected to release its list of 27 potential candidates at a public meeting at 5 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.

Philly’s school board is appointed, not elected, meaning Parker has the power to remake the entire board if she chooses.

Her picks will have the power to approve new charter schools, oversee the district superintendent, vote on contracts and major spending items for the district, and drive the conversation around local education issues. Tuesday’s panel meeting will be residents’ first look at whom Parker trusts to sit on the board.

The panel will recommend 27 candidates to Parker for consideration for appointment — three names for each of the nine board seats. It’s unclear if any of the current board members have reapplied for their positions. Sharon Ward, Philadelphia’s new deputy chief education officer, declined to say Monday whether any current board members are on the list.

Though the panel has been meeting quietly and mostly in executive session since convening on Feb. 1, there have already been some signals that big change is coming. Last week, longtime board member and Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez unexpectedly announced her resignation, citing a medical procedure and the time demands of the position.

According to a statement from Parker’s office announcing the upcoming meeting, the panel received applications from 121 people.

The panel considered those applications and conducted more than 60 interviews, Ward said. Parker will consider each one and make nine appointments with the advice and consent of City Council members following a public hearing.

Each board member’s term is four years and runs concurrent to the mayor’s. Once chosen, any new members will start in their role on May 1. Board members are only allowed to serve three full terms.

In these early days of Parker’s tenure, critics and advocates have paid close attention to her commitment to transparency in government. Her handling of the school board nomination process has been sharply critiqued by individuals including Lisa Haver, cofounder of the education advocacy group Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools and an outspoken advocate for deeper public inclusion in city government.

Haver told Chalkbeat the “whole [nominating] process was a sham,” and said Parker’s administration has not sufficiently included the public in the consideration of new board members.

“This is a completely closed process in which the public has absolutely no say,” Haver said. She pointed out unlike other school boards in the state, Philadelphia’s board is not elected meaning “constituents are already disenfranchised here.”

“Given that, the mayor should be doing everything she can to make this as open a process as possible,” Haver said.

In response to Chalkbeat’s questions about transparency, Ward said the Parker administration has been following the process established in the city’s Home Rule Charter, which she said is “very prescribed.”

“We have encouraged folks to speak out and to talk a little bit about what they want to see in a school board panel and what they would like to see in the school district,” Ward said. She said members of the public who want to add their thoughts should do so at the meeting tomorrow or online.

How to get involved

If you want to give feedback on the candidates for new school board members, the city has opened a public comment period which runs from March 5 to May 1.

People can sign up to speak at tomorrow’s public meeting or submit written comments.

The board is also currently looking for new, nonvoting student representatives for the 2024-25 school year. Current ninth and 10th grade students who are interested in applying or learning more can find information about the application process here.

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

Philadelphia teachers will get bonuses, 5% raises in approved contract extension

2024-03-08T00:30:00+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education voted to approve a one-year contract extension for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers that includes raises, retention bonuses, and more.

The contract was approved unanimously at a meeting Thursday night. The extension “reflects the deep respect we have for all of our PFT members,” Superintendent Tony Watlington said before the board vote.

Watlington emphasized that the extension was agreed to well before the contract expiration date of Aug. 31 and represents a “good faith partnership” with the union. It’s a significant departure for a union and district known for down-to-the-wire negotiations.

He said he expected that collaborative spirit to help with his reform blueprint for the district known as Accelerate Philly.

The district and the teachers union reached a tentative agreement on the contract extension late last month.

District Chief Financial Officer Mike Herbsman said he hoped the contract, which includes a raise and bonuses designed to attract job candidates, would “have a significant and meaningful impact on our ability to recruit and retain teachers.” The district opened the school year with 200 vacancies.

Union membership voted overwhelmingly to ratify the contract Wednesday evening; 84% of those present, or 2,096 people, voted yes, while 16%, or 399 members, voted no. Those who voted against the contract, including Building 21 teacher Eric Hitchner, said the contract didn’t go far enough to secure improved working conditions for teachers.

The contract will cover more than 14,000 district employees, according to Jeremy Grant-Skinner, the deputy superintendent of talent, strategy, and culture.

Notably absent from the agreement is anything altering the current sick leave policy, which detractors say punishes teachers for taking their allotted 10 sick days.

Here’s what’s in the new contract extension:

All PFT-represented employees — including teachers, paraprofessionals, counselors, and others — will receive a 5% salary increase in September 2024.
Employees eligible for “step” increases (raises based on years of experience) will still get those.
PFT-represented employees will also receive a “retention and re-engagement bonus” of $1,200 paid by June 2024.
The Designated Schools Program — which provides $2,500 bonuses to teachers who work in schools with staffing challenges — will be extended to run through Aug. 30, 2025.
Watlington (or another district leader) and a union representative will meet regularly to discuss the superintendent’s five-year strategic plan.

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 school board vice president resigns

2024-03-04T23:15:09+00:00

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Philadelphia Board of Education Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez has resigned, effective April 18, and has taken herself out of consideration for a future board appointment.

Fix-Lopez cited a planned medical procedure as the reason in a statement on Monday.

In an interview, Fix-Lopez said that with the turn of the new year she got “more concerned about the demand of time.” She has an 8-year-old attending Childs Elementary School in Point Breeze and a 4-year-old who will enter kindergarten there in the fall.

She said she initially applied to stay, but withdrew from the nominating process. “I had planned full steam ahead,” she said, but when she was filling out the kindergarten application, “I slowed down to reflect. The time is too much.”

This unexpected shakeup on the board — where the members are appointed by the mayor — could create an opening for what new Mayor Cherelle Parker intends for the future of the body. Parker has signaled she may be more open to expanding the charter school sector in the city than her predecessor, Jim Kenney, and she could be angling to appoint board members who share her perspective. The board has not approved a new charter school since 2018.

Fix-Lopez said that her resignation was unconnected to any future board appointments.

“I get the optics of the timing. But honestly it’s totally separate,” she told Chalkbeat.

The board serves as the sole charter school authorizer in the city and member terms run concurrent to the mayor’s. In the years when a new mayoral term begins, board terms start on May 1.

The process of naming a new board is underway but has been quiet. Until Fix-Lopez’s resignation announcement, the future of any board members’ positions has been uncertain and Parker’s office has repeatedly declined requests for comment about the process.

Parker has convened her Education Nominating Panel, which is interviewing 121 candidates who applied by the Feb. 1 deadline. The panel is charged with recommending 27 people, three for each of the nine seats. Parker, who took office in January, will make the final appointments, who then must be approved by City Council. The panel next meets on March 12, where it is expected to release their list of recommended candidates.

Parker has not indicated whether she intends to renominate any of the current members or remake the board entirely. Board President Reginald Streater has indicated that he would like to remain.

In a Monday statement, Parker offered “deep thanks” to Fix-Lopez for her service. Streater called her “an incredible educator … who has left an indelible mark on the board” by pushing it “to govern from a student-centered perspective with student achievement at its core.”

Fix-Lopez, who teaches English at Philadelphia Community College, was first appointed in 2018 by Kenney when the district was returned to local control by the state. At the time, a nine-member board replaced the School Reform Commission that had governed the district since 2001.

She was reappointed in 2020 and picked to serve as vice president in 2022 and 2023. Members elect the president and vice president each December.

In her time on the board, Fix-Lopez has been active in establishing and enforcing its Goals and Guardrails since they were approved in 2021 to monitor district progress around academics and set standards for creating welcoming school environments for all students. She took a special interest in district policy regarding transgender and gender-nonconforming students, and in expanding translation services for families who don’t speak English.

She also took the lead in evaluations for both Superintendent Tony Watlington and his predecessor, William Hite.

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’s ‘Renaissance’ charter schools did not produce what was promised

2024-02-28T12:30:00+00:00

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On the first day of classes last September, the Philadelphia school superintendent and mayor joined other officials outside of Guion S. Bluford Elementary School to cheer on its 539 students as they entered the building.

The school district’s choice of Bluford for this annual ritual was telling. From 2010 to 2022, Bluford — built in 1972 to serve a growing population in the Overbrook neighborhood — had not been run by the district, but as a charter school operated by Universal Companies as part of the district’s Renaissance Initiative.

Then in the summer of 2022, in a dispute with its board of trustees, Universal ended its contract, and for that academic year the school operated in turmoil. Without its longtime manager, Bluford struggled to hire teachers, convince parents of its viability, and keep up the facility — among other problems, it lost internet access — until the district stepped in to build a new staff and assign a turnaround principal in 2023.

Bluford was part of one of the most sweeping education policy shifts ever undertaken in Philadelphia. The Renaissance Initiative — launched in 2010 under Superintendent Arlene Ackerman while the district was under state control for poor performance — strove to turn around about 10% of Philadelphia’s low-performing district schools by ceding them to charter organizations that promised to do better.

“We will transform historically failing schools and embrace bold new educational approaches with proven track records of success that can transform schools,” Ackerman wrote of the Renaissance initiative in her ambitious reform plan for the district.

At the height of the Renaissance Initiative, 22 former district schools were controlled by charter operators. But district leadership has quietly moved away from the model. Over the past seven years, four schools, including Bluford, have been returned to the district. One, Daroff Charter School, closed entirely. Now 17 schools are part of the initiative — and no new schools have been added since 2016.

“The goal was to prove that charters would work with any kid, not just about parents who were highly motivated to enter a lottery, and to show that a neighborhood school turned over to a charter organization would do better than if run by the school district,” said Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First, an advocacy group.

“As far as I can tell, the data didn’t result in that.”

In fact, a Chalkbeat analysis has found that the dramatic turnaround promises of the Renaissance program never materialized.

Some schools made incremental progress over the years that slightly outpaced the district as a whole, but the group of schools overall has not seen meteoric success.

Indeed, in 2023 the Renaissance charter schools as a group mostly performed worse in standardized tests for elementary and middle schoolers than the district averages, the analysis showed. And compared to district schools, a lower share of Renaissance charters exceeded those averages.

“It was a bad idea poorly implemented,” said Chris McGinley, who served on both the School Reform Commission that oversaw the district while it was under state control and the Board of Education, which won back control of the district in 2018.

The program could be under greater scrutiny as Mayor Cherelle Parker takes office. Parker has had a mixed message on charters, continually emphasizing that she would not stand for people pitting district-run and charter schools against each other.

But she hasn’t said whether she would like to see growth of the charter sector, which already educates about a third of the nearly 200,000 students in the city’s publicly funded schools. And she has not yet named new school board members, who could decide the fate of the Renaissance program itself and its remaining charters.

Parker’s 50-member education policy subcommittee includes the CEOs of four of the seven organizations that run Renaissance charters, three of which operate schools that were recommended for nonrenewal due to subpar academic performance while the fourth was denied a new charter application based on the record of its existing schools.

Her appointees to the Mayor’s Office on Education, Sharon Ward, an activist and former state official, and Debora Carrera, a former district principal assistant superintendent, declined comment and couldn’t be reached, respectively.

Superintendent Tony Watlington declined to comment on the program.

Peng Chao, head of the board’s Office of Charter Schools, which evaluates existing charters and vets new applications, said that the outcomes for the Renaissance schools “have been mixed.”

“With a sector of over 20 schools over the course of more than a decade, it isn’t surprising that some schools have excelled in certain areas and others have struggled. Every school, Renaissance or not, has a different arc,” said Chao.

Betting on a school turnaround model

Turning district schools over to charters has been a go-to turnaround method in major urban districts for more than two decades. In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, the state of Louisiana took over the New Orleans schools, shut down all but a few that were high performing, and created a Recovery School District that was essentially a system of charters. Chicago had its own Renaissance schools initiative that leaders are rethinking.

In Philadelphia, the movement flourished when the district was under state control and coincided with a push in Pennsylvania to expand the charter sector. Even before the official start of the Renaissance program, under the influence of prevailing Pennsylvania politics at the time, other district schools had become charters.

Charter expansion has long been the favored school reform strategy of Pennsylvania’s Republican governors and legislators as they resisted more spending on education and sought to weaken unions, even though the state had the widest gaps in the nation between high-wealth and low-wealth districts. Only last year did a Commonwealth Court judge rule the funding system unconstitutional.

Ackerman was betting her career on the success of Renaissance schools. She told Pew Charitable Trusts in 2010, “If I can show [parents] what the other side of the rainbow looks like, I don’t care who comes in after me. They are going to force the new superintendent and the new administration to give them what their children deserve.”

Ackerman’s vision for the Renaissance program included two models designed to offer “greater autonomy in exchange for increased accountability,” according to her 2009 reform blueprint for the district, Imagine 2014. Implicit in the entire initiative was to set up a competition to determine which turnaround strategy was more effective — more internal resources and a staff shakeup, or charter conversion. The schools that remained under district control were given more resources and called “Promise Academies,” while those that were handed over to charter organizations were dubbed “Renaissance” charter schools.

“Arlene was very strong on the idea that these programs would run in parallel with a lot of ability to compare the results from the programs,” said former School Reform Commission member Joseph Dworetzky. “I thought it was an interesting idea.” Dworetzky also said the board considered this more efficient and a way to stem the spiraling costs to the district of charter proliferation.

The Renaissance charters had defined catchment areas like traditional district schools, but otherwise operated independent of the district, the same as any other charter school.

At first, things seemed to be going well. An 18-month interim report found “The Year One outcomes for schools in the Renaissance Schools Initiative suggest that something positive is happening.” In 2014, Renaissance charters were doing a successful job keeping students enrolled for the entire school year, another report found.

But under Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, cuts to education spending between 2010 and 2014 put a strain on the entire system. The belt tightening effectively ended the Promise Academy experiment by stripping the schools of extra programs and supports. The Renaissance charters were impacted because, as the district’s budget decreased, their per pupil payments went down.

In 2011, Ackerman resigned.

Her successor, William Hite, continued the Renaissance conversions, but decided to let parents vote, first on who the new operator should be and then whether there should be a conversion at all. This caused conflict, especially at Wister Elementary School in Germantown, where Hite had second thoughts about his initial recommendation. During the 2016 debate over whether the school should become a charter, parents were bitterly split, and the School Reform Commission overruled Hite to approve the turnover.

After that, Renaissance conversions ceased.

In March of 2020, as McGinley was preparing to leave the school board, which by then had resumed control of the district, he proposed a resolution to formally end the Renaissance program altogether — but that resolution was quietly removed from the meeting agenda and never resurfaced.

How Renaissance schools measure up

Determining the impact of the turnarounds is challenging in Philadelphia, since two major events have occurred since the program started in 2011 — a revision of standardized tests in 2015, limiting the ability for apples to apples score comparisons, and the educational upheaval of the pandemic.

But looking at results, most of the Renaissance charter schools do not show high rates of proficiency. According to the Chalkbeat analysis, these schools started out well below district and state averages in English Language Arts and math performance — that’s why they were targeted for this intervention.

The analysis, though, shows that none of the schools are performing particularly well today. For instance, a majority of the Renaissance charters saw less than 10% of students score at or above proficiency on math tests in 2023. By some metrics, a few made incremental progress over the years.

Several schools, including Harrity Elementary and Mann Elementary, operated by Mastery, showed spikes in indicators including test scores for the first several years, said Chao, head of the board’s Office of Charter Schools.

But, he added, “Sustained improvement in student achievement, however, has not been as evident or consistent.”

The saga of Memphis Street Academy@JPJones in Frankford is telling. Once a junior high school with a reputation for out-of-control discipline and general disarray, it is now run as a Renaissance charter for 5th through 8th grades by American Paradigm schools. In contrast to its past, it is calm and orderly, with a solid teaching staff and lots of student activities.

But its achievement scores have remained persistently low — math proficiency is at 1%, and the Board of Education has voted not to renew the five-year charter signed in 2017.

American Paradigm has since sued the district in federal court saying the performance standards they agreed to, based on absolute achievement rather than growth in student scores, are unfair. The school can remain open during the appeals process.

Hite, who was superintendent between 2012 and 2022 and presided over the creation of five Renaissance charters, in hindsight questioned the effectiveness of the initiative.

“What I recall is that they saw climate and culture indicators improve, and in some cases saw growth improve, particularly [in a reduction of] children who scored below basic,” Hite said in an interview. “But we really didn’t see marked improvement in achievement.”

Hite attributed this to the myriad factors besides school quality that affect student outcomes, including the impact of poverty, violence, and the lack of essential services.

“This stuff takes time,” he said.

Bluford and Daroff were not the only schools that exited Renaissance. Two other district schools that became Renaissance charters, Olney High and its feeder Stetson Middle, were also taken back by the district due to both lagging performance and financial problems within Aspira, Inc., to which they had been turned over.

Michael Roth, now Olney’s principal, worked in the school under both models. He is not a fan of charter conversion as a school reform strategy.

“I think it’s offensive,” he said. “A lot of these measures were experimenting with communities of color. I’m not saying some good things didn’t come out of it, but my thought is, why don’t we properly fund the public schools and make sure they have the resources they need and do it right without switching back and forth?”

Tangela McClam, Principal of Bluford Charter School, left, greets students on the first day of school.

Renaissance supporters say look beyond test scores

Scott Gordon, the founder and longtime executive director of Mastery Charter, deems the initiative a success, saying that the Renaissance program brought numerous improvements to schools and their surrounding neighborhoods, even if test scores did not dramatically rise. Mastery has run nine Renaissance charters, and essentially built its brand around the program.

Chalkbeat’s analysis showed that Mastery performed marginally higher on average than other Renaissance charters on the 2023 state tests, the PSSA, but still had overall scores below the district average (with one single exception on the English language arts test).

Gordon said the model showed that a different governing structure could bring more stability to neighborhood schools, improve academic outcomes while serving the same kids, and draw parents back into the building.

Before Mastery, he said, ”These were schools in a never-ending negative spiral, lots of transiency, kids with high needs. As the school struggles, parents begin leaving, it struggles more, and it goes downhill.”

‘We needed a turnaround in a turnaround’

Bluford’s history shows that the initiative both fell short of being transformational and also often sowed confusion for families.

Bluford was one of the original Renaissance charter schools. Formerly the William B. Hanna elementary school (it was renamed for astronaut and alum Guion Bluford, the first Black person in space), Bluford was turned over to Universal Companies. Like the other schools in the program, it had long suffered from poor academic performance.

But the desired turnaround never happened; in 2015, the School Reform Commission voted to revoke the charter because it did not meet its academic targets. “I was struck by the notion that we needed a turnaround in a turnaround,” commissioner Feather Houstoun said at the time. But appeals kept it open — even though the Board of Education’s own Renaissance schools policy was supposed to supersede the state’s charter authorization, evaluation, renewal and revocation process.

Then, in 2022, Universal had its falling out with the board of trustees that oversaw it, leading to its tumultuous year and the district’s decision to return it to district control.

“It was very traumatic,” said teacher Tyshea Tucker. “Everything was so sudden.”

When the upheaval occurred, Tucker had been a teaching assistant at Daroff studying for her degree. She moved to Bluford when it was still a charter, and then applied to stay when the district took over and is now a second-grade teacher.

All the disruption was even more unsettling for her students, she said, many of whom have already had to deal with trauma in their lives. The staff turnover, she feared, reinforced feelings that adults weren’t there for them. She said she had to “go the extra mile” to build relationships and trust with them.

For longtime neighborhood stalwarts like Tamara Keene, who sent two sons through Bluford, the changes have been jarring.

Keene said the school functioned well under Universal at first.

But when Universal left in 2022, along with about half the staff, the board running the school “didn’t have a lot of control. … They spent a year just holding the school down.”

The turnover split parents, some of whom wanted the school to remain a charter, while others, like Keene, wanted a traditional public school option. “I’m still upset that there was no neighborhood school that was not a charter,” she said.

This current tension between charters and traditional schools harkens back to why Ackerman launched the Renaissance experiment in the first place. Despite scant evidence that the Renaissance schools delivered the promised transformation, Ackerman had concluded at the end of her time as superintendent that dramatic educational improvement for traditionally underserved students was impossible within the existing structure of large school districts with many power centers, especially teachers unions.

And her ideas for reform are still present today.

Like Ackerman, Parker is advocating for longer school days and a longer school year, tall orders to make happen within the traditional district structure.

But if it does happen, families like Keene’s will be the ones experiencing it firsthand.

Although Keene’s children are grown, she will continue watching the transformation of Bluford from a new perch — three of her grandchildren now attend the school.

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.

Record-setting increase in public school funding proposed by Pennsylvania governor

2024-02-06T19:26:10+00:00

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Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed a 2024-25 budget Tuesday that increases basic education funding by $1.1 billion, which would be the largest single-year increase ever.

Most of that money, $900 million, would be funneled through a so-called adequacy formula that calculates what every district actually requires to educate all their children to high standards, based on students’ needs.

Shapiro’s proposal comes almost exactly one year after Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer’s ruling that Pennsylvania’s school funding system is unconstitutional – meaning it is neither fair nor adequate and depriving many children of their right to a “thorough and efficient” education. Currently, districts that educate high numbers of students in poverty, English language learners, and others with special needs generally spend less than wealthier districts, even though their students require more in order to be prepared for college and careers.

Shapiro said in his Tuesday address that his spending blueprint “will deliver real results for the Commonwealth” by “making historic investments in public education.”

Shapiro’s proposal also hews closely to the recommendation of the Basic Education Funding Commission, which spent a year traveling the state to question educators, advocates, experts, and others about education in their communities. By “acting on the work” of the commission, the budget is “delivering a comprehensive solution on K-12 education in Pennsylvania,” he said.

In a report released last month, the commission determined that the state should spend $5.4 billion more annually to bring all districts to adequate funding, with $5.1 billion of that coming from state as opposed to local coffers. It set out a plan to reach that goal by 2029.

The remaining $200 million in Shapiro’s proposed $1.1 billion increase would be funneled through the formula established by the funding commission, which also takes into account student needs in devising a per-pupil rate for state aid. This would assure that wealthier districts like Lower Merion and Radnor still get a share of state aid to help with inflation and other cost drivers.

Under the proposal, Philadelphia would receive an increase of $203 million in adequacy funding, plus $40 million additional through the standard formula.

It would also get a share of the $50 million increase Shapiro is proposing for special education funding, and a share of a $300 million increase in facilities funding.

Shapiro also proposes to cap cyber charter tuition at $8,000 per student, which could provide significant savings for Philadelphia public schools. Philadelphia now pays $11,502 per cyber charter student.

The budget does not include vouchers, which are backed strongly by Republicans who control the Senate and share power in an almost equally divided General Assembly. The state already has two programs that offer tax credits to corporations that donate to scholarship programs, but Shapiro does not recommend any funding increases for them.

Last year, Shapiro publicly stated his support for creating vouchers in Pennsylvania. But he ultimately vetoed a provision to establish vouchers when he signed the state budget. On Tuesday, Shapiro reiterated his support for vouchers and said he considered them “unfinished business.”

‘The transformation of Pennsylvania’s school funding system’

Advocates who brought the 2014 lawsuit that ultimately led to Jubelirer’s ruling, William Penn School District et al. v. Pennsylvania Department of Education, hailed the budget proposal, which is just a starting point in negotiations before a final budget is adopted by the end of June. They said it meets the mandate of Jubelirer’s ruling.

“If carried out to completion, this would mean the transformation of Pennsylvania’s school funding system,” said Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, executive director of the Public Interest Law Center. “It would mean thousands of more teachers, counselors, librarians – it would truly be historic.”

Deborah Gordon-Klehr, director of the Education Law Center, hailed the governor’s proposal as “critical,” adding that “it’s the start of what needs to be a long term commitment.”

She said her group would be seeking legislation to guarantee future increases to reach the target set by the commission “so districts can plan, leaders can be held accountable, and students can see the benefits.”

The adequacy formula devised by the funding commission looks at what the most successful districts spend per student and determines what every district needs to get all their students to that level, using a weighted formula that takes into account poverty, English language status, and other circumstances. Philadelphia’s “adequacy gap” was determined to be in the range of $1.4 billion, on a current budget of about $4.5 billion, or about $7,100 per student.

Philadelphia has the 35th highest adequacy gap in the state; Reading’s shortfall of $14,000 between what it has and what it needs is the widest.

Shapiro’s proposal “targets the funding specifically for the districts that are farthest from adequacy,” said Urevick-Ackelsberg.

Of the 500 districts in Pennsylvania, about 400 do not meet their adequacy targets as defined by the commission.

The governor’s proposal to reform cyber charter funding is likely to run into political headwinds.

Pennsylvania has one of the largest cyber charter enrollments in the country, and districts pay cyber charters their own per-pupil costs, even though cyber education costs far less to deliver than brick-and-mortar schools.

“Currently, cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania charge school districts between $8,639 and $26,564 per student per year,” Shapiro said. This, he said, “no longer makes sense. The 2024-25 budget establishes a statewide cyber tuition rate of $8,000 per student per year and will better align tuition with the actual costs of providing an online education.”

He said this reform will save school districts an estimated $262 million annually.

Other education highlights of Shapiro’s budget include:

$50 million for school safety and security.
$300 million in “sustainable funding for environmental repair projects” in school buildings.
$10 million for teacher recruitment.
$15 million, an increase of $5 million, for student-teacher stipends.
$100 million for mental health funding in K-12 schools.
$3 million to provide free breakfast for all students year-round.
$96,000 to help free up $62 million in federal child care reimbursements for providers.

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 Parker names chief education officer and deputy

2024-02-06T00:06:13+00:00

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Mayor Cherelle Parker has named former high school principal Debora Carrera as the city’s chief education officer and Sharon Ward, a well-known education advocate, as a deputy in that office.

Parker made the announcement Monday afternoon, along with several other city appointments.

Debora Carrera, Philadelphia's new chief education officer.

Carrera worked for 27 years in the Philadelphia school district as a teacher and then as principal of William McKinley Elementary School and the Kensington High School of Creative and Performing Arts. She was also an assistant superintendent before becoming an official in the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

Ward previously held positions in the Pennsylvania Department of Education and as an advisor to the Philadelphia School District. She was a founder of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy center and is a consultant to the Education Law Center.

Carrera and Ward will likely be charged with working on how the city and district can implement Parker’s ideas for year-round school and a longer school day, both expensive propositions that will require buy-in from the district’s unions. Neither could be reached for comment Monday.

The position of chief education officer has been vacant since December 2022, when Otis Hackney left after seven years in the job under former Mayor Jim Kenney. With just a year left on his term, Kenney put education issues under the Office of Children and Families.

Sharon C. Ward, Philadelphia's new deputy chief education officer.

As chief education officer between 2015 and 2022, Hackney oversaw Kenney’s prekindergarten expansion and community schools initiatives and worked with Comcast to make sure that all students had adequate internet access through the ConnectED program. He also started the city’s Catto Scholarships for students to attend Community College of Philadelphia and smoothed the return of the district to local control.

Like Carrera, Hackney was a former Philadelphia principal when appointed. He was widely credited with bringing stability to South Philadelphia High School after repeated clashes between Black and Asian students. At the time of his appointment, he had moved on to become the first Black principal of the high school in Springfield in Montgomery County.

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 union president’s retirement comes at critical time for educators, schools

2024-01-19T00:39:44+00:00

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The pending retirement of Jerry Jordan as Philadelphia Federation of Teachers president and the ascension of Arthur Steinberg as his replacement ensures the union will continue to be run by members of a group that’s held power for decades.

It also maintains an unbroken string of male presidents of a union that is at least 70% female.

The change in leadership is occurring at a critical time for the school district and the union, which is the city’s largest union and represents 13,600 teachers, nurses, counselors, librarians, secretaries, food service managers, paraprofessionals and other school workers. At its peak, before the advent of charter schools and an overall decline in Philadelphia’s population, it had more than 20,000 members.

Philadelphia’s new mayor, Cherelle Parker, has said she would like to see year-round schooling, and Superintendent Tony Watlington has indicated his interest in the concept. And a state court has ruled that Pennsylvania’s current method of funding education is unconstitutional — a decision that could result in hundreds of millions of more dollars annually for city schools. How that money is used will chart the futures of hundreds of thousands of children and the staff who work with them.

Jordan announced his retirement, which will be effective June 30, on Tuesday. The PFT’s contract expires at the end of August, and the district would have to negotiate any changes in schedules linked with year-round-schooling with the union. The district has also been coping with significant teacher and staff shortages recently.

“It’s terrible, there are a lot of vacancies” for both teacher and paraprofessional positions, Steinberg said in an interview. “A significant number of schools are understaffed.” And Philadelphia’s teacher salaries, especially for experienced educators, lag behind the compensation offered by neighboring districts.

Steinberg, who was previously a special education teacher at Edison High School before becoming a PFT staffer, is currently the president of American Federation of Teachers Pennsylvania. He declined to comment on the union’s stance on Parker’s year-round schooling plan, saying it would be premature. His priorities, he said, “are as they always have been: to engage and listen to the members and take care of their needs.”

Not everyone is thrilled with the hand-off from Jordan to Steinberg, and specifically how Steinberg faced no competition for the presidency. Several teachers associated with the Caucus of Working Educators, which challenged the union leadership in 2016 and 2020, noted in interviews that Jordan took no chances in assuring Steinberg would be the only candidate in contention to succeed him. No one else filed to run because no potential contender besides Steinberg knew of Jordan’s intentions until it was too late, they said.

Jordan sent a letter to his membership announcing his planned retirement just after Tuesday’s filing deadline for the PFT presidential election, which occurs every four years.

His email explained that Steinberg would take over under rules laid out in the union’s constitution. Because he was the only candidate, a vote would be unnecessary, Jordan said.

“This evening, candidates had until 5 p.m. to submit their consent forms and petitions to run” for the presidency and other leadership positions, he wrote. Jordan said that representatives from the American Arbitration Association verified “that only one slate, the Collective Bargaining (CB) Team, submitted their candidacy. I share with you the exciting news and my congratulations to our next president, Arthur Steinberg!”

Arthur Steinberg, who will replace Jerry Jordan as president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, used to be a special education teacher at Edison High School and is currently the president of American Federation of Teachers Pennsylvania.

Steinberg is the son of Jack Steinberg, who was among the PFT’s founding leaders, a longtime treasurer, and head of the union’s Health and Welfare Fund. Members of the union’s CB faction have served as PFT presidents for almost all of the past 40 years. Marv Schuman was president from 1983 to 1990, Ted Kirsch from 1990 to 2007, and Jordan has led the union since then.

Ismael Jimenez, a history teacher for most of his career who is now the district’s social studies curriculum specialist, said he had no doubt that other candidates would have entered the contest this year if they knew Jordan was retiring.

“That would have switched up the equation,” said Jimenez, who ran twice on the Working Educators slate in 2016 and 2020.

Kathleen Melville, who led the Working Educators slate in 2020 as the candidate for president, said it is a “shame that PFT members won’t have a chance to choose the next leader of their union.

“I ran for leadership in 2020 because I believe that members should have a say in who leads their union and what their union is fighting for,” said Melville, who is now a City Council staffer.

‘A persistent voice for the needs of teachers’

The Working Educators caucus was founded in 2014 by a group of teachers who wanted the union to be more active on social justice and equity issues affecting city schools — following the lead of other unions. Kelley Collings, a 23-year teacher who was among the founders of the caucus, also said the group has pushed to change the union’s policies to make it “truly democratic.” (Collings said she was speaking for herself and not on behalf of the caucus.)

The caucus decided in November not to put up a slate of candidates this year, saying instead it would focus on creating a strong contract, building-by-building organizing, and reforming the discipline policy for teacher absences. In the 2016 and 2020 PFT leadership elections, the Working Educators slate got around a third of the vote.

Asked about the timing of Jordan’s announcement relative to the filing deadline, Steinberg said there was no attempt to limit the field.

“The executive board adopts election procedures in December and as soon as that process concluded we sent [filing] deadlines to schools,” he said. “They had the same opportunity to run as any of us did … there was no subterfuge.”

Jordan declined to comment.

Jimenez said in deciding not to run a slate, one factor had been that the caucus felt there had been “a good amount of victories” with the last contract.”

Recent contracts negotiated by PFT included raises and some back pay to make up for a five-year period when the union worked without a contract; that protracted stalemate occurred when the district was under state control. During that time, teachers got no raises at all and no credit for accruing additional experience and educational credentials. Being able to get some of that money back and be made whole was an important victory, Jimenez said.

He also noted that PFT’s leadership team, after being challenged by the Working Educators caucus, had started issuing statements on issues including gun violence and LGBTQ+ issues.

At the same time, Jimenez said “the kind of leadership transition that just happened is “a terrible look for any union, especially teachers and those trying to teach children about democratic values.”

Despite their concern about the succession process and criticism of some of the union’s priorities, many teachers as well as some influential education figures in the city had good things to say about Jordan.

“I would say that he has been a persistent voice for the needs of teachers, and that’s his role as the head of the union,” said Donna Cooper, executive director of the advocacy group Children First and a former official in the mayoral and gubernatorial administrations of Ed Rendell.

While noting that the needs of teachers and those of students don’t always align, she said Jordan was always cordial and respectful.

Former superintendent William Hite called Jordan a “consummate professional” who was “committed to creating better conditions for children in the school district.”

Correction, Jan. 19, 2024: This article has been updated to reflect that Ismael Jimenez ran on the Caucus of Working Educators slate in Philadelphia Federation of Teachers elections in 2016 and 2020. A previous version of the article said Jimenez ran twice on the Collective Bargaining slate. This article has also been updated to refer to Jimenez as the district’s director of social studies. A previous version of the article referred to him as the district’s social studies curriculum specialist.

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.

Bipartisan Pennsylvania school funding commission proposes eight changes

2024-01-11T23:21:44+00:00

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The long-awaited report from the state’s Basic Education Funding Commission recommends steady, annual increases in school spending, an overhaul to charter school funding, and a plan to calculate what it means to fund students “adequately.”

But even without any earth-shattering proposals, the report released Thursday did not receive unanimous support from the bipartisan but politically divided commission. And school funding experts are already raising questions about it.

The commission’s report follows months of hearings and hours of testimony from school leaders, education advocates, and others regarding how Pennsylvania should remake its school funding formula. A Commonwealth Court judge ruled the state’s funding formula unconstitutional in 2023 and ordered the state to revamp it. If lawmakers and Gov. Josh Shapiro enact the commission’s recommendations, Philadelphia students could receive significantly more funding — nearly $243 million more in the fiscal 2025 budget, for example, and $1.4 billion more over seven years.

