Chalkbeat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

57 Philadelphia schools will go remote Wednesday due to heat

2026-05-19T22:23:22+00:00

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School will go remote for students at 57 Philadelphia schools Wednesday due to soaring temperatures, district officials announced Tuesday evening.

That’s over a quarter of the 218 district-operated schools in the city.

All early childhood centers operating at those schools will also shift to virtual learning.

And all in-person after-school activities, including all athletic programs scheduled for Tuesday, are canceled as well.

The move comes after Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg urged the district to declare a heat emergency Monday.

Steinberg said in a statement that the district’s failure to do so on Monday, when temperatures reached above 90 degrees, put students and staff “in uncomfortable and dangerously hot conditions.” Some 53 Philadelphia schools have “insufficient cooling” according to a district spokesperson’s statement from April.

“District administration is directly responsible for mitigating dangerous conditions inside of school buildings,” said Steinberg. “They should declare Wednesday a virtual learning day so that families and staff can plan accordingly.”

Schools were closed Tuesday due to the primary election. Schools sent students home with their Chromebooks on Monday, according to the district’s announcement.

The 57 schools that will shift to remote learning on Wednesday are:

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

An asterisk designates schools that have prekindergarten or Head Start on site.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Philly principals reach tentative contract agreement with school district

2025-11-25T16:07:54+00:00

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The Philadelphia principals union and school district reached a tentative contract agreement late Monday that includes raises and language recognizing administrators “as vital partners in the educational process.”

No further details about the new four-year agreement were available.

The 1,000-member Commonwealth Association of School Administrators Teamsters Local 502 or CASA union represents school principals, climate workers, safety supervisors, and other administrators. They have been working without a contract since their prior four-year agreement expired in August. Union members have packed school board meetings and a City Council hearing in recent weeks, increasing public pressure on the district to reach a deal.

But a strike threat was never on the table. A longstanding provision in nearly all of the union’s prior contract agreements, as well as Pennsylvania’s Act 105 law, forbade administrators from stopping work.

The new tentative agreement “will provide continued stability for our administrative leaders,” said CASA President Robin Cooper in a joint statement with school district Superintendent Tony Watlington late Monday night.

Cooper said the agreement addresses key issues for union membership including wage equity for administrators who have several years experience in the district, across-the-board salary increases, and includes “collaborative language” that “affirms the dedication and innovative leadership” that school principals provide, “recognizing them as pivotal change agents, who drive both student and teacher success.”

Watlington said in the joint statement that the agreement “provides the stability, clarity, and momentum we need to continue our strong partnership with CASA and to advance our five-year strategic plan” as well as “honor[ing] the dedication of our CASA members and upholds our commitment to strong financial stewardship.”

Since August, the district has settled new multi-year contracts with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and the School Police Association of Philadelphia, which represents school safety officers.

The tentative agreement will go to union members for a vote sometime during the first week of December, Cooper told Chalkbeat on Tuesday.

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

Philadelphia school principals demand new contract but stop short of strike threat

2025-11-21T01:08:23+00:00

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Philadelphia principals are ramping up public pressure on school district officials to secure a new contract. But they’re not threatening to strike.

District principals, climate workers, and school safety supervisors packed the standing-room-only Board of Education meeting on Thursday in navy and gold Commonwealth Association of School Administrators Teamsters Local 502, or CASA, T-shirts. Union members have been working without a contract since their previous agreement expired in August.

CASA President Robin Cooper had strong words for Superintendent Tony Watlington and the district, saying contract negotiations have been “one-sided.” The union’s bargaining team has presented several counter proposals to end what Cooper calls “wage compression” and address increasing health premiums, but has been stonewalled by the district’s negotiators, according to Cooper.

“We have to fight our own district to properly support our needs,” Cooper said.

Under their prior contract agreement, members of the CASA union agreed not to strike or stop work.

But she stopped short of calling a strike. Under the union’s prior contract, members agreed they would not “engage in, instigate, or condone any strike, work stoppage or any concerted refusal to perform normal work duties.” That commitment still holds, Cooper told reporters outside of the meeting room.

“This is our district and we’re gonna take care of it,” Cooper said. “We’re still going to stand by our schools because this is who we are, and this is what we do.”

Watlington told City Council members earlier this week he is optimistic about reaching a contract deal in the “near term.”

“We value you and we’re gonna get this done,” Watlington told the union members Thursday.

Meanwhile, several parents, advocates, and community members also testified at Thursday’s meeting demanding the district reconsider its plan to close some public schools.

“It’s true that some neighborhoods face real enrollment challenges, but those neighborhoods call for support, not closure,” education researcher Ryan Pfleger told Watlington and school board members at Thursday’s meeting. “If a building is crumbling, repair it.”

District officials have said the highly-anticipated plan — originally slated to drop at Thursday’s board meeting before being delayed — will include proposals for every school building across the city. Some will be closed and their buildings repurposed, others colocated, and the rest either renovated or left as-is.

The district pushed back releasing a draft of that plan to an unspecified date, in order to gather more community responses through a survey it launched this week.

Watlington said Thursday the goal of the survey, which will be open through Dec. 11, is to solicit big-picture feedback from parents about four main themes: how to better use building space, reduce “unnecessary” school transitions, reinvest in neighborhood high schools, and expand access to selective-admission schools.

“I want people to just step back and just dream a bit,” Watlington said. “We’re committed to not fumbling the football at the two-yard line.”

Board members approve school security contracts

While the facilities plan was not on Thursday’s agenda, board members did vote on several contracts for school security efforts, including:

— $195,000 to expand the district’s existing student-run “youth court” program which helps young people mediate conflicts in school. During the 2025-26 school year, the district plans to add new program sites at Science Leadership Academy at Beeber, William L. Sayre High School, and West Philadelphia High School. The three additional youth court program sites will all be active “no later than June 2026,” according to the district.

— $321,178 to GXC Inc. for walkthrough weapons detection devices and metal detectors at district high schools and middle schools.

— $732,094 to Safe at School Consulting LLC for state-mandated security assessments at all schools by the end of the 2025-26 school year. The assessments will “evaluate current safety measures, identify any vulnerabilities, and provide guidance for any enhancements to physical safety and security needed at each school,” according to the district.

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

Philadelphia teachers union ratifies new contract that gives teachers raises, parental leave

2025-08-29T01:28:27+00:00

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Members of the Philadelphia teachers union voted to ratify the union’s new contract with the school district Thursday that includes annual 3% raises for three years and a $1,400 bonus for all members.

The vote, which comes days before the union’s current contract expires, puts an end to concerns that a teachers strike could disrupt the beginning of the school year. The union’s nearly 14,000 members include teachers, paraprofessionals, counselors, school nurses, and other school staff.

“Our goal for this collective bargaining agreement was really to set a floor for the future and build on the educational program for our members and for the children of the city of Philadelphia going forward,” said Arthur Steinberg, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

Steinberg said Thursday that about 4,500 members voted to ratify the three-year contract, or about 70% of all votes.

Along with raises, the contract ends the district’s controversial leave policy, often referred to as 3-5-7-9, that penalized teachers for taking sick leave. The new contract will include a new set of absence guidelines that “significantly improves” that policy, Steinberg said. A copy of the contract, along with the absence policy, was not made available to the press Thursday evening.

“The number one request from them was, I want to be able to use my 10 sick days without any consequence of discipline,” said Steinberg. “Now they can.”

The contract also introduces five weeks of paid parental leave for all new parents. Previously, teachers planning to take parental leave had to use sick time or take unpaid leave.

Teachers in Philadelphia’s public schools earned on average $85,719 last school year, according to state data. But some other school staff made considerably less, with paraprofessionals’ salary starting at $24,618 and secretaries’ starting at $27,669 for a 10-month school year, according to the union’s previous salary bands.

The new contract provides additional benefits to many members in those positions, including additional raises for some paraprofessionals and secretaries. It also creates limits on the hours paraprofessionals can work.

School district officials welcomed the contract when they announced the tentative agreement Sunday.

“We are pleased that we have reached a tentative three year agreement that both honors the hard work of our educators and maintains our record of strong financial stewardship,” Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a statement.

The school district will have to pay for teachers’ raises and other benefits while its own funding remains in limbo. State lawmakers have not yet finalized a state budget, which was due two months ago, leaving districts across the state uncertain about how much funding they will receive.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed a budget that would include more money for Philadelphia’s schools, partially in response to a 2023 court decision that the state’s school funding system was unconstitutional because it left poorer districts underfunded. But some Republican lawmakers have resisted providing additional funding to the state’s largest district.

The delayed budget also means that school districts have not received expected payments from the state. The Philadelphia school district is waiting on around $465 million in expected payments, according to an analysis by the Pennsylvania State Education Association, a statewide education union.