In an 8-7 vote largely along party lines, the commission (which is made of Democratic and GOP legislators, as well as members of Shapiro’s administration) approved a 114-page report that includes eight recommendations. All votes in favor were Democratic lawmakers or from Shapiro’s team, while the Republicans were united in opposition. Sen. Lindsey Williams, a Democrat, voted no because in her view the report’s recommendations don’t go far enough.

Primary among those recommendations is to update estimates of what each district needs so all their students can succeed — the so-called “adequacy” target — by recalculating key aspects of the funding formula to make its annual allocations to districts more fair and predictable.

The commission also calls for making teacher salaries more competitive; adding funding for student supports, including mental health; and examining how the state can bolster support for access to prekindergarten, career and technical education, and funding for libraries.

To make sure that school spending in the state continues to be fair and adequate, it also wants the commission to be reconstituted in 2029 to provide continued monitoring of the funding system.

But overall, the commission’s recommendations regarding state funding fall well below the $6.2 billion over five years of increased education spending that some advocacy groups are calling for. Those groups want a $2.2 billion hike in fiscal 2025, followed by $1 billion increases in each of the following four years.

Instead, the commission determined that there’s a $5.4 billion funding adequacy gap, of which $291 million is “the local responsibility of low tax effort school districts.” The remaining $5.1 billion “rests upon the state” which Pennsylvania would close through a seven-year ramp-up in funding.

For 2023-24, Pennsylvania’s share of K-12 total spending in the Commonwealth is $10 billion.

The commission also acknowledged the widely disparate tax burdens for individual districts. To address this, it proposed an additional $955 million in state money, in the form of “tax equity supplements,” for districts that have been taxing themselves at high rates.

“I believe the report not only meets our obligation as a commission … but also meets constitutional muster as directed by the Commonwealth Court,” said state Rep. Mike Sturla, a Democrat and a majority chair of the commission.

But he cautioned, “really, this is the end of the beginning. There’s still a whole lot of work to do.”

Shapiro said in a Thursday statement he “look[s] forward to addressing these points when I deliver my budget to the Legislature in a few weeks, and to continue working with leaders in both parties in order to deliver a thorough and efficient public education for students across our Commonwealth.”

In a Thursday press conference after the report’s release, advocates who were among plaintiffs in the 2014 school funding lawsuit that was the subject of the Commonwealth Court judge’s ruling last year said it represented a step in the right direction. In particular, they highlighted the commission’s proposed adequacy targets that take into account the actual needs of Pennsylvania students, district by district.

“This is a big first step … the timeline is long, it’s not perfect, and there are unaddressed issues. But the vision it lays out is a transformative one,” said Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg of the Public Interest Law Center, which represented the plaintiffs along with the Education Law Center.

Recommendations focus on teacher workforce, poverty data, charters

The commission’s recommendations won’t go into effect without corresponding legislation approved by the state’s General Assembly and the governor. Its recommendations are:

Simplify and “reduce the volatility” in the state’s basic education funding formula by using three-year averages of U.S. Census Bureau data on poverty and median household income. The state should then add at least an additional $200 million to this updated formula each year.
Calculate adequacy targets — or how much each district should be spending on their student population, based on their needs. The commission recommended using Pennsylvania’s state performance standards to determine which districts are “successful” and then use those districts’ spending level as a target for all school districts.
Invest more state money in school facilities, especially in districts like Philadelphia.
Reexamine the way charter schools are funded in the state and “modernize” the calculation of cyber charter school tuition.
Invest in the teacher workforce.
Invest in student supports like mental health services and the “community schools” model.
Bring back the Basic Education Funding Commission in 2029.
“Consider other important education issues,” including access to pre-K, transportation, school safety, and “explore dedicated funding for every school district to have at least one school librarian.”

While saying that the state “should be investing in competitive teacher salaries across the Commonwealth,” the report cites a few actions already taken, including a teacher pipeline program and provides stipends and other incentives. But it doesn’t lay out a blueprint or funding source for helping high-poverty, low-spending districts raise their salaries, which generally fall below those offered by high-wealth districts.

The charter school recommendations are likely to be politically controversial. The commission wants to restore a charter school reimbursement line item in the state budget to help districts cope with the “stranded costs” of charters. When Gov. Tom Corbett ended the practice in 2011, Philadelphia, which has half that charters in the state, was receiving $110 million through that provision.

The commission also wants to change the charter school funding formula so that it uses the same three tiers of supplemental funding for students with disabilities that traditional districts receive, depending on the severity of their disability. Right now, charters receive the highest tier of funding for all students under current law.

‘You have to use good empirical evidence’

Though the final report reflects a compromise, experts and education advocates are already raising eyebrows at some of the commission’s suggestions.

Bruce Baker, a school finance professor and national school funding expert at The University of Miami, took issue with the assigned weights the commission recommends using to calculate how much it would cost to educate each student.

Research has found students with disabilities, English language learners, and students from impoverished backgrounds all require more funding than their peers to help them achieve a desired level of performance.

Baker said the commission should have required that those weights be updated because the current ones are part of a formula that has been deemed unconstitutional.

“You can’t correct the constitutional deprivation without specific consideration to the additional costs of providing children of all backgrounds, in all settings, equal opportunity to achieve the outcomes,” Baker said. “You have to use good empirical evidence in order to correctly calibrate the weights.”

Meanwhile, Nathan Benefield, senior vice president of the conservative Commonwealth Foundation, called the report “deeply disappointing” in a statement Thursday.

Benefield previously told Chalkbeat the state could find more money by phasing out so-called “hold harmless” aid rather than injecting billions of dollars that may not be sustainable if the state’s budget surplus runs out. “Hold harmless” was a policy enacted to guarantee that no school district in the state would receive less funding than it had the previous year, even if it lost students.

But in its report, the commission said abandoning “hold harmless” would be “counterproductive.”

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, called the report “a critical step in the right direction” primarily because it recommends additional state spending on facilities improvements and because of the significant increases it brings to the city’s schools.

Clarification: This story has been updated to better explain Pennsylvania’s share of total K-12 spending in 2023-24.

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.

This Philadelphia teacher wants students to find themselves through theater

2024-01-10T22:19:20+00:00

Last month, Sally Wojcik, who teaches theater and creative writing at Benjamin Rush Arts Academy, was named by the Pennsylvania Department of Education as one of 12 finalists for state Teacher of the Year. Rush has just over 600 students who come mostly from its Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood, but as a criteria-based school, it also draws from all over the city. Some students commute up to two hours a day.

Students can choose from among various majors, including media arts, graphic arts, fine arts, theater, dance, and instrumental and vocal music. And once they choose their concentration, they take classes in that area every day and stay in that major for all four years. That means Wojcik is able to work with the same cohort of students for their entire high school careers and can plan a curriculum with that particular group in mind. “I was given full flexibility to design a curriculum that I thought was best for students,” said Wojcik, who chooses most of the plays her class will focus on, including some that may be controversial.

Rush has been her only teaching job, and she established its theater program there in 2009. She said she “was very lucky” when the director of Philadelphia Young Playwrights, who knew her from her work with the education outreach program of the Arden Theater, recommended her as a perfect fit for Rush, which was in the process of converting from a middle school to an arts-focused high school.

A summa cum laude graduate of Albright College, Wojcik has a master’s degree in English education (Pennsylvania does not offer teacher certification in theater) from Temple University, and also spent a semester at the prestigious National Theater Institute in Waterford, Connecticut. She spoke to Chalkbeat senior writer Dale Mezzacappa about how she approaches her “dream job” and why theater experience is important for high school students.

Why did you become a teacher?

I was a “theater kid” my whole life. That was always the thing that brought me the most joy and fulfillment when I was a high school student. And then I pursued it in college and when I finished college, I apprenticed at the Arden Theater Company in Philadelphia trying to figure out how I fit into the theater profession. I worked in Arden’s education department and realized that I really loved helping young people find their voice and figure out what kind of artists they wanted to be.

Tell me about your own experience in school and how that affects how you work today.

I was really lucky. I grew up in Western Massachusetts, and my high school had a longstanding relationship with Shakespeare & Company, which has an amazing program where they would pair their resident artists with schools, and would come to work with us on our own Shakespeare productions. I remember, as a student, being made to feel very much like a valued and important person, and I just loved being a part of a group that had this collective goal to tell a compelling story. All throughout high school I had these amazing teachers, one theater teacher in particular, who was also the journalism teacher, who inspired me to value words and language.

How do you teach theater? It can’t be just kids sitting in a classroom.

My approach is very holistic. Everybody knows what it means to be an actor because that’s what we are used to seeing, but my program purposely focuses also on directing, design, and playwriting. We actually do spend a bunch of time in the classroom sometimes because each of my units is tied to what I call an anchor text. We read, analyze, discuss, pull apart a text … then we break off so a student might do a scene study or create an original piece of playwriting based on inspiration within that play, or they might take on designing an aspect of that play.

What plays have you studied recently? And how do you choose them?

There are 15 to 16 plays over the course of four years. My goal is to make sure that every student at least once sees themselves represented in the plays I bring in. So it’s really important that they come from playwrights with diverse backgrounds that highlight diverse characters. We start at the very beginning … so there are a couple of Greeks, moving all the way up through contemporary plays. I try to bring in plays that have different kinds of conflicts, different kinds of themes, different kinds of structures or use of language. Every play has an engine, something that makes the play go, and it’s really important to bring in different kinds of engines so every student can get excited at some point.

What plays, specifically?

The ninth grade set curriculum is Antigone, A Raisin in the Sun, and The Glass Menagerie, three big canonical works. In 10th grade, it’s Medea and August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, and I’m in the process of reworking what I want the third text to be. And in 11th grade, it’s How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel, BFE by Julia Cho, Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage, The Shape of Things by Neil LaBute, and then Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen. The 12th grade is always whatever they chose as their senior play, then A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Stop Kiss by Diana Son, and 26 Miles by Philadelphia writer Quiara Alegria Hudes.

What kind of plays do the 12th graders choose?

We just finished a production of Elsewhere by Don Zolidis, which is a play that follows four teenagers into a kind of shared dream landscape where they have to navigate some childhood issues to realize what they want to become as adults. Last year, they did a murder mystery, and the year before that they did Tinkerbell, which is an adaptation of the Peter Pan story. Sometimes, I have veto power, but mostly, they’re chosen by students.

Rush focuses on the arts, but in other schools, arts tend to be the first thing to go when the budget gets tight. Do you think all students should be exposed to theater?

I think it is every student’s right to have access to high-quality arts education in the same way they have the right to a high-quality core curriculum. The thing I love about theater is that it’s about stories, and stories are the most fundamental way for humans to connect. Allowing students to explore other people’s stories gives them a pathway to explore and explain their own.

Is there a particular moment or production that you remember as being pivotal for you? Something that made you think, this is why I do this?

Well, lots of students have expressed to me that theater is the thing they come to school for. But there was a moment, I think, when my students changed me. It was maybe seven years ago, the senior production was Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour, which deals with two female teachers who run a boarding school and had been accused by a student of being involved in a romantic relationship. The student was mad and wanted to get back at them, but what she didn’t know was that one of them really did have deep feelings for the other. And the student actors playing the teachers were just both so good. I was sitting in the audience when I thought, they are both, at age 17 or 18, better actors than I ever was. And it was this beautiful moment where I felt like they had surpassed my own skill level, and I was learning from them. My program is designed for students to become really independent of me. I provide all the scaffolding and the structure, so, then, they can do it on their own.

What is the best advice you ever got as a teacher?

When I first started working in Philadelphia, I took a workshop with Young Playwrights, and there was a speaker who said that our job is to help students find their voices, and not our voice through them. And that has been something that has always resonated in the back of my head. I am always looking for ways to center students in the work that they are creating, and to help them learn to trust themselves and their stories rather than looking to me for validation of their stories.

Have you ever had a parent or administrator try to censor what you were teaching?

It’s funny because I’m always waiting for that call. I’ve had parents ask questions, good questions, but I’ve never had a parent say their kid can’t read that, or can’t be a part of it. The play How I Learned to Drive [about a sexually abusive relationship between a teen and a trusted adult], every year I have students come to me afterward and say that the play changed their life, sometimes because they’ve been through something similar, and having the opportunity to process that through somebody else’s perspective has freed them. And I feel very backed up by the School District of Philadelphia. I feel really grateful for the progressiveness of the district I work in.

Did you ever aspire to be an actor?

No, this is actually my dream job. I was not ever very in love with the lifestyle of a professional artist [moving] from gig to gig. Part of what I love about being a theater teacher is that I get to really tuck in with the students and work with them over a long period of time. I love teenagers; I love this point of personal development when they are figuring out who and how they want to be. Teaching, for me, wasn’t a default. It was an active choice.

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.

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 Mayor Jim Kenney discusses his pre-K legacy: ‘We had all the parents’

2023-12-06T11:04:00+00:00

This story is featured in Chalkbeat’s 2023 Philadelphia Early Childhood Education Guide on efforts to improve outcomes for the city’s youngest learners. To keep up with early childhood education and Philadelphia’s public schools, sign up for our free newsletter here.

When Mayor Jim Kenney is feeling frustrated, he said, he has a guaranteed pick-me-up: He goes to visit students in a local prekindergarten.

“When I get really down, and depressed, and disgusted, and lots of other adjectives, I go schedule a pre-K visit,” Kenney told Chalkbeat in a candid interview conducted during his final weeks in office. “It’s like my salvation.”

Along with overseeing the school district’s return to local control after 17 years under state authority, Kenney regards the establishment of PHLpreK, which allows thousands of 3- and 4-year-olds in the city to attend prekindergarten free of charge, as one of the major legacies of his two terms in office.

“I believe the only way out of poverty and into a successful life is education,” he said, by way of explaining his commitment to the issue. Providing structured programs for 3- and 4-year-olds, he said, “sets the tone for the rest of their educational experience.”

As policymakers consider how to overhaul the state’s school funding system to make it fairer for districts like Philadelphia’s, Kenney also pointed out that the city increased its contribution to the school district by $1.5 billion during his tenure.

This year, more than 5,000 children are enrolled in PHLpreK, according to a report from Kenney’s office. Since its inception in 2017, more than 17,000 children have passed through the program and over 500 new teachers have been hired to work in PHLpreK classrooms, the report said.

Making free, high-quality prekindergarten more accessible helped parents and caregivers of young children hold down jobs, Kenney said, which in turn reduced poverty and led to more stable families – in itself an important factor in promoting school readiness.

While there isn’t research on PHLpreK’s impact that tracks students who had access to early childhood education versus those who didn’t, Kenney said third grade reading scores went up 3 percentage points last year in district schools. Those third graders were the first class of children who had access to PHLpreK.

To be sure, that increase is modest. The district set a goal for 62% of third graders to score proficient on the state exam by 2026. But in the 2022-23 school year, only 31.2% of third graders scored proficient or above on their state exams.

Beyond the numbers, Kenney cites anecdotal evidence that PHLpreK is having an impact. He loves to tell the story of visiting a kindergarten on the first day of school. “It was a disaster,” he said, with children bawling and clinging to their mothers — except for two kids sitting placidly in their seats, hands folded in front of them.

“I said to them, ‘Did you go to pre-K?’ They did. They knew exactly what to do,” Kenney recalled. “There was no learning curve.”

To get free pre-K done, Kenney fought off the soda industry, which spent millions trying to kill the sweetened beverage tax he proposed to fund the program. (The City Council approved the 1.5 cents-per-ounce tax on those beverages in a 13-4 vote in 2016.)

“They hired every lobbyist in the universe,” he said. “But we had all the parents. And ladies with babies strapped to their chests can be a powerful force.”

Kenney said he voted against the tax twice during his time on the council in 2010 and 2011 when then-Mayor Michael Nutter brought it to the table. Nutter had emphasized the health benefits of reducing soda consumption, which didn’t resonate with the council members at the time.

What changed Kenney’s mind? If he wanted free pre-K, he would need to establish a sustainable funding source.

“Once we got sworn in. We’re sitting in my office … and I said, well, how are we going to pay for all this stuff?” Kenney said.

Having a dedicated purpose for the tax revenue was enough to convince the council members to back the tax.

But in its first few years, hampered by an ongoing lawsuit against the soda tax and diminished state revenues during the pandemic, the program was slow to roll out and expand. A city controller’s audit in 2017 found some “missteps” with the program’s implementation, including over-billing and under-enrolling.

But Kenney said he never considered giving up on the effort.

“Head down, win or lose,” Kenney said. “I don’t know what we would have done if we had lost in court. But we didn’t.”

The state Supreme Court upheld the beverage tax in a 4-2 vote in 2018. Kenney said he hopes the program will continue to expand after he leaves.

It’s unclear what the future will hold for the program when Kenney vacates his position. A spokesperson for mayor-elect Cherelle Parker declined to comment on the program..

Kenney said he hasn’t had the expansion discussion with Parker’s team yet. But he thinks it’s “politically powerful enough” that “if somebody tries to take it away, I don’t think that they would get a good reception.”

In his waning days as mayor, Kenney has been thinking about what he’ll do next. He said he intends to set off on an ocean cruise the day after Parker is inaugurated. After that, he’s not sure. But it won’t be public life.

“I’m done with it. It’s time for people to move on sometimes,” Kenney said.

He said one idea he’s mulling is starting a nonprofit that would raise money to expose city kids to more live arts and culture programs, he said.

As a high school freshman at St. Joseph’s Preparatory School, Kenney said he and his classmates were taken on a field trip to see the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and its legendary founder, Judith Jamison, perform at the Walnut Street Theater.

“I went from hating it to thinking, ‘This is beautiful. I’ve never seen anyone move like that. I’ve never seen anything like this,’” Kenney said. “I honestly believe that kids in the city, who see nothing but chaos and hurt, [deserve] an opportunity to do that, to see that there’s beautiful things in the world.”

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 teachers say they are passionate about their jobs but feel underpaid and overworked

2023-11-30T21:31:41+00:00

Philadelphia teachers feel supported by their school leadership, their students, and their colleagues, but nevertheless feel overwhelmed by their workload and the demands made on them.

And they think their own school is doing well, but they think the district as a whole is going in the wrong direction. They say they are passionate about their job, but think they are underpaid and overworked.

Those were among the key results of a survey of 734 district and charter school teachers conducted on behalf of Elevate 215, a nonprofit organization once called the Philadelphia School Partnership, which was a proponent of charter school expansion. There are more than 8,200 teachers in district schools and another several thousand in charters.

Asked to pick their top three concerns, teachers cited their workload (46%), unrealistic expectations around student achievement (41%), and inadequate salary or benefits (39%).

Based on responses to survey questions, teachers in charter schools are somewhat more satisfied with their jobs than those in district schools. For instance, 79% of charter school teachers said they were satisfied with the “vision and priorities established at my school,” compared to 64% of district teachers. And just 33% of district teachers expressed satisfaction with the condition of their facilities and level of resources, compared to 71% of charter teachers.

There were also key differences in attitude among veteran teachers versus their newer colleagues and between white teachers and those of other races, especially regarding whether they plan to stay in teaching over the long haul.

In one interesting finding, just 41% of teachers who have been in the district at least 16 years feel the district offers the possibility for a “rewarding career.” A higher proportion of those with five or fewer years’ experience, 52%, agreed with that statement.

In the survey, charter teachers, which according to the survey skew younger and have less experience, expressed higher levels of satisfaction with their salaries and working conditions.

Charter teachers also said by higher margins, 68% versus 41%, that they felt their “input matters” regarding school policies and practices.

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said that the survey offered “no big surprises,” rather reflecting “concerns that I and my staff have been hearing from our members,” top among them being teacher salaries that are not keeping up with inflation. He said many PFT members leave for higher salaried jobs in suburban districts.

“Teachers indicated that they really like what they do, but want to be respected for what they do as well. We’ve been hearing that for a number of years,” he said.

He also said he wasn’t too surprised by the finding that charter school teachers, who are not unionized and tend to make less money, expressed somewhat higher satisfaction with their salaries. Many of them are new and in their first jobs, he said. “We were all excited when we got our first jobs,” he said.

Most teachers in Philadelphia are white and female, although based on the survey responses, there seems to be an uptick in male teachers and teachers of other races. For instance, 71% of the teachers surveyed with five or fewer years of experience are female, compared to 81% of those with 6-10 years and 82% of those with 11 years or more. Also, 49% of those in teaching for five years or fewer were white, compared to 67% of those with 6-10 years’ experience and 69% of those with more than that.

Teachers of color are also more likely to live in Philadelphia – 70% of Black teachers and 81% of Hispanic teachers, compared to 54% of those who are white. Teachers of color are also less likely to be fully certified, with 29% of Black teachers and 39% of Hispanic teachers having an emergency certification, compared to 6% of whites.

The survey was conducted between Sept. 27 and Oct. 9, with respondents recruited via email invitation. The margin of error is 3.6%.

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.

Kevin Bethel leaves top school safety job in Philadelphia to be city police commissioner

2023-11-22T18:51:03+00:00

Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker has named Kevin Bethel, the School District of Philadelphia’s current chief of school safety, as her new police commissioner.

Bethel has long been a well-respected fixture in Philadelphia law enforcement and school safety circles. During his tenure in the school district, Bethel focused on reforming the juvenile justice system, dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline, and promoting “trauma-informed policing.”

As a deputy police commissioner and then the district’s safety director, he also developed a national reputation for his work emphasizing prevention over punishment as an approach to improving student behavior and discipline both in and out of school settings.

In his four years leading school safety for the district, “I believe we have made the schools safer,” Bethel said at his appointment announcement at City Hall on Wednesday. “It’s unacceptable that some students feel unsafe going to and from school.”

This is Parker’s first mayoral staffing announcement, though she doesn’t officially take office until January. She said that she chose Bethel from among three candidates chosen by a search committee headed by former police commissioner Charles Ramsay.

Deputy Chief of School Safety Craig Johnson will serve as interim chief for the district while a search is conducted for Bethel’s replacement, according to the district.

“Chief Bethel is a class act, and I always felt very confident knowing that he was overseeing all efforts to create safe learning environments for our students to imagine and realize any future they desire,” Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a statement Wednesday.

The Board of Education issued a joint statement calling Bethel’s appointment “well deserved” and that his departure would be a “significant loss” for the district.

Bethel’s school safety legacy in Philadelphia schools

A John Bartram High School graduate, Bethel’s oft-repeated motto during his time in the police department and school district has been: “I didn’t become a cop to lock up children.”

While on the police force in 2013, Bethel said he was “alarmed” by how many students were being arrested in the city under a “zero tolerance” policy that saw police called on students as young as 10 years old.

“I can’t lock up a 10-year-old child who comes to school with scissors,” he said.

He described his dismay at a school in Kensington that put bulletproof blankets on the windows due to nearby shootings.

“I lived it when kids have been shot in front of our schools,” he also recalled. “I never thought I would take a job where kids would be killed at the doorstep of a school.”

With buy-in from district officials and others, Bethel created a diversion program for students with no prior delinquency record who committed low-level offenses like fighting or possessing a pocket knife. That program was praised at the time for substantially decreasing the number of students arrested in school from nearly 1,600 in 2013-14 to 251 in 2018-19.

Bethel has also worked to improve the district’s weapons detection process — a pain point that’s drawn public fury.

In 2019, outraged protesters shut down a Philadelphia Board of Education meeting after members voted to make metal detectors mandatory in every district high school. In the years after, random wand screenings, X-ray machines, and other detection systems have been used in high schools and some middle schools.

Some parents and community members have been critical of the practices, which they said can make students feel criminalized in their own schools.

When he announced new school safety measures last August, Bethel said the district would be introducing a new “minimally invasive gun detection system” in 14 middle schools. Those detectors were chosen because district officials were looking for technology “that did not add to the trauma of our young people,” Bethel said at the time.

To be sure, the city still struggles with youth incarceration issues. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in June that the city’s juvenile detention center reached its highest population levels ever, with 230 young people in custody. The Inquirer discovered overcrowding resulted in dozens of young people forced to sleep in offices, gyms, or on the floors of “filthy” cells.

As commissioner, Bethel said Wednesday he would work to make police officers a vital part of communities, not just enforcers of the law.

“I’m proud to be a cop,” he said. “We’re not your enemy. We’re here to serve, and I ask you to give us that opportunity to do that. … Raise your voice when it needs to be raised, but let’s be part of the community, let’s work with you.”

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.

Cherelle Parker will be Philadelphia’s 100th mayor. Here’s what she wants to change about education.

2023-11-08T11:30:00+00:00

There was never much doubt that Cherelle Parker would become the city’s 100th mayor and the first woman ever to lead the nation’s sixth largest city. On Tuesday night, she defeated Republican David Oh, winning more than 73% of the vote.

Like mayors before her, she will lead a city with an underfunded school district beset by concentrated poverty — conditions that limit schools’ ability to make major inroads on the traditional measures of student achievement such as proficiency on state tests and graduation rates.

But unlike previous mayors, Parker — who started her career as a teacher — will take office when a major contributor to those conditions is on the verge of significant change.

That’s because the state is working to comply with a Commonwealth Court judge’s order from February to revamp a state school funding system that has resulted in wide gaps in spending between high- and low-income districts, and has historically shortchanged Philadelphia.

Although the city’s public school district was not a plaintiff in the case that led to the judge’s order, Philadelphia schools could benefit greatly from any changes to the state funding formula, and increases in overall education funding, that Pennsylvania lawmakers ultimately adopt.

What will also help define Parker’s tenure as mayor is how she will use her power to appoint all nine members of the Philadelphia Board of Education — she can rebuild it from scratch, if she wants — and what will happen regarding the one far-reaching education proposal she shared during the mayoral campaign: a year-round schedule for schools.

Parker pushes for more Philadelphia school funding

Parker grew up on Philadelphia’s West Oak Lane, the daughter of a teenage mother. She was raised by her grandparents and attended Philadelphia public schools, graduating from Girls High.

When she voted Tuesday morning, she brought along her high school English teacher, Jeanette Jimenez, who encouraged her to write about her life after her grandmother died.

“I wouldn’t be here without you,” she said.

She was the first in her family to go to college. After attending Lincoln University, she briefly taught English and English as a second language in Pleasantville, New Jersey, before interning for former City Council member Marion Tasco and setting off on a political career.

She will work as mayor to launch all young people on a path of self-sufficiency, she said at her victory speech at the Sheet Metal Workers Local 19 headquarters Tuesday night.

As a member of the City Council and as a state legislator, Parker leveraged methods to collect more revenue for schools, including an initiative that went after delinquent property taxpayers in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker celebrates with supporters on Nov. 7, 2023.

The mayor of Philadelphia has no direct authority over the School District of Philadelphia. But with the power to appoint all nine members of the Board of Education (subject to City Council approval), Parker can help shape education policy on key issues. These include spending priorities, charter schools, how to deal with the district’s aging buildings, and negotiations with unions for the district’s educators and other staff.

Through the school board, she can also influence where (and whether) to close schools and where to build new ones, and how to enhance student safety with respect to everything from environmental hazards such as loose asbestos to gun violence that has plagued the city.

During the campaign, Parker did not tip her hand on any intentions to keep or replace the current board members, saying she would not discuss any personnel issues before the election.

Parker favors keeping schools open longer

Parker’s signature education proposal in the mayoral race was to institute year-round schooling. She said what she had in mind would not involve more days of traditional classroom seat time for students, but more breaks spread throughout the year and a shorter summer vacation, coupled with increased access for students to enrichment activities.

Parker also advocated for a school day that starts earlier and ends later.

In making both these proposals, she cited the hardship that school schedules pose for many parents, rather than touting the additional time as an educational improvement strategy.

“Not all of the young people in the school district of Philadelphia are in the Hamptons in the summer, or at the Vineyard.” she said in her victory speech. “Maybe you thought they were there. But they are not.”

She added that “for those who are being raised, particularly in circumstances like mine, particularly when they’re being raised by someone other than their biological parents, they can benefit from creative year round scheduling. They could benefit from going to school in the morning and having it open until 6:30 in the evening.”

She said after the traditional school day is over, students could learn coding, financial literacy, and other subjects. “I’m getting ready to tell you the big one for me is homework help and tutoring,” said the mayor-elect, who is the mother of a young son. “Have you seen the math today?”

As far as paying for any such change, she has said she favors devoting a higher proportion of the city’s property tax revenue to the district — 58% instead of 55%. Parker said that change would bring $50 million in additional revenue for schools even before any statewide funding reform.

Parker is a strong union supporter, and many of the city’s labor leaders endorsed her in the Democratic primary, although the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers supported rival Helen Gym. PFT president Jerry Jordan did not attend Parker’s victory party Tuesday night, unlike many other union heads, but issued a statement saying members “celebrate and honor this momentous and historic occasion… (Parker’s election) shows little girls, especially Black girls, what they can achieve.”

On social media, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten also congratulated Parker for making history as the first woman to lead the nation’s sixth largest city.

Parker will for sure need union buy-in for her plan to move to a year-round school schedule and keep school buildings open longer.

Cherelle Parker holds her hand up to honor Delta Sigma Theta sorority after winning the mayoral election and becoming Philadelphia’s 100th mayor on Nov. 7, 2023.

Parker skirts divisions over charter schools

One area where Parker as a candidate took a measured approach was charter schools.

Nearly one-third of Philadelphia’s public school students attend charters, making the city home to one of the largest charter sectors in the country. The school board must approve charter school applications, and has essentially imposed a moratorium on new charters since 2018.

During the campaign, Parker did not directly answer a question from Chalkbeat about whether she would like Philadelphia to have more charter schools.

“I want quality seats, and I don’t care where they are,” she said, adding: “I will not allow anyone to act as if district-run and charter schools are warring factions.” She forcefully repeated that in her victory speech Tuesday.

“If anybody is interested in talking to me about public education, and you’re trying to pitch traditional publics against charters, don’t do it,” she said.

Parker has also avoided wading into a controversy over whether the Board of Education has discriminated against Black-led charter schools.

A report issued by a law firm last month found problems with the charter monitoring system that has resulted in a larger proportion of Black-led charters being closed. But the report, two years in the making, found no “intentional” racial discrimination.

Parker did say that as mayor she would “insist” that the state legislature reinstate a budget provision that sent millions of dollars to school districts to compensate them for “stranded costs” linked to charters and cyber charter schools that occur when students leave district schools in patterns that don’t allow for neat downsizing.

That provision was eliminated in 2011 by state lawmakers under the administration of former Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican; half the total amount came to Philadelphia. Losing that reimbursement was among the factors that fueled resistance in Philadelphia to expanding the charter sector, including near the end of the period when the district was under state control from 2001 to 2017.

Parker’s main goal now, which she said is attainable through government and private collaboration: “We want all of our children in a 21st century, modern school building with the highest academic achievement.”

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 mayoral election results: Cherelle Parker wins

2023-11-08T01:00:02+00:00

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Democrat Cherelle Parker will be Philadelphia’s 100th mayor and the first woman to hold the position.

The Associated Press called the race for Parker Tuesday evening shortly after polls closed.

Parker will set the agenda on school safety, infrastructure, charter schools, funding, and more. She will have the power to appoint the city Board of Education’s nine members, who in turn evaluate the superintendent and monitor the district’s attempts to improve educational outcomes for students.

In her victory speech Tuesday night at the Sheet Metal Workers Local 19 headquarters, Parker reiterated her campaign promise to move towards year-round public school and said, “we are going to find a way to move educational opportunities for our young people forward.”

“We want all of our children in a 21st-century, modern school building with the highest academic achievement,” Parker said. “If anybody is interested in talking to me about public education, and you’re trying to pitch traditional publics against charters, don’t do it. I’m not the person to have that conversation with.”

With more than 273,800 ballots counted and 1,542 of 1,703 divisions reporting, the unofficial election results are:

Democrat Cherelle Parker: 73.6% (193,968 votes)
Republican David Oh: 25.6% (67,353 votes)

Check out our mayoral guide for more from both candidates.

In Philadelphia, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans seven-to-one, there has been little doubt that Parker would win the general election. She collected endorsements from some of the most powerful labor unions in the city and promised to be a pragmatic dealmaker in Harrisburg capable of bringing more state funding to Philadelphia.

The Associated Press called the race for Parker Tuesday evening shortly after polls closed.

This election cycle, Parker leaned on her proposal for year-round public schools — which Superintendent Tony Watlington promised to pilot — her desire to reform the much-maligned lottery admissions process for selective schools, and an increased police presence in and around schools.

Republican David Oh, meanwhile, told Chalkbeat he saw a path to victory due in large part to his active, in-person campaign strategy. While Parker opted to stay out of the public eye for much of the summer, recovering from a dental emergency and holding private meetings, Oh was door-knocking, giving interviews, and calling for public debates.

Oh’s education platform called for a partially elected school board and a more “horizontal” district leadership model, with power shared between the superintendent and other chief executives.

Tonight’s vote counts are unofficial until the Philadelphia City Commissioners, the officials who oversee the city’s elections, certify the results.

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

Philadelphia City Council to hold hearing on bias against Black-led charters

2023-11-02T21:27:22+00:00

City Council plans to hold a hearing in December on whether the district has discriminated against Black-led charter schools.

On Thursday, Council approved a resolution, unanimously and without discussion, introduced by Council member Isaiah Thomas declaring that “Black led and founded institutions have been held to standards that are inconsistent and changed regularly, causing a lack of transparency in the School District’s process of reviewing, managing, and closing non-district led schools.” The hearing is scheduled for Dec. 6.

In a report released last month, the law firm Ballard Spahr found what it considered a flawed and problematic charter school authorizing and renewal process that leaves the district open to charges of bias — but uncovered no evidence of deliberate discrimination against Black-led charters. The report was two years in the making and covered the period between 2010 and 2021.

At the same time, the law firm recommended changes, including more transparency in the charter process and anti-bias training for Board of Education members.

The report was commissioned by the Board of Education in response to years of allegations of racial bias from the African American Charter School Coalition, which represents 17 of 21 Black-led charter schools.

Investigators found that during that period eight of the 13 schools whose charters were revoked by the district were Black-led, even though only about 1 in 5 city charters were founded and continuously led by Black individuals or organizations. (The report also noted that this year the Board of Education voted not to renew the charter of another Black-led institution, Southwest Leadership Academy.)

At the time, coalition officials issued a statement saying that the report backed up its charges of discrimination and “shows that the public school charter authorization process needs to be completely overhauled.”

In Pennsylvania, unlike in some other states, only the host district can authorize charter schools, creating an inherent conflict of interest.

Philadelphia has about 65,000 students in 82 charters, educating nearly 1 in 3 children who attend publicly run schools, and making it one of the largest charter sectors in any major city.

The report said that district officials were aware as far back as 2017 that there were “differential” results in the charter authorizing process, but took no action.

The nine-member school board, appointed by the mayor, has no taxing power of its own, relying on City Council to allocate city funds to the district, most of it through property taxes.

Max Weisman, Thomas’s communications director, said in an interview that there is “anecdotal evidence” pointing to a “different set of standards and a different set of processes that Black-led and white-led institutions go through.” He said that constant personnel turnover in the district’s Charter Schools Office exacerbates the problem, and that white-led institutions have more wherewithal to hire consultants and others to contest a proposed charter non-renewal or revocation.

He said witnesses at the hearing would include district officials as well as charter operators who have been making the allegations.

“It is important that we have oversight over our charter school system, so we can ensure that our public dollars are being spent the right way,” said Thomas in a statement announcing his intent to introduce the resolution. “The answer, though, does not lay in unfairly investigating Black-led institutions.”

Thomas, who sits on the council’s education committee, is a volunteer coach at Sankofa Freedom Academy, one of the city’s oldest charter schools. “I’ve seen myself how beneficial this model is,” Thomas said in a statement. “Black-led institutions are vital entities in the city because they open up students to broader perspectives, leadership and learning styles, and curriculums that not only improve tangible results but also make for a more enjoyable learning experience.”

The district’s Charter Schools Office issues annual reviews on each charter school as well as renewal reports every five years. Those reports evaluate the schools in three areas: academics, operations, and financial health. It gives each charter a rating of either “meets standard,” “approaches standard,” or “does not meet standard” on dozens of metrics. It does not make a formal recommendation to the board on whether to renew a charter or not.

Before approving its own budget and taxes, City Council holds annual hearings on school spending, grilling district officials and board of education members about various policies and making known their own priorities and preferences.

The issue of possible bias against Black-led charters has not come up in the mayoral election that will take place next week between Cherelle Parker, a Democrat, and David Oh, a Republican. Parker has recommended increasing the district’s share of the property tax from 55% to 58% as a way to generate more revenue for the schools. Oh has said he would like to elect five of the nine school board members so that they feel more connected to the community – although that would complicate the issue of taxing authority.

But overall, aside from Parker’s proposal for year-round school, which she has not explained in detail, education policy has not been a big issue in the race.

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 voter guide 2023: Where the mayoral candidates stand on education issues

2023-11-01T14:39:24+00:00

Philadelphia’s next mayor — the city’s 100th — will be in a historic position with the ability to fundamentally change the way schools are run and governed.

In addition to shaping the city’s conversation about school safety, infrastructure, funding, and more, the mayor has the power to appoint the city Board of Education’s nine members. Those members have the responsibility of appointing and evaluating the superintendent, and monitoring the district’s efforts towards improving educational outcomes for all students under their care.

Democrat Cherelle Parker and Republican David Oh are vying for the seat, and each has put forward distinct platform proposals for education.

Parker is promising year-round school, which she said she envisions not as “children sitting in a classroom at a desk” for 12 months, but something more flexible, with extracurricular and enrichment opportunities available to students all year.

Oh, meanwhile, wants a partially elected school board and a more “horizontal” leadership model with power shared between the superintendent and other chief executives.

The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7, and the last day to vote early in person is Tuesday, Oct. 31.

Chalkbeat sat down with both candidates and discussed issues affecting Philadelphia’s students, educators, and families at length. You can find Cherelle Parker’s detailed Q&A here, and David Oh’s detailed Q&A here.

Below is a selection of their responses to some of the biggest education questions facing the city. Their answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Jump to a topic:

Charter schools |
School safety |
Infrastructure |
School board |
Teacher shortage

Do you want more charter schools in Philadelphia?

Parker: I want quality, modern 21st education for all of our children [regardless of] their race, class, socioeconomic status, or zip code.

Under a Parker administration, I will not allow anyone to pit traditional publics versus traditional charters to act as if those two are warring factions. They are not. They are two types of schools that are both public that educate children in the school district of Philadelphia

Oh: No, I don’t. I’m not for or against the charter schools … I’m for good public schools. But we’ve had horrible public schools and no response. And therefore there were charter schools.

I think we have enough charter schools.

What would you do about school safety?

Parker: We have to make public health and public safety the number one priority here in the city of Philadelphia, and we should do it with three primary buckets in mind, prevention, intervention and enforcement.

We are going to have community policing in every neighborhood in the city of Philadelphia. The only time we see law enforcement won’t be because it’s a crisis and someone called 911. They will be a part of the very fabric of our neighborhoods, and that, of course, does mean in and around our schools and buildings.

Oh: [Students] have every legitimate reason why they cannot focus and why they are afraid. They’ve been traumatized by all this gun violence. They have to see we care. The way I show them we care is I have uniformed officers, school police — no weapon, but looking sharp, being attentive and being accountable.

People want policing, but they want police reform. They want good policing. They don’t want police brutality. They don’t want ‘stop and frisk,’ I’m against the return of stop and frisk.

What is your plan to address Philly schools’ facilities needs?

Parker: Let’s think about using apprentices and pre apprentices in the building trades and students in our school district to help be a part of that process. Do we do it via a School Building Authority, an accelerated process within our current structure? I’m not sure.

I’m more concerned with getting it done. We have to get together at the table, agree to what the plan will be. And then we have to be unified in our advocacy and not trying to pick winners and losers with the ultimate goal being focused on our children and doing right by the people who work in those buildings.

Oh: I think there is purposeful inefficiency [in school construction and upkeep]. … I would look at serious rightsizing of the district based on the fact that we probably need to build new buildings.

We need to look at the buildings that have asbestos and actually clean them for real and not just coat them. We don’t need to remediate them. We have to remove it.

The most direct control the mayor has over education is appointing the school board. Would you make any changes to the board?

Parker: I am not going to make any comments or personnel decisions while I’m on the campaign trail. … I 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.

I will not and do not support an elected school board because if you elect a school board that comes with taxing authority … I trust the [city] council with the taxing authority for the city of Philadelphia. They are our legislative branch.

Oh: I would appoint nine new [members] … start from scratch.

I have really pushed five elected school board members … we can have five councilmanic districts where the people elect a representative … regionally, [combining the 10 councilmanic districts to make five], but not the same as the council districts.

That would give people a level of responsiveness and accountability that they really feel is missing in the school district

How would you address the teacher shortage?

Parker: We’ve got to market it to them.

Philadelphia hasn’t done a good job in trying to package supports and services that we have available for example, with home ownership. … We’re going to make [Philadelphia] the safest, cleanest, greenest big city in the nation with economic opportunity for all and because it’s safe, we want you to have access to home ownership in a safe and a clean area with a thriving economy, thriving arts, culture, creative economy.

Oh: We’re losing teachers to public safety issues, and they’re telling us “we’re getting out of here, because it’s dangerous for us to go to work … this is not what we signed up for and you don’t seem to care.”

If I wanted to deal with teachers, I would look at recruitment. I would create a more predictable system of how you get paid, and how the pay increases every certain number of years. And it would incentivize staying in Philadelphia longer.

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

Philadelphia mayoral election 2023: How Cherelle Parker answered 10 important education questions

2023-10-26T20:27:58+00:00

If Philadelphia voters cast their ballots in line with their party registration this November, Democrat Cherelle Parker is all but guaranteed to become the city’s 100th mayor. She will also be the first woman, and the first Black woman, to hold the office.

Parker is a former City Council member and state representative who has a degree in education from Lincoln University and worked briefly as an English teacher in Pleasantville, NJ. She is running against Republican David Oh, an attorney who also used to be on the council.

The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7, and the last day to vote early in person is Tuesday, Oct. 31.

The next mayor will have the responsibility of appointing the city Board of Education’s nine members, who in turn appoint and evaluate the superintendent, and monitor the district’s progress related to student achievement.

Parker’s campaign has already begun shaping education conversations in the city. Her pledge for “year-round school” was quickly picked up by Superintendent Tony Watlington, who incorporated a pilot program into his five-year strategic plan for the district.

Inspired by reader submissions, Chalkbeat asked both candidates to weigh in on the city’s most pressing education issues: school funding, safety, infrastructure, school board appointments, charter schools, and more. You can find Oh’s detailed Q and A here.

Here, Parker clarifies that for her, year-round school doesn’t mean more seat time in traditional classrooms, but vacation breaks spread throughout the calendar year and shortened during the summer, along with more enrichment activities for students. She also reiterates that she would favor putting more city funds into schools by increasing the district’s share of the city property tax, its largest source of local money.

She did not rule out creating more charter schools: “I want quality seats and I don’t care where they are,” she said, adding that she “will not allow anyone to act as if district-run and charter schools are warring factions.” Unlike Oh, she does not favor electing members of the school board.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Year-round school has been the centerpiece of your education platform. Tell us more how you envision that working.

When people heard me describe access to year-round school, I was not referring to our children sitting in a classroom at a desk, like we do during a traditional school day. But rather, it will … ensure that everyone has access to not just our traditional school curriculum, but academic enrichment programs, tutoring, homework help after school, and access to any workforce development and life skills opportunities that we could offer during out-of-school time.

Year-round education also references being innovative with scheduling. It doesn’t mean you don’t ever get time off. It could be two weeks here, two weeks here, three weeks here. All of our children … aren’t in the Hamptons or the shore all summer long. So for those children for whom those kinds of familial opportunities aren’t a part of their real lives, how do we structure our traditional school year in a way that makes good economic sense and is worth the educational investment for them?

Do you have any more specifics about how this would work and have you talked to the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers’ union about this?

The way I design things, they won’t be designed without the PFT, without our administrators, without our parents, without the external stakeholders, and subject matter experts all at the table figuring out, how do we make this work? … That has not been figured out, but that’s the purpose of putting out the concept. Stakeholders come together and we figure out a way to make it work. And that’s how I go about doing things.

Maybe some other people would love to be able to offer a plan and very specifically say, “This is how it’s going to work and this is what you’re going to do in a Parker administration.” That’s a recipe for disaster. This is a concept that I have in my mind. If I am the mayor, we are going to have year-round educational opportunities for our children. What does it specifically look like when it’s baked and done? I don’t have the specifics for you right now.

There is a basic foundation to public education, that we should in no way shape or form attempt to usurp. But I will tell you that it is in no way sufficient for everything that our children should be learning today.

The most direct power the mayor has over education in Philadelphia is by appointing the school board. Do you intend to replace any of the Board of Education members?

I am not going to make any comments or personnel decisions while I’m on the campaign trail. … I 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.

Your opponent David Oh has talked about shifting to a partially elected school board. Is that something you would support or do you think the current model is working?

Who do you think would have access to the resources to run a citywide campaign to get elected to a school board? It would be those who are boosted by very special interests.

What is your position on charter schools? The Board of Education has not approved a new charter school since 2018, do you think that there should be more charter schools in Philadelphia?

I want quality, modern 21st education for all of our children [regardless of] their race, class, socioeconomic status, or zip code. I want quality seats and I don’t care where they are … Some people are not going to like it, but I’m going to unify educational institutions in the city of Philadelphia to work together to help our young people.

I want to see our traditional publics, our traditional charters or parochial schools, and even the private schools — I want to see the leadership all coming together to say this is what we’re doing. Is there a way as educational leaders … that we can add value to each other’s delivery of education? Can we leverage working together, and any supports or services that could benefit young people? Can we share or steal an idea?

I’m always looking to see what other cities and states and countries and nations are doing relative to public education … we haven’t thought big enough and broad enough because everybody’s so accustomed and comfortable working in silos, my mind doesn’t work that way.

Do you support Councilman Thomas’s proposal for a school building authority that would help the school district deal with flaking asbestos and other issues relating to safety and modernization of its buildings?

Let’s think about using apprentices and pre apprentices in the building trades and students in our school district to help be a part of that process. Do we do it via School Building Authority, an accelerated process within our current structure? I’m not sure. I’m not wedded to any way, I’m actually still right now reviewing what that means.

How do you expect to pay for some of the big policy ideas you’ve put forward?

I would be open to exploring increasing the school district’s portion of our property taxes from 55%, potentially to 58%. And that would add an additional $50 million in additional revenue.

That couldn’t be done alone. You have to have an intergovernmental strategy that’s state, local, and federal. You also need the philanthropic community, you need the business community. We cannot try to address these issues in silos that we’ve got to bring people together to say this is the plan, this is what we need from you and you and you and how are we going to work together in order to make it happen?

Our district is historically underfunded, we get it. The court case [ruling Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional] is extremely important, and potentially increasing our school district’s portion of our property taxes, but we also have to be demonstrating that we’re trying to do things differently here. People are not going to talk about providing additional support and funding to the school district until they see us trying to do something different [in the city.].

Gun violence is also a major issue affecting students, educators, and school communities. What are your proposals for improving school safety?

I welcome everyone to take a look at my comprehensive neighborhood safety community policing plan … we have to make public health and public safety the number one priority here in the city of Philadelphia, and we should do it with three primary buckets in mind, prevention, intervention and enforcement.

We cannot talk about [education] without talking about trauma, mental and behavioral health support. We can’t talk about public education without the need for nurses and counselors and therapy for our children. A holistic approach to delivering public education helps us with public safety.

How does policing fit into that?

How can anyone shout we should be defunding the police when we should be focused on a holistic approach that does include community policing? … [We should] have officers who are not there as warriors but as guardians, working in partnership with our public safety office in the school district, with SEPTA and with other institutions so that we can have a holistic, comprehensive approach

I don’t apologize to anybody about making that a priority, because every child deserves to feel safe in school, and we should do everything that we possibly can to ensure it.

School was a lifeline for a person who grew up in poverty like me. … Every school should be a community school.

What’s your plan to address the teacher shortage and grow the teacher pipeline?

We’ve got to market it to them.

Philadelphia hasn’t done a good job in trying to package supports and services that we have available for example, with home ownership. We should be creative and incentivizing this … first we’re gonna make [Philadelphia] the safest, cleanest, greenest big city in the nation with economic opportunity for all and because it’s safe, we want you to have access to home ownership in a safe and a clean area with a thriving economy, thriving arts, culture, creative economy.

We’re going to see shortages across the board if we don’t find a way to use non-traditional strategies to market and encourage people to become residents of our great city.

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 mayoral election 2023: How David Oh answered 10 important education questions

2023-10-26T20:27:53+00:00

Though the voter registration rolls are against him, Republican mayoral candidate David Oh thinks he sees a path to victory in Philadelphia, and that path starts with the city’s schools.

Voters are “not coming out because of the pomp and ceremony. They’re not coming out because of the noise, they’re coming out because they want a change,” Oh said in a recent interview at his campaign office in Northeast Philadelphia. “People want to believe there is a better future for them. And schools are where it can happen.”

Oh, a former City Council member, is running against the heavily favored Democrat Cherelle Parker, who also served on council and was a state representative. In Philadelphia, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans seven to one.

The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7, and the last day to vote early in person is Tuesday, Oct. 31.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Oh said he favors holding elections for five of the nine members of the Philadelphia Board of Education while the mayor would appoint the remaining four. That would in effect cede the mayor’s primary influence over education in Philadelphia, which is to appoint all members of the board that governs the district.

Oh did not go into detail into how such a hybrid board would work with respect to issues like taxing power. Now, the appointed school board relies on the City Council to allot local tax dollars to the schools. Parker said she opposes an elected board because she wants the council to keep taxing power.

But Oh said that having elected members would make the board more responsive to community concerns. He proposed combining the 10 current councilmanic districts (districts that are aligned with those represented on the City Council) into five, and electing one from each district.

He said he would also seek to promote “equity in resources and facilities” and beef up vocational education. On charter schools, he said: “I am not for or against. I am for good public schools.”

An attorney, Oh was born and raised in Southwest Philadelphia, where he still lives, and represented on the council from 2012 until he resigned to run for mayor earlier this year.

He reiterated that the major issue facing the next mayor is crime — in the city and in the schools. He contends that reducing crime will have a beneficial effect on education by attracting more people to teach in the city and reducing student trauma, among other things.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are your proposals for improving school safety?

[Students] have every legitimate reason why they cannot focus and why they are afraid. They’ve been traumatized by all this gun violence. They have to see we care. The way I show them we care is I have uniformed officers, school police — no weapon, but looking sharp, being attentive and being accountable. I say ‘when you’re in our custody, you’re in our care’ for people who we arrest. When you’re in our schools, you’re in our care.

I think a lot of our problems come from the fact that people feel neglected. They feel like nobody cares about them, they feel like they have no future.

I think, although well intended, to not provide police, to not provide discipline, to not provide that shows you don’t care when kids are getting killed, shot, and hurt.

People want policing, but they want police reform. They want good policing. They don’t want police brutality. They don’t want ‘stop and frisk,’ I’m against the return of stop and frisk.

How would you address the teacher shortage?

We’re losing teachers to public safety issues, and they’re telling us “we’re getting out of here, because it’s dangerous for us to go to work … this is not what we signed up for and you don’t seem to care.”

The low pay with no visible steps — the more experience you have in Philadelphia, what do you get? What is your future there? And so a lot of teachers look at Philadelphia as their public service time … we lose too many good teachers, and they really want to be here. They want to be a part of the community.

You’ve said you would support an elected school board. How would that work? What would you do when you first take office, before you could change from an appointed to elected board?

I would appoint nine new [members] … start from scratch.

I have really pushed five elected school board members … we can have five councilmanic districts where the people elect a representative … regionally, but not the same as the council districts.

That would give people a level of responsiveness and accountability that they really feel is missing in the school district. … In other words, I would rather have the community tied in with the schools and have some level of tailoring language, culture, educational options, things like that. And recognition of religious issues that are important to their community.

What would your education priorities be as mayor?

Safety in the school, which is a big problem. Number two, it would be equity in resources and facilities ... and I would return the standards of academics, vocational career training, and then I’d try to create a VET program like they do in Germany, Switzerland — vocational educational training.

If someone wants to get certified in a good vocation, there’s a program that I would try to work out with [lawmakers in] Harrisburg, where you do ninth and 10th grade in business theory, academics, all that related to what your career is. Then in 11th and 12th grade, you do part-time [at a] workplace.

What changes would you make to the way the school district is organized?

I’m not really a fan of the way schools are run now with a superintendent in charge of everything … I think it has to be a little more horizontal. There should be a chief innovation officer for technology. One that doesn’t get fired or demoted by the superintendent.

I don’t think the school board should be in the school administration building at all … you have to let the administrators administrate. Let the teachers teach, let the principals be the principals, let the facilities [workers] do the facility, the police do the police and the board looks at the overall but without any interest, without any conflicts.

A Commonwealth Court judge recently ruled the way Pennsylvania funds its schools is unconstitutional and many school districts, including Philadelphia, are underfunded. What would you change about the system?

The city is very wasteful. And nobody likes to hear that, or they already know it.

The poorest neighborhoods in Philadelphia are overtaxed. They have a lot of anxiety, they have a lot of problems, they have a lot of violence and all kinds of things. It’s illegal and it’s unfair.

I would … audit the [property tax] assessment process… we have to create fairness in taxation. … Otherwise, we’re going to drive all our poor folks out of the neighborhood with their kids who go to schools.

I believe the city should contribute more money from the money it has..the taxes have to be accurate, if they are higher, no problem. If they’re lower, whatever they are, they have to be accurate.

The current system is abusive to the poor, the vulnerable, and the low income and that is resulting in a lot of other problems that are very expensive.

That is having a devastating effect on our city. A lot of the problems we face are from people who feel targeted by a bullying, hateful government that doesn’t care about them … they could see it in schools and the libraries and places like that. I would correct that property tax.

How would you deal with the school infrastructure issues like damaged asbestos?

I think there is purposeful inefficiency [in school construction and upkeep]. … In this city, since the colonial days, schools have been a place of political payback.

I would look at serious rightsizing of the district based on the fact that we probably need to build new buildings.

We need to look at the buildings that have asbestos and actually clean them for real and not just coat them. We don’t need to remediate them. We have to remove it.

Do you think there should be more charter schools in Philadelphia?

No, I don’t. I’m not for or against the charter schools … I’m for good public schools. But we’ve had horrible public schools and no response. And therefore there were charter schools.

I think we have enough charter schools.

I would look at the mayor as someone who’s responsible for education for every child … whether it’s at a charter school, a neighborhood public school, a magnet school, a private school, at religious school, or whatever it is, it’s a school … [and it] is the mayor’s responsibility. One of the biggest jobs a mayor can do is to raise the money to put into education.

Would you support private school vouchers?

I think I’m for them.

If [private school families] are going to pay their taxes and send your kids to another school and pay for that, that helps us … it helps us to have them pay their taxes and have open seats … I would like to give them a tax break, to encourage them to do that so I can get the benefits of their tax dollars and those open seats.

If we had more people paying taxes, and paying for their own tuition, we’d have more money, more room in schools. So in that sense, I’m for it.

How would you improve trust between the school district and the communities it serves?

Our issue is how do we deliver a good quality education, a meaningful education in a way that shows the children in our care in our worst neighborhoods, that they have hope for the future? … As a mayor, I have to answer that question.

I think the problem with this whole situation is that the public does not trust the schools anymore … it’s all a scam to them.

You’re going to have to show them a visible difference from almost day one. The neighborhood looks different, the school’s different, the library hours have changed, the whole delivery of services is different.

You have to build credibility. We have such pessimistic people in this city. And it’s one of our biggest problems. Many of them don’t believe school matters, quite frankly, they just see school as a place to send kids and just occupy their time there.

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

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

Philadelphia school cafeteria workers, climate staff reach tentative agreement to avoid strike

2023-09-29T16:06:34+00:00

Philadelphia’s school food service workers and climate staff have reached a tentative four-year collective bargaining agreement with the city school district that includes raises, an increase in health benefits, and conflict resolution training.

Officials with the Unite Here Local 634 union — which represents 1,900 food service and student climate staff employees in the district — said Friday the initial deal is “nothing short of historic.”

News of the agreement came just 48 hours before the workers’ current contract was set to expire. The deal averts the threat of a strike that could have crippled school operations across the district. Earlier this month, the union’s members authorized a strike to be called “if and when” union leadership “deems it appropriate.”

The union said in a statement its members will vote to ratify or reject the contract “in the coming days.”

Nicole Hunt, president of the Unite Here Local 634 union, said in a Friday statement that her members “have won what they deserve.”

“We are the heart of Philly schools. We are the people that keep our kids fed and safe,” Hunt said. “This contract honors the tireless, essential work that each and every School District of Philadelphia Food Service and Student Climate Staff employee does day in and day out … above all, it provides dignity.”

Monique Braxton, a spokesperson for the district said in an email the tentative agreement “reflects our commitment to supporting our food service and student climate staff … These valued team members provide our students with nutritious meals, build positive school climates, and serve as important members of our school communities.”

Hunt said that throughout the negotiation process, “the School District told us that our proposals were not feasible,” but now that they’ve reached an agreement, “we learned that family-sustaining wages and other basic protections were feasible after all.”

Braxton said district leadership “look[s] forward to continuing our shared focus on providing quality educational services to Philadelphia’s students and families.”

Here’s some of what’s in the agreement:

• An immediate raise and $500 signing bonus for all employees and a 29.7% wage increase over four years for the union’s lowest paid employees. The union said each member will get at minimum a 23% wage increase over the course of the contract.

• An increase in health and welfare benefits for all school climate staff.

• An end to a policy that paid probationary employees 93% of their contractual wage. It would also shrink probationary periods for both food service and climate employees, which the union says “will guarantee that they qualify for benefits and have job security as soon as is appropriate.”

• A policy and process to allow climate staffers to “opt-out of split shifts,” which the union says “force employees to work non consecutive shifts throughout the day, making it more difficult to work second jobs and attend to other personal matters.”

• Walkie-talkies for climate staff workers. The union says these would help their members “immediately respond to emergencies in hallways, lunchrooms, and school yards.”

• Reimbursements for food service employees required to wear non-slip shoes.

• Conflict resolution and de-escalation training for student climate workers.

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

What education questions should we ask Philadelphia’s mayoral candidates?

2023-09-27T20:15:42+00:00

In deep-blue Philadelphia, where registered Democrats significantly outnumber Republicans, it can feel like the mayoral race ended with Cherelle Parker’s primary win in May.

But voters do have a choice in the general election this November, and the winner will have the strongest degree of mayoral control over education in the city in decades.

The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7, and the last day to vote early in person is Tuesday, Oct. 31.

Two candidates are running for mayor: Democrat Cherelle Parker, who is a former City Council member and former member of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, and Republican David Oh, an attorney who also used to be on the council.

The winner will have the power to appoint the city Board of Education’s nine members, who in turn appoint and evaluate the superintendent and monitor the district’s progress related to student achievement.

The current board members’ terms will expire when Mayor Jim Kenney leaves office in January. Whoever steps into the role can opt to keep some, all, or none of the current members.

While Parker has not said whether she would consider replacing any of the current board members, Oh said on his campaign website he favors an elected school board where as many as five of the nine members could be elected by Philadelphians.

The mayor also sets the policy tone and conversation around education in the city. During the lead-up to the primary election, Parker campaigned on a pledge for “year-round school” which, despite lacking details, was quickly picked up by Superintendent Tony Watlington and incorporated into his five-year strategic plan for the district.

We’re building a Chalkbeat voter guide for the election, and we want to know what’s on your mind. Let us know what questions to ask the candidates, and issues to raise with them, using the form below:

If you are having trouble viewing this form, go here.

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

Philadelphia school climate and cafeteria staff threaten to strike if pay demands not met

2023-09-21T22:09:30+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.

Philadelphia school food service workers and climate staff say they are “sick and tired” of being underpaid and overworked and are threatening to strike if they aren’t granted a raise.

“We are sick and tired of the unfair treatment. We are sick and tired out of disrespect,” Kiara Coleman, lead organizer of the Unite Here Local 634 union, told a crowd outside of the school district’s headquarters on Thursday during a Board of Education meeting. “Today we are showing the district that we are ready. We’re willing to stand up and fight for what we deserve. We’re going to continue to put them on notice until they get the message.”

At the rally, dozens of members of the union — which represents 1,900 food service and student climate staff employees in the district — demanded higher wages and more flexibility in their work schedules, among other quality of life improvements.

“We are feeding all the kids in Philadelphia and cannot feed our own families,” said Tanya Edmonds, a food service worker at Henry H. Houston Elementary School.

In a Thursday statement, the school district said it “recognizes the central roles” of the employees, and said it is “confident” it can reach an agreement with the union.

The group’s collective bargaining agreement with the school district expires on Sept. 30. Earlier this month, the union’s members “unanimously authorized” a strike to be called “if and when” union leadership “deems it appropriate.” The workers are not yet on strike.

A work stoppage by the union members could throw Philadelphia’s schools into disarray. Among other things, climate and cafeteria staff maintain close relationships with students and provide some of the most impactful care for kids struggling with food insecurity and mental health challenges.

“We are like mothers and fathers to the children while they’re here,” a union statement from Sept. 9 said. “We see first-hand what kids deal with at home and in their communities. … We wipe noses and give hugs. We have listening ears when they need someone to talk to.”

Cafeteria workers and climate staff are among the lowest-paid school employees, according to Coleman. Union representatives said most of their members are paid $15.50 an hour.

According to hiring, resignation, and termination data posted by the school board and analyzed by Chalkbeat, food service workers and school climate staff make up a large portion of the board-approved terminations and resignations in the district.

In district employment reports covering a period from September 2022 to June 2023, the district fired 19 climate workers and 4 food service workers. Those firings made up 34% of all terminations in the district. In that same time period, 194 climate workers and 91 food service workers resigned, making up 20% of the 1,394 district workers who resigned.

Several elected officials attended Thursday’s union rally, including state Sen. Nikil Saval, state Reps. Liz Fiedler and Jordan Harris, and City Councilmember Kendra Brooks. They urged the district to increase the workers’ wages.

“We’re going to stand with you as long as it takes to not just give you praise, but to get you that damn raise,” Harris said.

Correction: Sept. 22, 2023: A previous version of this story included comments from Board of Education Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez that were not directed at the union’s Thursday rally, but at an earlier rally in Harrisburg about Philadelphia school funding.

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

Remembering Constance Clayton, Philadelphia’s trailblazing former superintendent

2023-09-19T17:16:25+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.

Constance Clayton’s legacy as Philadelphia schools’ first Black and first female superintendent is deep and still being felt today. In an era when few Black women held positions of power, Clayton took a school district mired in patronage, labor strife, and division, and put the focus back on providing all students with a quality education.

Clayton, a Philadelphia native and the district’s last homegrown superintendent, died on Monday at the age of 89. She ran the district, then the nation’s fifth largest, from 1982 to 1993, during an era when the average tenure for urban school leaders was three years

Her career and achievements were an inspiration to many – women and Black women in particular. As news of her death spread, tributes came in from city and state leaders, educators, friends, and former adversaries.

“She is an icon,” said Robin Cooper, president of the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators, which represents principals.

City Council member Katherine Gilmore Richardson said in a statement that Clayton “was an inspiration to young girls everywhere. It was her commitment to education that in part inspired me to become a teacher.”

Democratic mayoral nominee Cherelle Parker, poised to become the city’s first female mayor, said in a statement: “It was with Philly in her blood that she raised the expectations for Black and Brown students and students from low and moderate income communities. She set out to prove that race and socio-economic status would not define the chance of a students’ success. Her name is synonymous with leadership that is the model for the generations that came behind her.”

Former Philadelphia mayor and Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell said Clayton literally led the city into a new era as “the first superintendent who challenged the rest of us in the city” to believe that the public school system could educate children as well as any private school.

Superintendent Tony Watlington said he met with her frequently for advice and that she had called his office as recently as last Friday to set up a lunch so she could advise him on what to do in his second year leading the district.

“On the last Christmas holiday, she was the first person I talked to,” said Watlington. “And that says something about her and the extent to which she wanted to make sure she stayed engaged.”

In her nearly 12 years as superintendent, Clayton brought labor peace after a decade of almost constant strikes, stabilized the district’s budget, and spearheaded a popular standardized curriculum, declaring that it would benefit the many city students who moved frequently from school to school.

Regal in bearing and no-nonsense in her leadership style, Clayton did not suffer fools gladly and would shut out people she perceived as critical of her leadership. But while she alienated some, she left no doubt among anyone that her concern was for the city’s children.

Veteran district educator Karen Kolsky remembers clearly that Clayton’s mantra was “Every school’s a good school,” a simple statement that set a tone for eager young teachers who could be intimidated by the district’s size and diversity.

“I remember that like I know my name,” said Kolsky, who retired recently after 38 years in the district. “That spoke volumes to me as a new teacher. I remember it so vividly because she really meant it.

“She has such presence. She was the School District of Philadelphia.”

Hailed as “best” recent superintendent

Clayton also brought a desperately needed stability to a system often in turmoil. Before her tenure, district-union relations were toxic. Through the 1970s and early ‘80s, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers went on strike almost yearly, striking for 20 days in 1980 and 50 days in 1981.

But during Clayton’s 11-year tenure, while union-district relations were hardly cordial, there were no strikes.

Though they were on opposite sides of the negotiating table, Jerry Jordan, now the president of the PFT, described Clayton as a “mentor, a teacher, a friend” and, in his opinion, the best recent superintendent the district has had.

“She gave me advice on a number of occasions,” he said. “She helped to teach me how to do my job working for the union.”

Jordan said teachers loved her standardized curriculum. “Long after Dr. Clayton left, I would visit schools and classrooms and teachers would show me they were still using [it]” because it told them “what they needed to teach, not the how. They liked having the freedom to be creative.”

As to her manner and style of leadership, Jordan said with a chuckle, “She wasn’t a pushover, but she was respectful. She mentored so many people in the school district, and all she wanted to know was that you were concerned and cared about kids.”

Former mayor and City Council member Michael Nutter agrees with Jordan that Clayton “was the greatest Philadelphia school superintendent in modern history.

“She cared passionately about children,” Nutter said. “She always asked the question, ‘is this in the best interest of our children? You just had to appreciate that.”

While “some people adored her and some had different feelings,” Nutter added, Clayton managed to avoid teacher strikes “and set a national standard” for school leadership.

Board of Education president Reginald Streater, who graduated from Germantown High in the early 2000s, said he “was a direct beneficiary” of the work Clayton did to improve the district, especially in helping to create smaller themed academies in the neighborhood high schools. The best way to honor her memory, he said, is to work toward “ensuring that all students are given access to the lifelong tools that we all know they need to navigate this world and toward their dreams.”

Longtime education advocate, policy analyst, and frequent district critic Debra Weiner described Clayton’s superintendency “as a golden age. What preceded her was teacher strikes every two years, a gigantic exodus of kids from the district, constant deficits, and no standard curriculum.”

But Clayton prioritized working with a less politicized Board of Education “to bring more transparency” to decision-making, said Weiner, who was one of the victims of Clayton’s legendary cold shoulder after she made one remark the superintendent didn’t like.

“Sure, she had a thin skin,” Weiner said. “But you have to remember, she was a Black woman. Black women never got anywhere at that time. She went to an all-Black school (Dunbar elementary) herself. She came from a single parent family. When she went to Girls High, it was full of the white elite. I can talk about how she was thin-skinned, but also say, where were the Black women in power in the 80s? They didn’t exist. So it’s very easy to understand why she had those kinds of shortcomings.”

The record shows, Weiner said, that “between what she inherited and what she bequeathed, there was a big change. It was key in giving the school district a lot of credibility that it had lacked as long as anyone could remember.“

Clayton “came in after a series of strikes and budget crises, and she appointed a very capable team,” said Christopher McGinley, a former Board of Education member who started as a teacher when Clayton was superintendent and went on to become a superintendent himself in two suburban districts. “They had a work ethic second to none.”

Most notably, Clayton did not play the political patronage game with local politicians, which inspired anger on the part of some, and admiration from others.

As far as hiring, “my position and questions became ‘what are their competencies, what are their qualifications, what are their experiences, what do they know about children,’” she told scholar Camika Royal in a 2011 interview for her dissertation. “Well, as I said to you before, it became Don’t ask Connie Clayton for anything, because she will not give it to you. I wanted it that way. I was very clear about why it should be that way. We were not a feeding trough for people. The School District is for children.”