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

Philadelphia teachers union, school district reach tentative contract agreement

2025-08-25T12:12:38+00:00

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The Philadelphia teachers union and school district reached a tentative contract agreement late Sunday night, potentially avoiding a citywide teachers’ strike hours before students and teachers return to the classroom.

District and union leaders announced they had reached a three-year contract agreement, but they did not disclose any details about the contents of the agreement as of Monday.

“The PFT is thrilled that we have been able to reach a tentative agreement with the School District of Philadelphia on a three-year pact ensuring that school will open on time, as well as three years of labor peace,” said Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg in a joint statement with Superintendent Tony Watlington.

Watlington said in the statement that the agreement “both honors the hard work of our educators and maintains our record of strong financial stewardship.”

Watlington, Steinberg, and Mayor Cherelle Parker appeared side by side to praise the agreement, at the district’s back-to-school welcome event at Edward Steel Elementary School on Monday,

“You don’t prove that you value public education by simply pumping your fist in the air symbolically,” Parker said. “We’re going to keep moving forward, and we’re going to keep working together.”

Union leaders had been preparing their members for a strike in the leadup to the school year. The PFT, which represents some 14,000 educators and school staff, was negotiating for salary increases, amending the district’s controversial sick leave policy that union members say punishes teachers for using sick days, and adding paid parental leave.

The state budget impasse made negotiations more fraught, Steinberg said Monday. District officials have been operating off of a financial plan that assumed major funding increases under Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed budget, but Republican legislators have resisted approving those increases.

Steinberg said they came to a decision to rely on the budget figures Shapiro has proposed, and that “we’ll adjust on the fly if we have to.”

Parker said she believes teachers “should be paid what they’re worth.” She vowed that “every chance we get to generate more revenue to help them, we will,” but that under the deal announced Sunday, the district and union “did the best they could with what they had.”

Though neither Steinberg nor district spokespeople would comment on the details of the negotiation process earlier this month, Steinberg previously told Chalkbeat the district’s proposals “weren’t as irksome as they usually are” and that during negotiations “nothing that set a bad tone, as it has in the past.”

On Monday, Steinberg said while the collective bargaining process was “adversarial” at times, it “did not stray off into contentiousness very often.” He said Sunday morning both parties “sat down and had a frank conversation,” made progress, and then reached an agreement by late Sunday evening.

The three-year agreement will be put to PFT members for a ratification vote and if approved, it will also go to the Board of Education for a vote.

This story has been updated with additional comments from Mayor Cherelle Parker and Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg.

District and union leaders announced they had reached a three-year contract agreement, but they did not disclose any details about the contents of the agreement as of Monday.

Watlington said in the statement that the agreement “both honors the hard work of our educators and maintains our record of strong financial stewardship.”

Watlington, Steinberg, and Mayor Cherelle Parker appeared side by side to praise the agreement, at the district’s back-to-school welcome event at Edward Steel Elementary School on Monday,

Steinberg said they came to a decision to rely on the budget figures Shapiro has proposed, and that “we’ll adjust on the fly if we have to.”

The three-year agreement will be put to PFT members for a ratification vote and if approved, it will also go to the Board of Education for a vote.

This story has been updated with additional comments from Mayor Cherelle Parker and Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg.

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

Philadelphia teachers union prepares for strike as contract negotiations continue

2025-07-31T17:17:37+00:00

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Philadelphia teachers union leaders are preparing members for a strike as contract negotiations with the school district continue in the lead-up to the first day of school.

Negotiations are “moving more slowly than I would like,” Arthur Steinberg, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, told Chalkbeat this week. But he said despite the union and district making “some progress” toward an agreement, they have not reconciled some of the most pressing issues. Among them: salary increases for teachers and school staff, reforming the district’s controversial sick leave policy that union members say penalizes teachers for using sick days, and adding 12 weeks of paid parental leave. Union members currently get no paid parental leave.

Christina Clark, a district spokesperson, said in an email Thursday that she would not comment on the details of the negotiation process but that district officials “look forward to working with the PFT on a proposal that honors the hard work of our staff each day.”

Philly school officials have said the district is staring down a growing annual budget deficit, and it remains the only school district in the state that can’t raise its own tax revenue.

Steinberg said he still thinks there’s room for compromise. The district’s “initial set of proposals weren’t as irksome as they usually are,” he said but declined to give more details. “There were some [proposals] that we don’t think we can agree to, but nothing that set a bad tone, as it has in the past.”

A majority of the union’s 14,000 members voted to authorize a strike in June. A work stoppage could disrupt the first weeks and months of school. The first day of school for students is on August 25 and teachers are scheduled to head back to classrooms on August 18.

Though Steinberg said “we’re not ready to walk out tomorrow,” if negotiations stall in the next few weeks, “we could hit the bricks the next day,” he warned. The union’s contract expires on Aug. 31.

Steinberg declined to comment on how likely a teacher strike would be for the start of the school year, but he did say the union has begun reaching out to members who struck with the PFT during its 1981 and 2000 walkouts to give the newer members a “feel for what it was like and what to expect.”

As the summer stretches on, Philadelphia is inching closer to what could be a calamitous start to the school year. In addition to the threat of a teacher strike, the city’s public transit system is preparing to cut SEPTA bus and rail lines that serve more than 50,000 students and extreme heat conditions could likely result in school closures during the first week back.

What’s more, a state budget impasse has officials warning of delayed payments to prekindergarten programs and school districts posing additional complications for Philly schools’ budget. And ongoing uncertainty from the Trump administration has school leaders wary about relying on federal funds.

Labor leaders, including Steinberg, held a press conference Thursday urging Republicans who control the state Senate to send a budget bill to Gov. Josh Shapiro promptly.

Autumn Fingerhood, a district parent and stadium worker with the Unite Here Local 274 labor union, said her daughter relies on SEPTA to get to school, and she’s concerned service cuts could make their morning commute a challenge.

“They need to pass this budget,” she said. “My children need to be taken care of.”

Union contact negotiations throughout the city have also taken on a new tenor following the eight-day sanitation worker strike this month. That strike resulted in a contract agreement that fell short of what the union wanted but shored up the public’s general support for labor, Steinberg said.

“The school district likes to claim that they are the fastest growing large urban school district in the country,” Steinberg said. “A strike will derail that and really eliminate any progress that they have made.”

And as for Mayor Cherelle Parker’s promised teacher salary increases in 2030, “I’ll be long gone by then,” Steinberg said. “My members need money now.”

This story has been updated to include comment from a spokesperson for the School District of Philadelphia.

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

Philadelphia teachers union votes to authorize a strike

2025-06-18T00:24:08+00:00

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Members of the Philadelphia teachers union voted to authorize a future strike Tuesday, flexing their political muscles amid contract negotiations with the school district.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers said 94% percent of members in attendance at a meeting Tuesday evening voted to give leaders the power to call a strike if the union and the school district fail to reach an agreement by August when their contract expires.

The likelihood of a strike is unclear. But if PFT leaders do call a strike of their 14,000 members, it could disrupt the opening days of the new school year. The 2025-26 school year begins August 18 for staff and August 25 for students.

The union and district return to the negotiating table Wednesday. Christina Clark, a district spokesperson, said in an email Tuesday that district officials are “optimistic that we will reach an agreement on a successor collective bargaining agreement.”

PFT President Arthur Steinberg said in a statement that the union already “has made progress toward an agreement that demonstrably improves members’ working conditions.” But key demands remain, specifically changes that would address the district’s staffing shortage “that has left teachers, counselors, and other school staff juggling duties beyond their own job descriptions.”

The district started the school year with 347 teacher vacancies.

Tuesday’s vote signals that the union is taking stock of its political power in the city. It’s the PFT’s first strike authorization vote since the district regained local control from the state.

When the school district was under state control from 2001 to 2018, the PFT was barred from striking and teachers went without an active contract for five years. As a result, union leadership says teacher salaries have lagged, which has contributed to teacher churn.

The average Philly classroom teacher salary in 2024-25 was $85,719, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

In February 2024, the union and district were on good terms. Both parties agreed to a one-year contract extension that included raises and retention bonuses well before the previous contract’s expiration date in August 2024.

The district may have some additional resources to offer — but not for several years. Mayor Cherelle Parker and members of City Council reached a budget agreement this month that would increase the district’s share of property tax revenue from 56% to 56.5% in 2030. Parker said that increase will provide an additional $12 million per year for teacher salaries.

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

‘Stop the cuts!’: Educators, school activists rally to protect federal funding for public education

2025-03-04T21:36:06+00:00

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On a cloudy, cold Tuesday morning, a cluster of teachers and community activists in Newark chanted “Stop the cuts!” as they stood in their coats outside an elementary school that serves the district’s students with disabilities.

In a Philadelphia school auditorium, teachers, district officials, and lawmakers faced more than a dozen students with disabilities and promised to protect the educational services those students rely on.

In Chicago, the rain came down as more than 20 union members stood in front of Minnie Miñoso Academy elementary to join educators across the country to rally support for public schools and urge lawmakers not to cut federal funding.

The rallies on Tuesday were part of a national effort led by the American Federation of Teachers to protest threats to cut federal funding for education. The “Protect Our Kids” day of action came as newly-installed Education Secretary Linda McMahon prepares to overhaul the federal education department and shift how the agency operates.

McMahon, sworn into office a day before, promised senators at her confirmation hearing that key funding streams, such as for students with disabilities, won’t be harmed. But many advocates fear plans to upend the education department could affect federal support for low-income students, students with disabilities, first-generation college students, and other vulnerable groups.

Republican budget proposals already call for significant cuts to school meals programs and to programs overseen by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which include Medicaid. Those are important sources of money for public schools. And public education supporters fear even steeper reductions in education spending as Republicans look for ways to pay for President Donald Trump’s tax cuts.

“The millions of children and young adults who get funding to help them in literacy, to help them with occupational therapy and physical therapy, to help them go to college, to help them with hands-on learning — that’s what the federal government spends this money for,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten in a virtual press conference. “It goes directly to schools for these kinds of services.”

Across the country, in small towns and big cities, thousands of educators donned “Red for Ed” shirts and held walk-ins at their schools — and posted on social media using the hashtag #ProtectOurKids — to explain how taxpayer money funds necessary educational services.

Public schools are governed by local school boards and primarily supported by local property taxes and other state revenues. The federal government provides funding and support for school lunch programs, students with disabilities, homeless students, those from low-income families, and students learning English.

Newark schools receive roughly $80 million in federal funding, about 10% of the district’s annual budget. Philly schools receive more than $500 million in federal support, roughly 10% of that district’s budget, while Chicago Public Schools receives $1.3 billion, about 16% of its budget.

Outside of New Jersey Regional Day School in Newark, a few dozen educators and local leaders gathered Tuesday morning to call for protections to critical federal programs that support students with disabilities.

Newark at risk of losing pipeline of student teachers

In Newark, city and school leaders joined educators and student teachers outside New Jersey Regional Day School, one of five specialized schools that serve students with disabilities in the Newark Public Schools district.

Beck Akinyemi, a student teacher pursuing their teaching certification at Montclair State University, stood alongside peers and held up a sign that read “stop the attack on education.” Akinyemi is part of the latest cohort of students supported by the Teacher Quality Partnership grant, a federal grant program that helps prepare teachers for high-need schools and subject areas through a teacher residency with partner school districts.

But Akinyemi is at risk of not completing the program after the federal education department canceled the grant at Montclair State in February. Partner districts of the program, such as Newark Public Schools, could lose their pipeline of qualified teachers due to the cuts.

“Not only will this affect all the necessary social roles schools play in our communities, they will affect the future of the next generation of educators,” Akinyemi said.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka called the threats of federal funding cuts an attack on public school education and working class families.

“We need to do what we can to support the folks here, the organizations here, and make sure the funding remains solid and stationary,” Baraka said in front of a small crowd of educators, student teachers, and union members who chanted “stop the cuts” after his speech.

New Jersey receives around $1 billion in federal funding every year for education, and about half of that money is used for programs serving students with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Of the $1 billion, New Jersey receives over $460 million in IDEA funding, according to the Education Law Center. This school year, Newark received $66 million in special education aid from the state, according to the district’s latest budget.

Last week, the Newark Board of Education joined school boards nationwide, including Philadelphia, in passing a resolution to formally oppose the Republican congressional budget proposals and Trump administration threats to education funding more broadly.

In Philadelphia, special education cuts would be ‘catastrophic,’ leaders say

As part of Tuesday’s nationwide protests, Philly educators, city officials, and district representatives rallied at Widener Memorial School – the only public school in Pennsylvania that exclusively serves students with disabilities and diverse learners.

Widener student Taisha Cruz, who uses a wheelchair, said her school and the funding it receives “gives us a sense of freedom you will never understand.”

At the rally, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers union described in detail what city students would lose if IDEA funds were cut.

Acting Pennsylvania Secretary of Education Carrie Rowe has said deep cuts to education programs “would be nothing short of catastrophic” and “would cause irreparable harm,” to all students, especially those students with disabilities.

According to the PFT, Philly schools receive $178 million in Title I funding, $56 million in special education funds, $7 million for career and technical education programs, and $86 million for school meal reimbursements in addition to federal grants for school facilities, prekindergarten programs, and more.

Funding cuts could threaten the very existence of Widener, which relies on federal funds to support small class sizes, paraprofessionals and teacher aides, physical and occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, and activities including wheelchair basketball.

“All of this would not be possible without the funding that comes from IDEA,” said Widener principal Theresa Harrington.

A sign in the school’s lobby showed upcoming student trips to the zoo, the city’s flower show, and dress-up days for “superheroes vs villains” and “mismatch day.”

Several city and state officeholders warned funding cuts would cause a crisis in Philly schools likely to be felt for years.

“I never thought the day would come when we would look at the possibility of education being dismantled from the federal level,” said City Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, chair of the education committee.“This will have an impact on generations to come.”

Taisha Cruz, a junior at Widener Memorial School, joined educators at her school during a rally to support federal funding for education.

Chicago teachers want contract to protect schools from federal ‘foolery’

Those messages were echoed in Chicago where Chicago Teachers Union leaders and members joined the AFT campaign while also rallying around its remaining contract demands. As McMahon moves to make drastic changes to the way the federal education department runs, the clock is ticking toward a possible strike in the country’s fourth largest school district.

Standing in the rain outside Minnie Miñoso Academy Tuesday morning, CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said the union’s contract fight is aimed at “fortifying our school communities against the encroachment of the federal government and its foolery.”

“To sit here and say that special education services are not needed, that Title I is not needed, is an affront to all the sacrifice that’s been made to create this institution called public education,” said Jitu Brown, a recently-elected Chicago school board member and longtime activist who has organized marches in Washington, D.C. with the national Journey for Justice Alliance.

Chicago is shifting away from a school system under mayoral control to one governed by elected representatives. The current partially-elected, 21-member board is grappling with budget challenges now that federal COVID relief money has disappeared.

“Now is not the time to mourn. Now is the time to organize,” Brown said. “They may run D.C., but they don’t run Chicago.”

Dale Mezzacappa contributed to this story.

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

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Catherine Carrera is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Newark. Contact Catherine at ccarrera@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia’s process for disciplining teachers to be scrutinized by City Council

2025-01-23T22:28:04+00:00

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The chair of the City Council’s Education Committee wants to put the district’s process for disciplining teachers under the microscope, citing cases that drag on for months or years without being resolved.

Councilmember Isaiah Thomas introduced a resolution Thursday to hold hearings on the Philadelphia school district’s use of the “rubber room,” officially called the reassignment room, which is for teachers who have been accused of misconduct and are removed from their classrooms.

Thomas told his colleagues that teachers in the rubber room receive full salary and benefits, while the district must also pay substitutes who may or may not be properly credentialed.

“We want to examine how much money we’re wasting,” he said. Thomas’ resolution was adopted by voice vote.

He said the system lacks transparency, and that some teachers stay in the rubber room even after they’re cleared by the city’s Department of Human Services, which investigates cases involving alleged mistreatment of children, while the district’s own procedure drags on.

Thomas said he decided to take action after receiving complaints from people caught up in the system, including one person who has been in the rubber room for two-and-a-half years.

Teachers can be sent to the rubber room — sometimes also known as “teacher jail” — for allegations involving everything from sexual harassment of colleagues and inappropriate relationships with students, to having a public meltdown in school and saying something in class that a student, or their parent, found inappropriate. With some cases coming down to a teacher’s word against a student’s, investigations can often be difficult and take time.

Thomas said in an interview that he is not trying to pass judgement on the validity of individual cases.

“I don’t think our issue is examining why people are in there,” he said. “The ‘why’ is not within our jurisdiction. We’re concerned about the system that is in place, how long people are there, the lack of efficiency as it relates to money wasted. The most important thing is the academic achievement gaps that it creates for our students.”

District spokesperson Monique Braxton said that there are currently 66 people in the rubber room — actually a series of rooms — at the district’s headquarters. There’s one for teachers, one for principals, and one for paraprofessionals including climate staff.

Braxton said she could not offer any statistics on the average length of stay, or on how many district employees are ultimately cleared. Thomas’s resolution says “it appears that several hundred” district employees spend some time in the rubber room each year. Braxton said “that number is incorrect” based on the information she has, but did not provide an alternative figure.