Constance Elaine Clayton was born in 1933 (she would never confirm her age while in public life). Raised by her mother and maternal grandmother in Philadelphia, she attended Dunbar Elementary School and Girls High, Temple University, and the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned a doctorate in education. She subsequently was given many honorary degrees.

Clayton began her career as a fourth grade teacher at the Harrison Elementary School in North Philadelphia in 1955. She quickly rose through the ranks, and in the 1960s, wrote a social studies curriculum for elementary grades and also established an African American studies program for all age levels – efforts that eventually contributed to Philadelphia becoming the first school district in the nation to mandate, in 2006, that all students take an African American history course in order to graduate.

Clayton was also a visionary in recognizing early on the importance of preschool to children’s brain development. As associate superintendent for Early Childhood Education, her last position before being named to lead the district, she expanded the district’s role in pre-K through a variety of programs that still exist.

She championed the arts and promoted the teaching of culturally-relevant curriculum in general “that children could see themselves in,” said Howard Stevenson, who holds the Constance E. Clayton chair at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.

“She was not afraid of new ideas,” he said.

Superintendent took on mandate to desegregate city schools

On the day she was installed as school superintendent in October 1982 – hired by a less politically beholden school board appointed by former Mayor Bill Green in an effort to get past the patronage and divisions that dominated the district before then – Clayton made her intentions clear. At the time, Irish, Italian, Jewish, and Black educators had distinct affinity groups that kept tabs on the distribution of leadership positions and school assignments.

“I hope all of us will commit ourselves to the proposition that all children can learn, all children can achieve, and all children deserve to be educated to the maximum of their abilities,” Clayton said.

At the time, the district was struggling to deal with an order from the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, dating back to 1970, to desegregate its schools. There were many all-white schools, especially in the Northeast, reflecting neighborhood demographics but also district decisions regarding how school district catchment areas were drawn. The PHRC wanted mandatory busing but, mindful of the kind of violence and upheaval school desegregation caused in cities like Boston, Clayton – like her white predecessors – rejected that option.

Unlike them, she and her chief of staff, law professor Ralph Smith, came up with a voluntary desegregation plan that resulted in the busing of thousands of children, more than 14,000 at its peak and mostly Black, to predominantly white schools, primarily in the Northeast. The program also provided incentives, such as free after-school programs, to schools in integrated communities where the school enrollment was predominantly Black, to attract more white students to them.

“I did not accept the job of superintendent to preside over a segregated school system. And I will not do so,” she wrote in a 1983 letter to the school board reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

While the voluntary plan did increase enrollment diversity at many schools, over time, the busing waned, and the focus shifted to providing more resources to schools that were predominantly low-income and Black. The PHRC case was settled in 2009.

Once in talks to become chancellor of the New York City school system, Clayton withdrew her name, writing in a 1987 telegram to the then-president of the New York Board of Education published in The Philadelphia Inquirer, “I have an unfinished agenda in Philadelphia … Now is not the time to leave.”

But the year 1988 for her had both triumph and missteps: The PFT signed a landmark contract, preserving labor peace and including some important reforms. But in a presentation to the school board in August – in the context of explaining her priorities in managing a budget crunch – she said: “There are those among us who will always choose in favor of the historically privileged. That is a luxury that the school district, this city and our society, can ill afford. When compelled to choose we should and we must choose in favor of those children most at risk and most in need even if they are not the loudest or the most well connected.”

She also closed five day care centers in the Northeast to spare some in poorer neighborhoods.

Soon, she faced calls for her resignation, mostly from residents and officeholders from the Northeast, a largely white but working-class community, where many were offended at the notion of who she considered “privileged.”

She persevered, although the last years of her tenure were marked by struggles to keep the district’s budget balanced, stubbornly flat achievement scores, the birth of the charter movement, and the increasingly volatile politics around education and power struggles on the school board. Her resignation in 1993 was unexpected and abrupt.

She told Royal in 2010: “I’d been there 11 years. And I did, I took early retirement. You know, you get to a point where you question whether you’re still effective. It was time.”

After her retirement she took an interest in artificial intelligence and its potential role in children’s education, said Stevenson of Penn GSE. She also became a patron of the arts.

“She was one of the largest holders of Black art in the city,” and also challenged the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as a board member there, “to include folks of color as leaders,” he said. She founded the museum’s African American Collections Committee.

She was also a philanthropist, he said, often giving money for scholarships and other purposes, but not wanting it publicized.

In retirement, Clayton also opened an antiques and notions store in Chestnut Hill with one of her former district colleagues, Lee Scott. She lived for decades in a sprawling stone house in Mount Airy with her mother, who died in 2004.

“She didn’t achieve everything she wanted to achieve, but she began the first wave of people taking education seriously and understanding kids of all ages and backgrounds can learn,” said Rendell. “We were all lucky to have her in Philadelphia.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. She was the Philadelphia Inquirer education writer during much of Constance Clayton’s superintendency. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

City of Philadelphia, school district settle contentious facilities lawsuit

2023-08-02T21:51:42+00:00

The city of Philadelphia and its school district have settled a lawsuit over building code that would have stripped the district of its authority to open schools dealing with asbestos and other environmental hazards.

In return for dropping the suit, the district will get $2.5 million from the city to help with data management and the city will assist the district with putting together a vetted “asbestos investigator workforce” to help the district meet its “intense [school] inspection demands.”

The settlement news broke during a City Council hearing called by education committee chair Isaiah Thomas on a proposal to create an independent authority to manage school facility construction and management.

The settlement was “reached after five months of vigorous, good-faith negotiations,” according to a joint statement from the city, Board of Education, and district leadership on Wednesday and “reflects greater accountability and transparency around the District’s environmental management.”

City and school officials are casting the agreement as the harbinger of a more collaborative and aligned relationship between the city and district. The suit was an unprecedented shot-across-the-bow from the school board who feared city officials would use new building code to wrest authority away from the district to close schools due to hazardous asbestos or other environmental problems. The lawsuit also angered some in city government who blamed the district for lacking transparency and failing to quickly remediate environmental dangers to students and staff.

In the past few months, six schools closed due to hazardous asbestos, and district officials have warned more temporary closures could be looming. One school, Frankford High School, which happens to be Thomas’s alma mater, still won’t be fully open to all students this fall.

In an interview, school board President Reginald Streater told Chalkbeat the settlement is a sign that “everything is falling into place at the right time,” because of the “partnership” between the city, board, and district.

“To me this is all positive,” Streater said. The agreement means the district will get more resources and the district and board will be “better partners in informing the public” going forward.

New master plans on the horizon

Superintendent Tony Watlington told council members at the hearing that the district is in the process of updating its 2017 Facilities Master Plan assessing the needs of each of its more than 300 buildings. He and Streater estimated that fully upgrading and modernizing the school district’s massive infrastructure, whose buildings on average are 73 years old, would cost nearly $8 billion.

Watlington said the new facilities study will be completed in June. He said that “internal and external stakeholders,” including not just district personnel but community members, would be involved to “construct a vision for modernizing learning facilities throughout Philadelphia.”

Oz Hill, the district’s deputy chief operating officer, said at the hearing that the district was also developing a “swing space master plan” to identify buildings in four quadrants of the city that could house students temporarily displaced due to environmental hazards in their schools or to construction and renovation efforts.

On Monday, Hill led a group of Democratic state legislators on a tour of South Philadelphia High School, which was built in 1957. They literally gasped at the sight of the antiquated, creaky HVAC and electrical systems as the district’s director of facilities, Jeff Scott, explained that in some cases, parts to repair them are no longer available. “We have to scavenge,” he said.

He pointed to boilers built in 1989 with a shelf life of 30 years that are still in operation. “We’re operating on borrowed time,” Scott said. The old systems cause some parts of the building to be hot while others are cold, he said.

“The challenges here are reflective of the challenges we have throughout the district,” Hill told the legislators and others on the tour.

Fully updating the HVAC systems in the district’s buildings would cost $40.6 million, while it would cost $28.4 million to modernize the electrical grid, he said.

Philadelphia schools Superintendent Tony Watlington said a new school facilities study will be completed in June.

At the hearing, several council members noted that the district’s facilities problems relate to what they called the historic underfunding of city schools by the state. One outside expert witness, Mary Filardo of the 21st Century Schools Fund, a national nonprofit dedicated to modernizing schools, noted that Pennsylvania ranks near the bottom of states in its commitment to facilities needs for their districts.

“This is an area where states have to do much more,” she said. “States haven’t stepped up to their responsibility.” She said national average state funding for capital costs to its districts is only 16% – compared to more than half of operating costs – “and Pennsylvania is even lower than that.”

While Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed in his budget $500 million over five years to help school districts with capital needs, that line item was deleted by the Republican-controlled Senate. The entire state budget is now held up over a dispute regarding school vouchers.

What the parties have agreed to

The settlement agreement requires the district to inspect all school buildings twice annually and post reports from those inspections online “in a timely manner” including “detailed information” about any asbestos abatement.

While the settlement doesn’t substantively change any school inspection requirements, it gives the district $2.5 million from the Department of Public Health. That money will help “improve data management associated with environmental hazard reporting” so it can meet the federal AHERA mandates.

Legislators and district officials tour the heating and electrical systems in the basement of South Philadelphia High, Monday, July 31, 2023.

According to the settlement agreement, the district has completed more than 300 inspections of district buildings since August 2022.

The joint statement on Wednesday reflects a change of tune from the early days of the lawsuit.

The suit was originally filed by the school board in January 2023 and alleged that a building code update — created by Bill 210685-AA — would give a mayor-appointed committee, rather than the school district, power to certify the safety of school buildings.

At the time the suit was filed, city officials criticized the board’s decision to sue rather than publicly work with them on building safety.

Former City Councilmember and mayoral candidate Derek Green, who cosponsored the bill creating the code change, said in an interview Wednesday that he “hope[s] this spirit of communication and the spirit of cooperation,” between the city and school leaders, “continues going forward to not only address asbestos,” but some of the other issues the district is facing including costly capital needs and the need for more state aid for the district.

Schools aren’t just ‘a different kind of office building’

While Streater and Watlington did not oppose the idea of an outside agency to supervise and manage school construction, they emphasized all the work that the district has been doing to upgrade its facilities. Watlington noted that the 2017 facilities plan estimated that there was $4.5 billion in deferred maintenance. Between 2013 and 2023 the district invested $1.72 billion in facilities, including the construction of several new buildings, and currently plans to spend nearly $2.5 billion over the next five years.

But Filardo and other outside experts who testified raised caution about the model of using an independent school building agency, which has had mixed results in other cities and states.

Cynthia Smith, the executive director of facilities planning, design and construction of the Baltimore City school district, raised the thorny issue of permanent school closures that could be a part of any effort to modernize and upgrade the city’s educational infrastructure. Even when people are offered a brand new school in the neighborhood, they often rebel, she said, especially after they were on the front lines in fighting for more state funds. “That is a very difficult part of this process,” she said.

Plus, such an authority needs to have people who understand the needs of schools, not just construction, she said. They have to understand that schools aren’t just “a different kind of office building.”

Filardo also said, after listening to Watlington explain what the district is planning, said it sounded more like an architectural plan than a comprehensive educational vision. “I don’t think it’s going to get you there,” she said.

Thomas said that he learned a lot from the witnesses and said the agreement between the city and district on the facilities issue was a step forward. “Instead of lawsuits, let’s work collaboratively for our students, teachers, and families,” he said.

Streater seconded that.

“I hope we never go down that route again,” Streater said.

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 district will announce changes to lottery-based selective admissions at end of July

2023-06-30T18:15:53+00:00

Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington announced Thursday that the school district will further revise its process for admission to its most selective schools, based on recommendations from a consulting firm hired to study the impact of a lottery system introduced in 2021.

That system was introduced in an effort to increase the proportion of Black and Latino students at the most selective schools — Masterman and Central — and replaced a long-standing process in which principals generally made final admissions decisions. Instead, all students who met minimal requirements based on scores on the PSSA state standardized test, grades, attendance, and behavior records could enter the lottery.

In other business at its monthly meeting, the Board of Education approved more than $205 million in contracts, mandated Juneteenth instruction, and voted not to renew the charter of Southwest Leadership Academy.

In the presentation on the admissions process for selective schools, the consultants, Accenture, recommended that a strict PSSA cutoff should be eliminated as a requirement for several of the schools. In selective schools that start in middle grades, they suggested, students should not have to reapply to continue through the ninth grade.

Accenture conducted a survey of counselors, principals, students, and other stakeholders, in which 45% of principals said they were dissatisfied with the PSSA requirement, Nahomie Louis and Nicole Newman of Accenture told the board.

Additionally, that process gave preference to students in certain ZIP codes, primarily in North and West Philadelphia, who were historically underrepresented at Masterman and Central. That provision has been challenged by a group of parents who say it is a “blatantly unconstitutional race-based system.”

The consultants said that only 20% of persons surveyed said they liked the lottery process. And, based on data so far, that system has made only halting progress in reaching its goal and had unintended consequences. While the demographics at Central and Masterman showed slight increases from 2021-22 to 2022-23 in the proportion of Black and Latino students, it left hundreds of vacancies in some of the city’s other criteria-based schools, mostly those that had high Black enrollment.

Students also don’t appear to be in favor of the lottery system. Accenture’s survey found that 54% of students said they wanted to remove the lottery, and 38% said if it continues, they wanted to be able to rank their schools of choice rather than just submit a list of five.

Under the current process, students can get into all five schools or none, and they could get into a school or schools they really don’t want to attend while being shut out of their first choice.

Accenture consultants studied the systems in other cities, including Chicago, New York, and Washington, DC as part of their review. They found those cities more precisely tailored their plans to local circumstances and preferences.

“Many other districts already optimized their systems and curated them based on the needs of students,” they said, recommending that Philadelphia similarly “customize” its process. They also said Philadelphia should hire a staff dedicated to overhauling the process and have revisions and improvements in place by fall 2025.

Accenture has a $298,000 contract to evaluate the school selection process.

Board approved millions for building maintenance, tech, asbestos abatement

The board considered 104 separate items. Through its consent agenda, in which many items are voted on in a bloc with little or not discussion, the board voted to approve more than $205 million in spending on school building maintenance, food, lease agreements, an “instructional management system,” and more.

Some of the big ticket items:

$26.3 million for Contract with NCS Pearson for Schoolnet Instructional Management System, which comes on top of a $70 million expenditure approved at the last meeting for new curricular materials in reading, math, and science.
$69 million on an agreement with a city agency, the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development (PAID), to aid with capital projects involving the building and renovation of school buildings.
$24 million for “Contracts with Various Vendors for Asbestos Abatement in Various Schools”
$20 million for “Contracts with Various Vendors for Professional Environmental Design and Testing Consulting Services.”

Board member Cecelia Thompson voted no on several smaller spending items, including $6 million for snow removal and $300,000 for window shades, saying they came without explanation. Lisa Salley voted no on two resolutions to spend money on outside law firms.

The board also voted to terminate the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees (Salley dissented.

Board rejects charter renewal

The board also voted 7-2 not to renew the charter for Southwest Leadership Academy Charter school. The vote came after Rudolph Garcia, who presided over hearings following the board’s first vote to close the school in June, 2022, said Southwest Leadership has not improved its low academic record and is teetering on financial viability. Garcia presided over a hearing held in January and February contesting the board’s intent to revoke the charter.

Last month, the board denied the application to open a Global Leadership Academy high school. That vote and other denials have led some officials to allege that the board is biased against Black-led charters.

Before voting, board members repeatedly asked Garcia if there was any evidence of an upward trend. Garcia, unequivocally, said no.

“If I had seen some progress, if they were still performing below comparison groups, but catching up, I would have seriously considered that they be given more time to do it,” he said. “But that didn’t happen.”

He noted the pandemic was disruptive, but said all schools had to cope with that. “Everybody was affected, but the relationship between them and the other comparison groups didn’t change,” Garcia said.

The K-8 school, founded in 2007 with just over 600 students, was trying to expand, but “got ahead of their skis,” Garcia said. It bought property to build a new school, but were not able to enroll enough students to justify or pay for the expansion, he said.

Board member Lisa Salley, who voted no on the closure along with Cecelia Thompson, said she was concerned that the audit of the school’s finances seemed “biased.” “I don’t see the objective evidence to support” the nonrenewal recommendation, she said.

Parent Robyn Fernandes, who has children at the school, disputed Garcia’s conclusions, saying that the enrollment is 92% Black, and those students outperform Black students in other charters and in comparable district schools.

She upbraided the board members for never visiting the school or taking to parents and the community about its positive impact on students. “No one has had a conversation with us,” she said. “No one has set foot in the school.”

At its May meeting, the board voted down an application of Global Leadership Academy.

Peng Chao, director of the board’s Charter Schools Office, said that 14 charters are up for renewal this year with a total enrollment of 14,000 students, one of the largest cohorts ever considered at one time.

Chao gave more detailed information on five of those schools that do not meet standards in one of more categories: Deep Roots, KIPP North Philadelphia, Mastery Prep Elementary, Mathematics Civics and Sciences, and Christopher Columbus.

Mathematics Civics and Sciences also failed to meet standards for organizational compliance. And Chao noted that while the school reports a 100% graduation rate, the performance of its students on Keystone exams measuring proficiency in math, language arts, and sciences fall below comparable schools.

Christopher Columbus met academic standards, but failed to meet organizational compliance benchmarks.

He recommended that Columbus be renewed for five years with conditions, while the others be renewed for just one year with conditions.

At the meeting, Watlington also said that 10th through 12th graders at Frankford High School, which had been closed due to asbestos, would return in September to a refurbished wing in the school. Officials had previously announced that the building would not be open next school year and all students would be relocated.

Now, only ninth graders will go elsewhere, to the third floor of Clemente Middle School, Watlington said. An assistant principal and other staffers will be on that site and students will be provided transportation back to Frankford for afterschool and other out-of-school-time activities, said Associate Superintendent for High Schools Tomas Hanna.

Students will be required to learn about Juneteenth

The board also approved a resolution to make sure all students learn about Juneteenth, but amended the original resolution that said it should be taught “in all content areas” from grades kindergarten through 12th. It now says Juneteenth lessons should be taught “to all students where appropriate in the curriculum” starting in 2023-24.

Juneteenth is a national holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. Although President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared “all persons held as slaves” in Confederate states shall be free, on January 1, 1863, freedom for many would only be gained later. On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers informed enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, that they were free people; and this event, eventually known as Juneteenth, became a celebration of independence for Black people.

At Thursday’s board meeting, Watlington, a former history teacher, noted that most persons of African descent lived under slavery for 246 years – from the first arrival of enslaved Africans to English colonies in 1619 to the abolition of slavery in 1863, and then under Jim Crow segregation for another 100. And their civil and voting rights “continue to be under attack” in some parts of the country, he said. .

The board resolution calls for the school district to collaborate with educators, administrators, and community partners to develop and provide age-appropriate instructional resources, materials and professional development opportunities that support the teaching of Juneteenth.

The district will also engage parents, families, and community members by offering resources, hosting events, and promoting dialogue to enhance understanding and appreciation of Juneteenth and Black history.

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 principal has big plans for International Baccalaureate program at Jenks Academy

2023-06-15T21:08:04+00:00

Corinne Scioli remembers the moment she was sold on the International Baccalaureate program.

She was the assistant principal at Northeast Philadelphia’s Mayfair Elementary School, which educates almost 2,000 students and is the largest elementary school in the city. Its families come from more than 60 countries.

A few years ago, a first grader from Brazil “who spoke not a lick of English” showed up at Mayfair. Scioli, whose native language is Spanish and was once an English language learner in the U.S. herself, could make do in Brazilian Portuguese. So she communicated with the boy about his class homework assignment to make an object from recycled materials.

The assignment was a quintessential example of International Baccalaureate, also known as IB, a curriculum program that relies on a strategy of “learning by doing” while promoting cultural understanding and global awareness among students. In 2018, Mayfair became the first elementary school in the city to adopt the IB curriculum.

The boy came in the next day carrying a robot he had made from plastic water bottles and a shoebox. The boy had immediately engaged and was able to participate in school, despite the language barrier and the newness of his surroundings. For Scioli, “It was confirmation that the approach works.”

Scioli, 50, is now the principal of J.S. Jenks Academy of the Arts and Sciences, which is on track to become the second elementary school in the city to adopt the IB program and its demanding, project-based curriculum. Jenks received approval in April to be an IB candidate school for grades K-5, which means it has a year to explore its goals and refine its practices before seeking full IB authorization. Adopting IB also matches Superintendent Tony Watlington’s goal to accelerate academic achievement, and it’s one of the programs that he included in his five-year strategic plan, which was recently approved by the city Board of Education.

In a statement to Chalkbeat, district spokesperson Marissa Orbanek emphasized the IB program’s emphasis on “research and critical thinking skills, knowledge acquisition, and global awareness.” The statement also pointed out the strategic plan’s goal to provide students with “equitable access” to course offerings that are “more aligned with their interests, are relevant to their lives, and prepare them for their future.”

Although located in predominantly white and well-off Chestnut Hill, Jenks’ student body today is 81% Black, and most students come from low-income backgrounds. Just a third of the student body lives within the Jenks catchment.

Jenks, a K-8 school which enrolls about 420 students, is transitioning to the IB program on its 100th anniversary; it was built in 1923 on Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill and has served students ever since.

The IB curriculum is organized around six interdisciplinary themes: who we are, how we organize ourselves, how we express ourselves, where we are in place and time, how the world works, and sharing the planet. Jenks said the program also promotes social-emotional learning in addition to academics. And through the program, students will be able to take classes in a foreign language.

The IB program “follows a student inquiry cycle,” Scioli said. “They’re invited to think deeper and to be advocates for social and environmental justice. It puts that at the forefront.” In short, Scioli said IB’s framework “promotes everything I believe in.”

For elementary school students, “we want to encourage them to be hands-on learners and constructors of their own knowledge,” she said. Teachers will undergo extensive training so they can support this mission.

“This takes us to the next level,” she said.

Scioli recalls teaching her grandfather to write his name

The program’s global outlook resonates with Scioli for personal as well as professional reasons.

Although she was born on an Air Force base in Omaha, Nebraska, Scioli spent first and second grades in Panama, where her father was from. When she returned to the U.S. at the end of second grade, she had trouble with reading and writing English at grade level.

“In those days, instead of viewing bilingualism as an asset, many schools put foreign students who were learning English in special education classes,” Scioli recalled. But her father insisted that Scioli would not go to special education classes. Thanks in part to tutoring, her love of reading evolved from “Charlotte’s Web” to Shakespeare, all the way to an undergraduate degree in women’s studies and a master’s degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania.

Scioli also traces her path to becoming an educator to a time when she traced letters in the ground during a visit to the Dominican Republic to see her maternal grandfather, who was illiterate. Using a stick, she spelled out his name in the soil at the family farm. He then followed suit, and called the moment he learned how to write his name “incredible.”

“It was my introduction to being an educator, and it stuck,” she said.

She hopes to eventually receive approval for IB’s Middle Years Program for grades 6-8. According to the district eight schools currently offer IB programs: six high schools, two middle schools as well as Mayfair. Thurgood Marshall Middle school is also in the candidacy process.

“I want to create the same level of cultural awareness” that now exists at Mayfair, she said, “and help students to think critically, work with their hands as well as their minds, and help us all understand how to connect.”

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.

Transparency watch: Public gets time to see Philadelphia schools chief’s strategic plan after all

2023-05-24T22:48:48+00:00

This story has been updated to include additional information about curriculum contracts the Philadelphia Board of Education is due to vote on May 25.

Less than 24 hours before the Philadelphia Board of Education was due to vote on Superintendent Tony Watlington’s as-yet-unseen strategic plan, the board postponed the vote until June and released an executive summary of the plan to the public.

The executive summary says the plan will include a pilot program to “incentivize” teachers to work in “hard to staff schools,” the relaunch of “Parent University” — a program to give parents and caregivers courses in academics, financial literacy and other areas — and a $70 million update for the district’s core curriculums in math, reading, and science, among other proposals.

The board was previously scheduled to vote on the plan at Thursday’s board meeting. But two days after Chalkbeat reported that the public had yet to see the plan, Watlington said he will now present the proposal for review Thursday, and the board will vote on it June 1. If the board approves the plan, it will begin July 1.

Pressure has been building on Watlington to unveil the plan to the public before the board’s vote on it. The plan will be the culmination of Watlington’s work in his first year in office, and could guide the district through pandemic recovery, a growing asbestos crisis, and a gun violence epidemic that’s killed more than 20 students this academic year so far.

“We’re going to ask the Board to take some time to kick the tires, look under the hood, and ask our community to do the same thing,” Watlington said of the plan in an interview Wednesday. “This is going to be our North Star for the next five years and beyond, and I want to make sure we’re very thoughtful about how we begin this work.”

The summary says Watlington’s strategic plan is intended to be a “living document that can be updated by the Administration as needed based on progress monitoring, emerging trends, new internal evidence, or external research.”

The executive summary is light on specific, prescriptive policies. Many of the ideas involve launching new advisory groups, audits, updating websites, and reviewing the current policies.

And there’s no price tag for the plan yet.

“In the process of costing out this plan, we know that current funding is inadequate,” he said.

He highlighted a February ruling from Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer that the wide gaps in spending between wealthy and poor districts in the state makes Pennsylvania’s current school funding system unconstitutional.

However, Jubelirer did not prescribe a specific remedy, and securing more state aid is likely to take time. Republican legislative leaders haven’t said whether they will appeal.

“I think it’s easy in Philadelphia to get immune to what historic underfunding really means,” Watlington said.

Aside from comments about his five-year plan, Watlington also said he was confident about his future even though the next mayor can appoint an entirely new school board, which could in turn hire a different superintendent.

Cherelle Parker, the Democratic nominee for mayor who’s a heavy favorite to win November’s election, has not indicated her intentions regarding school board appointments.

Although she doesn’t exercise direct control over the district, she’s promised that her plan for education will “transform how we think about public schooling.”

Two leaders’ dovetailing plans for year-round schedule

The summary says the plan includes five priority areas: safety and well-being, family and community partnerships, accelerating academic achievement, recruiting and retaining “diverse and highly effective educators,” and “high-quality, cost-effective operations.”

One of the most high-profile proposals in Watlington’s plan — one likely to have a substantial cost — is a pilot for year-round school. Parker’s most far-reaching education proposal during the campaign called for the same.

Watlington said he wants to pilot “a year-round and extended day school calendar” in up to 10 schools. Beyond that, he had few details.

It’s too early to say whether year-round schooling means extending the academic school year or the school day, or both, Watlington said.

“I want to slow down and roll out the strategy, cost out what it would cost us, and then we want to take the time to build support and do an information campaign with various school communities,” Watlington said. “I don’t want to just assign schools to do this.”

Parker’s plan was also short on specifics. On the campaign trail, she promised to “create full-day, full-year education for all students in Philadelphia.” She also wants schools to be open from 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. for “before and after-school enrichment,” but has not elaborated on those statements.

Any change in school schedules “is something that would have to be negotiated,” Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan said in an interview.

Asked whether year-round schooling was a major component of his plan before Parker made it a keystone of her platform, Watlington demurred.

“I think it’s coincidental, but inherently good” that both he and Parker are talking about the idea, Watlington said. “What we do together is more important than ‘who came up with the idea?’”

But Jeron Williams II, a Central High School student who sits on one of the committees that helped develop the plan, said “never once did we discuss year-round schooling.” Jordan, who also participated in the process, said the same thing.

Incentives for teachers will require union negotiations

Another component of the plan would create a pilot to give some teachers and principals “retention incentives” for teaching in schools where staffing has proven difficult.

But the executive summary does not provide further details, such as whether those incentives would take the form of bonus pay or something else.

Such incentives would also have to be negotiated with the teachers’ union. Jordan said that the district used to have a program that offered salary boosts to teachers who took particularly difficult assignments, but that only covered about 25 teachers at its peak, and that teachers generally didn’t like it.

The summary doesn’t provide details about Watlington’s proposed $70 million changes to curriculum. However, the agenda for the board’s May 25 meeting includes votes on contracts with various vendors for new curriculum in math and language arts that add up to $50 million; another $20 million contract for science materials was originally included on the agenda but withdrawn as of late Wednesday. Those contracts are related to Watlington’s plan, a board spokesperson said.

Watlington also highlighted a proposal to pilot “learn to swim” programs in “different parts of the city,” but did not provide further details. Students and members of the public have stressed that helping young people — especially Black and brown children from low-income backgrounds — learn to swim and giving them access to pools provides various benefits.

“The fact that we can’t do this all over the city does not mean that we should not start somewhere,” Watlington said of the swimming pilot, “I’m hopeful that we can grow that over time.”

In general, Watlington said he’s optimistic that he will have the buy-in necessary for his strategic plan to get the board’s approval and get his proposals done.

“I think the future is bright for Philadelphia and the school district of Philadelphia,” Watlington said. “I’m excited to be here and we’re gonna do some great things. I really believe our best days are ahead of us.”

Damaged asbestos will close school into next year

New details about Watlington’s plan came on the heels of news Wednesday that Frankford High School would remain closed for the rest of the school year and into next year because asbestos remediation at the century-old school building was more extensive than originally thought.

In addition, the district has been “unable to quickly identify a nearby swing space that could be prepared in time for this school year to accommodate our students and staff, as well as meet all the programmatic needs,” Oz Hill, the district’s deputy chief operating officer, said in a letter to the school community. All but Frankford’s special education students are learning virtually.

As with his strategic plan, Watlington placed the blame for such asbestos-related school closures on historic underfunding for the district, as well as prior leaders’ failure to “care for our facilities like we should have.”

The summary of Watlington’s strategic plan does call for a “facilities master plan project team.” Last November, the district paused its work on a blueprint for infrastructure upgrades; Watlington said at the time that he wanted to ensure that such a blueprint matched his strategic plan.

“We’re going to be in this asbestos space over the long term,” Watlington said. “Unfortunately, because of historical underfunding we don’t have shovel-ready swing spaces” that school community members can support or commute to.

District officials told reporters at a briefing Tuesday they were making progress in their building inspection process.

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 school leaders defend their asbestos response: ‘No simple fix’

2023-05-23T21:23:34+00:00

At least 293 of 300 Philadelphia district buildings — most but not all of them schools — contain asbestos, officials said Tuesday, although inspectors have reexamined nearly all of those facilities for the potentially dangerous material since October 2021.

During a press briefing about asbestos in district facilities, Victoria Flemming, the interim executive director of the Office of Environmental Management, said that out of those 293 buildings, 277 schools have been reinspected, and six of those were schools that the district subsequently closed, she said. The goal is to inspect the remaining 16 by the end of August, she said.

The more inspections the district conducts, the more asbestos is likely to be found, she said, but “this is a step in the right direction. This is the school district taking the additional time and resources to address what has been a longstanding issue within the Philadelphia region.”

“There’s no simple fix,” Flemming said.

The district’s update comes in the wake of criticism from parents, advocates, and others about the district’s handling of the environmental hazard. The abrupt shutdowns of Building 21, Frankford High School, Mitchell Elementary School, and other schools have created major disruptions for students and families. They have also called into question the accuracy of previous inspection reports that indicated schools did not face asbestos-related dangers.

Flemming said that more than 200 of the district’s buildings were built before 1978, when builders commonly included asbestos in construction, and that many of them also contain lead paint, another potential hazard. The average age of district buildings is 73 years.

Under the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act, or AHERA, the federal law regulating asbestos containment, every school must be inspected every three years, with “periodic surveillance” every six months. Flemming said the district at any given time has between eight to 12 inspection teams of two people each, depending on availability of personnel.

In order to be in full AHERA compliance, the district would need to average 50 inspections a month, she said, but the district currently lacks sufficient staffing and resources to do that, Flemming said.

“Our intent is to add more inspection teams,” she said, but added that meeting the AHERA requirements in full “is still a work in progress.”

The district has a three-year, $24.2 million contract with Tetra Tech, starting in 2022, a consultant and engineering firm, which is managing its inspections. The district also hired DeLuca Advisory & Consulting Services — where Flemming previously worked — to help the district manage the AHERA inspections and related record-keeping and data-tracking, which is a massive undertaking.

For instance, DeLuca is making sure that all inspections included the mandatory number of required samples from the required variety of locations. One large school can have as many as 3,000 building materials that require assessment and documentation. And the district is also studying the records of past inspections to make sure that they are valid, although Flemming said limited staffing and resources have made record-keeping a challenge.

“What we have actively done is gone back through our archive to confirm they have the correct number of samples based on today’s protocols,” she said. The district is also scrutinizing records “per floor, per room, per ceiling” to make sure that all necessary areas were inspected, she added.

Oz Hill, the district’s deputy chief operating officer, said the district organized Tuesday’s briefing in order to “communicate the depth and breadth of the challenges we face.”

The district’s staffing challenges and churn extend to the top of its organizational chart, and two key new administrators are set to join.

Former Deputy Superintendent of Operations Uri Monson and Chief Operating Officer Reggie McNeil left in January to join Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration. In addition, Deputy Superintendent for Academic Services ShaVon Savage and Chief Talent Officer Larissa Shambaugh announced their departures in March. Shambaugh has already left and Savage will leave by the end of this month.

On Monday, Superintendent Tony Watlington announced the hiring of two new top administrators: Jeremy Grant-Skinner as deputy superintendent of talent, strategy and culture, and Nyashawana Francis-Thompson as chief of curriculum and instruction.

Grant-Skinner comes from the Houston district, where he has been chief talent officer. Before that, he was a teacher and then chief human capital officer in Baltimore in charge of recruitment and teacher development.

Nyshawana Francis-Thompson, who has been the interim chief of curriculum and instruction, was named to the position permanently by Watlington.

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’s school board is about to vote on a strategic plan the public hasn’t seen

2023-05-22T21:53:35+00:00

Just three days before the Philadelphia Board of Education is scheduled to vote on a sweeping five-year plan for schools from Superintendent Tony Watlington, the public has virtually no idea what’s in it because the district hasn’t released it.

The plan will include a year-round school pilot program, the district confirmed last week, but officials have not released any additional details. A version of year-round school is Democratic mayoral nominee Cherelle Parker’s signature education proposal, but she has also failed to elaborate on what she has in mind.