“We welcome the collaboration with members of Philadelphia City Council in educating our students and doing what is best for our invaluable employees,” she said in a statement reacting to the hearings. “Our doors are always open.”

The district’s contract with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers says that any disciplinary actions against the union’s members has to follow provisions of the state school code, and that disciplined teachers may choose to file a grievance against the district.

Although some other teachers’ contracts require a time limit on disciplinary actions, Philadelphia’s does not. The district and the union are negotiating a new contract this year; the current pact expires on Aug. 31.

It’s unclear exactly how much it costs the district to provide salaries and benefits to educators who are in the rubber room and therefore not working their regular jobs in schools and classrooms. The average yearly cost of a Philadelphia teacher, including benefits, is about $120,000. But in a district that’s been historically underfunded and struggles with everything from large class sizes to older buildings, such costs can come under increased scrutiny.

Under the district’s disciplinary process, a complaint that could lead to an educator being placed in the rubber room must first be investigated at the school level, and then, if officials determine to be valid, passed on to the district’s Labor Relations office. That office must also determine whether the alleged conduct could constitute a violation of federal Title IX law.

In response to Thomas’s resolution, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg issued a statement saying that the union “is strongly in favor of attacking bureaucratic inefficiencies … in order to free precious resources that could be redirected into classrooms.”

He added that union officials “look forward” to testifying on the matter.

At the hearing, which has yet to be scheduled, Thomas said he wants to hear from teachers sent to the reassignment room, Department of Human Services officials who investigate complaints, district staff who manage the process, Superintendent Tony Watlington, and union officials.

He said he wants to use the hearing “to determine the best way to manage cases and incidents in a way that ensures safety, manages taxpayer dollars effectively and is transparent to staff sent to the reassignment rooms.”

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.

Report finds alarming level of teacher attrition in Philly, suggests solutions

2024-10-23T10:00:00+00:00

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A new report by a coalition of local education-focused groups has found an alarming level of teacher attrition in Philadelphia district and charter schools, a trend especially true for teachers who are nonwhite and have fewer than three years experience.

Describing an “urgent need to to accelerate efforts to retain newer teachers and teachers of color,” the report, compiled by the Philadelphia Talent Coalition and led by Elevate 215, lays out several strategies for improvement. They include higher starting salaries, helping new employees pay off their student loans, more mentoring and coaching of new teachers, and building “welcoming and supportive” school cultures.

“The reason why this is so important is that research shows most of the time teacher attrition has a negative impact on student learning,” said Ed Fuller, the Penn State professor whose research contributed to the report’s conclusions. “It’s harder to build strong, safe and welcoming communities when you turn over people quickly.”

Schools rely on building relationships of trust between students and teachers and students “need to know there is somebody in school who cares about them, and that is hard to establish when you lose teachers all the time,” he said.

Turnover also results in high levels of emergency certified teachers – those who have not completed all the coursework and requirements to become fully qualified in their field. In the Philadelphia school district, one in five teachers are not fully qualified; in charter schools, the percentage is closer to one in four.

The release of the report comes as the district and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers are negotiating a new contract. In August, the two sides decided to extend the current contract for one year.

In a statement, PFT president Art Steinberg called recruitment and retention of teachers “a long-standing problem for the district, which shouldn’t need another report to know that improving pay, work environment and professional support are the solutions. It’s not yet Halloween and we’re already seeing teachers and staff quitting out of frustration with their working conditions, which tragically comes at the expense of students deserving of stability and consistency throughout the school year.”

He added he was “heartened” that key district leadership “appear to understand that stronger compensation as well professional development and support must be a priority in our members’ new labor contract.”

The PFT is not an official member of the talent coalition.

Among the report’s findings:

– Of teachers hired in 2017, just 55% were still working in 2022-23 in district schools, while more than half of those working in charter schools left by then.

– The percentage and number of teachers of color in Philadelphia public schools are increasing, but they leave at greater rates than white teachers.

– While two-thirds of the teachers employed in Philadelphia work for the school district, as opposed to in charter schools, charter schools employ a higher proportion of teachers who have just one to three years of experience. Nearly 1,800 of the 3,200 people in their first three years of teaching in Philadelphia during the 2023-24 school year worked in charter schools.

– Charter schools have a slightly higher percentage of teachers of color than district schools.

– The pandemic had a big effect on teacher retention in Philadelphia. While teachers for the most part stayed during the virtual year in 2020-21, attrition spiked the year after that, especially among new teachers, those teaching in charter schools, and nonwhite teachers.

The data also dispel the myth that teachers who leave Philadelphia do so for better-paying jobs in better-paying suburban districts. By contrast, most of the teachers who left their jobs in 2022-23 left education altogether.

“We hear that teachers leaving are going to the suburbs, but that’s not true to what the data says,” said Scott Gaiber, Elevate 215’s deputy chief of talent initiatives,

in an interview. “It’s important to debunk that notion. The main issue is people leaving the teaching profession entirely.”

Teachers of color also make up a shrinking percentage of people enrolled in teacher preparation programs, and they leave these programs at higher rates than white enrollees do, the researchers found.

“There are a lot of things [the district and charter schools] could do immediately,” Gaiber said, including determining “how to allocate resources and funding” more specifically to teacher retention strategies.

The report includes descriptions of some initiatives already in place. The Mastery Charter network gives stipends to teacher leaders, for instance, and the school district’s latest contract provides retention bonuses of $1,200 to teachers who returned this year, and $2,500 over two years to those who stay in particularly hard-to-staff schools. It noted that the district does reimburse teachers $600 for school costs and that Esperanza Charter School offers $8,000 to those earning their certification.

Michael Farrell, the district’s chief learning officer, was not available for an interview, but said in a statement that the report provides “practical tools and data-backed strategies that will … accelerate our efforts in creating a stable and diverse workforce.”

Fuller analyzed attrition data, while Research for Action parsed trends by race and emergency permits. The next step is to analyze the data by school to track the movement of teachers within Philadelphia. That study will help determine which schools generally retain teachers and which see lots of staff instability.

Elevate 215, formerly known as the Philadelphia School Partnership, was founded in 2011 with a mission to expand “high-quality seats” in city schools. PSP raised money and gave grants to schools, mostly but not exclusively to charters. It courted controversy; critics felt it was mostly interested in charter expansion and support of private schools at the expense of the district. It was rebranded as Elevate 215 in 2022.

The Philadelphia Talent Coalition includes the district, several charter schools and charter networks, including Mastery and KIPP, as well as the William Penn Foundation, LaSalle, Temple, and St. Joseph’s universities, Community College of Philadelphia, Teach Plus, Children First, United Way, and the City of Philadelphia.

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 .

Josh Shapiro: Learn about the education track record of Kamala Harris’ potential VP pick

2024-08-01T18:56:42+00:00

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Of all the vice presidential candidates reportedly under consideration by Democratic presidential frontrunner Kamala Harris, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has one of the most extensive education records.

But he hasn’t always been in lockstep with the Democratic Party — or teachers unions — when it comes to schools.

His public support of private school vouchers last year drew the ire of some national public education groups. Facing intense pushback from public school advocates, teachers unions, and some fellow Democrats, Shapiro has since tempered that position, and has not resurrected the $100 million state-backed voucher program that he struck from last year’s state budget.

Pennsylvania’s teachers unions, which strongly oppose private school vouchers, have not separately endorsed Shapiro explicitly for vice president.

The state’s teachers unions might welcome Shapiro as Harris’ running mate not so much because they think he would be their biggest champion in the White House. Instead, they could be motivated by the possibility of having a stronger ally in Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, a Democrat who would take over for Shapiro, according to one source with experience in progressive state politics, who spoke with Chalkbeat on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations.

Soon after Harris emerged as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, 50 labor leaders, including the presidents of the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) and the Pennsylvania branch of the American Federation of Teachers, signed a letter of support for Shapiro. The letter does not directly mention Shapiro as a possible Harris running mate.

“Governor Shapiro knows better than anyone that we don’t have to agree on every single issue to continue to get stuff done,” the letter states.

Chris Lilienthal, a spokesperson for the PSEA, said Thursday that Shapiro has a “very good record” on public education, and that “we think he would be an asset to the Harris campaign.”

AFT Pennsylvania did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers declined to comment.

Separately, Shapiro’s support for Israel and strong disavowal of pro-Palestinian university campus protests has also made him a target of progressives, some of whom claim that choosing Shapiro could divide Democrats.

His supporters in Pennsylvania say Shapiro is a measured politician who’s able to course-correct when he gets new information.