The Philadelphia school district is grappling with systemic problems. A growing asbestos crisis is closing school buildings. Gun violence has claimed the lives of more than 25 students this school year. And test scores are stubbornly low. With all these problems plaguing the district, Watlington has repeatedly touted his strategic plan as a way to make progress on pressing issues.

The plan made headlines before Watlington even took over the district. Roughly a year ago, the board approved a $450,000 contract for a consulting firm to help him craft the plan. But as of late Monday, officials had not shared the plan, or even a basic summary of what it calls for, with the public.

Alexandra Coppadge, the district’s chief of communications and customer service, said in an email Monday that several people had already seen versions of the plan.

“Throughout the strategic planning process, the District continues to collaboratively engage with key stakeholder groups including: the Board of Education, elected officials, Union leadership, principals, Assistant Superintendents, and District office staff to vet and provide feedback on the research-based strategies,” Coppadge said.

Transparency concerns have been a major pain point for the district. School board members have admitted they’re struggling to engage with the communities they serve. At last month’s board meeting, members approved a $336,000 contract with a consulting group to improve the board’s communication with the public.

The public also isn’t getting answers from Parker about her plans for education.

At her first press conference Monday morning since winning the Democratic nomination, Parker sidestepped a question on what she meant by year-round schooling. She has not said whether she wants students in school for 200 or 210 days instead of Pennsylvania’s legally-mandated 180, or whether — like many districts that have a year-round schedule — she means that the district should shorten summer vacation and add three-week breaks throughout the school year.

Parker did say that in a conversation with Gov. Josh Shapiro before the press conference, “we talked about being innovative and creative with our schedules for education and how we deliver public education In the city.”

In one of the most affecting moments, she choked up when asked how she felt breaking the “glass ceiling” should she become the first female mayor in the history of the city. Parker is heavily favored to defeat Republican candidate David Oh in November.

She also said wants to “find a way to add value to motivate, inspire, and encourage a generation of girls to say, you know, ‘wow, no one can put me in the box. Right? You know, I really can be whatever … that makes me feel really good.’”

While she has talked about the importance of educational attainment, her most direct impact on schools would be through the mayor’s power to appoint all nine members of the Board of Education, who in turn hire the superintendent.

Parker hasn’t said whether or not she would keep the current board members or seek to appoint new ones who align with her educational vision. And while she talked about having “quality seats” for every child, she has not spoken directly about whether she would seek an expansion of charter schools, which now educate more than 60,000 students in the city.

Watlington’s strategic plan meanwhile, is in many ways his audition to prove to the new mayor that he has the district’s issues under control.

The school board has spent at least $1.6 million on consultants since Watlington took over the leadership of the district. The $450,000 contract approved last May by the school board — before Watlington was even sworn in — was used to hire Joseph and Associates, a Tennessee-based education consulting firm, to assist with his transition to the district and help develop his blueprint for leading Philadelphia schools.

It’s unclear how much of a role the consulting firm played in writing the plan. The firm did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

In addition to the $336,000 communications contract, the board last month also approved $881,500 in spending with a group called K12 Insight to improve the district’s “customer service.”

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 superintendent to pitch year-round school pilot as likely next mayor talks up the idea

2023-05-18T22:28:01+00:00

Philadelphia’s top education official and its likely next mayor are coalescing around a big idea for education: year-round school. But so far, neither of them wants to say how it would work.

The most consequential and far-reaching proposal in Democratic mayoral nominee Cherelle Parker’s plan for education is to keep schools open year-round. And Superintendent Tony Watlington will include a proposal for a pilot program on year-round schools in his five-year strategic plan that is not yet public but that Board of Education members are scheduled to vote on at their May 25 meeting.

Parker and Watlington aren’t alone in their interest in shaking up the traditional school calendar. In the wake of the pandemic, several school leaders and state lawmakers are looking to extend their school years as a way to give struggling students an academic boost. Year-round school can take many forms and it is used to try to address various issues, from academics to overcrowding.

District spokesperson Marissa Orbanek said Thursday that Watlington “has included the pilot of year round schools in his five-year strategic plan, which will be presented soon.” Orbanek said that Watlington was interested in the idea before the primary election, which Parker won on Tuesday. She declined to provide further details.

In her campaign platform, Parker said she would combine the longer school year with more before and after-school activities. And her website puts more emphasis on a year-round school schedule as a way to help parents than its impact on academics. But otherwise, her platform doesn’t focus on the details of how her idea would work in practice.

“Philadelphia students need to be prepared for a modern economy, but Philadelphia’s public school system is stuck in the past,” she said on her campaign website.

A Parker spokesperson said Thursday that Parker’s team had not seen Watlington’s proposal.

On Thursday, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told us that Watlington “shared those ideas” about year-round school with him previously, although he didn’t have any details about what Watlington would propose.

Shapiro said he is open to any “creative ideas” to address students’ mental health needs and improve learning environments including extending the school year or adjusting school start times.

“I want to be thoughtful about how we do this,” Shapiro said, “so the Commonwealth is not dictating a one-size-fits-all approach to every district, but rather allowing districts to sort of consider what they think would be best.”

Year-round schooling gets mixed reviews

Using a year-round calendar does not necessarily mean having more than 180 days of instruction, which is what the majority of states (including Pennsylvania) have set as the minimum for a school year.

The National Association of Year Round Education advocates for districts to implement the “balanced calendar,” which shortens summer vacation and adds longer breaks called “intersessions” during the school year. The group’s suggested calendar uses a 30-day summer break and breaks for fall, winter, and spring of 15 days each, plus a three-day break for Thanksgiving.

This strategy keeps 180 instructional days, but uses them “more efficiently,” said David Hornak, the association’s executive director and superintendent of the 5,000-student Holt School District in Michigan. He said about 4% of school districts educating some two million students nationwide use some form of this calendar.

After a long summer break, according to Hornak, teachers generally spend the first 20 to 40 days in school reteaching students to compensate for summer learning loss. With traditional school calendars, “schools are asked to remediate learning gaps that they are contributing to,” Hornak said.

The “balanced calendar” schedule also “improved educator morale and has a positive impact on the teacher burnout problem” as well as teacher and student attendance, he said.

“I have yet to meet an educator who wants to return to the regular calendar,” Hornak said.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has declined to comment on Parker’s plan or Watlington’s pending pilot proposal. A change to year-round schooling would require the district to rework its contract with the teachers’ union; the contract expires in August 2024.

Many districts across the country have tried year-round schooling over the years, with varying levels of success.

The Los Angeles school district tried year-round schools as enrollment grew in the 1980s, but by 2015, just one school still used that type of calendar, according to Education Week.

At least a few school districts have abandoned this approach or at least cooled on the strategy recently. In January, officials in Virginia’s Chesterfield schools recommended phasing out their year-round school trial run, after disappointing academic outcomes.

And a school district in Wisconsin is also ending its year-round school calendar after nearly a decade; officials said the schedule didn’t seem to benefit test scores or student behavior.

Paul von Hippel, a professor of public policy at the University of Texas who has researched year-round schooling, said there’s evidence that adding instructional days has a positive impact. (Parker, who has a 10-year-old son, has also said the elementary school day is too short and wants to keep school buildings open from 7:30 a.m. until 6 p.m.)

But he has not seen evidence that the balanced calendar approach has led to better student outcomes.

And it’s typically very difficult for school districts to add days to the school year, even when there is a year-round calendar. Only about one in every 1,000 schools in the U.S. has calendars that stretch the school year beyond 180 days, and most of them are charters, he said.

The Los Angeles district was among several California cities that implemented a year-round schedule similar to the balanced calendar called Concept 6. That schedule had just 163 days of instruction, although the school days were longer, he said.

Research showed that students on Los Angeles’ Concept 6 schedule did not benefit academically, von Hippel said, adding that it is “disruptive of family life and teachers tend not to like it.”

There are some “high-performing education systems” elsewhere, including in England and South Korea, that have more than 200 days in the school year, he said.

But in the U.S., von Hippel said, “I don’t think you will find a large district that has gone to 200 or 210 days.”

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 Philadelphia Bureau Chief and can be reached at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Year-round schools and more education funding: What Cherelle Parker could mean for Philadelphia

2023-05-17T21:39:15+00:00

Cherelle Parker’s Democratic primary election win on Tuesday means she is all but certain to be the city’s 100th mayor and first woman to hold the office.

So what would a Parker administration look like for schools?

Parker, who used to be a public school teacher in New Jersey, has proposed keeping school buildings open year-round and lengthening the school day. She’s said she wants to heal the splintered relationship between the Board of Education, the district, and city officials. And she has positioned herself as a bipartisan dealmaker capable of negotiating more money for the city from Harrisburg to help Philadelphia schools fix crumbling buildings and recover from COVID-interrupted learning.

Parker’s ascension to the mayoral seat is not a done deal. She will face off against Republican nominee David Oh in November’s general election. But in Philadelphia, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly seven to one, her primary win means she’s heavily favored.

Parker was not available for an interview on Wednesday due to a medical issue, her campaign spokesperson Aren Platt said.

But based on her comments and proposals made on the campaign trail and her responses to our mayoral questionnaire, it’s possible to project what Parker in the mayor’s office could look like for education.

Parker’s big-ticket education idea: Year-round school

Parker’s boldest education campaign proposal was to “create full-day, full-year education for all students in Philadelphia.” According to her campaign website, Parker said more time in school would allow students to pursue extracurricular activities, sports, and other “enrichment” opportunities, while also providing parents and caregivers more child care flexibility.

She’d pay for it “by leveraging existing funding” and “with new state and city funding,” according to her campaign site.

It’s not immediately clear what this would look like in practice or how much it would cost. School districts have tried year-round schooling to bolster academics and avoid overcrowded classrooms, among other reasons. But the change can also increase district costs, complicate family schedules, make it harder for teenage students to get summer jobs, and hurt tourism and other industries.

The Los Angeles school district turned to year-round schools as enrollment grew in the 1980s, but by 2015, just one school there still had such a schedule, according to Education Week.

Perhaps the biggest unanswered question is whether the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, which endorsed rival Helen Gym in the mayoral campaign, is on board with the idea. At minimum, officials and the union would have to renegotiate the district’s teacher contract, which expires in August 2024.

PFT President Jerry Jordan offered his congratulations to Parker in a statement Wednesday saying “the first female Mayor in our city’s history will be an important role model for our youth—especially young Black girls.” (Parker is Black.)

At the same time, PFT spokesperson Hillary Linardopoulos said Wednesday that the union was not ready to comment on the idea of year-round school, or any of Parker’s education positions.

Parker confronts tricky school board politics

Philadelphia’s mayor has no direct governing power over schools. But the mayor does appoint the nine Board of Education members, who in turn hire the superintendent and oversee all policy and budgetary decisions made by the district. The board is also the sole authorizer of charter schools in the city.

Parker said she wants a superintendent and board that reflect “the diversity of the city, wields the passion for elevating our school system to the prominence that it could be, and whose primary priority is creating quality seats for all of Philadelphia’s students.”

Under outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney, a simmering tension has developed between the school board, the district, and city officials around issues of asbestos remediation, funding needs, and community engagement.

In response to our mayoral questionnaire, Parker said she plans “to be a very active Mayor when it comes to appointing and dealing with the School Board and educating our children in general.”

She said the superintendent, board, and the mayor’s office “cannot work in silos or impose an ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality.”

Whether this means she will completely remake the board from scratch or keep some or all of the current Board members remains an open question. The board members’ terms will expire when Kenney leaves office, but they’ll continue to serve until their replacements take over.

Optimism that Philly schools will get more funding

Philadelphia city schools are perpetually seeking more funding. Earlier this year, a Commonwealth Court judge declared Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional and ordered the General Assembly to overhaul it. According to an Education Law Center and Public Interest Law Center analysis, the district schools need an estimated $1.1 billion more each year from the state to properly educate its students.

What’s more, the district doesn’t have the ability to raise tax revenue on its own. The school board is dependent on city and state officials to allocate the funding necessary to operate the district.

Parker, a former state representative, has said she is well-positioned to negotiate with state lawmakers in Harrisburg to get Philadelphia schools the money they need.

On her campaign website, Parker touts her position as former chairwoman of the Philadelphia delegation in Harrisburg. She also says she was able to secure a plan to send the district $148 million and prevent layoffs of some teachers and support staff in 2013, when the “District was on the verge of financial collapse.”

Parker is also optimistic that the court case over the state’s school funding formula will result in more money for the city schools.

“There is almost no scenario where the Philadelphia School District does not receive more funding,” Parker said in her responses to our questionnaire.

She also said she would be open to increasing the city’s share of funding for the district. Currently schools receive 55% of the city’s property tax revenue; she said she would increase it to 58%, which she said would bring an additional $50 million to the district.

“We must prioritize investing in our education system and if that means increasing our share of funding, my Administration will be prepared to do that,” she said in her questionnaire.

In a list of priorities for the next mayor, the school board singled out funding as a top issue.

Some school buildings need to be ‘torn down’

Several school buildings have closed this year due to damaged asbestos, and district leaders have said the growing crisis means more school closures may be coming.

In response to our mayoral questionnaire, Parker said “it is unconscionable that we ask anybody, but especially children, teachers, and other workers to go to buildings with environmental, structural, and other issues.”

On her plans for remediation, Parker said “many of our school buildings need immediate attention but some are too far gone and need to be torn down, period.”

She also joined the chorus of elected officials and education advocates calling for a comprehensive plan from the district. “While the school district is already implementing an improvement plan, it’s not happening quickly enough for kids and parents who don’t have options, and for the first time in my experience, the money is there to get it done,” Parker said.

Parker: State should restore charter school reimbursements

The Philadelphia Board of Education is the sole authorizer of charter schools in the city. It has come under scrutiny concerning racial bias amid allegations from Black-led charter schools that board members have targeted them for closure.

Parker hasn’t said outright whether she wants the number of charter schools to grow, shrink, or stay the same. As a state representative, Parker signaled her support for a moratorium on new charter schools.

Parker said in her mayoral questionnaire responses that she would “insist” the state legislature reinstate the charter school reimbursement line item in the state budget that was removed by former Gov. Tom Corbett in 2011. The line item sent state funds to districts to compensate for “stranded costs” because some of their per-pupil state aid went to charters; about half the total went to the Philadelphia district.

Striking that line item “pitted public schools against charter schools unnecessarily by leaving public schools no way to defray the overhead and stranded costs that remained the same despite smaller enrollments,” Parker said in her questionnaire. “Reinstating this will grow the pot of funds and allow for more opportunity for Philadelphia’s students no matter what type of school they attend.”

Getting more librarians into schools

Philadelphia had the worst ratio of school librarians to students in the country as of 2020, according to data from the Pennsylvania Association of School Librarians. The association said there were just six school librarians in a district with more than 125,000 students and 215 district-operated schools.

Parker said she “would ensure that every district school has a certified librarian by drawing upon our funding streams and using my voice to amplify the need for them being more prevalent in our schools.”

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.

2023 election results: Democratic and Republican primary elections for Philadelphia mayor

2023-05-17T03:23:57+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free twice-weekly newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.

This post will be updated.

Cherelle Parker, a former City Councilmember and state representative, is poised to become Philadelphia’s first Black woman mayor after securing the Democratic nomination in Tuesday’s primary election.

The Associated Press called the election Tuesday night for Parker, who cleared a crowded Democratic primary race. Parker will face off against Republican nominee David Oh in November’s general election.

The race was tight. In the lead up to Election Day, public poll forecasts put the top five Democratic candidates within a few points of one another. Philadelphia is a deep-blue city — registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly seven to one — meaning whoever wins the Democratic primary has a significant upper hand in the fall’s general election.

Parker was seen by many as the establishment candidate. She garnered support from some of the most powerful labor unions in the city and ran on a campaign promise to be a dealmaker in Harrisburg and bring back more state funding for Philadelphia.

Her election could have big implications for Philadelphia schools. She’s said she wants to reform the much-maligned lottery admissions process for selective schools, and work toward year-round public schools and a longer school day.

Parker will challenge Oh, the only Republican candidate on the ballot Tuesday.

With 72% of expected votes counted, the unofficial election results are:

Democrats

Cherelle Parker 32.89% (53,906 votes)
Rebecca Rhynhart 22.33% (36,600 votes)
Helen Gym 20.65% (33,842 votes)
Allan Domb 12.16% (19,925 votes)
Jeff Brown 9.47% (15,528 votes)
Amen Brown 1.41% (2,317 votes)
James M. “Jimmy” DeLeon 0.60% (985 votes)
Delscia Gray 0.23% (382 votes)
Warren Bloom 0.19% (310 votes)

Republicans

David Oh 95.77% (10,584 votes)

While the mayor has no direct governing power over schools, the mayor does appoint the nine school Board of Education members who oversee all policy and budgetary decisions made by the district. The board is also the authorizer for all charter schools in Philadelphia.

The current board members’ terms will expire when Mayor Jim Kenney leaves office in January. That means whoever wins in November can choose to remake the board in its entirety, or keep some or all of the current members.

At a 9 p.m. press conference Tuesday, acting Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said there were “only a few minor and isolated issues” reported “sporadically” across the state at polling locations.

Schmidt said staff at the Department of State responded to an estimated 600 calls to their voter hotline, “which is lower than recent comparable municipal election cycles.”

“We know everyone wants to result of the election as soon as possible,” Schmidt said, “but counties must first make sure that every eligible ballot is accurately and securely counted.”

More than 186,000 voters cast ballots in the primary election Tuesday; 56,394 of those were mail-in ballots and 129,944 were cast at polling locations, per data from the Philadelphia City Commissioners’ office. There are 1,025,354 registered voters in the city.

Tuesday’s election results are unofficial until the Philadelphia City Commissioners, the office that oversees the city’s elections, certifies results 20 days after Election Day.

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.

From attendance to academics, two award-winning Philadelphia principals discuss how they lead

2023-04-24T19:37:30+00:00

Lillian Izzard grew up in the Philadelphia neighborhood around Edison/Fareira High School in a single-parent family with five siblings. As a high school student at a Catholic school in the 1980s, she watched the construction of Edison, grand and modern for its day, in awe.

A 33-year veteran of the school district, Izzard is now Edison’s principal. As hard as the assignment is — given that her students generally come from low-income backgrounds and must deal with issues including addiction and violence — Izzard couldn’t be happier. Since her appointment less than a year ago, she has helped create an equity coalition at the school and helped students build constructive social connections.

“I had always wanted to be here,” she said.

About a mile away, Amanda Jones works as the principal of Luis Muñoz-Marin Elementary School, a K-8 school that serves as a feeder school for Edison/Fareira. Jones, the daughter of educators who grew up in integrated, middle-class Mount Airy, graduated from Masterman High School and has worked at the school for 10 years, where she’s overseen improvements in test scores and prioritized attendance and student government.

“The people in this building bring me joy,” she said.

For their work, Izzard, Jones, and five other principals won the Lindback Award for Distinguished Principals, the district’s most prestigious honor for school leaders. Each award, which the district presented last week, comes with $20,000 for principals to use to improve their schools. The two educators relish the chance to build relationships with families and children, and provide places of potential and stability, in one of the most challenging areas of the city.

When the principal’s job at Edison opened up last year, Izzard was principal of Fels High School in the Lower Northeast, a place she could have “happily retired from,” she said. But although she was initially reluctant to change jobs, she felt the pull of her old neighborhood and the challenge of leading Edison.

The school, in a neighborhood plagued by poverty, drugs and violence, has an enrollment of around 850, there is so much transience that many of the many of the students who started the school year at Edison aren’t the ones who finish it. Nearly a quarter of the students don’t speak English as their first language, and a quarter receive special education services.

After getting the job, she spent a month in the summer alone in the building, she said, planning and strategizing before teachers and students returned.

“I came with a vision. This is a school in my neighborhood that services a lot of students who look like me,” said Izzard, who is of Puerto Rican descent. “I wanted to create opportunities for them I would have liked to have for myself if I was a student here.”

Among the changes she made right off the bat: She reintroduced Spanish classes for native speakers, as well as Honors Spanish. She also took steps to integrate special education students into school activities, including into its media center and instructional trips to the community.

And the equity coalition she formed brings together students, staff, and administration to address community issues by “identifying and providing resources and opportunities” for those “who have been denied such from racial or gender disparities.”

Another major change she made of a different kind was to require students, and staff, to put their cell phones inside Yondr bags, which prevent them from being used during the school day. Despite some early resistance, the move has changed the school’s atmosphere. Izzard said teachers have told her how students are now more engaged in the classroom.

At the same time, she plans to use the Lindback money to create a “multi-purpose space” where students can expand their social networks, and explore how their passion for video games and other online diversions can lead to jobs in esports and the gaming industry.

“After months where students were not able to socialize in person,” Izzard wrote in a statement for the Lindback judges, referring to the pandemic, “gaming showed that students benefited by improving their creativity, memory and teamwork.”

”While she is close to being eligible for retirement, she said, “I don’t think I’ll be going out next year. I want to really take the school as high as I can take it before turning it over to someone else.”

Leading a school turnaround effort

Jones arrived at Muñoz-Marin as a teacher in 2013. Three years later, she helped fend off an effort to convert the struggling school to a charter as part of the district’s turnaround strategy under the School Reform Commission. She became principal in 2020.

Instead, she helped lead an internal turnaround effort that saw improvements in math and reading scores among students who, like Edison’s, live in a poverty-stricken neighborhood plagued by gun violence and addiction.

“We got new teachers to join the staff and introduced a new curriculum,” she said. “And we got a lot of funding that we didn’t have before.”

As principal of Luis Muñoz-Marin Elementary School, Amanda Jones has overseen an improvement in test scores and has used various strategies to try to improve attendance.

The money paid for more teachers, including interventionists for reading and math, a climate manager, a behavioral specialist, an additional counselor, “and mental health supports we didn’t have before,” Jones said.

Jones hasn’t just hired new staff, but kept educators at the school. This year, the district started the school year with more than 200 vacancies, but Muñoz-Marin had only one.

But the challenges in the school, which enrolls around 500 students, are great. Many of the students miss big chunks of the school year as families go back to Puerto Rico for months at a time. “Attendance is something we’re struggling with,” she said.

She has created incentives to encourage more regular attendance, including a family barbecue for those who met targets.

In addition, Jones has established a student government in which only students with good attendance are eligible. The student officers “are able to make decisions” about important issues, she said, and hold town hall meetings once a week.

While Jones comes from a family of teachers, she studied Communications at Bloomsburg University, changing her career focus after working with single mothers one summer. She said her experience at the school has helped her understand the importance of creating connections with the Muñoz-Marin community.

“It’s kind of interesting to lead in the building where you started,” she said. “For example, my eighth graders that are graduating, I was their kindergarten teacher. So I am very strong at [building] ties, especially with the families, just because I’ve been here for so long.”

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 board approval of contracts worth $183 million prompts transparency debate

2023-04-21T19:31:43+00:00

Long after people had left the school district auditorium, Philadelphia’s school board voted Thursday night to approve roughly $183 million for vendor contracts, including $336,000 for a consulting group to improve the board’s communication with the public.

Those contracts covered school building repairs, IT and technology equipment, office supplies, preschool programs, and water and sewer systems.

For years, outspoken members of the public and some education advocates have demanded more transparency from the board when it comes to their appointments and deliberations. Now, with multiple schools closing due to damaged asbestos, and gun violence claiming the lives of 23 students and wounding another 84, the board’s public approach to these and other crucial issues could help determine whether Philadelphia’s next mayor reappoints some, all, or none of the board’s current members.

Not long after he took over the district last year, Superintendent Tony Watlington drew public ire when the board (at his request) hired a consulting firm for $450,000 to help with his transition and guide the creation of a long-term strategic plan for Philadelphia schools.

While the 54-item consent agenda ultimately passed with little debate, board members Lisa Salley and Cecelia Thompson raised concerns about the process behind the $336,000 communications contract with Public Consulting Group in particular.

Thompson said she “wasn’t even aware” that the board was going through a selection process for communications vendors.

“We dont keep minutes, there’s no written documentation on what occurs … there’s no accountability,” Thompson said. “That should be a public conversation, not this secret stuff.”

Salley noted that the district has often been accused of “lack of transparency.”

“Strategic communication in general is very poor for the board and the district as a whole,” Salley said.

Public Consulting Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez said the contracts went through the usual request for proposal process. Several people from the board and district reviewed multiple vendor contracts, and ultimately decided to move forward with the ones that appeared on the consent agenda.

“The process is not over, we are in this final step of work, collectively making a decision,” Fix-Lopez said before the vote. “That is what happens when we vote for an action item.”

Funding for the contracts approved Thursday night came from a variety of sources including operating and capital funding from last year and next year’s budget as well as federal and state grants.

Board President Reginald Streater said the board followed the district’s procurement process “to the tee.”

Board member Leticia Egea-Hinton defended the Public Consulting Group contract and said the board needs urgent “help” connecting to the school community. “I don’t think we can wait much longer,” she said.

But those comments came too late to mollify Lisa Haver, founder of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools and a frequent critic of the board’s transparency efforts. Speaking at Thursday’s board meeting during the public comment period, she blasted the communications spending, which included $881,500 for “customer service” with a group called K12 Insight, as well as the $336,000 contract.

She questioned why the district was spending such money “to assist professionals and board members to do what they were hired or appointed” to do.

The full list of contracts can be found on the board’s website. Among the approved items on the consent agenda were:

$8 million for technology equipment through the state’s COSTARS cooperative purchasing program.
$11 million for replacing roofs at several schools
$32 million for “office supplies.”
$3.5 million to amend a contract with The Home Depot for “cleaning and custodial supplies.”
$9.3 million in contracts with the city water department and Vicinity Energy for water services and steam heat.
$79 million in federal and state grants for prekindergarten programs at community-based partner sites.
$6 million for boiler repairs.
$12 million to extend contracts with vendors doing HVAC repairs.

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

Damaged asbestos closed three Philadelphia schools this year. More could be coming.

2023-04-17T16:06:22+00:00

As Philadelphia education leaders confront a growing asbestos crisis, they also face a conundrum: The more they do to discover the extent of the problem and address it, the greater the impact on students.

And meanwhile, frustrated parents are demanding the district show them a way forward.

“What will be the plan in the future when these types of things occur?” said Sheila Johnson, whose daughter attends Building 21, which abruptly closed in March after the district discovered flaking asbestos and hasn’t reopened. “[District leaders] have already stated that yes, there may be other schools affected by this because of the older buildings. So what are you going to do?”

The recent discovery by inspectors that asbestos was routinely used in plaster in school buildings, which was not previously assumed, creates risk that the material could eventually become dangerous. And the accuracy of previous inspection reports that marked buildings safe with respect to asbestos has now been thrown into serious question.

Last week, Frankford High School and Mitchell Elementary School also closed their buildings to remediate flaking asbestos in plaster walls and ceilings. In letters to parents, district officials and the building principals said that both schools will remain closed for the rest of the school year and likely into the summer.

Such closures have spurred fears that a series of building shutdowns is looming in the district, where students are still trying to recover from disruptions to in-person learning caused by COVID. There’s also been a dispute between city and district officials about whether the district has kept parents and others adequately informed about asbestos-related issues, which have posed problems in aging Philadelphia schools for years.

After officials shuttered Building 21 — a small high school located in a 100-year-old former elementary school — due to damaged asbestos, most Building 21 students have been learning virtually. A few have opted for in-person learning at Strawberry Mansion High School, which is six miles away.

That virtual learning has not worked for many students.

“My daughter is sinking like a ship,” Johnson said of her 11th grader. She said virtual learning for two years during the pandemic pushed her child into a depression and now, the majority of her high school career will have been remote.

‘Incomplete or inaccurate’ reports on asbestos in schools

Scientific research has shown that breathing in asbestos fibers can cause certain diseases and increase the risk of certain cancers, including lung cancer and mesothelioma.

Previous estimates have determined that approximately 80% of Philadelphia schools were built prior to 1978 and are likely to contain asbestos. It was commonly incorporated into floor tiles, pipe insulation, and some paint and cement roofing in school buildings constructed prior to the 1970s.

A district statement on Friday said of the 321 school buildings in the city, 295 district buildings “have asbestos-containing materials.”

Undisturbed asbestos is not harmful, and it is only considered dangerous when it begins to flake. But other infrastructure problems — failing roofs, leaky windows, or faulty boilers that release steam — can compromise asbestos. And the district has suffered from years if not decades of deferred maintenance on buildings that on average are more than 70 years old — all of which makes the discovery that asbestos is also in most plaster more concerning.

Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a statement on April 7 that “in the coming weeks and months, we continue to anticipate that more damaged asbestos will be identified.” But the district’s facilities plan doesn’t say what it will do if more schools are closed for extended periods.

The most recent federally mandated report posted for Building 21 is from 2018-19, and showed asbestos in plaster at various locations, including the auditorium ceiling, but not throughout the school.

But the discovery of the material in plaster in Building 21 set off alarm bells, and spurred the district to retest in Frankford and Mitchell, the district said.

The plaster in Building 21 was for years marked safe by inspectors on building reports. The district now says those records were “incomplete or inaccurate,” throwing into question decades of inspection data.

Watlington, who is coming up on his first anniversary as superintendent, is facing a daunting challenge: The more the district investigates, the more damaged asbestos it’s likely to find. That means more school closures and asbestos remediation for a district that is already billions of dollars in arrears when it comes to facilities repairs, upgrades, and maintenance.

And according to the district’s facilities plan released late last month, 29% of its facilities workforce positions were vacant.

But what matters to Sonja Grant, another parent of a Building 21 student, is that “there was no consideration of parents” when the school first closed.

Grant said she wanted to respond to a survey, speak to school leaders at a roundtable, or otherwise open a dialogue with her school and the district.

But Grant said “they did not respect us enough or care enough to give us an option or ask ‘what would you like to see?’ or ‘how would you like us to move forward?’”

Philadelphia district response targeted by politicians

Asbestos is not a new issue for the district. In 2019 alone, several Philadelphia schools were forced to close because of damaged asbestos. In 2020, the district settled with a teacher who contracted mesothelioma for $850,000. And students and teachers have perennially fought for remediation efforts to make their buildings safe.

The federal Asbestos Hazardous Emergency Response Act, or AHERA, requires asbestos inspections in schools every three years. The AHERA reports, which are posted on the district website, say “NAD” — no asbestos detected — for most plaster walls and ceilings in Mitchell, Frankford, and Building 21.

Michelle Whitmer, an asbestos expert at The Mesothelioma Center who has written about the issue in Philadelphia schools for years, said plaster containing asbestos is considered a more dangerous type of asbestos product because of its “friability.” That means it can be easily crushed into a powder, releasing the dangerous fibers into the air.

That the plaster was originally noted as not containing asbestos is worrying, she said.

“To me that suggests that they may have not done proper testing to identify what was actually inside the material,” Whitmer said.

According to a district presentation to the City Council last month, the school system has a three-year, $24.2 million contract with Tetra Tech, a consulting and engineering firm, “to support and restructure the District’s Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act management program.” Tetra Tech took over management of the AHERA inspection process last August.

AHERA reports show Tetra Tech managed the Mitchell building inspection last December. Its report says no asbestos was detected in plaster walls and ceilings at the time. Investigators did detect asbestos in some floor tiles, pipe insulation and other areas.

Tetra Tech did not respond to several requests for comment.

In an April 7 statement, the district said identifying the problem is necessary and finding damaged asbestos is evidence of success.

“This is not an indication of the program failing, but rather the program is working to protect health and safety through the identification and management of environmental concerns,” the district said.

The statement also noted that the oldest buildings tend to have the most plaster, and that these buildings “have been prioritized in this plaster review.”

For some, that position represents an improvement in Philadelphia schools. Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said Watlington is being more “transparent” than leaders have in the past.

“So much over the years, has been swept under the rug,” Jordan said in an interview. “The buildings have been neglected forever. And I know that that sounds like an exaggeration, but it really isn’t.”

Monique Braxton, a district spokesperson, declined to answer specific questions about long-term plans regarding asbestos removal and school closure.

But other power players in the city say the district has fallen short. Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, a Frankford graduate, has suggested the city might withhold district funding until it shares a detailed asbestos plan, and cautioned that the district’s response could impact its state funding. And mayoral candidate Helen Gym blasted the district for “being reactive” instead of prepared.

“‘I’m just disappointed with the district in their handling of our children’s education,” said Johnson, the Building 21 parent.

Billions needed to address failing infrastructure in schools

The danger from asbestos in schools across the country continues to cause concern in the federal government and elsewhere. In recent years, there has been exposed asbestos in schools in cities like Chicago, New Orleans, and Berkeley, Calif.

In an interview, Mayor Jim Kenney said he was “disappointed” that the district had not alerted city officials earlier to the scope of the problem. “I wish we had known about this sooner,” he said.

But he added that the city is ready to help.

“I’m not an expert on asbestos, but we’ll do whatever we can to get these schools back online,” he said, which could include enlisting members of the construction trades to help with asbestos removal and abatement.

The district estimates that $4.5 billion is “required to address building systems that are either failing, damaged or beyond their service life.” Facilities reports say an additional $430 million is also needed to “address health hazards, risks, and life safety deficiencies.”

But regardless of what the district does next, parents like Johnson and Grant say they need to be at the table.

“We are rational people,” Grant said. “We want results and we want to be heard.”

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.

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Where Philadelphia mayoral candidates stand on education issues: an election guide

2023-04-13T18:05:33+00:00

Update: View the 2023 Philadelphia primary election results

There are 10 candidates running for mayor of Philadelphia — a city with aging, asbestos-laden school buildings, serious budgetary needs, stubbornly low test scores, and a gun violence epidemic that has already cost the lives of 20 students and injured 100 this school year.

The mayor has no direct control over the schools, but does have the power to appoint the nine school board members. The current board members’ terms will expire when Mayor Jim Kenney leaves office, meaning that whoever takes office in January can remake the board from scratch, or can keep some or all of the current members.

While education has not been a major issue in the race, public safety, with a focus on youth and their families, has been high on voters’ minds.

Some differences have emerged among the candidates on key education issues, including charter school expansion, whether the district should get a larger share of city property taxes, and to what degree the mayor will seek to shake up the board and impact school policy.

The degree of mayoral control over the education in the city has fluctuated over the past decades and is now at its highest point.

From the 1950s to the 1990s, the terms of mayoral appointees to the nine-member board were staggered to minimize the power of any one mayor. In 2001, the state took over Philadelphia schools, citing fiscal and academic disarray, and installed a five-member School Reform Commission, with three members appointed by the governor and two by the mayor. In 2018, the commission disbanded and the Philadelphia Board of Education resumed control over city schools.

To better understand each candidate’s views on key issues, Chalkbeat Philadelphia asked them 10 questions about education, including several questions submitted by Chalkbeat readers. Six of the candidates responded.

Here’s what they said, in their own words.

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.

This article is a part of Every Voice, Every Vote, a collaborative project managed by The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Lead support is provided by the William Penn Foundation with additional funding from The Lenfest Institute, Peter and Judy Leone, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Harriet and Larry Weiss, and the Wyncote Foundation, among others. To learn more about the project and view a full list of supporters, visit www.everyvoice-everyvote.org. Editorial content is created independently of the project’s donors.

Philadelphia school board seeking student applicants for advisory positions

2023-04-04T21:34:52+00:00

Attention ninth and 10th graders in Philadelphia district-run and charter schools: If you would like to be an advisory member of the Philadelphia Board of Education, you can apply between now and April 28.

For next school year, the board is making changes to its requirements for its non-voting student advisory members. Instead of seniors, it wants sophomores and juniors. And in addition to the two members, the school board plans to appoint an alternate.

The Home Rule Charter requires that the nine- member board have at least one student advisory member, but since 2018, it has had two.

The student members provide the board feedback about a variety of issues through regular reports, said Sarah-Ashley Andrews, the board’s liaison to the student advisory members. Each year, the student members have a different focus, from mental health to advocacy for more school funding. This past year, they participated in the superintendent selection process.

This year, the board is also making a special outreach to students at charter schools to apply.

“We are hoping one of the three spots goes to a charter student,” said Shakyra Greene, program manager for the board. “Charters are one third of the district, and it’s important they participate and have their voices heard.”

Of the more than 197,000 students who attend publicly funded schools in the city, some 64,500 are in brick-and-mortar charters, and another 13,000 are in cyber charters. Since 2018, only one student advisory board member has been from a charter school. (The five-member School Reform Commission, which governed the district between 2001 and 2018, never had student advisory members.)

Applicants need to have at least a 2.5 grade point average and “be actively involved in their school community,” according to the application.

The board is seeking sophomores and juniors to serve on the board next year “because we found seniors to be focused on the next stage for their lives,” Andrews said. “We don’t want that to be a deterrence and want them to enjoy their senior year.”

The current student board member is Sophia Roach, who attends the High School of the Creative and Performing Arts and is the editor-in-chief of the citywide student publication, The Bullhorn.

The board decided to add an alternate member because this year’s other student member, Love Speech, left the position for personal reasons. It’s the first time that has happened since 2018.

The addition of an alternate is “to make sure somebody is in place if one member” leaves, Andrews said. The alternate member will go through the same orientation process as the two others, and will be asked to attend all the board meetings, at least remotely.

At the March board meeting, Central High School student Jeron Williams II chastised the board for leaving Speech’s seat open.

“From day one, there was no plan to fill Love’s seat. The board has yet again shortchanged our students,” Williams II said.

Greene said that between 30 and 80 students have applied for the position in each of the past five years, and that the number has dipped post-pandemic. “The first few years, it hovered around the 70-80 mark, and we hope this year to get the numbers back up,” she said.

Student applicants for the positions are vetted through a committee that includes representatives from various youth advocacy groups including the Philadelphia Student Union, the Philadelphia Youth Commission, and UrbEd, as well as the mayor’s Office of Youth Engagement. These and other groups forward five finalists to the superintendent, who then chooses the members and the alternate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keeping a human element in school admissions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Video by WHYY Movers & Makers.

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

Schools need more money, Philadelphia school board tells mayoral candidates

2023-03-20T22:04:27+00:00

The Philadelphia Board of Education Monday is asking the next mayor to commit to a big increase in the school district’s annual funding, and to provide additional help in upgrading and repairing school facilities.

In an open letter released Monday, the board also asks for the city to devote more of its resources to addressing gun violence and helping the district to recruit and retain staff.

The letter is unusual in that the board members, who are appointed by the mayor, are publicly addressing political candidates to air their concerns about the district budget and other matters so close to an election. Generally, they make their budget case during a city council hearing in May.

The new mayor will have the ability to remake the nine-member board from scratch after taking office. City officials and others recently publicly accused Superintendent Tony Watlington of not being transparent about problems with school building safety, and threatened to withhold district funding.

Philadelphia is “the only school district in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that cannot raise its own taxes, and the district is completely dependent on our local and state elected officials to provide the resources necessary to ensure that every student in the city has access to a quality public education,” said the letter, which was signed by board President Reginald Streater.

In the letter, Streater said the board wants the city’s future leaders to commit to increasing the district’s annual local funding by $318 million within the next four years. Streater said this increase would help the district meet an estimate from the Public Interest Law Center and the Education Law Center that it needs to increase total spending by more than $1.1 billion annually “to meet the educational needs of our learners.”

The city contributes about $1.7 billion to the district’s roughly $4 billion current operating budget. Most of the city’s contribution comes from property and other taxes earmarked for the district, and some is through a special grant which this fiscal year amounts to nearly $270 million.

Philadelphia school officials used the $1.1 billion figure when testifying for the plaintiffs in a historic lawsuit challenging the state’s current funding system, which results in wide spending disparities among districts. Last month, Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer ruled the system unconstitutional and ordered an overhaul.

There are just under 200,000 students in Philadelphia’s 329 district-run, charter, and alternative schools.

“We are calling on city officials to balance the needs of our students with the needs of residents,” Streater said in the letter.

The party primaries in this year’s mayoral and city council races take place May 16.

The board’s letter comes shortly after the district was forced to close two high schools — Building 21 and Simon Gratz — within the past month due to the discovery of flaking asbestos.

While the letter doesn’t include a specific ask for facilities help, Streater cited a 2017 study estimating that the district has $4.5 billion in deferred maintenance costs and that “85 of our buildings should be considered for renovation, and 21 buildings should be considered for closure and replacement.”

On gun violence and student safety, Streater asked the city to increase safe corridors around schools, beef up libraries and recreation centers, enforce gun laws (especially as they relate to firearms possession by minors), and expand mental health services.

To recruit and retain more teachers, Streated suggested creating street parking around schools for staff, underwriting SEPTA passes for public transit commuters, and measures including loan forgiveness, housing vouchers, and other incentives for city residents who work in schools.

Two mayoral forums on education are scheduled for this week, one at the Free Library Tuesday evening, and another sponsored by the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators on Wednesday.

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 students press governor on his school safety proposal to hire more police

2023-03-15T22:04:00+00:00

Josh Shapiro, in his first visit to a Philadelphia public school since becoming governor in January, touted his plan to address Pennsylvania’s teacher shortage and said his proposed budget would make a historic investment in education.

In a two-hour visit Wednesday morning to Carver High School of Engineering and Science in North Philadelphia, Shapiro highlighted his plan to use tax credits to encourage more teachers to enter and remain in the profession. He also spent a good deal of his time engaging with students, who weren’t afraid to challenge him on his safety plan to hire more police officers.

Wednesday’s visit is part of Shapiro’s statewide tour to sell his big-picture policy and budget priorities, but the students wanted to talk about safety. In Philadelphia, 78 school district students have been shot this academic year, 17 of them fatally. Carver is in North Philadelphia, one of the neighborhoods most impacted by gun violence.

Shapiro, a Democrat, visited teacher Ian Doreian’s classroom, where 12th graders were mentoring ninth graders through the Peer Group Connection program. He told the students he thinks one solution for gun violence is to increase law enforcement’s presence in their neighborhoods and schools — a strategy used recently by Superintendent Tony Watlington.

But Black students in the room were skeptical about that idea.

“I feel like the issue isn’t to hire more police officers,” said Maniyah Jackson, a ninth grader. “A lot of these police officers, they go through training, but when they step on the street, they forget all their training and base their authority on their emotions instead of sticking to what they’re supposed to do for our community.”

“I feel more safe with a firefighter than I do with police officers,” 12th grader Taniya Son also told Shapiro. “There’s been incidents where it’s like, they’ve been so aggressive towards us for no reason.”

Shapiro said, “I’m sensitive to that … I look the way I do and I don’t necessarily feel that way.”

He thanked the students for their forthrightness and honesty. “That’s a hard thing to speak up and say to the governor,” he said.

He even suggested legislation mandating more comprehensive training of police officers and beefing up after-school programs in community spaces, including firehouses. “I’ll call it Taniya’s Law,” he said.

Shortly after his meeting with the students, a press release from Shapiro’s office noted the governor is heading to Lackawanna College Police Academy in Scranton on Thursday to discuss his proposal to recruit more police officers in the state.

Shapiro was joined at the school by Board of Education President Reginald Streater, Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez, Watlington, and other district officials. City Council President Darrell Clarke, state Rep. Donna Bullock, and state Sens. Sharif Street and Vincent Hughes also attended. Mayor Jim Kenney made an appearance but didn’t make public remarks.

Shapiro’s proposed budget includes a refundable tax credit of up to $2,500 annually for up to three years for newly certified Pennsylvania teachers, including those just graduating with their certifications and those who relocate from other states.

In total, Shapiro said his budget includes $24.7 million in “job retention and recruitment efforts” for teachers, nurses, and law enforcement personnel.

Pennsylvania is suffering from a major teacher shortage. A decade ago, 20,000 people annually earned their teaching certifications. That number dropped to 6,000 in 2022. Philadelphia opened the school year with more than 200 teacher vacancies, and last month the school board approved more than 100 teacher resignations and retirements, most of them since September.

Shapiro’s proposed budget adds more than $1 billion to education programs. It increases the state’s basic education subsidy by $567 million, but also sets aside additional money for specific needs, including mental health counselors and infrastructure improvement.

Shapiro said his proposal would be a “down payment on the future of education.”

“When I spoke in my budget address, I made clear that this will not happen overnight,” Shapiro said, adding later that “we would have to work on this over two budget cycles.”

When he unveiled his budget earlier this month, Shapiro tied it directly to a historic ruling last month in a landmark school funding case from Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer. In that ruling, Jubelirer said the Commonwealth’s system for funding education is unconstitutional because it is neither adequate in total or equitably distributed. Jubelirer ordered state officials to revamp the system.

Shapiro said that “by all indications there are no plans” from Republican legislative leaders to appeal Jubelirer’s ruling. A spokesman for House Republican leadership said Wednesday that while GOP lawmakers are not focused on appealing the ruling at the moment, “post-trial motions have been briefed and filed. No final decision can be made on an appeal until we see the results of those motions.”

Other officials, including Hughes, have called for an even larger investment in education than Shapiro. With the governor standing next to him, Hughes called Shapiro’s proposal “a great start.”

When speaking to students in Doreian’s classroom, Shapiro recounted his own journey to them. Originally, he wanted to be a doctor, like his father, but he flunked a test in his pre-med program — on the same day he was cut from the basketball team. He became a lawyer and politician instead because that was also an avenue to “help people,” he told them.

“Don’t be afraid to strike out, like I did,” he said.

Jacky Wang, a 12th grader, asked Shapiro a question on many people’s minds: whether he has aspirations for higher office.

Shapiro smiled and said, “This is all I’m focused on.”

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 officials blast schools chief over asbestos woes, threaten to withhold funding

2023-03-13T23:38:15+00:00

Philadelphia officials blasted Superintendent Tony Watlington Monday for not keeping them fully informed about the scope of the asbestos problem in school buildings, and vowed to withhold education funds until they get a more detailed action plan from the district.

“We shouldn’t have to fight, but unfortunately, this is the hand that we’ve been dealt right now,” said Isaiah Thomas, chair of the City Council’s committee on children and youth, during a press conference attended by city, state, and teachers union officials.

Thomas’ remarks came after Building 21, a small high school located in a 100-year-old former elementary school, was closed earlier this month after a routine inspection found crumbling asbestos in parts of the auditorium and two stairwells. In addition, Simon Gratz High School, a charter school operated by Mastery that is also located in a century-old district building, was shut down Thursday and Friday after loose asbestos was discovered.

The two closures underscore the poor conditions in many of Philadelphia’s school buildings; the average age of the district’s school buildings is roughly 75 years. A comprehensive facilities study undertaken by the district in 2017 estimated that updating and repairing all its buildings would cost close to $5 billion.

Though Watlington has promised to update the facilities plan to address such problems, advocates and city leaders are demanding he release it sooner rather than later. Last fall, Watlington said he would “pause” his facilities review until after his strategic plan to make Philadelphia the “fastest improving large urban school district” in the country is enacted.

The district receives about $1.4 billion from the city in its current budget.

In a letter to state representatives last week, Thomas said the asbestos problem in the city’s schools is “urgent” and requested $2.5 billion over five years to make schools “safe and healthy.”

On Monday, Thomas also referred to a letter that Watlington sent to parents last week saying that the district’s Office of Environmental Management Services found that in Building 21, “records indicate asbestos damage has existed in the auditorium since June 2021, and possibly longer.”

A Facilities Condition Assessment filed in 2022 for Kinsey Elementary School, which Building 21 now occupies, notes the presence of asbestos in several locations.

Thomas said that the council has “asked for a plan” from the district, but has not received one.

“We’re gonna fight the fight that we need to be able to get the resources and ensure that they’re implemented in the way that’s in the best interest of our children, our staff and all stakeholders involved,” Thomas said, although he added that his comments represented “just the first conversation” with the district in budget negotiations.

In a Monday statement responding to Thomas’ remarks, Board of Education President Reginald Streater noted that the district had committed $325 million in federal stimulus funding over four years to “major projects and renovations, including new construction projects.” Over the next six years, he said, the district had planned capital investments totaling $2 billion.

Streater also said that its 2017 facilities study concluded that 85 buildings need renovation and 21 should be replaced.

“I submit that the Board has not sat on its hands, but has been good stewards of public funding and has made capital and environmental improvements a priority – and will continue to do so,” he said, adding that the situation must be addressed through a “collaborative” process.

The board of education, whose nine members are appointed by the mayor, cannot raise tax dollars on its own, and is dependent on the state and city governments for its roughly $4 billion operating budget. The council typically holds budget hearings in April and May. Gov. Josh Shapiro is asking for $500 million over five years for school building repairs statewide in his 2023-24 budget for the entire state.

Last week, Building 21 students were relocated to Strawberry Mansion High School nearly six miles away, but few students showed up. While repairs continue, the Building 21 students are now learning virtually. District spokesperson Monique Braxton said that families would be updated Tuesday on when the school might reopen.

Thomas noted that the district spent millions to upgrade Strawberry Mansion — which can hold more than 1,700 students but now has an enrollment of less than 300 — so it could be used as a “swing” space when other buildings are being repaired. But he said this move was “reactionary” and not the product of a forward-looking plan for the district’s buildings.

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 schools pushed to reopen Sayre pool to provide children a safe community space

2023-03-10T21:06:58+00:00

The stalled reopening of a West Philadelphia pool is at the center of a contentious debate over pool access for Black and brown children as summer approaches.

Tensions ran high at the Philadelphia school board’s Feb. 23 meeting when community and school board members clashed over a bogged-down plan to reopen the pool at the Sayre Morris Recreation Center.

Neighborhood residents argue that the pool, which closed in 2017 for repairs, needs to reopen as soon as possible. Knowing how to swim gives young people a sense of confidence that goes beyond the pool, they say. And in addition to providing teens with summer job opportunities, the pool offers children a place to safely congregate and be part of a strong community institution. Such concerns are top of mind for many in Philadelphia at a time when gun violence is plaguing the city and having an especially traumatic impact on the city’s youth.

Board members — who a year ago voted down a plan that would have authorized $10 million to repair the pool — said there are still bureaucratic and financial obstacles to deal with before the facility can reopen.

“It’s just a back-and-forth mess,” said Kristen Britt, president of the Sayre Rec Advisory Council, which works with the city to support the recreation center where the pool is located.

Among other things, kids who swim also have better mental health and do better in school, Britt noted. Reopening the pool would help address issues — such as mental health and attendance — that are priorities for the district, she said in an interview. Sayre’s closure has also affected summer jobs for neighborhood teens, she said, as its Olympic-size pool has historically been used to train lifeguards.

Meanwhile, Sayre and two other district-owned pools in majority-Black Philadelphia neighborhoods remain closed.

While the district owns the pools, the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation manages them. The city and the school board are working on a memorandum of understanding to spell out their joint and separate responsibilities regarding the Sayre pool.

City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier told Chalkbeat she’s worked with Mayor Jim Kenney and state Rep. Joanna McClinton to raise about half the funding needed — estimated to be between $8 million and $12 million — to repair and reopen Sayre.

School board member Mallory Fix Lopez said in an email to Chalkbeat that the board is committed to enrichment activities, including athletics and extracurricular programs. But she added that “for every spend we make, there is another need that goes unmet.”

At the Feb. 23 meeting, she said that the situation with the pool is in a “holding pattern.”

Sayre, which opened in 1966, is one of the city’s few indoor pools and the only one easily accessible from North and West Philadelphia, where many children of color live. The district-owned Lincoln Pool, in Northeast Philadelphia — a primarily white neighborhood — is open, but it’s on the opposite side of the city from Sayre.

Philadelphia, like the rest of the country, has a long history of racial discrimination when it comes to water access. (“Pool: A Social History of Segregation,” an exhibition focusing on “the nation’s handling of race as it relates to public schools,” opens at the Philadelphia Water Works on March 22.)

“We want to make sure that in each end of the city there is the opportunity for Black and

brown children to learn how to swim, and provide a safe space,” Britt said. Without that, she said, they can’t get summer lifeguarding work and other jobs that might ultimately help them get into college.

Martha Ankely, a veteran lifeguard and swimming instructor in Philadelphia, said that ensuring access to pools for children helps them get over their fear of water, which can be “debilitating in a lot of ways.” What’s more, she said, “knowing that you’re able to manage in a different environment can help you cope with managing the everyday environment.”

City pools, which provide free swimming lessons, are important for more than just

recreation, Parks and Recreation spokesman Andrew Alter said in an email to Chalkbeat. “Knowing how to swim is a safety precaution that can save your life,” he said.

What’s more, the Sayre pool is “a historic community asset,” Gauthier noted. “It was a place where children from the Cobbs Creek community and their families would go to

swim, or learn how to swim, and that’s been taken away,” she said.

Fix Lopez said that when the school board voted down a renovation plan for Sayre last year, the district asked for a memorandum of understanding from the city to include plans for operations as well as long-term funding. For now, the board is in a “holding pattern,” she said at the meeting.

Gauthier said she’s “hopeful” an agreement can be reached this spring to reopen Sayre.

Superintendent Tony Watlington wants to implement a plan to look at all school facilities, including pools, Fix Lopez noted in her email to Chalkbeat. (Watlington paused that facilities plan late last year to align it with the district’s upcoming five-year strategic plan.) She also said that Sayre’s situation is a prime opportunity for the public to learn about “how interwoven and complicated these systems are to work through.”

“I think it’s fair to say we all value the benefits that Sayre could bring to the community,”

Fix Lopez said in the email. “We have heard how much this pool means to the community.”

Philadelphia mayoral hopefuls must prioritize children’s needs and educator pay, coalition says

2023-02-28T23:30:24+00:00

A coalition of 61 groups is trying to focus Philadelphia’s mayoral campaign on issues that impact youth, children, and education.

The coalition, called the Kids Campaign, is prodding the candidates to explain in detail how they would achieve a series of objectives. These include attracting teachers to the city by increasing starting salaries, making summer jobs available for all teens, and providing more affordable, high-quality early childhood education seats.

At its launch event Tuesday, the group released the first six of what will be a dozen policy papers that represent the Kids Campaign’s platform. They have titles like “No child in Philadelphia should go hungry or live in poverty,” and “Philadelphia must contribute to solving the climate crisis to ensure a thriving future for our kids.”

For example: To attract more teachers, the group in its policy papers says the district should increase starting salaries, reduce class sizes, and build affordable housing for teachers, among other actions.

The group has sent its platform — the product of extensive research and filled with facts and policy proposals — to the 10 Democrats and one Republican running for mayor. Eight have responded that they are in agreement with the goals, said Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First, a major organizer of the campaign.

But that initial agreement is just a start. Cooper said the organization will be briefing the candidates on their findings, and is expecting responses by March 20 to a detailed questionnaire asking them to describe their strategies to address problems.

“It’s one thing to support the platform and another to say how you will achieve it,” said Cooper. “And that’s really going to be the test for us, whether candidates are serious about supporting the needs of kids.”

The primary is May 16, and winning the Democratic primary is considered tantamount to winning the general election. Democrats have an eight-to-one registration advantage in the city. There’s no clear front-runner in the crowded field to replace Mayor Jim Kenney, whose term expires at the end of this year.

On early childhood education, the group found that 43% of children in the city don’t have access to any publicly funded pre-K, and only 36% are currently in programs considered high quality.

Among the coalition’s policy proposals to deal with that is to set a minimum wage of $17.53 an hour for people working in PHLPreK, one of four Philadelphai subsidized early childhood programs and the only one fully funded by the city. (The program is funded by a tax on sugary beverages that some candidates oppose.)

The group also wants changes to the juvenile justice system to make it more “restorative” and less punitive. As part of that, it wants the next mayor to “direct school board members” to reform how it deals with truancy, especially by addressing “the reasons youth are failing to attend school.” The mayor appoints all nine board members.

According to the coalition’s research, 64% of youth who are in detention are there for non-felony offenses and 71% for a first offense.

“Placing them in institutions doesn’t deter them, it derails them,” said Sharon Ward of the Education Law Center, a member of the coalition. “They disengage from education, quickly fall behind, and are more likely to drop out.”

Plus, she said, there are widespread racial disparities in how the system treats juveniles who have gotten into trouble. Black students are much more likely to be removed from their homes, and Philadelphia, with about 12% of Pennsylvania’s population, accounts for 41% of the juvenile placements in the state.

Among the Kids Campaign’s recommendations is to direct the Department of Human Services to create alternatives to incarceration that are “rehabilitative and restorative.” The coalition also wants “reduce the presence” of school safety officers “so that youth are not likely to be adjudicated for school infractions.”

In December, Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington announced that the district would pay for an increased presence of city police officers near some school buildings. The move was part of his response to ongoing and acute concerns about student safety, amid a gun-violence crisis afflicting the city’s young people.

Cooper, who served as Ed Rendell’s policy chief when he was Philadelphia’s mayor and Pennsylvania’s governor, added that “every day, more parents are signing up to join” the Kids Campaign, and that she expects the coalition to make a difference.

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.

These are the 9 candidates for Philadelphia mayor and their track records in education

2023-02-01T12:00:00+00:00

Nine candidates are running in the May 16 primary to replace Mayor Jim Kenney — and whoever is elected will have a strong influence over Philadelphia schools.

The mayor has the authority to appoint all nine members of the school board to four-year terms, so could theoretically remake the board from scratch. Along with the City Council, the mayor determines the city’s contribution to the school district’s budget and whether tax hikes are needed to increase that amount.

The issues facing the district right now are daunting. Test scores took a hit during the pandemic. Gun violence and lingering mental health concerns impact student learning. Teacher shortages have grown acute. Questions about how to handle charter schools, especially whether to close those that are underperforming or that engage in practices that raise conflict-of-interest questions, remain a point of contention.

All nine of the candidates are Democrats. In Philadelphia, where 80% of registered voters are Democrats, winning the primary is tantamount to election.

Here’s more about each candidate and what we know about their education records. Please fill out the callout below to let us know what you’d like us to ask each candidate for our upcoming voter guide before the primary.

Warren Bloom

Rev. Warren Bloom Sr.

Rev. Warren Bloom Sr.’s campaign website lists his experience as committeeman, minister, family business owner, musician, and activist. He’s run for office before, including in 2019 for mayor and city commissioner.

Bloom’s website lists “strong public schools” and “excellence for teaching and learning” as two of the issues he is “passionate about and will fight for.” His campaign also has a GoFundMe page that says he has a six-point plan for the city that includes “improving education.”

In 1992, Bloom was convicted of indecent assault, simple assault, and corrupting a minor, according to the news website Billy Penn, citing court records. (He said later that he pleaded no contest to the charges because he didn’t want to put the minor through any more emotional stress.)

Amen Brown

State Rep. Amen Brown operated day care centers and after-school programs in Philadelphia, where he was born and raised, before being elected to the House in November 2020.

He is a product of the Philadelphia public school system, and attended Community College of Philadelphia after graduating from Overbrook High School.

Brown, whose district includes parts of West Philadelphia, lists funding for education as a legislative priority. He sits on the Aging & Older Adult Services and Urban Affairs committees, as well as the Pennsylvania legislative Black Caucus.

He was the only House Democrat to vote for a bill that would have created an education choice program for students at some low-performing public schools, though he ultimately switched his vote, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Brown has also reportedly received campaign contributions from groups linked to Jeffrey Yass, a billionaire and supporter of charter schools.

According to the Inquirer, Brown’s businesses have faced accusations of financial and legal improprieties over the past decade, including thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes racked up by his day care centers.

Jeff Brown

Grocery-store operator Jeff Brown is new to politics. A fourth-generation grocer, he owns and operates 11 ShopRite stores in historically underserved Philadelphia neighborhoods. Brown said he opened the stores in these “food deserts” as a way of addressing poverty.

Brown told the Inquirer he wants to shake up “the City Hall establishment,” which he said was “nonresponsive” to the city’s problems.

On his campaign website, Brown says the “lack of equity” in city public schools is a critical issue for Philadelphia.

“Parents should not have to leave the city to find quality public education for their children,” Brown says on his website. “And they shouldn’t have to fight for the few slots in magnet schools.”

Brown is also appealing to unions by touting his experience negotiating with ShopRite unions and pledging to address staffing issues in the city’s workforce, including police. He has been endorsed by the city’s largest union, AFSCME District Council 33, as well as the union representing transit workers. A United Food and Commercial Workers local official endorsed him at his campaign launch.

James DeLeon

James DeLeon was a Philadelphia Municipal Court judge for 34 years. His volunteer experience includes working with kids as a swimming teacher, track and field official, debate coach, and Police Athletic League board member.

DeLeon hasn’t put forward an education platform, though his plan to address gun violence includes establishing a system to coordinate city resources and address the “root causes” of the problem, including gathering input from the school district.

Allan Domb

Real estate developer and former City Council member Allan Domb has cited the need for financial literacy classes and investment in schools.

Domb owns more than 400 properties in Philadelphia worth more than $400 million, according to the Inquirer. As a council member, he focused on fiscal issues including business tax cuts and tax refunds for low-income workers, and campaigned on a promise to fund city schools by collecting taxes from out-of-state property owners, according to Billy Penn.

Domb’s campaign website includes a “10-point action plan on public safety” listing actions he’d take in his first 100 days in office. Those range from declaring a “crime emergency” and tripling funding for police officer recruitment, to installing cameras in every high school and working with school leaders.

Domb resigned his City Council seat to run for mayor, and has said that if elected he would avoid conflicts of interest with his real estate investments.

Derek Green

A Mount Airy resident, Green is a former prosecutor and served in the city attorney’s office (as well as an assistant deputy attorney general for the state of Delaware). He was elected to be an at-large member of Philadelphia City Council in 2015. Earlier in his career, he had worked as a council staffer for Marian Tasco, who represented the 9th District.

On education, he said he draws on his personal and legislative experience. Green’s mother taught for 31 years in the school district and he often describes himself as “a teacher’s kid.”

Green has a son on the autism spectrum. Green said their neighborhood public school developed a robust special education program partly due to advocacy by him and his wife. The school now has several autism support classes.

Both his mother and his son were affected by asbestos exposure, he said, and he sponsored legislation that updated the city code on asbestos inspections and remediation in school buildings. In an interview with Chalkbeat, he said that he is still concerned about the district’s efforts in that area. He said he would appoint Board of Education members who have personal experience with the district and will “listen to parents, guardians, and caregivers” about their day-to-day concerns — from building safety to curriculum development to whether school buses run on time.

He said the major issue in the mayoral race, public safety, is tied to education, citing shootings and other incidents involving students in or near school buildings. About these and other issues, growing homelessness among young people, he said, “we could be using schools more effectively to address” them. He suggested the city and district should work more closely on bringing behavioral health services to students and on other programs directed to youth.

Helen Gym

Gym launched her public career as an activist and organizer, and has been a prominent watchdog of the school district and its leadership for nearly three decades.

Gym once worked as a teacher at the Lowell Elementary School in Olney. A mother of three, she helped found the Public School Notebook in 1994, which reported on the district from a community perspective (and which in 2020 became the Philadelphia bureau of Chalkbeat).

Her public profile grew with her resistance to the state takeover of the district in 2002. Gym cofounded Parents United for Public Education in 2006, and became a fixture in city politics by challenging School Reform Commission members at their meetings. She lambasted the commission and district administration for eliminating nurses and counselors during a budget crunch, and for canceling the teachers contract. And she went to Harrisburg to protest for more education funding.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has endorsed her in the race. So has the left-leaning Working Families Party, which helped propel her and fellow progressive Kendra Brooks to their council seats.

She was a leading backer of returning the district to local control. She’s also been outspoken about the district’s asbestos abatement efforts and response to other environmental hazards in schools. As a council member, she successfully pushed legislation requiring the district to eliminate water fountains and install lead-filtering hydration stations in all schools by 2025.

Gym is an opponent of how charter schools are funded under state law, and opposes the ability of charters that are run by for-profit entities to operate in Pennsylvania. She is a co-founder of Folk Arts Cultural Treasures Charter School (FACTS) in Chinatown, run by the non-profit Asian Americans United.

Gym won an at-large seat on the City Council in 2015 and was re-elected in 2019. She has been a vocal opponent of various development proposals in or near Chinatown.

Cherelle Parker

Cherelle Parker was born to a teenage single mother and was largely raised by her grandparents in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia. She attended Philadelphia public schools, and came to the attention of 9th District city council member Marian Tasco when she won a high school oratory contest. She interned in Tasco’s office.

In 2015, she was elected to succeed Tasco in the 9th District in the northwest part of the city. Before that, she spent 10 years in the General Assembly, in 2005 becoming the youngest African American woman elected to that body.

Parker’s first job out of college was as a high school English teacher, and she has also taught English as a second language to adults. In her campaign materials, she talks about bridging the wealth divide in Philadelphia, the nation’s poorest big city, and “building a first class modern education system.” She has advocated for more funds for education from both the city and the state. In Harrisburg, she sponsored legislation that allowed Philadelphia to enact a $2-a-pack cigarette tax to raise money for Philadelphia schools.

Her campaign spokesperson said she would release more detailed proposals on education in February.

María Quiñones-Sánchez

Maria Quiñones-Sánchez

Maria Quiñones-Sánchez is a self-described “pragmatic progressive” who began her political involvement in high school. Born in Puerto Rico, she moved with her family to Philadelphia at 6 months old and was raised in public housing primarily by her mother, who worked in a factory.

In 2007, she became the first Puerto Rican woman elected to the City Council. During her term, she chaired the education committee and the committee on appropriations. She fought for more school funding and was active during the height of the COVID pandemic in getting school buildings opened as hubs for community resources. She also lobbied to create the School Building Authority to help the superintendent and board assess the district’s construction and maintenance needs, and urged an overhaul of the district’s school feeder patterns to better reflect changing neighborhoods, among other initiatives.

In outlining a detailed education vision for 2030, Quiñones-Sánchez calls for a review of the city’s early education services, which includes public and private options, and wants to make Community College of Philadelphia free to all students.

She founded the city’s first bilingual charter school, Eugenio Maria de Hostos.

As a student, Quiñones-Sánchez attended Girls High School and Jules E. Mastbaum High School in Philadelphia, where she joined ASPIRA, an advocacy group focusing the education and development of Latinx youth.

Rebecca Rhynhart

Rhynhart won an upset victory five years ago over Alan Butkovitz to claim the city controller’s job, becoming the first woman in that position. She ran as an outsider and a reformer bucking the Democratic machine. Her TV ads promised to clean up an inefficient and corrupt government. She easily won re-election in 2021.

The school district is independent from the city government, so as controller she had no power to audit or investigate it. But in her campaign materials, she says that one of her priorities as mayor would be “urgently fixing our public schools to give all students a real chance at meeting their potential,” along with improving blighted neighborhoods and strengthening anti-violence initiatives.

As the city’s fiscal watchdog, Rhynhart audited the police department, and released reports critical of the prison system and of city accounting practices.

Previously, she was budget director and city treasurer under former Mayor Michael Nutter. She was chief administrative officer in the Kenney administration for less than a year before resigning last October to run for mayor. Former Mayor John Street has endorsed her, saying that she understands city government and is best equipped to improve services.

Rhynhart has a daughter who attends a Philadelphia public school.

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 Board of Education elects new leadership

2022-12-16T01:50:08+00:00

The Philadelphia Board of Education elected new officers Thursday, installing Reginald Streater as president and Mallory Fix-Lopez as vice president during its annual reorganization meeting.

The two replace Joyce Wilkerson and Leticia Egea-Hinton, who have led the board since it took over from the School Reform Commission in April 2018. Wilkerson and Egea-Hinton will remain members of the board.

The board unanimously chose Streater, 39, while Fix-Lopez, 38, won by a 7-2 vote over Lisa Salley.

In announcing that she would not stand for re-election as board president and was instead nominating Streater, Wilkerson said, “I believe I was the right person to get us to this point, but I don’t think I’m the right person to take us forward.” She has led the board since it took over the governance of the district when it was returned to local control in 2018. Before that, Wilkerson had led the School Reform Commission, the body that ran the district under state control.

She said Streater was the right person, adding that he has a “unique and valuable perspective” as a graduate of Philadelphia schools — he went to Leeds Middle School and Germantown High School, both of which have since been closed — and as a parent of two children in the district. He has consistently advocated for students, Wilkerson said, and demonstrated his commitment to the board’s goals and guardrails, which sets achievement benchmarks and deadlines for reaching them.

The leadership transition represents a generational change.