“He’s been far more amenable to suggestions that I think most people would ever give him credit for. He’s very good at taking in new information, he’s very good at looking at data, he’s very good at taking a step back to look for a bigger picture,” said state Rep. Peter Schweyer, a Democrat and chair of the House Education Committee, referring to working with Shapiro on education policy.

Shapiro was elected governor in 2022 after previously serving as the state’s attorney general since 2017 and as a state representative.

With Democrats and Republicans splitting control of the legislature, Shapiro was able to negotiate and sign a budget this year that includes record-setting funding for public schools — though not as much as public school advocates would have liked — and increases in state funding for early childhood education and special education.

In addition, he’s secured universal school breakfast for public school students, and pushed for strengthening the state’s K-12 teacher pipeline.

Shapiro has the support of Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker. (Harris’ campaign told Politico that she plans to hold her first rally with her VP pick in Philadelphia on Tuesday.)

“If you want to win Pennsylvania, there is no other candidate in this nation positioned to help us win the White House than our governor, Josh Shapiro,” Parker said at a rally to endorse Harris July 26.

Manuel Bonder, a spokesperson for Shapiro, said that “despite being the only Governor in the nation with a divided legislature – and despite bad faith attacks from all sides – Josh Shapiro has been a champion for public education and delivered real results.”

Here’s what we know about Shapiro’s education record in Pennsylvania:

Shapiro’s past support for school vouchers drew criticism

Shapiro, who attended a private Jewish day school and sent his kids to one as well, originally proposed a $100 million private school voucher program in his budget last year in coordination with state Republicans.

After intense pushback from the teachers unions, public education advocacy groups, and Democrats, he ultimately vetoed the proposal and did not take up the issue again in earnest this year.

“In his second budget, he didn’t bring it up. He didn’t put it in his budget address. And it was never seriously on the table this year,” Schweyer said.

But Shapiro’s willingness to champion vouchers at all, a position shared by some Philadelphia Democrats, did not go over well on the national stage.

During a visit to Philadelphia last year, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona underscored national Democrats’ views when he said he was “totally against” vouchers. If he were to become the Democratic vice presidential nominee, it’s likely Shapiro would face pressure to express such opposition to vouchers.

In a letter from late July, a group of national public education advocacy organizations wrote that Shapiro’s support for vouchers amounts to him supporting “education policies mirroring Project 2025,” referring to the presidential transition plan proposed by the conservative Heritage Foundation.

But Democrats and public school supporters aren’t alone in their criticism of Shapiro’s track record on private school choice. Vouchers and school choice in general are core parts of the Republicans’ education platform. Pennsylvania GOP members said they felt stung by Shapiro’s initial commitment to the program last year, only for him to subsequently veto the program in the budget.

Still, some education advocates who’ve disagreed with Shapiro’s support for vouchers are still backing him. Schweyer, who said he’s “proudly one of the most anti-voucher legislators” in Pennsylvania, threw his support behind Shapiro and defended his education record on social media.

Schweyer said “what we’ve done in education, I would argue, is more transformative and more impressive than fixing a bridge in 12 days,” referring to Shapiro’s nationally lauded success overseeing the rebuilding of a section of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia.

Despite nixing a private school voucher program, Shapiro has pumped more funding into Pennsylvania’s tax-credit programs that support school choice — the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit and Educational Improvement Tax Credit. Both give tax breaks to businesses that donate to organizations that provide private school scholarships to students.

Shapiro condemned students’ pro-Palestinian protests

Along with his support for vouchers, most of the national criticism aimed at Shapiro has come from progressive Democrats, young voters, and pro-Palestinian advocates who say his vocal support for Israel would divide the Democratic Party.

Shapiro, who is Jewish, has been a staunch supporter of Israel and has taken a hard-line stance on university campus protests and encampments at University of Pennsylvania. He called on the university to “disband the encampment, and to restore order and safety on campus.”

He also called former University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill’s testimony to Congress about campus antisemitism “absolutely shameful.”

However, Shapiro has also strongly condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling him “one of the worst leaders of all time.”

Public school funding got boost from Shapiro

Faced with a court mandate to reform the way Pennsylvania funds its public schools, Shapiro has called for increasing basic school funding by more than $1 billion in each of the last two state budgets he and lawmakers negotiated.

“The results of two years of budgets under Governor Shapiro are almost $2 billion of new funding to schools,” and millions more for other kinds of support for public schools despite Republican attempts to curb funding, Schweyer said.

However, Shapiro and state lawmakers also failed to deliver a long-term plan to move the state towards fully funding public schools.

“The same budget legislation that admits the scope of the Commonwealth’s constitutional shortfall still leaves nearly 90% of that hole to be filled by some undefined date in the future, or not at all,” the Education Law Center and Public Interest Law Center said in a joint statement after the budget signing.

Shapiro turned to teacher pipeline to address shortages

Persistent teacher shortages have plagued Pennsylvania, as well as the rest of the country. Shapiro’s administration has made an effort to grow the teacher pipeline, though educator advocates have said he could have done more.

In the most recent budget Shapiro signed, allocated $1.4 million in funding for districts and universities to “engage” students interested in working with students with disabilities. In Philadelphia, the hardest to staff teacher positions have been in special education.

The budget Shapiro signed also added $20 million more for student-teacher stipends — though the demand outweighed the allocation last year, a trend that’s expected to continue. To provide every student-teacher in the state with such a stipend would cost roughly $75 million annually.

The most recent budget also created a pathway for non-U.S. citizens to become teachers.

Shapiro said he’s ‘building better schools’

Public education advocates have also celebrated Shapiro’s ability to secure universal free breakfast for all Pennsylvania students.

In addition, he’s secured money for much-needed school construction and renovation, a new “solar for schools” energy program, and millions more for career and technical education.

In a post in late July on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, Shapiro touted these and other education policies as examples of his ability to work with Republicans.

“We’re building better schools for the next generation of Pennsylvania leaders,” Shapiro said.

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 teachers protest punishments for taking non-consecutive sick days

2024-02-29T23:55:53+00:00

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Philadelphia teachers fed up with a district policy that penalizes them for taking contractually guaranteed sick days decided to share their feelings publicly this week.

About 50 district employees rallied outside the Philadelphia school district headquarters ahead of the school board meeting on Thursday, demanding the district withdraw its policy that disciplines teachers for accumulating non-consecutive sick days, even though the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers’ contract with the district includes 10 sick days.

The rally represents an escalation by educators who are unhappy with the policy, which is also known as the occurrence policy or “3-5-7-9,” and comes after a year-long campaign organized by the Caucus of Working Educators, which is a group within the union. Nearly 2,000 PFT members, out of roughly 13,000 total members, signed a petition from the caucus against the policy.

Chanting teachers wore red union T-shirts and held custom signs declaring things like: “3-5-7-9 is dehumanizing.”

Charlie Hudgins, an algebra teacher at Lincoln High School who attended the rally, said the policy just “doesn’t make sense.” Hudgins is one of a number of teachers who have expressed showing up to school unwell to avoid discipline.

This week, Hudgins said he was hit with a stomach bug. He went in anyway, with a fever and a face mask. “I didn’t want anyone to give me any trouble for it,” Hudgins said.

In a statement to Chalkbeat, the district said that “the goal of these conversations is to encourage attendance and provide support when needed.” It also said suspension or termination for poor attendance is “extremely rare” and that no teacher “should come to work when they are sick.”

At Thursday’s board meeting, Superintendent Tony Watlington said, “We do not expect any teacher to come to school with the flu or to ignore a personal or family emergency ... for any teacher in the district who feels like they’ve been treated inappropriately …make that known in writing.”

Last January, Watlington told the Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board that the policy could be revised. The teachers union reached a tentative agreement with the district on a new contract this week, but it doesn’t include any changes to the occurrence policy, according to the union.

A single occurrence is one instance of taking sick time — taking one to three sick days in a row counts as one occurrence. If a teacher takes a sick day on a Tuesday, comes in on Wednesday, and takes another sick day on Thursday, that counts as two occurrences.

The occurrence policy features gradually escalating punishments for non-consecutive sick days.

After three occurrences, the policy directs administrators to hold an informal meeting with the teacher and give them a memo. By five occurrences, an administrator leaves a “warning memo” in the employee’s file. After seven occurrences, the teacher attends a formal meeting and gets a formal write-up in their file. By the ninth occurrence, the instructor receives another formal write-up, a suspension recommendation, and meetings with a principal and another higher-level administrator.

Any more absences could lead to suspension or termination.

The Caucus of Working Educators has been sharing teachers’ experiences on its social media pages, too. According to the posts, one teacher was “docked occurrences” for using sick days for cancer treatment, another was warned after taking sick days for prenatal appointments. And one instructor was penalized for taking sick time after their mother died.

Shira Cohen, a seventh grade math teacher at Feltonville School of Arts and Sciences and the school’s union representative, said the district’s description of the policy contradicts how it looks in practice.

“We work in a really punitive district, despite all of the messaging that they might put out,” Cohen said.

Cohen said she has often avoided scheduling doctors appointments over health concerns. “I was constantly in fear of this occurrence policy,” Cohen said. “I was not well. I couldn’t do my job.”

Cohen and Hudgins both said the policy drives teachers to leave the job. The district had close to 400 vacancies at the start of this school year.

Dan Reyes, an organizer with Caucus of Working Educators, said to the crowd at Thursday’s rally that “it’s a damn shame” that it isn’t addressed in the tentative contract, “but we aren’t going to wait for someone else to address it.”

The district also said in its statement this week it will “review” its processes related to the occurrence policy after this school year.

All of the school board members declined Chalkbeat’s request for comment. But during a December meeting, board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez said the policy “de-professionalizes the space that teachers work in.”

The overall message it sends to teachers, Cohen said, is: “Your health does not matter ... your humanity is not a priority to us.”

Correction: Feb. 29, 2024: A previous version of this story referred to the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers as the source of the petition against the occurrence policy. The petition came from the Caucus of Working Educators.

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.

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.

As COVID cases soar, Philly schools plan for tentative reopening after break

2021-12-23T20:16:42+00:00

Philadelphia schools plan to open in person on Jan. 4 after the winter break, although both district and city health officials caution that it is an “evolving” situation in the face of a spike in COVID cases.

“We must all be flexible and understanding that plans can change quickly,” said a letter from Dr. Cheryl Bettigole, the city’s health commissioner.

In a holiday message to staff and families, Superintendent William Hite said the plan is to open in person as scheduled, while emphasizing that if COVID-19 cases surge over the break, the district could receive new guidance from the city’s health department.

Given the increase in cases, Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said it would be “irresponsible for the district not to consider a return to virtual learning...until such time as they can effectively, and with fidelity, solidify their mitigation measures.”

He also raised questions about whether there is adequate enforcement of COVID mitigation measures in all schools. He said on Wednesday he received reports of more than 100 buildings with COVID cases “from one day.” (Emphasis is his.)

“Many buildings reported double digit cases, and dozens have closed or ‘paused,’” he said in a statement.

The health department ultimately makes the decision on whether to close schools for two weeks or to “pause” them for 48 hours while it conducts an investigation of reported COVID cases. The investigation determines whether a full 10-day quarantine is warranted based on the size of the school, the location of the cases, and other circumstances, said health department spokesperson James Garrow.

Right now, 19 district schools are under 10-day quarantine, with more than half of them put in that status since Tuesday, Garrow said.

“We are seeing an extremely rapid rise in new cases of COVID through the city,” said Garrow, which he said mirrors what is happening in other cities and is likely driven by the omicron variant.

According to the mayor’s office, as of Dec. 20, Philadelphia averaged 641 new cases per day over the prior two weeks, with a positivity rate of 7.2%. That is a jump from the week before, when the daily average was 492 new cases a day and a positivity rate of 5%.

At the same time, Garrow said, the department continues to support the continuation of in-person school for as long as possible.

“We still believe that the risk of other health and mental health consequences is so great to these children that, provided schools can do all the [mitigation] protocols we need, we believe it is still safe to go into schools,” Garrow said.

Jordan said that the union also supports the “safe” reopening of schools, but is concerned about mask-wearing, lack of accurate data, inadequate contact tracing, virus testing, and a nursing shortage. The school district’s website lists 13 nursing vacancies. He also said the district “continues to punt” on conducting widespread vaccine clinics, although it is hosting six testing sites.

“If the district cannot implement these urgently needed measures, then I do not see another option than a return to virtual learning until such time as these measures are firmly in place,”he said in a statement. “I am hearing from our members, and we are seeing first-hand, terribly inconsistent implementation of agreed upon protocols.”

Jordan said he sent a letter to Hite outlining these issues.

The district issued a response to Jordan’s statement, saying that PFT members should report to officials any “specific instance of noncompliance...so that we can immediately address the issue. To generally assert that students and staff are not adhering to the mask mandate is not useful nor does it help with us accomplishing our shared goal of keeping schools...safe.”

The statement said: “For mitigation strategies to be successful, we all must do our part to implement them with fidelity.”

Garrow said that based on the data it has, the health department believes that schools are not a major source of spread.

“In-school spread is a minority of what we’re seeing,” Garrow said. The department believes that the majority of cases among students results from their being “exposed to it at home or out in the community.”

The department can close a classroom, a grade, or a whole school. A classroom closure is triggered if there are three or more cases. If two classes in a grade are closed, or if there are six or more cases in a grade, the department quarantines the entire grade. A school is closed if at least 3% of the population has tested positive or three or more grades have been paused.

Where there are isolated cases, those identified as a close contact of someone who has tested positive can continue with in-person learning if they are vaccinated, Garrow said. Close contacts who are not fully vaccinated must stay out of the building for 10 days.

“The best way to ensure that your children can continue with in-person learning is to get them vaccinated,” he said.

The district’s statement said that, as of Dec. 18, 1.9% of 139,212 students and staff tested positive, but that covers the period since August. All staff are tested weekly if vaccinated, and twice a week if not vaccinated. District officials say 85% of staff is vaccinated.

Students are tested if they are symptomatic or if they participate in performing arts. Teachers and school staff are required to be vaccinated, unless they have a medical or religious exemption. Students are not required to be vaccinated, except for athletes.

Among students ages 5-11, who only became eligible for vaccination in November, 22.4% have received at least one vaccine dose, according to the health department. Most of the schools that have closed are elementary schools.

Among all city adults, 76.6% are fully vaccinated and 89.1% have received at least one dose. Garrow said there are no separate numbers for 12- to 18-year-olds.

As of Jan. 3, the city is requiring proof of vaccination for staff and patrons of restaurants and bars. Starting Jan. 17, a negative test will no longer be acceptable as a substitute.

Philadelphia schools that are temporarily closed due to COVID cases include: Pennypacker, John Welsh, A.S Jenks, Ethan Allen, Sullivan, Kenderton, Waring, Penn Treaty High School, Blankenburg, Carnell, Fox Chase, AB Day, McDaniel, Mifflin, McKinley, Munoz-Marin, Clemente, Richmond, U School, J.H. Brown, and Emlen.

Philadelphia teachers will get 9% raises over three years in last-minute deal

2021-09-02T18:17:28+00:00

In the first on-time contract settlement in more than 20 years, Philadelphia teachers will get raises amounting to 9% over three years under a new tentative agreement between the district and their union.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan said that 93% of the members attending indicated support in a “voice vote” during a virtual meeting Wednesday night. An official vote will be conducted by the American Arbitration Association through Sept. 15.

“I was thrilled to present this contract to my members,” Jordan said during a virtual meeting with reporters. “It’s a strong step forward for the [school district] and the city and a considerable step forward for public education.”.

The Board of Education will vote on whether to accept the tentative agreement at their next meeting on Sept. 23.

In a statement, Superintendent William Hite also described himself as “thrilled” and said he was “excited that months of good-faith negotiations have resulted in a proposed contract that fairly supports the needs of our PFT members” while advancing the district’s goals “for improving student outcomes.”

The agreement was reached in the final hours before the PFT’s one-year contract expired at 11:59 p.m Tuesday, and Jordan said it was touch-and-go to secure a deal.

”Yes, we were on the brink of a strike vote,” he said “Yes, we were serious. But we ultimately achieved an agreement we are incredibly proud of.” The three-year pact was achieved with the help of Mayor Jim Kenney and Deputy Mayor for Labor Rich Lazer, he said. Earlier in the day, Kenney said he was “relieved” at the agreement.

When the state-dominated School Reform Commission ran the district between 2001 and 2017, teachers were prohibited from striking, but they regained that right with the return to local control. During that period, their salaries were frozen for five years. Aside from a weekend walkout in 2000, Philadelphia teachers last struck in 1981.

Teachers will get a 2.75% increase as of Sept. 1 plus a $1,500 bonus, followed by a 3.25% increase plus a $1,000 bonus on Sept. 1, 2022, and then a 3% increase on Sept. 1, 2023, in addition to automatic “step” increases for additional years of experience and advanced degrees.

Under the pact, top pay for teachers with more than 11 years’ experience and a master’s degree plus 60 credits or a doctoral degree can top $100,000 a year for the first time. Starting salaries for new teachers with a bachelor’s degree goes up from about $45,000 annually to $48,000 a year. (School psychologists, as well as experienced teachers with advanced degrees who also served as coaches or department heads, could already earn that much.)

The deal also includes no increases in member costs for their benefit package.