Streater is an associate at the Philadelphia law firm Berger Montague, where he specializes in employment litigation. A graduate of Temple University and Temple Law School, he became a board member in February 2021. He also served as vice president of the Greater Philadelphia ACLU chapter and as a clerk/intern for the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. He has often said that he believes education is “not only a civil right, but a human right.”

In a short speech after his election, Streater said he was deeply honored, and credited his experience in district schools as the springboard to leadership.

Streater, the only man on the nine-member board, said he would focus on creating safe and welcoming schools and educating the “whole child.” He said he opposes lowering standards even if students face barriers.

He also thanked his family and Wilkerson, calling her his mentor.

He said the district needs to continue to invest in teachers, get its financial house in order, and work more closely with the city and state while focusing on its own ambitious objectives such as doubling the percentage of students reading on grade level.

In her remarks, Fix-Lopez said the district was moving in the right direction. She is the parent of two small children, one at Childs Elementary, and has taught English as a Second Language at Temple, the University of Pennsylvania, and Community College of Philadelphia. Earlier she also taught social studies and English as a second language in the district. “I have devoted my career to public education in Philadelphia,” she said.

She and her husband also own and operate a restaurant in the Point Breeze section of Southwest Philadelphia.

Both Streater and Fix-Lopez praised Superintendent Tony Watlington, who was hired by this board and took office in June, as the right leader for the 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.

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 mayor’s top education official to step down

2022-10-19T20:55:55+00:00

Philadelphia’s Chief Education Officer will leave his position at Mayor Jim Kenney’s office at the end of this month to become the new head of the I Have A Dream Foundation, Kenney’s office confirmed Wednesday.

Otis Hackney, who has led the mayoral office of education since 2015, helped launch the city’s PHLpreK program in 2017 for three- and four-year-olds, and also helped start PHLConnectED, which offers free Internet services for students’ families.

The former principal of South Philadelphia High School is scheduled to start his new position Nov. 7 leading the foundation in New York City. It offers mentoring and support to students whose families are struggling with poverty and helps get them to college.

One of Hackney’s biggest tasks came five years ago, when he assisted the mayor in returning public schools to local control under Philadelphia’s Board of Education. Hackney has supported the school board’s strategic plan unveiled in late 2020, and backs the mayoral appointment of board members rather than having them elected.

“I think this group has managed and weathered numerous storms. They are a very independent group, we do not overstep with them,” Hackney said in an interview with Chalkbeat, referring to the city school board’s members. “But we do make sure that in terms of the choices that the mayor is able to make, that these folks are individuals ready to serve, and work with the other members of the board.”

Meanwhile, the PHLpre-K program now serves 4,500 students, which is short of Kenney’s initial pledge that it would serve 6,500 students a year when the mayor first proposed a soda tax to help pay for the program (Philadelphia approved the tax in 2016).

“In the initial launch our numbers were very good, but we did have a pandemic that impacted probably two years of growth for that program,” Hackney said.

Since its inception, the PHLConnectEd initiative has made over 21,000 connections, according to Hackney. A connection, he said, could be one household that receives internet, or it could be one student that received an internet hotspot. “We’re just really excited about us being able to serve that many families in the city,” he said.

Kenney said in a statement noting Hackney’s departure that he “stepped up to the challenge of realizing our ambitious education platform.”

Hackney was once considered a possible successor to former Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite; the job eventually went to Tony Watlington earlier this year. Hackney, who noted that he was part of the search committee that looked for Hite’s replacement, said he has no plans to become superintendent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Braving the heat for work

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are 80 people who will advise new Philly schools superintendent

2022-07-12T21:34:02+00:00

Amid criticism of paying an out-of-town consultant firm almost a half million dollars to help him transition into his new role as superintendent of Philadelphia schools, Tony Watlington announced a transition team of 80 community and education leaders on Tuesday.

Guy Generals, president of Community College of Philadelphia, and Andrea L. Custis, president and CEO of the Urban League of Philadelphia, will serve as co-chairs leading the transition and will head five subcommittees.

Watlington said he is intentionally bringing the large group together with district leaders to examine “complex issues that will help me assess five specific areas of the School District of Philadelphia.” The list includes parents, principals, and unions, grassroots and non-profit leaders.

Watlington is in the middle of his 100-day entry plan that includes a listening and learning tour, where he’s engaging with parents and teachers. The transition team includes local and national education and industry leaders.

Sheila Brown, former deputy superintendent of Boston Public Schools, and Malika Savoy-Brooks, chief academic officer for Philadelphia schools, will oversee the student achievement group.

Henderson Lewis Jr., former superintendent of New Orleans Public Schools; Uri Monson, chief financial officer for the district; and a yet-to-be named special adviser will lead the group assessing the logistical operations, recruitment, and retention efforts.

Camika Royal, associate professor of urban education at Loyola University and author of “Not Paved for Us: Black Educators and Public School Reform in Philadelphia,” and Sabriya Jubilee, chief of the district’s office of diversity, equity, inclusion, will lead the the unit overseeing anti-racist district culture and teaching.

James Earl Davis, interim dean of the School of Education at Temple University, and Kathryn Block, chief of communications at the district, will lead the community engagement and communications team.

Andrea Kane, professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania, and Evelyn Nuñez, chief of the district’s schools office, will lead the enriching and well-rounded school experiences group.

Lead consultants Shawn Joseph and Elizabeth Molina Morgan will facilitate support for the transition leaders. In May the school board agreed to pay Joseph’s firm $450,000 for its services.

Watlington has defended the price tag and his selection of Joseph. “The time frame warranted me to make some recommendations and some steps sooner rather than later, so that I can hit the ground running on Day One,” he said.

But criticism of his move to hire Joseph has been heavy.

“I am surprised that a new administration would want to start off with news of an expensive and broad engagement contract, especially because communities have been sounding the alarm for months about core priorities — facilities, staffing, safety, and mental health,” Councilwoman Helen Gym said.

From mid-August through November, Watlington and the transition team will evaluate the district’s capacity to achieve the board’s vision. Then Joseph and Associates will develop along with Watlington and other district staff a five-year strategic plan by May 30.

“Our point is to ensure that every child, every student, has the opportunity to be ready for college, to be ready for careers and to be ready for life,” Custis said. “Philadelphia has its challenges. We all know that. But I believe that we can overcome those.”

The transition team

More than 80 Philadelphia parents; teachers; principals; union, educational, city, business, non-profit, and grassroots leaders; and district staff make up the transition team that will cover five areas: student achievement; operations; anti-racist district culture; community engagement and communications, and enriching and well-rounded school experiences. Below are the team members.

Student Achievement

Ayesha Imani, CEO/founder, Sankofa Freedom Academy Charter School

Bill Dagget, founder, International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE)

Chris McGinley, former member, board of education

Christina Grant, state superintendent for the District of Columbia

Constance Evelyn, former superintendent, Valley Stream School District

Ginny Field, teacher, Loesche Elementary School

Jerry T. Jordan, president, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers

John Spencer, principal, McCloskey Elementary School

Maura McInerney, legal director, Education Law Center

Olga Doubrovskaia, parent, Southwark Elementary School

Otis Hackney, chief education officer, City of Philadelphia

Richard Gordon, principal, Paul Robeson High School

Sean Conley, assistant superintendent, School District of Philadelphia

Stacy Holland, executive director, Elevate 215

Operations

David E. Thomas, associate vice president of Strategic Initiatives, Community College of Philadelphia

Dean R. Robateau, executive vice president, McKissack

Donna Cooper, executive director, Children First

Elizabeth Arons, CEO, Urban Schools Human Capacity Academy

Fran Burns, COO, Connelly Foundation

James Murray, principal, William Rowan School

John Bynum, 32BJ

Kimberly A. Lloyd, president/CEO, Ogontz Avenue Revitalization Corporation

Larisa Shambaugh, chief talent officer, School District of Philadelphia

Maria Bailey, 32BJ

Michael Forman, CEO/chairman, FS Investments

Nicole Hunt, president, Unite HERE

Orien Warren-Smith, parent, C.W. Henry Elementary School

Reggie McNeil, chief operating officer, School District of Philadelphia

Renato Lajara, assistant superintendent, School District of Philadelphia

Vernon Palmer, senior regional manager, School District of Philadelphia

Victoria Aristoklis, teacher, James Rhodes School

Walette Carter, parent, SLA Beeber

Wayne Wormley, president, The Wormley Company

Anti-Racist District Culture

Aliyah Catanch-Bradley, principal, Bethune Elementary

Angela Lipsay, parent, Samuel Gompers Elementary School

Carolina Cabrera DiGiorgio, president/CEO, Congresso

Constance Faith Horton, assistant superintendent, School District of Philadelphia

Dia Jones, assistant principal, Mastery Charter Schools

Jason Lafferty, teacher, Bartram High School

Lynn Rauch, general counsel, School District of Philadelphia

Marisol Rodriguez, principal, Juniata Park Academy

Meredith Mehra, deputy chief for teaching and learning, School District of Philadelphia

Michael Farrell, deputy chief for leadership development, School District of Philadelphia

Robin Cooper, president, CASA

Shariff El-Mekki, CEO, Center for Black Educator Development

Sylvie Gallier Howard, CEO, Equitable Cities Consulting

Tim (Chambers) McKinney, LGBTQ+ resource and program manager at Big Brothers Big Sisters Independence

Community Engagement & Communications

Alonzo Fulton, principal, Avery D. Harrington School

Amelia Coleman Brown, assistant superintendent, School District of Philadelphia

Rev. Bonnie Camarda, divisional director of partnerships, The Salvation Army Eastern Pennsylvania & Delaware

Brendan Morrissey, national program director for team leadership, City Year

Chandra Williams, pastor, Union Missionary Baptist Church

Christiana Uy, parent/member, Board of Education Community Advisory Council

Dalila Wilson-Scott, executive vice president/chief diversity officer, Comcast NBCUniversal Foundation

Donna Frisby-Greenwood, president/CEO, The Fund for The School District of Philadelphia

Jenna Monley, deputy chief, Family Community Engagement, School District of Philadelphia

Jenny Bogoni, executive director, Read By 4

Karyn Lynch, chief of student support services, School District of Philadelphia

Keith Bethel, former chief growth officer, Aramark

Omar Crowder, principal, Northeast High School

Peng Chao, acting chief of charter schools, School District of Philadelphia

Pep Marie, coalition coordinator, Our City Our Schools

Megan Smith, founder and president, Brownstone PR

Ken Anderson, vice president of civic affairs, the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia

Enriching & Well-Rounded School Experiences

Aja Carpenter, executive director of the Office of Post Secondary Readiness, School District of Philadelphia

Becky Cornejo, executive director, Neubauer Family Foundation

Beverly Socher-Lerner, executive director, Makom Community

Chekemma Fulmore-Townsend, president, Hamilton Family Charitable Trust

Cynthia Figueroa, president/CEO, Jevs Human Services

Dennis Terry, parent, Hancock Demonstration School

Elliot Weinbaum, chief philanthropy officer, William Penn Foundation

Gillian Dagress, parent, McCall Elementary School

Kevin Bethel, chief of school safety, School District of Philadelphia

Loree D. Jones, CEO, Philabundance

Lynne Millard, leadership coach, School District of Philadelphia

Melanie Harris, chief information officer, School District of Philadelphia

Dr. Noah Tennant, assistant superintendent, School District of Philadelphia

Orfelina Feliz Payne, executive director, Puentes De Salud

Patrick Clancy, president/CEO, Philadelphia Works

Pedro Ramos, president/CEO, Philadelphia Foundation

Simon Hauger, principal, The Workshop School

Trina Dean, academic coach, School District of Philadelphia

Vanessa Garrett-Harley, deputy mayor for children and families

Vicki Ellis, executive director of the Office of Strategic Partnerships, School District of Philadelphia

Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify that Joseph and Associates will not create the five-year strategic plan on their own but along with other district leaders.

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 new superintendent talks student success, teacher turnover, early goals

2022-06-16T13:45:00+00:00

This time last year, Tony Watlington Sr. was leading North Carolina’s Rowan-Salisbury school district, which educates roughly 19,500 students.

Big changes have arrived for him and for Philadelphia. On Thursday, he is taking over as superintendent of the city’s school district, Pennsylvania’s largest. He will lead a district with over 200,000 district and charter students in the nation’s sixth-largest city.

Watlington is the first Philadelphia superintendent to be appointed after the city regained local control, following the end of the state’s School Reform Commission. He arrives at a time when the district is experiencing staffing shortages, crumbling buildings, declining enrollment, and a struggle to return to academic normalcy after 18 months of virtual learning.

After receiving a unanimous vote from Philadelphia’s Board of Education to replace William Hite, who was superintendent for 10 years, Watlington was appointed to a five-year term. His salary will be similar to his predecessor’s at $340,000 a year.

Watlington’s ability to connect with political players will be crucial, in part because the district wants more state funding to meet the needs of its students. His relationship with Mayor Jim Kenney in particular is one to watch, since Kenney appoints school board members and makes other key decisions that affect district operations.

Watlington said the district is launching a new website where families can view the 80 listening and learning sessions he will conduct over the next three months, take a survey, and provide feedback. The information gathered will be used to help achieve the Board of Education’s “goals and guardrails.”

The new superintendent sat down with Chalkbeat Wednesday for an extensive interview about his future leading Philadelphia’s public schools. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Have you visited any schools? How has your interaction been with district employees?

Yes, I’ve had the good fortune to visit a handful of schools. I’m trying to do it in such a way that I don’t interfere with their preparation for their year-end exams and the like. But it was a great chance to talk with a small number of principals and teachers and students in particular. I feel even more confident this is the right decision after having talked with all of those groups.

What I’ve taken from it is that people are passionate. There’s a lot of different opinions about what we do well, and what we might consider. It just kind of whetted my appetite to do deep listening and learning.

A position to lead big city school districts such as Philadelphia is viewed as one of the hardest jobs in the country. Coming from a smaller district, how do you plan to shape urban education in the country’s sixth-largest city?

Number one, teaching and learning transcends school size. The second thing I would say is that the key is to have collaborative relationships with parents, because teachers and principals cannot do this work alone, regardless of the size of a school district. The third thing I would say is that it’s important for the Board of Education to have a committed focus. And this board has done just that with its “goals and guardrails.”

Are there any policies that need to be addressed?

I’ve asked the Board of Education to begin taking a hard look at all of our policies, and the extent to which they help us to reduce the barrier or eliminate barriers to improving student achievement for all groups, particularly Black and brown children who underperform white children.

Your predecessor’s director of communications resigned recently. Should we expect a lot of changes in the top ranks?

I think we’ve got stable leadership right here and we’re not going to skip a beat.

The Board of Education revealed a couple of months ago that teachers are quitting at a higher rate mid-year. What can or will you do to attract and retain good teachers?

The first thing I’m going to do is listen as a part of the listening and learning tour to hear the voices of teachers and what their needs are.

Second, I intend to fully investigate and understand what I believe to be some pretty good steps that this district has already taken to try to address teacher shortages and to mitigate the problem of teacher loss. That’s not limited to just our school district, quite frankly.

Third, I’m going to work with the team to identify specific strategies to expand our recruiting footprint at historically Black colleges and universities across the United States, as well as predominantly white institutions, and to continue to identify opportunities to grow our own teachers.

Have you met union representatives? Jerry Jordan with the teachers? Robin Cooper with the principals? How was that conversation?

Yes. I spent some time one on one with Jerry Jordan as well as one on one with Dr. Cooper. We’ve had some very authentic initial conversations. I very much look forward to working in partnership with all our union presidents.

We’re all after the same outcome, and that’s to significantly improve the outcomes for our students, while we also meet the needs of our staff members who provide the services to our students.

Let’s touch on equity and fairness in education. Right now we are waiting on a ruling in the fair school funding trial. Pennsylvania has been accused of adopting an inequitable funding system that does not provide resources all of its students need to meet state standards and discriminates against students based on their socio-economic status. Have you read up on the trial? And what programs or initiatives would you bring to help close the gap for students who hail from struggling areas?

I’ve had the opportunity to speak with a number of legislators when I visited Harrisburg recently. I’ve had an opportunity to have a phone conversation with Gov. Wolf and several other members of the delegation.

There are five priority areas that I’ll be focused on. First, I want to spend time assessing student and staff well-being. I mean physical health, social and emotional health, And that would also include the impact of gun violence in the school district and safety issues that certainly have an impact on schools, some more than others.

Secondly, I want to spend some time really honing in on how to engage with broad stakeholder groups across this city. I’ve got to understand their hopes, their aspirations, their concerns, understand what they think we do well, and what our various community members think we need to improve.

The third area will be to assess teaching and learning. Certainly, we want to take a hard look at our curriculum resources. To what extent are teachers equipped to do the jobs that we’re asking them to do? What’s their levels of support? The same is true of principals who lead schools.

Fourth, we want to assess the extent to which we have lots of talent in this school district, as well as where the gaps are.

And then finally, that fifth area of work will involve assessing the district’s operations, facilities, and finances.

All of those have some budgetary impacts. We will deliver formal findings and formal recommendations to the Board of Education and be very public and very transparent. And we’ll say the things that we found, and here’s what we’re going to recommend.

What are your strategies to take on gun violence and keep students safe getting to and from school?

The first priority area that is in my entry plan, and this is not an accident, is assessing student and staff well being. Even before we get to teaching and learning, assessing teaching, or learning, or focus on assessing where students are, was a big study. You’ve got nearly 200,000 students. I would imagine that some students, some staff members, and some parents are situated differently than others. So I don’t think I should paint the whole city with a broad brush.

I want to take the time to understand the context of the problem. Because I want to be careful not to get into stereotypes, or just what I think I’ve read or observed in the media. I want to take the time to do my due diligence, to take the time to listen, to talk to people, and to study our data. We have school climate data. There’s statistics available from the police department and others. And so we will have more to offer in that regard.

What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned about Philadelphia and the district since being hired?

Well, because I’ve spent a good amount of time studying the district, and I had some familiarity with the city, with my father living some 20 miles west of here over in New Jersey, I wouldn’t say that I was surprised by anything.

The district has done such a phenomenal job of improving its financial health. That’s really important in urban America, where the tax base can sometimes be challenging. There are some indicators that suggest that you’re making some momentum. The spirit, spunk, and grit that I’ve observed firsthand among Philadelphians says to me that we absolutely can be the fastest improving urban school district in the country.

Have you picked a neighborhood? Have you bought a house yet?

I have become a resident of Center City. I’m currently not a homeowner. I am doing a temporary lease to give me more time to learn the city and figure out where I want to focus on. There are lots of great neighborhoods to choose from here.

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.

Philadelphia mayor names two new school board members

2022-05-24T22:00:23+00:00

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney appointed two new members to the city’s Board of Education on Tuesday: Sarah-Ashley Andrews, a family therapist who founded a suicide-prevention organization; and Chau Wing Lam, a former district administrator, charter school parent, and official of the Philadelphia Academy of School Leaders.

They will fill vacancies on the nine-member board left following the resignations of Angela McIver and Maria McColgan. The appointees must be confirmed by City Council.

The board had been operating with just eight members since McIver’s resignation last July until this month, when McColgan’s resignation left the board with only seven serving members. Kenney’s appointments of Andrews and Chau Wing mean the board still has only one male member, attorney Reginald Streater.

In a statement, Kenney said the two “have dedicated their careers to supporting children and families, and I know that they will each make important contributions to the Board’s leadership and Philadelphia’s public schools.”

Andrews graduated from W.B. Saul High School before attending Bloomsburg University, where she studied mass communications, before earning a degree in biblical studies, with a minor in human services, from Lancaster Bible College. She also has a master’s degree in counseling from Lincoln University. She now works for TAG Inspires, which provides therapeutic counseling.

Andrews was previously a social worker with the Philadelphia Health Management Corporation, a nonprofit public health agency.

After a friend died by suicide a decade ago, she founded Dare 2 Hope, which has educated more than 4,500 young people on suicide awareness and prevention, according to Andrews’s biography on the TAG Inspires site.

She also co-hosts the weekly “Black in Therapy” podcast, dedicated to “normalizing mental wellness in the Black community,” according to the bio.

In a statement released by the mayor’s office, Andrews said that in addition to being a product of the school system, she is “a product of advocates who fought for my educational opportunities” who now stands “committed to educational equity for every student in Philadelphia.

“I am concerned about the whole child, how we can challenge and change unfair systems and norms, and advocate for life-changing educational opportunities,” Andrews said in the statement.

Chau Wing is currently the Director of Operations for the Philadelphia Academy of School Leaders, and spent six years working for the district in its Office of Evaluation, Research, and Accountability, according to her biography on the organization’s website. The academy trains principals for leadership in district, charter, and archdiocesan schools. Before that, she worked for the firm Public Financial Management advising governments on management and budget practices.

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she also served as the assistant director of the Penn Institute for Urban Research. She started her professional life teaching English in a middle school in Japan. Her bachelor’s degree is in psychology and her master’s degree is in social policy and practice, both from Penn.

Chau Wing is a charter school parent, as was McColgan, who she is replacing.

“Public education is the backbone of our society,” she said in a statement. Education achievement must be measured by more than test scores, she added, noting that at “high quality schools, children discover passions, integrate learning, resolve conflict, dream big, and most importantly, they matter.”

Chau Wing said that on the board she will draw from her experience in public finance, policy, leadership development and change management.

Mayor Kenney selected the appointees from a list of eight nominees recommended by the Educational Nominating Panel on May 16. Those eight were chosen from 62 applications, according to the mayor’s office.

The Philadelphia Board of Education is the only one in Pennsylvania that is appointed rather than elected. The mayor also appoints the nominating panel, which this year was led by former city solicitor Sozi Pedro Tulante.

Critics of the nominating panel, including the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, say it lacks transparency and undermines the democratic process in Philadelphia. The organization filed a right-to-know request for the names of all 62 applicants.

“People have a right to know who applied, and we have a right to know who the panel rejected,” said Lisa Haver, the alliance’s co-founder.

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.

Chalkbeat readers share priorities for Philly’s new superintendent Tony Watlington

2022-04-27T18:51:39+00:00

Tony B. Watlington Sr. is coming to Philadelphia to lead a 120,000-student school district that’s facing significant teacher resignations, crumbling buildings, and high dropout rates. He will inherit these and other pressing issues when he takes over one of the nation’s 20 largest school districts in what is considered the poorest big city in the U.S.

Though his superintendency begins June 16, Watlington is currently spending two days a week visiting the city either in person or remotely so he can acclimate to Philadelphia schools. For now, he’s still employed as superintendent of North Carolina’s Rowan-Salisbury school district northeast of Charlotte.

Watlington has acknowledged that he knows little about Philadelphia, yet he is “looking forward to listening and learning.” After his appointment, Chalkbeat asked students, parents, and educators to tell us what Watlington should know about their schools and what his priorities should be. Around 40 people responded.

Their top concerns ranged from more mental health resources for students to improving the working environment for teachers. They also highlighted the importance of improving low standardized test scores, re-establishing trust, and community engagement. School start times and busing were also points of concern.

Watlington will take over a district dealing with learning loss and other pandemic-related education issues; aging and deteriorating buildings; gun violence; teacher turnover; a constant battle for adequate funding; and revisions of its admissions policy for selective high schools.

During his discussions with parent and student groups before the district hired him, Watlington said he views “high-quality teachers” as key to improving schools, and believes teachers should be paid more. Teachers in Chalkbeat’s callout, however, spoke of eliminating large class sizes, providing more support for special education, and addressing verbal and physical threats from parents and students.

In their response, students expressed concerns about building safety, especially around asbestos, and keeping fellow classmates safe from gun violence.

Q: What is one issue you are facing at your school that you want Watlington to prioritize addressing in his first year?

“We know from research that the student-teacher relationship has a huge impact on both social-emotional and academic outcomes for students. Prioritizing a smaller class and smaller ratios will help both staff and students to do well,” — Kirstin Peth, parent at Fanny Jackson Coppin School

Jemair McKay will graduate high school this year from Roxborough High School.

“I also want to know how Dr. Watlington plans to keep students safe from the outrageous gun violence,” — Jemair McKay, a senior at Roxborough High School

“This year we have had six teachers quit. We have received no teachers to replace them. This puts a tremendous burden on the staff to support children who do not have a teacher. We need policies around pay, teacher training, and teacher support that will allow more teachers to feel successful in their classrooms and stay at their schools,” — Katy Egan, educator and school leader at a Philadelphia elementary school

“Addressing gun violence and the over-policing of students in schools. Expanding extracurriculars and creative arts courses in neighborhood schools,” — Fatima Hmada, community member in Philadelphia

“Schools are struggling and the district cut roles, again. Fight the state tooth and nail for equitable funding. I’m excited to see what the new superintendent will do,” — Phil Walton, parent of a Philadelphia student

Q: What is one action Watlington could take as leader of Philadelphia schools that would improve learning for you and/or students?

“This pertains to our entire district, not my school specifically. We need more special education support, as about 15 percent of our student body has a disability classification. Specifically, we need something similar to the district’s Equity Coalition for special education, where the district directly prioritizes equity for students with disabilities and creates resources for teachers and students that support inclusion. We also need to take into account that so many of our students share multiple marginalized identities. It would be great if the district supplied materials that specifically address equity for students who share multiple identities including disability — for example students who are both Black and autistic, queer and intellectually disabled, deaf and English language learners.,” — Tamara Sepe, speech language pathologist at Charles W. Henry School

“Actually clean and disinfect, especially when we know COVID and its many variants are still out there,” — Gwen Blackshear, educator at a high school in Philadelphia

“Building repairs, specifically ventilation improvements. Acknowledge the deficiencies of our infrastructure and funding,” — Lizzie Rothwell, parent at Henry Lea Elementary School

Lizzie Rothwell poses for a photo with her children, Luke Beauregard and Ursula Rothwell. Luke is in third grade and Ursula will be starting kindergarten.

“Focus on all kids in Philadelphia reading on grade level by third grade and make things easier on schools. Support schools across the district in adopting evidence-based language arts curriculums, ensure all schools have reading support specialists, and provide teacher training and resources in line with the science of reading,” — Patty Slutsky, parent at Nebinger Elementary School

“I would like there to be a review of the quality of services, or lack of quality, for English language learners, particularly for high-school-age learners coming from countries where they have had very limited education,” — Cheri Micheau, community member in Philadelphia and previous administrator in the district’s Office of Multilingual Curriculum and Programs

“Disability Accommodations. Many students, including some of my friends, have received a lesser educational experience because they do not have adequate accommodations for their physical or learning disabilities,” — Eleanor Zdancewic, student in Philadelphia

Q: How could Watlington help restore or strengthen your trust in the school system and leadership?

“Mr. Watlington can visit the schools and speak with the staff, parents, and students to understand the school dynamics, needs, and concerns. Partnerships are key to having a successful school district,” — Teeyona Crumpton, parent and school leader at W.B. Saul High School and First Philadelphia Preparatory Charter School

Teeyona Crumpton is a parent and school leader at W.B. Saul High School and First Philadelphia Preparatory Charter School.

“I hope our new superintendent will have integrity: if we say we value student mental health, let’s actually act like it by putting resources in place that follow through on that. If we value achievement, lower class size so teachers can differentiate,” — Kirstin Peth, parent at Fanny Jackson Coppin School

“Increase student voice involvement on major decisions. Honestly and genuinely make a connection with students compared to speaking to us like a politician,” — Eleanor Zdancewic, student in Philadelphia

Edwin Thomas Minguela is an elementary school educator in the Philadelphia school district.

“Listen to educators as we are the ones who work with the children the most on a daily basis during the school year. Many educators feel leadership, from district level to school level, does not trust us to do our jobs and listen to our input. There’s no sense of collaboration or togetherness when educators are pushed to the side,” — Edwin Thomas Minguela, elementary school educator in Philadelphia

“If our new superintendent is not able to bring in the voices of community members, teachers, and parents, he will not gain the necessary trust,” — Cheri Micheau, community member in Philadelphia

“Create transparency in all these financial contracts to outside consultants,” — Michele Rossi, parent at Thomas Mifflin K-8 School

Caroline Bauman connects Chalkbeat journalists with our readers as the community engagement manager and previously reported at Chalkbeat Tennessee. Connect with Caroline at cbauman@chalkbeat.org.

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.”

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.

Noe Ortega to resign as Pennsylvania’s education secretary

2022-04-22T21:48:33+00:00

Editor’s note: This article was updated to properly attribute material that appeared verbatim on the state website.

Once considered as a solid contender to be Philadelphia’s first Latino superintendent, Noe Ortega will step down next week as Pennsylvania’s education secretary, Gov. Tom Wolf announced Friday.

Ortega has led the department since 2020, when Wolf nominated Ortega to lead the agency; the state Senate confirmed him in 2021. He previously served as the department’s deputy secretary.

“It has been a tremendous honor to lead the department of education during an unprecedented moment in the history of the commonwealth and I am extremely proud of the accomplishments made and the resiliency demonstrated by the [state education department] team throughout my tenure,” Ortega said in a Friday statement.

Before joining the department in 2017, Ortega held a variety of roles at the University of Michigan over eight years, according to a press release on pa.gov. His titles included assistant director at the National Center for Institutional Diversity and managing director for the National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good. Before that, he spent almost 10 years worked in financial aid and enrollment management universities in Texas.

Ortega has backed greater financial support for public schools. He testified in January at the state’s fair-funding trial in Harrisburg that Pennsylvania cannot reach its goals for post-secondary enrollment and completion without investing more in K-12 education. He also noted that according to data collected under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, the percentage of “highly effective” teachers declines in school districts as the percentages of Black, Latino, and economically disadvantaged students increase.

“His successful efforts to diversify our educator workforce and improve opportunities for students to obtain postsecondary education opportunities will undoubtedly continue to impact our learners for years to come,” Wolf said in the Friday statement.

When Philadelphia started its search for a new superintendent late last year, members of the city’s growing Latino community included Ortega’s name as a potential candidate. Julio Nuñez, an assistant principal at Sheridan Elementary, said that a Latino leader who embraces their identity and understands families’ struggles would validate students. “When students in the district see this in a leader, they feel seen,” he said.

Ortega replaced Pedro Rivera, a Philadelphia native, as the state’s education secretary in 2020.

Eric Hagarty will serve as acting secretary starting April 29. Hagarty currently serves as the governor’s deputy chief of staff, and has been responsible for implementing Wolf’s priorities and policies relating to education.
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

Award-winning Philadelphia principals talk pandemic, school leadership

2022-04-19T23:11:23+00:00

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

Philadelphia Principal Erica M. Green recalls the resilience of her students two years ago when the pandemic forced the city’s schools to go virtual.

“There were some barriers there. A lot of them were trying to take care of their own learning, and in some cases, they were rocking a baby on their lap, because we had parents that had to work,” said Green, who is the principal of Russell H. Conwell Middle School in Kensington.

For Susan Rozanski, the principal of Richmond Elementary School in Port Richmond, technical issues with Chromebooks and keeping students engaged were her biggest obstacles leading a school during the global health crisis.

“We were so used to having a classroom environment where students can interact with each other. We needed to make sure that social emotional learning was at the forefront of each day,” Rozanski said.

Green and Rozanski are in this year’s class of seven recipients of the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Awards for Distinguished Principal Leadership, awarded by the Lindback Foundation to the best principals in the city. Other winners include: Omar Crowder, Northeast High School; Meredith Foote, Overbrook Educational Center; Michael Lowe, Cook-Wissahickon Elementary School; Tammy Thomas, Emlen Elementary School; and Susan Thompson, George Washington High School. The principals were honored during a virtual ceremony Tuesday.

According to the district, community members nominated principals from local schools, and the foundation’s Selection Committee narrowed the field to seven, Recipients were chosen for achievements in leadership and uplifting their school communities. The foundation will present the winners with $20,000 to spend on their school.

“I was absolutely thrilled, because we don’t do this work alone. We have a whole team that works with us. So for me, receiving the honor is really an honor for my school,” Green said.

The two principals talked to Chalkbeat about their journey becoming a principal and what they plan to do with the award money.

Tell us about your journey becoming a principal.

Green: I knew since I was 9, that I was supposed to be a teacher, I didn’t necessarily know that I was going to become an assistant principal and a principal. And I remember people saying to me, once you become an assistant principal, you’re gonna be so far removed from kids. And I was like, well, that’s the least thing that I want to happen, I want to be connected with it. So I found a way to keep that connection with young people as an assistant principal and as a principal.

Rozanski: I started my career also as a teacher. I taught for nine years as an eighth grade teacher in Philadelphia, and then moved on to become an assistant principal here at Richmond. And I served here as the assistant principal for 11 years. I’ve been the principal here for 10 years, so Richmond is my family. The students are amazing, they are so much fun. If you ever are having a bad day, the best place to be is in a classroom, because you’re going to see young people in action doing what they do best. And that’s learning.

There’s a character on the show “Abbott Elementary” named Principal Ava Coleman, who is seen as being detached from the struggles of her teachers. How do you connect with your teachers?

Green: The principal’s interesting. She’s just a little distracted by other things that are going on. But we are different kinds of principals in that I’m very hands on. We’re in the classrooms, we’re in the school yard, the lunch room, wherever you need us to be, we are there. We can’t be kind of aloof or distracted or overly silly like she is. It is more of a serious matter. But we do have fun times with our kids.

Rozanski: We connect through our planning time meetings that we have weekly. It’s specialized with each grade level. It’s a chance to do some planning together to iron out some things that need to be worked out and really listen. The teachers are on the frontlines every single day and it’s a way that we can try to troubleshoot or make things even better here at school.

What do you plan to do with the $20,000?

Green: We have two new science classrooms that were completed right before the pandemic. We will have a STEM program, so science, technology, arts and music, all that kind of good stuff, which kids really need, so that they’ll be ready for whatever the future holds for them.

Rozanski: We have a diverse student body and would like to purchase some multicultural libraries. We want students to see themselves in the stories that they’re reading. We have what we call our “team for change.” It’s our race and equity work that we’ve been starting here at school. And we have a theme we call windows and mirrors. So when outsiders are looking into the windows, they’re seeing students who are happy, who are working in harmony, and when students look in a mirror, they feel good about themselves.

The school district aims to support aspiring leaders. What would be your message to a teacher on the fence about becoming a principal?