Also important, Jordan said, is a restructuring of the salary scale for paraprofessionals, the union’s lowest paid workers. They include classroom assistants and aides for students with

disabilities. They will get a 10% raise immediately and an “accelerated” pattern of increases during the life of the contract.

“This is an enormous win,” Jordan said, for workers who are “woefully underpaid,” with salaries that can start as low as $15,000 a year. “We talk a lot about equity as a union, a district, a city...this is one important step in bringing some of our lowest paid members, who are a majority Black and brown and city residents, up to a better wage.”

The amount teachers receive to help with classroom supplies will double from $100 to $200 a year, and paraprofessionals will receive $50 a year for this purpose.

Jordan also said there were also changes in some work rules the union had sought. One he said could help stabilize school staff by limiting use of a “special assignment” category for teachers placed in a building outside the regular “site selection” process, which results in some changing schools year after year.

The Board of Education approved a vaccine mandate for employees last month, and the district and union still are negotiating terms for exemptions and consequences for noncompliance, but not as part of the contract. Jordan offered no hint as to how soon an agreement on that would be worked out.

“We did have a separate meeting on that within the last week, and we did talk about our concerns about the policy the school board will ultimately pass,” Jordan said.

Philadelphia district, teachers union reach tentative agreement

2021-09-01T01:27:30+00:00

Two hours before their contract was to expire, the Philadelphia school district and its teachers union have reached reached a tentative agreement.

The union’s president Jerry Jordan informed his members at 10 p.m.: “It’s a deal I’m proud of and one I’m looking forward to bringing you tomorrow.”

Jordan said he will share details with his membership at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

The union’s one-year pact with the district expired at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday.

After tough talk during the day about a possible strike vote by membership Tuesday evening, Jordan postponed a planned press conference from 8:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. and then canceled it altogether after informing members at a virtual meeting that he was hopeful of reaching an agreement.

Earlier in the day, the union, which represents 13,000 district teachers, nurses, counselors, secretaries, and paraprofessionals, said on its Twitter account that “if the district is committed to a contract that values their educators, a fair contract can absolutely be reached today. If they are not...then we will be discussing our next steps with our membership.”

Last year, as the same Aug. 31 deadline loomed, the two sides agreed to a two-week extension to resolve outstanding issues. But they did not reach an agreement until Oct. 21, a one-year pact in which members received a 2% raise, plus step increases based on years of experience and advanced degrees.

That agreement included a safety plan to regulate conditions for a return to in-person learning, which district leaders at the time forecast would begin on Nov. 30.

The safety plan was not part of the main contract but was included in a separate “memorandum of agreement,” or MOA. As it turned out, concerns about adequate building ventilation and other COVID-related safety issues kept students learning from home until March, a full year after school buildings closed due to the pandemic. In-person learning was phased in, starting with the youngest grades and continuing with sixth to ninth grades in April. Tenth, eleventh and twelfth graders didn’t learn in school buildings last academic year. Throughout the spring, only about a quarter of eligible Philadelphia public school students chose to return in person.

Last year, in announcing the one-year extension, Jordan said that in the next round of negotiations, he would seek a four-year contract with significant raises.

This year, the PFT and its other unions are again negotiating COVID safety procedures separately, including the terms of a vaccine mandate, which the Board of Education has voted to impose.

Between 2001 and 2018, when the district operated under the control of the state-dominated School Reform Commission, the union couldn’t strike. Under the Board of Education, it regained its right to strike. (Aside from a weekend walkout in 2000, the last time Philadelphia teachers went on strike was 1981.)

While under state control, the union went five years without a contract, during which members received no raises or step increases. Once among the highest-paid teachers in the region, Philadelphia teacher salaries fell behind surrounding districts. In the current contract, salaries now range from around $45,000 a year for new teachers with a bachelor’s degree to close to $90,000 for those with doctorates and at least 11 years of experience.

The Philadelphia school district has long faced fiscal woes, but its financial picture has improved considerably with the influx of more than $1 billion in federal COVID relief money. However, that money must go toward non-recurring expenses such as personal protective equipment, facilities improvement, trauma support, and academic recovery programs. Those funds cannot be used for ongoing expenses such as salary increases.

The five-year budget plan adopted by the Board of Education in May will not start running shortfalls until 2026 under current spending and revenue projections. After that, the district will need additional funds from the state and city to maintain its current programming.

Last year, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney floated the idea of a small property tax increase to help fund the schools, but the City Council did not bite. On the state level, the legislature adopted a fair funding formula in 2016 but has not applied it to most of the education aid it distributes to districts. The Board of Education has no taxing power of its own.

A landmark fair funding lawsuit, seeking to force the state to increase its education aid and change how it is disbursed, is scheduled to go to trial in October. Several school districts, civil rights groups, and individual parents originally filed the suit in 2016.

Philadelphia is not a plaintiff, but its Superintendent, William Hite, plans to testify.

Philadelphia teachers, district reach contract deal, avert strike

2020-10-22T02:03:00+00:00

Philadelphia’s teachers and the school district have reached a tentative contract agreement that includes a 2% raise and what union president Jerry Jordan calls “one of the most stringent safety plans in the nation” to regulate in-person schooling during the coronavirus pandemic.

He noted the health and safety plan is not part of the tentative agreement, yet something his team negotiated as a separate memorandum of understanding, or MOU.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, or PFT, has 13,000 members. Jordan announced that those attending a Zoom meeting Wednesday evening had indicated strong approval for the one-year pact.

The 2% raise is retroactive to August 16. In addition, members will receive their “step” increases, due based on additional experience and advanced degrees, starting on Jan. 4, 2021. “This is a significant win for us,” Jordan said in a press call with reporters, noting that 89% of the members present for Wednesday’s meeting voted in favor of the agreement. Union officials said about half the members were on the call.

He said the pact would cost the district an additional $31 million. “This is not an expensive contract for them,” Jordan said. The overall district budget is more than $3 billion.

The safety plan is in the form of a detailed memo of understanding outlining specific conditions that must be met when teachers and staff return to school buildings, which at this point is slated to happen next month, despite a surge of COVID-19 cases in Philadelphia.

Those conditions cover issues including rules for social distancing, safe building capacity, and the availability of hand sanitizer and masks.

“To be clear, buildings cannot and will not open if it is not safe to do so, period,” Jordan said.

Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite will present to the board of education Thursday his plan for reopening school buildings to about 30,000 pre-kindergarten through second grade students on Nov. 30. Teachers and other staff are expected to return on Nov. 9. The board will not vote on the reopening plan at the meeting.

The MOU contains a dispute resolution system, Jordan said, in which any problems will be solved within days and rely on the mediation of a “renowned” physician who specializes in public health. “This is going to be a very rapid process,” he said. “Our goal is not to have unresolved disputes because this virus is nothing to play with.”

He said the full text of the MOU would be released publicly before Nov. 9.

Of the proposed timetable for reopening schools for in-person learning, Jordan said he is taking school officials at their word that it can be met.

“I can only tell you what the district has said,” he told reporters. At the same time, he added, “what we have seen so far is that we are not ready.”

A point of contention for parents and teachers is whether schools, most of which are decades old, can be properly ventilated to standards necessary to stem the spread of the virus. Hite has said that all buildings are being tested for air quality, but the district has yet to release the inspection reports themselves. Its “readiness reopening dashboard” says that 21% of buildings “are fully certified for ventilation.”

Hite and Chief Financial Officer Uri Monson have said that the district has spent some $70 million on COVID-19-related costs, including signs for social distancing, masks, and sanitizer.

When the union contract expired on Aug. 31, Jordan asked his members for a two-week extension of negotiations. At the time, Hite said he was confident the two sides could reach an accord in that time period. Jordan also expressed optimism — although he accused the district of trying to “shake down” teachers by demanding they sign off on a school reopening plan before discussing possible wage increases.

Still, the talks dragged on for two months. Jordan said that elected officials, including Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, were instrumental in helping the two sides reach an agreement.

The district “thought they would break us, but it didn’t work,” Jordan said.

Asked for a response to Jordan’s announcement of a pact, district spokeswoman Monica Lewis said via email Wednesday that “at this time, there will be no comment on the matter.”

Jordan said the union sought a one-year extension because of the unusual conditions brought on by the pandemic. He said that the union will be seeking a four-year contract after this agreement expires. “Well be back at the table probably in January,” he said.

The PFT had not gone on strike since a weekend walkout in 2000. Before that, the last strike was in 1981.

During the 17 years that the district operated under the state-dominated School Reform Commission between 2001 and 2018, the PFT was prohibited from striking. During that time, the union went five years without a contract, during which members received no raises or step increases. Once among the highest-paid teachers in the region, city teachers fell behind surrounding districts. Salaries now range from $45,716 to $91,852.