Green: I tell everybody, if this is something that you have aspirations to do, then you should definitely do it. This is not a thing where it can be about your ego. It is hard work. It is not a nine to five [job] — our product is people. And so if you have a desire to serve, and if you have a desire to work with community members and partners, and the teachers and the students, then this is something that you can do,

Rozanski: I would say, being a principal here in Philadelphia is an extremely rewarding career. It does take a lot of commitment, dedication, and hard work, also compassion for the families that we serve. And another key component is to build a team within your school that has a similar vision or the same vision as yours, so that you’re all on the same page and all moving in the same direction, which is always for the success of our students.
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

Philadelphia picks Tony Watlington as new schools superintendent

2022-04-01T16:21:08+00:00

Philadelphia’s school board picked veteran North Carolina educator Tony Watlington to be the city’s next school superintendent, taking over for Superintendent William Hite at a pivotal moment in the district.

He was introduced to the public at a press conference Friday morning at school district headquarters.

“I’m very excited to be here,” Watlington told the crowd of city and district officials who filled the room for the announcement. “I’m looking forward to listening and learning.”

He said he brings “a passion for student achievement” to the job, and that his mantra is to ask the same question every morning that the Maasai people ask upon waking: “How are the children?”

Board of Education President Joyce Wilkerson said that this is the right question to ask. “Our children have unprecedented challenges,” she said later, citing gun violence as one of them. “The whole question ‘How are the children?’ is complicated, but it is the right question to ask.”

Since January 2021, Watlington has led North Carolina’s 18,000-student Rowan-Salisbury school district, where many schools have been granted significant autonomy by the state over things like budgets and curriculum. In Philadelphia, he will oversee 120,000 students in one of the 20 largest districts in the country.

Watlington is taking over a district with many challenges: outdated, deteriorating buildings that haven’t been adequately maintained; a mostly low-income student body in the nation’s poorest big city; and unprecedented teacher turnover, exacerbated by difficult school conditions and an inability to match salaries offered in surrounding districts.

Regarding the need to recruit enough qualified teachers, he said, “Philadelphia is no different than other large urban areas,” he said. Such problems will not be “solved tomorrow,” he said, but will be addressed “with a sense of urgency.”

In a brief interview, Watlington said that he understands the depth of the teacher recruitment issue, which he said goes beyond Philadelphia.

“We have to double down on recruitment efforts,” he said, saying that he wants to deepen partnerships with both historically Black colleges like Cheyney University and other local institutions of higher education. He also said he wants to start getting Black boys in particular interested in teaching in middle school.

Wilkerson said that the board gave Watlington a five-year contract, with an option for a one-year extension. She said he will be paid $340,000 annually, roughly what Hite would have earned had he stayed. The board will vote on the contract April 7, she said.

Watlington said his first official action would be to conduct a “listening and learning” tour to get to know Philadelphia’s parents, students, community members, teachers, and public officials. He also said he would spend time with Hite before officially taking over.

He would also do a deep dive into the district’s facilities issues, he said. He will officially start as superintendent on June 16, but said he intends to “be on the ground fully running” before that.

Mayor Jim Kenney, who attended the announcement, said Watlington is “the right person” to help them and their students “reach their full potential.” Councilmember Maria D. Quinones-Sanchez, chair of council’s education committee, said the city has to work together to “ensure this recovery from COVID leads to more equitable, honest conversations about what our communities deserve,” especially “school district families, who deserve more and better.”

Councilmember Helen Gym said Watlington is walking into a crisis situation stemming from problems like continued teacher vacancies and absenteeism. She said that the district needs 1,000 substitutes a day – meaning 30,000 students aren’t with their regular teachers.

On Thursday, the district’s Chief Talent Officer Larisa Shambaugh said there are 300 vacancies in 220 schools and that the fill rate was 96.5%, down from 98% when the school year began.

Gym also said poor conditions in schools contribute to the gun violence among the city’s students.

“Schools have to be vibrant in order for the streets to be irrelevant,” she said. “I hope that Dr. Watlington understands how serious that is, and a committed person can change that.”

Watlington did not work with collective bargaining units in North Carolina, which is a right-to-work state, but noted that his district participated in a lawsuit challenging a law that stripped teachers of tenure protections. He said he is looking forward to working with the unions here, including the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

Union President Jerry Jordan said that the board “made the right decision” by picking Watlington from among the three finalists for the position. ”Dr. Watlington showed a seemingly very sincere commitment to working in a truly collaborative and transparent fashion,” Jordan said.

Watlington focuses on teacher recruitment and curriculum

During meetings with the Philadelphia community several weeks ago, Watlington emphasized that he believes teachers are the key to successful schools and said he believes that they need to be paid more. High teacher turnover is a huge impediment to learning in schools with large numbers of Black and brown students from low income families, he said.

“Who gets the absolute very best teacher?” he said. “How do you define who the very best teachers are? Those are questions I spend a lot of time thinking about.”

Watlington called himself a teacher, not a bureaucrat. He also discussed ideas about how to bring Philadelphia district graduates back to the city to teach in public schools; the importance of a rigorous curriculum that includes elements like advanced math in middle schools; and his potential support of an audit of the district’s Individualized Education Programs.

Watlington is a native of nearby Willingboro, N.J., and is the youngest of seven children. He was the first in his family to attend college. At his town hall event recently in Philadelphia, he described himself as a “free and reduced lunch child” who grew up poor and could therefore relate well to the students in Philadelphia, which is the poorest big city in the United States with a poverty rate above 25%.

Watlington’s first job in education, he said, was as a custodian and bus driver before becoming a history teacher. He has spent most of his career in education in North Carolina’s 72,000-student Guilford County district, where he started out as a history teacher in 1994 at James B. Dudley High School.

He then served as a curriculum specialist, assistant principal, and principal, first at an elementary school and then at Dudley. He was also the principal of GTCC Early-Middle College High School, which strives to have all students graduate with an associate’s degree or some college credit.

He joined the central office in 2008 and rose to become Chief of Schools in 2017. He was also part of the superintendent’s cabinet.

In 2018, using a North Carolina law designed to increase flexibility for individual schools, Rowan-Salisbury became a “renewal” district. This meant that Watlington oversaw a school system where up to 16 of its 35 schools could become “transformation schools.” These schools assumed control over their budgets, staffing, curriculum, and operations, similar to how charter schools operate.

In detailed comments about teachers, Watlington said in last week’s meetings that he favors “significantly higher salaries to be in the schools where they are needed the most,” he said. He also endorsed recruitment bonuses.

Tony Watlington, who will replace William Hite as Philadelphia’s superintendent of schools, wears a Philadelphia Phillies hat during an appearance in the city on April 1, 2022.

Watlington said he would be open to some form of performance pay for teachers, but he also stressed their performance should be judged in a holistic manner, and not just by looking at test scores.

It is true “that high-achieving schools have good teachers,” he said, “but schools without good test scores also have strong teachers.” Watlington said it is crucial for school districts to identify and retain high-performing teachers even in circumstances where it is difficult.

“We’ve got to have strategies to do that,” Watlington said. “Why don’t we follow market forces of supply and demand in schools as we do everywhere else?”

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has generally been opposed to pay differentials based on the schools in which people are assigned. There is no provision for such differentials in the current contract.

Watlington graduated from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, a historically Black institution, and got a master’s degree in American political history from the Ohio State University.

Watlington said when Chicago and Los Angeles were looking for new superintendents, he wasn’t interested. But Philadelphia interested him immediately, in part because of its history.

“I am enamored of the thought of being superintendent in the very city where Thomas Jefferson facilitated the signing of the Declaration of Independence and where the Constitution was signed a decade later,” Watlington said. “Folks in Philadelphia may take this history for granted, but people in the rest of the country find this exciting.”

He also has a master’s in school administration and a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Search began with a pool of 400 people

The Board of Education began its search for a new superintendent in September, when Hite announced that he would leave at the end of this school year. Originally, he was scheduled to leave in August, but then he moved his departure date up to the end of June. Hite is starting a new position with the education nonprofit KnowledgeWorks on July 1.

As part of the process to hire Hite’s replacement, the board hired a search firm, formed an advisory committee of 13 community members, and held a series of public meetings asking people what they looked for in a new superintendent. The board also invited people to fill out a written survey about what they wanted in the next superintendent, from which it compiled a detailed report.

The board’s report about the survey, which received more than 3,900 responses, indicated that the leading characteristics people said they wanted in a new leader included being a problem solver and change agent, cultural competence, and the ability to build trust. This report did not indicate that people only wanted someone who grew up in the city or had experience in its school system.

They chose three finalists: Watlington, Krish Mohip, the deputy education officer with the Illinois State Board of Education, and John L. Davis, the Chief of Schools in Baltimore. All are longtime educators who started out as teachers, but none has ever worked in Philadelphia.

Each candidate spent a day in the city, meeting with preselected groups of parents, students, and community members, and then attending a town hall open to the public. The board then sought feedback from people who participated in the sessions and those who had registered for the town halls.

The board rejected calls to reopen the search from some who were disappointed that no women and no one from Philadelphia were among the three finalists.

However, the board did say that it had whittled down a potential pool of 400 to 35 who were more closely vetted and then to 11 people to actively consider. Of those 11, six were women and three had ties to the city, the board said.

Philly district, principals group split over next year’s schools budget

2022-03-23T18:07:36+00:00

Philadelphia school officials and a principals’ group are disputing whether the district’s proposed budget for next school year represents a step forward for classrooms, or harmful cuts at some schools.

The district’s top financial officer said the proposed $170 million increase for the 2022-23 school year, which officials will unveil in detail at a board of education meeting Thursday, will directly benefit students.

But during a virtual town hall event Monday, the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators and others argued that the proposal would lead to significant staffing cuts for some schools.

The principals stressed that additional literacy, math, and counseling staff are needed more than ever as students struggle to recover skills lost during a year or more of remote learning.

“Our fear is that a significant reduction of the workforce will leave us ill equipped to serve our children at the start of the school year,” said Lauren Overton, the principal of Penn Alexander School.

But Uri Monson, the district’s chief financial officer, said staffing cuts at schools would be tied to enrollment declines like the district’s typical process calls for, and are not part of an overall reduction in positions.

“There’s a shift in resources, but there’s no question more resources are being pushed into schools for students,” said Monson in a Tuesday interview with Chalkbeat.

Monson said the district suspended its usual practice of adjusting teacher allotments in October based on actual enrollment as opposed to projections. This meant schools did not lose teachers this year due to this practice, which is called “leveling.” But the district will resume leveling next year, meaning that staffing loss in some schools will be cumulative.

Members of the principals association say students need more support than ever after two years of the pandemic. And a significant share of administrators believe the enrollment projections for next year are off base, according to a survey from the association.

Monson acknowledged that because the draft 2022-23 budget incorporates two years’ worth of enrollment shifts, the impact is more dramatic and “has made it a little harder for folks” to accept.

The budget, Monson also said, includes a modified extension of a flexible staffing program that empowers principals to hire educators that meet the needs of students at their individual schools. And it closes a per-pupil funding gap between larger and smaller schools in favor of schools with bigger enrollments.

Yet the principals’ group says the proposal falls far short of funding five key positions it has long wanted every school to have: an assistant principal, a climate manager, a school-based literacy leader, a school-based math leader, and a special education compliance monitor.

The district released budget allocations for individual schools on March 9. The school board is scheduled to adopt a final budget for 2022-23 on May 26.

Monson said the district looks at demographics over multiple years to project enrollment. The pandemic didn’t change the general trajectory, even though it made the process of projecting enrollment “interesting,” he said.

But 65 percent of those surveyed by the school administrators group said the district’s enrollment projections are inaccurate, meaning some schools would be targeted for staff reductions in the budget based on population declines that won’t happen.

To make its case on Monday, the principals group highlighted data showing learning loss across the district in both English language arts and math, and cited the big increase in teacher resignations. From Dec. 1 to Feb. 15, 169 teachers resigned from the district, double the number of teachers who resigned during the same period in the previous school year. (Nationwide, schools have generally avoided a mass teacher exodus that some feared, a Chalkbeat analysis found.)

The administrators association says that its proposal for the district to fund the five specific staff positions at each school would create 1,145 positions in total, but that the district’s draft budget only supports 150 of those positions.

Cecelia Thompson, the lone school board member at Monday’s town hall meeting, said she’s willing to listen to arguments that the budget should contain dedicated funding for specific positions at each school.

Shakeda Gaines, president of the Philadelphia Home and School Association, asked parents and teachers to work together and fight for the positions. “We’re tired of watching y’all leave,” she told teachers at the meeting.

And Councilmember Helen Gym urged those attending Monday’s event to show up at a rally ahead of Thursday’s school board meeting in support of the principals group’s position.

“We’re going to make it very clear we think this issue is going to be a priority issue at this school board meeting,” Gym said.

Philly school board rejects calls to reopen superintendent search

2022-03-18T20:18:35+00:00

The Philadelphia Board of Education will not reopen the search for a new school superintendent, despite some public disappointment with the selection of three men from outside the city as finalists to succeed Superintendent William Hite.

The board said in a statement Thursday that it “conducted a thorough, professional and transparent search” and has “proudly presented the three strongest candidates, all of whom have the experience, capabilities and track record that Philadelphians said they want in the next leader of the district.”

The board said it whittled down a pool of 400 prospects to 35 people who they vetted more deeply, and then narrowed the list to 11 preliminary finalists. Of that group of 11, six were women and three “had experience in the Philadelphia education ecosystem,” the board said.

But none of those people made the cut down to the three finalists. About a dozen protesters outside district headquarters Thursday said the board’s decision to consider only men from outside the city represented very poor judgment. And a member of the city council also expressed dissatisfaction with the results of the process so far.

The board plans to announce the next superintendent the week of March 21. Philadelphia has not had a homegrown superintendent since Constance Clayton, who served from 1982 to 1993.

The finalists are John L. Davis, chief of schools in Baltimore; Krish Mohip, a former Chicago school official who now works at the Illinois State Board of Education; and Tony C. Watlington, superintendent of the Rowan-Salisbury district in North Carolina.

This week, each finalist met with parents, students, and educators, and also participated in a town hall with the general public.

The search was run by the firm Isaacson, Miller, with support from an advisory committee comprising 13 Philadelphians “representing diverse communities and constituencies across the city,” the board’s statement said.

Megan Smith, a spokeswoman for the search, said Friday that the board would announce the new superintendent next week, but there’s no date or time yet for that announcement. The choice will be announced at a press conference, not at a board meeting, Smith also said.

The board will deliberate privately over several meetings, said Smith. As part of their deliberations, board members will have written feedback from people who participated in the parent, student, and educator meetings, as well as the town halls.

The Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, the school board’s most vocal critic and watchdog, held Thursday’s rally urging the board to start over.

Protesters chanted “continue the search” and held signs on the steps of the district’s headquarters at 440 North Broad Street.

“It’s kind of shocking” that the board couldn’t come up with a single woman or Philadelphian among the finalists, said Robin Lowry, a longtime health and physical education teacher in the district.

In addition, state Sen. Tony Williams, a Democrat who represents Philadelphia, wrote an op-ed on Wednesday calling for the choice of a new superintendent to be delayed until a new mayor takes office, which will not be for another two years.

City Councilmember Helen Gym stopped short of asking for the search to be reopened, but expressed disappointment in the results.

“I think many people feel the pain of not seeing a woman or a local candidate in the mix, and I hope this knowledge leads us to prioritize investing in our local talent, as we clearly have not done enough on this front,” she said in a statement. “The next administration’s senior leadership should showcase the exceptional talent present within our District, particularly from women of color. Given the lack of local ties among any of the finalists, this is non-negotiable.”

Gym added that of three finalists, Watlington is the only candidate she is open to supporting.

Later Friday, the advocacy group Our Cities Our Schools also expressed support for Watlington.

“He was the only candidate who convincingly talked about bringing stakeholder communities together and empowering people,” the group said in a Facebook post, adding that members had spoken to school communities in North Carolina and “gotten glowing recommendations.”

Philly superintendent finalist Watlington: Success begins with great teachers

2022-03-16T21:23:15+00:00

Where does student success start? Tony Watlington, one of three finalists to be Philadelphia’s next schools superintendent, has a clear answer: Success begins with great teachers.

The “number one ingredient” in any plan to improve students’ academic performance is recruiting, supporting, and training “high-quality teachers,” Watlington said on Wednesday as he made his case to parent and student groups in the city.

“I think the school district of Philadelphia can be a beacon of hope” for other majority Black and brown cities that shows “what academic excellence looks like,” said Watlington, who is currently the superintendent of the 18,000-student Rowan-Salisbury district in North Carolina.

Watlington said if he gets the job, he’ll “be very visible throughout Philadelphia,” engaging in face-to-face town halls, focus groups, and meetings with parent committees. Watlington also said he’d visit schools and talk to teachers on the front lines to make sure he gets their views as well. “I am not a bureaucrat,” he said. “I am a teacher.”

Last week, the Philadelphia Board of Education announced that Watlington, along with John Davis and Krish Mohip, are the finalists to take over for Superintendent William Hite, who is stepping down after the school year ends. Davis, a top official in Baltimore schools, met with Philadelphia parents and educators on Monday, while Mohip, an official with the Illinois state school board, did the same on Tuesday.

Board President Joyce Wilkerson said the board hopes to make a decision about the next superintendent during the week of March 21. She also said the three finalists would have to make the effort to get to know the city.

“We want to make sure we have all the voices around the table,” Watlington said Wednesday. “When you engage with the public, particularly parents, at that level, it can sometimes be a little bit messy. I’m not at all troubled or bothered by those hard and tough questions.”

Strong principals and rigorous curriculum key for Watlington

During his public events in Philadelphia, Watlington discussed several pressing topics for city schools, from funding and curriculum to standardized testing, in addition to the teacher workforce.

Watlington told a town hall Wednesday evening that he started his career in education as a bus driver and custodian, before becoming a history teacher. He also said that growing up poor, his mother buying a set of World Book encyclopedias was a life-changing experience for him.

His background “as a free and reduced lunch student myself who came up from the other side of the tracks,” he said, makes him the “ideal candidate” for this job.

To encourage future teachers, “we should be identifying kids as early as middle school” as strong candidates for the profession, he said. And he suggested using public and private funds to pay for these students to go to college, then have them return to teach in the Philadelphia school district for four years once they graduate. He said it is especially important to recruit Black male teachers.

It’s also important to have “really strong, effective principals” to recruit and retain teachers, he said.

Asked by the leader of a charter school for his opinion of “performance-based pay” for teachers, Watlington said it was “worth having the conversation” about it, but also said he wanted to learn more about how the city operates. He also said any system for judging performance should use multiple measures like students’ input, and not just test scores, in order to identify the strongest teachers.

Watlington said he’s in favor of teachers getting “dual certification” that includes special education teaching, and told parents that this represented a “gold standard” for teachers. On a related issue, Watlington also said he would consider auditing the district’s process governing Individualized Education Programs.

A “rigorous curriculum” is another key to a good school system, said Watlington.

To be successful in the later grades, students need to have experience with upper-level math in middle school, Watlington said. He said he’d push to make Advanced Placement courses and early-college programs available to students. “Studies have shown, and we know this, kids who get Algebra 1 by seventh grade, or sometimes as early as sixth grade, they get on an accelerated track,” he said.

While Watlington said it’s the job of educators to prepare students for standardized tests, he also acknowledged that certain biases are built into those exams. “We just need to figure out how to get all of our children more opportunities to demonstrate their learning,” he said.

Watlington said he’d “absolutely” continue current Superintendent William Hite’s fight to get more money for Philadelphia schools, while also noting that it’s important for city schools to show they’ve been “effective and efficient with the dollars we have.”

His North Carolina district obtained a state waiver that allowed it some autonomy over its budget, and as a result, increased its statewide literacy ranking from 96th out of 115 districts to 74th, Watlington said.

Telling a group of high school students that they lived in a “historic city” where the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution were signed, Watlington called providing access to an excellent education the “unfinished work” of the Declaration of Independence.

“I’ve been really impressed to see a large, majority Black and brown school district improve its financial health and do some really good things,” Watlington said.

Chalkbeat Philadelphia Senior Writer Dale Mezzacappa contributed to this story.

Superintendent finalist Mohip wants ‘generational change’ for Philly students

2022-03-15T23:30:39+00:00

Krish Mohip said he wants to lead the school district in Philadelphia “for the children” while acknowledging that providing high quality education education for all students will not be easy.

“I know coming to Philadelphia will be a challenge. I was talking to my wife and, honest to God, I said I feel like if I get this job I’ll be going into battle,” said Mohip, one of three finalists to lead the city’s public schools, in a Tuesday meeting with students. “But it’s a battle worth fighting. We’re talking about making generational change.”

In discussions with the Philadelphia education community, Mohip – who is the Deputy Education Officer for the Illinois State Board of Education – also talked about his past successes and struggles as a district leader in Chicago and elsewhere, empowering educators, and dealing with student trauma, among other topics. He was the second finalist to meet with city residents this week.

Mohip spent significant time discussing his turbulent time leading schools in Youngstown, Ohio, from 2016 to 2019, after the state had taken control of the district due to persistent academic struggles.

While he recounted successes during his tenure, such as a 15% increase in the graduation rate and huge jump in the percentage of ninth graders staying on track, Mohip said his family stayed in Chicago while he worked in Youngstown because “it was not safe” for them to be in Youngstown. His house in Youngstown was also vandalized, and Mohip said he received death threats.

Mohip ended up taking a medical leave several months before his tenure was due to end due to his father’s illness, he said, and did not return to his position. But he said that while he had “some detractors” he was not shaken by the death threats.“I was not afraid of some others that didn’t like the fact I was part of this [state] takeover,” Mohip told a group of Philadelphia educators. “I was focused on what I was sent there to do” and help children be successful.

In Youngstown, he described himself as the “sole decisionmaker” with the power, among other things, to make changes to the labor contract. At the same time, he said he was a “strong advocate of union labor” and worked with teachers and union leaders.

He also created four advisory councils to bring community concerns and input to his policymaking. “I worked with the community,” he said, and kept the Board of Education abreast of his work though they had no control over him.

Mohip said that two years into his three-year tenure, 91% of teachers said in a survey that the district was “moving in the right direction … By the time I left, I was a guy nobody wanted to see leave.”

Mohip said his mantra is not simply “all kids can learn,” but that “all kids want to learn,” and that if students aren’t keeping up, “it’s not about that child failing but we as adults failing them. … My belief is that every child has the ability to learn and it is up to the adults to make it happen.”

Asked about charter schools, he said his position “evolved over time.” While he was a principal and district leader, he didn’t want the competition from charters, he said. But now, he said, “I don’t think a child cares what governance structure a school is.” What matters, he said, is whether a school is high quality, and if it is failing students, what is needed to reverse it.

In Chicago, he started as a kindergarten teacher, served as a principal, and rose through the administration to be Chief of Schools. He talked about leading a group of 36 schools that needed a “complete reboot,” as he put it, and said he built collaborations with teachers and community members and visited schools often. He said wants he principals to build their managerial skills, reach out to the community, and ultimately improve achievement in the schools.

“You have to give principals the support and autonomy to do what is needed in schools,” he said.

One innovation in Chicago that he led, he said, was the creation of “peace centers” in schools in an effort to combat violence and help students deal with trauma.

“I lost a sister when I was 14, two weeks before I started high school,” Mohip said. “I understand depression. One thing that brought me back was a school counselor, who showed me what was possible.”

In his current job, Mohip said, he helps oversee the spending of federal COVID recovery funds for schools, among other duties.

Asked about “rebuilding trust” in a district where it has been eroding, he said that he considers himself to be “transparent and honest. If something is not working, I’ll tell you … I’m all about transparency.” He also said that “culture is more important than strategy,” and that he is “a big believer in organizational health.”

Mohip, who said he is the child of immigrants from Trinidad and Tobago, pledged to advocate for more funds from the state for city schools working with local lawmakers, community stakeholders, and others. But he also indicated he would push hard to get city schools what they needed. “I’m not afraid of a fight,” Mohip said.

If he is chosen for the job, Mohip told a few dozen people who came to a public town hall, that his first priority would be to learn about Philadelphia. He also said he would send his children to district schools.

Mohip praised Superintendent William Hite’s leadership and the fact that he stayed for 10 years. He said that if he is hired in Philadelphia, he hopes it is for the long haul.

“This is not a stepping stone to something else, this is me believing I have value to add to this organization,” he said.

On Monday, Philadelphians heard from finalist John L. Davis, the Chief of Schools in Baltimore. Another finalist, Tony Watlington, the Superintendent of the Rowan-Salisbury School District in North Carolina, will meet with parents, educators, and students on Wednesday.

Superintendent finalist Davis says Philly educators must ‘move mountains’

2022-03-14T23:37:18+00:00

Philadelphians got their first look at one of the three finalists to be the new school superintendent Monday, as John L. Davis participated in small group meetings with parents, students, and teachers, and also attended a town hall open more widely to the public.

Davis, now the Chief of Schools in the Baltimore City school district, reiterated several times that a key to success in urban school districts is to have educators who have a sincere belief that students can learn to high standards and overall conditions can improve.

In choosing senior staff, he told a roundtable of educators, “I’m going to try to suss out whether you believe in students and whether you believe in adults to help students. You have to believe, first and foremost, that we can move mountains.”

He will want examples, he said – just like students, parents, and educators asked him for examples of what he has accomplished in a 30-year career in education.

Meanwhile, Davis told the parent group that he is “first and foremost” a parent who sent two sons through public schools in Washington, D.C., and now has a daughter there.

Davis said that he went through a “kind of normal progression” through his career in education, starting as a middle school math teacher and rising to principal and then central office administrator in urban school districts.

Parents and students asked him questions about trust and transparency, leadership style, special education, and how a district’s operations contribute to improving education. Students also wanted to know how he planned to increase their motivation.

They were also concerned about equity, both within the district and between Philadelphia and richer suburbs.

“The urban-suburban dynamic is a tough one,” he said, before essentially saying that Philadelphia needs to push as hard as it can to adopt policies and get resources that will help students attain higher levels of achievement. It’s important to provide “education above the basics,” he said.

The issue of equity also came up in a discussion of admissions policies to selective high schools. This year, the district switched to a centralized lottery system in choosing students for “criterion based” schools. This resulted in some high-achieving students getting no offers of admission to any of them, causing something of an outcry.

The goal of Superintendent William Hite and the Board of Education is to make enrollment in the district’s top schools, especially Central High School and Masterman High School, better reflect the district’s demographics. Most students in these schools are either white or Asian American, even though the district is about 80% Black and Latino.

One parent asked Davis pointedly, “How important is it to achieve equity without sacrificing meritocracy?”

Davis said the answer is to focus on “getting more kids in because they are educated well” in the earlier grades, including middle school.“I’m going to lean a bit towards the equitable way of thinking about it because, frankly, there are too many students that come from disinvested areas that just don’t have that opportunity,” Davis said. “We’ve got to open it up and give them that opportunity. I’m going to lean in that direction.”

In response to a question about how he would motivate students to stay in school, Davis said he would fight hard for extracurricular activities and courses that meet their interests. “You have interests and talents that are more than English, math, social studies and science,” he said. He said it is important to go beyond the basics and survey students to see what they want.

In a discussion of funding and making sure Philadelphia has enough money to give students what they need, Davis referenced Pennsylvania’s school funding lawsuit and said, “Every state has its own political dynamics.”

But he pointed out that the Washington, D.C., district managed to modernize its buildings, and also pointed out that the Maryland legislature recently voted to give more money to school districts for their operating budgets. “I want to provide hope it can happen. I’ve seen it happen,” he said.

Davis also said one thing that attracted him to Philadelphia was the Board of Education’s “guts” in adopting “goals and guardrails” for student achievement, leadership, and school conditions, and being diligent about monitoring progress. A lot of district leaders, he said, “don’t want to put out goals … what really counts is what is happening in the classroom. We have to be laser focused on that.”

At a Monday evening town hall with members of the public, 171 people signed up to attend in person, but only about 20 showed up (more than 300 viewed it online). At this event, Davis was asked about charter schools, LGBTQ students, and his identity as a white man seeking to lead a school district that is majority Black and Latino. Of the three finalists, Davis is the only white person.

“As a country we have not done right by Black people for a long long time. We all know this history, I’m not afraid of it, but I’m aware of it,” he said. “I always feel like I have to bring my best, and I have to prove myself every single day.”

Earlier, in the parent meeting, Eric Marsh said he was concerned about the lack of women finalists, especially since women are the majority among educators. The Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, a frequent critic of the district’s leadership, called for the Board of Education to reopen the search.

On charter schools, Davis said he was “neither for or against them,” but stressed that they needed to be accountable.

Davis went to meet with state legislators from Philadelphia after the town hall.

Fellow finalist Krish Mohip, now the Deputy Education Officer of the Illinois Board of Education and a former school official in Chicago and Youngstown, Ohio, will go through a similar process on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the city will hear from Tony B. Watlington, the superintendent of Rowan-Salisbury school district in North Carolina.

School leaders from Baltimore, North Carolina, and Illinois tapped as finalists for Philly superintendent

2022-03-11T23:09:20+00:00

Philadelphia’s Board of Education announced the three finalists to replace Superintendent William Hite – all men, all experienced educators, and none with ties to Philadelphia.

The finalists for the role are John Davis, chief of schools at Baltimore City public schools, Krish Mohip, the deputy chief education officer for the Illinois State Board of Education, and Tony Watlington, the superintendent of a school district in North Carolina.

Each finalist is scheduled to participate in a town hall one day next week, preceded by smaller meetings earlier in the day – one with parents, one with students, and one with teachers and principals. All these meetings will be livestreamed through Facebook.

The school board invited Philadelphia residents to nominate themselves to be chosen for the small groups – 11 parents, 11 teachers and principals, and 11 students.

According to the schedule, Davis’ town hall will be in Philadelphia on Monday, Mohip’s on Tuesday, and Watlington’s on Wednesday.

“The upcoming public meetings and town halls are the next opportunity for Philadelphians to participate in the process,” said Joyce Wilkerson, board president.

Wilkerson said that the board hoped to make a decision during the week of March 21.

Philadelphia has not chosen a superintendent from within its own ranks since Constance Clayton, who ran the district from 1982 to 1993. Wilkerson said that “all the candidates understand that they have to make an effort to get to know Philadelphia.”

Davis is a career educator who started as a middle school math teacher in Baltimore and has held high-ranking positions in both the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., districts, both of which have similar demographics to Philadelphia. In Baltimore, he was the founding principal of New Era Academy High School, an innovative school within the district. He was also the interim chancellor of Washington, D.C., schools in 2016 after Kaya Henderson left.

When he was in Washington, D.C., the district had steadily improving graduation rates, and led big-city districts in math and reading growth on the 2013 and 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress, according to the Philadelphia district.

Mohip started as a kindergarten teacher in Chicago, rising through the ranks to be Chief of Schools. In 2016, he became the CEO of schools in Youngstown, Ohio, as part of a state takeover of what the state identified as a “failing” district. This takeover was opposed by teachers and some Board of Education members.

But under his leadership, according to Philadelphia Board of Education Vice President Letitia Egea-Hinton, Youngstown’s graduation rate improved 11 percentage points and freshman academies increased the percentage of ninth graders who stayed “on track” from 63% to 94% in one year. He left that job in 2019 and returned to Illinois. Mohip said he sought to leave his job in Youngstown in part because vandals targeted his house multiple times.

Mohip was recently in contention to be Cincinnati’s superintendent, but missed out on the job earlier this year.

Reached Friday, Mohip said he has a cousin who taught in the district for 31 years who’s shared a lot with him about the schools. He added he’d also bring his experience as a former kindergarten teacher to the district as it looks to boost early literacy, working to expand access to preschool and lengthen the day for pre-kindergartners.

“I have seen nationally where we target third grade as the area where we need to ensure all students are reading at grade level,” he said. “If chosen, I would push on that metric to say that we really need to ensure that students are reading at grade level by the end of first grade.”

Mohip said he also would focus on ensuring federal COVID relief dollars are being used both to close academic gaps and provide wraparound and trauma support. Drawing on his experience with high rates of gun violence in Chicago and Youngstown, he said he would try to expand after-school programs and work opportunities for Philadelphia’s students.

Watlington – now the superintendent in North Carolina’s Rowan-Salisbury school district, which has 18,000 students in 33 schools – has been a high school teacher, assistant principal, and principal. Under his leadership, Rowan-Salisbury’s ranking with respect to third graders’ reading proficiency increased from 96 to 74, out of the state’s 115 districts. Prior to joining Rowan-Salisbury, he was Chief of Schools in North Carolina’s Guilford County district, which enrolls 72,000 students.

In a virtual event last year, Watlington said that while working in Guilford County schools, he and other officials figured out how to accelerate academic progress for a wide variety of student groups. But he also said eliminating performance gaps between students won’t be accomplished unless other societal issues are addressed.

“The pandemic shined a bright flashlight on issues of equity, how our students are so differently situated in terms of their … internet access, their access to devices, their access to teachers and tutors, and things of that nature,” he said, adding that students in racially and socioeconomically isolated schools often lack access to high-quality teachers.

Watlington also cautioned against relying too heavily on a single test to judge whether students should gain access to gifted and talented programs and advanced courses. “Advanced Placement courses are not for the elite. They are for the prepared,” he said.

‘They have to make an effort to get to know Philadelphia.’

Tackling staff shortages, addressing building safety concerns, and getting students back on track after three school years interrupted by the pandemic will be among the tasks facing the new leader of the more than 120,000-student district.

Egea-Hinton said Mayor Jim Kenney had met with all the candidates.

“The Board’s priority has always been for the person chosen to lead the district to meet or exceed the job profile criteria,” she said. “We want the most capable person to take on this important and visible role.”

She added that “there is no candidate that will check every box that you or I have, but I’m confident the three candidates … are well qualified and will be well positioned to fill this role.”

Hite will leave his job in August after 10 years to lead the educational nonprofit KnowledgeWorks. He will also be the inaugural superintendent in residence and executive fellow at Yale University. Hite has said he will be a part of the process to find his replacement, and plans to remain in his current role with the district through the end of the 2021-2022 school year.

“We look forward to collaborating with him to support a smooth operational transition and knowledge transfer to a new superintendent. We are committed to creating an environment where the next superintendent will be well-resourced and set up for success,” Egea-Hinton said.

The search to find Hite’s successor 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.

Kalyn Belsha of Chalkbeat Chicago contributed to this report.

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.