The PFT’s membership includes secretaries, counselors, and paraprofessionals. There are approximately 8,000 teachers and 125,000 students in the district.

The American Arbitration Association will now send out a mailing to all PFT members for formal approval. That process will conclude on or about Oct. 29, Jordan said.

The district and the union disagreed over whether the district could afford to give teachers a raise. Hite and CFO Monson said that the pandemic had battered its usual state and local revenue sources, and forecast a yearly shortfall of $800 million by 2025. The union noted that the district had received more than $100 million in federal coronavirus aid.

Jordan said that while some parents might feel that teachers don’t deserve raises because they have not been in school buildings, the virtual environment has been a backbreaker for them.

“Our teachers and other employees are working harder this year than they’ve ever worked,” he said. “It requires a different set of skills” that they weren’t trained for.

He added: “I understand the frustration of parents” who must upend their lives because the children are home. “This is very frustrating for everyone.”

Philadelphia teachers mulling ‘work to rule’ action as contract talks stall

2020-10-07T11:44:47+00:00

Philadelphia teachers are weighing a job action as contract negotiations have yet to yield an agreement.

Teachers in the school district have been working without a contract since Aug. 31 and are seeking a one-year extension with what Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan has called a “modest increase” in compensation.

On Monday, Jordan emailed his 13,000 members, which also include secretaries, counselors, nurses and paraprofessionals, and raised the possibility of a “work to rule” action in which they would do the minimum required within school hours under their now-expired contract. He sought members’ input on such a move.

How “work to rule” would play out while educators and students are teaching and learning remotely is not known.

Last month, Jordan said that the district was trying to “shake down” the teachers by insisting they sign off on a plan to reopen school buildings before discussing a possible pay increase. At the same time, however, he asked his members for a two-week window to continue negotiations and reiterated that he considered a strike or other job action to be a last resort.

Without divulging details, both Jordan and Superintendent William Hite said at the time that they were hopeful about reaching an accord, although they disagreed about whether the district could afford to raise teacher salaries.

Now, following more than a month without an agreement, the rhetoric is ramping up. The district is planning to reopen school buildings under a hybrid learning plan in November, after going fully remote in March and starting the year exclusively online.

“Compensation is the outstanding issue,” said the union’s legislative affairs director Hillary Linardopolous in an email to Chalkbeat.

Before COVID-19, the perpetually cash-strapped district was planning to end fiscal 2020 and 2021 with money in its coffers. But due to a plunge in state and local tax revenue as a result of the pandemic, it is now forecasting a shortfall exceeding $800 million by 2025 to maintain its current level of service and pay additional COVID-19-related costs.

“We know the district has the funds to secure steps, lanes, and across-the-board wage increases for a one-year extension,” Linardopolous said. Steps and lanes are the increases teachers get for accumulating additional years of experience and advanced degrees.

She noted that other city unions have negotiated raises this year. The police union received a 2.5% increase, while AFSCME District Council 47, representing white collar workers, and District Council 33, representing blue collar city workers, each got 2%.

The Board of Education, which governs the district, has no taxing power and relies on the state and city for almost all its revenue. In February, Mayor Jim Kenney had sought a small increase in the property tax rate to help the schools, but the city council never took up the proposal.

When the district was under state control, teachers were forbidden from striking and they went without a contract for more than five years. During that period, salaries were essentially frozen, and many teachers never made up the difference they would have received for additional experience and education. Partly as a result, teachers salaries in Philadelphia, once among the highest in the region, have fallen behind surrounding districts.

This is the first contract being negotiated since the district returned to local control in 2018, ending 17 years under the state-dominated School Reform Commission.

Philadelphia’s school year starts with doubts — and resolve to make virtual learning work

2020-09-02T02:09:52+00:00

On the eve of the official start of school, parents and students arrived at C.W. Henry School in Mt. Airy to pick up books and supplies for the coming year.

The theme of the day: Making the best of a bad situation.

Eighth-grader Micah Kearney-Lester isn’t thrilled that summer’s over, but he’s not too concerned about having to start school online.

“It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t really like being at school that much,” he said as he stood outside Henry on Tuesday with a bag full of workbooks.

Kearney-Lester’s mother says she is uneasy about him starting a new school year online, but she likes what she has seen so far. As disrupted as the spring semester’s emergency shift to online learning was, said Andrea Kearney, “I saw him become a more independent student. More hands-on.”

She hopes virtual learning might accelerate students’ engagement with technology they’ll rely on for years to come.

“It’s a 21st century moment,” she said.

That same mixture of unease and hope hangs over Philadelphia, where the school year opens Wednesday with all-virtual instruction. Teachers and parents expressed lingering concerns over the quality of online learning, how to make it accessible for all children, and whether buildings will be ready for a return to the classroom later in the fall.

Officials originally wanted to begin the year with a hybrid plan, but postponed in-person learning until at least mid-November after a clamor from teachers and parents that it would not be safe.

That left principals across the city scrambling to plan for virtual learning even as they began preparing buildings. Robin Cooper, head of the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators, said that her members “taught themselves what was needed for their teachers and their students. Never have I been more proud to be president of this resilient group.”

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers met Monday night, just hours before its current contract expired and agreed to extend negotiations for two weeks so the union and district could agree on a safe reopening plan. PFT President Jerry Jordan said that the district was tying negotiations on wages to such an agreement, which he called “forcing my members to choose between modest increases and their lives.”

He had asked for a one-year contract extension with “modest” raises in base pay, which “acknowledges the enormous challenges of COVID, and aligns with what other cities have done,” he said. He said the union wants more clarity on conditions before his members go back to work in buildings. “Negotiations are far from complete” but an accord is “doable,” he said.

Another lingering concern is the number of students who won’t be able to get online. With students expected to log on by 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, city and district officials say that there are still thousands of households without reliable internet access. They can’t yet say how many signed up for the new PHLConnectED program, launched in August to expand broadband access for students.

“We are using various tactics to engage parents,” said Mark Wheeler, the city’s chief information officer, who said there would be an update next week.

Meanwhile, students as young as kindergarten are being expected to engage via computer for hours each day. The city is opening dozens of “access centers” for K-6 students whose parents or guardians work outside the home and cannot afford child care. Students at the locations can be supervised during the school day and connect to the internet. The buildings, mostly recreation centers, are being rewired to accommodate more robust connections, Wheeler said.

On Sept. 8, 32 centers will open, with others set to start Sept. 21. Each center will have one or two cohorts of 22 students. Officials said that so far 1,147 interest forms have been completed, and 920 students are eligible.

Teachers and principals have been working all summer to solve other problems and to stay connected with students. The outreach to families has helped form closer bonds, said Stephanie Andrewlevich, principal of Mitchell Elementary School in South Philadelphia.

“No one would choose this,” she said, but finding out a parent works nights “gives us a new way to connect,” she said.

Some high schools held virtual freshman orientations, including Paul Robeson in West Philadelphia.

“Communication is a game changer for students and parents experiencing anxiety,” said Robeson Principal Richard Gordon. “We have to react ourselves to be learners in this virtual space.”

Jessica Morris, a third-grade teacher at Andrew Jackson Elementary School, lives in the neighborhood and said she has been visiting her students’ homes. Students have also been visiting her.

“I would be so relieved to get back into the classroom with my students,” she said. “That feels almost like a fantasy right now. But it’s something I want very much, and I hope it can happen in a safe way.”

At Henry on Tuesday morning, as staff handed out workbooks and children played on the nearby jungle gym, a consistent theme was that while the district’s all-online reopening may be less than ideal, it’s better than risking exposure to COVID-19. Parents hope this fall’s online academic offerings are better than last spring’s.

“I feel really nervous. The end of last year was pretty horrible. I’m hoping they have learned some stuff,” said Faridha Traylor, parent of a Henry student.

Traylor said she’d considered online charter schools and home schooling, but decided to keep her eighth-grade son connected to Henry, where he has relationships and support. She and other parents said the staff and principal worked hard to engage parents, using Facebook meetings and direct outreach to keep them informed.

“My son’s first-grade teacher stopped by our house. Dropped off a trifold with his name, a hook and supplies and a little pencil case and a plastic sleeve he can put his schedule in. Adorable,” said Alison Wear, parent of three Henry students.

But the coming challenges are vivid, Wear said. The quality of this year’s academic offerings remains to be seen. Also unclear is whether the district will be able to successfully prepare buildings for reentry, including keeping them clean.

“Soap in the bathroom — they never have it,” said Kearney-Lester, the Henry eighth-grader.

Above it all hangs the question of social justice, with a rising chorus of support for aggressive anti-racism policies and training. Solving for equity at a diverse school like Henry is “absolutely” essential, Wear said, and the pandemic has raised the stakes.

With the principal focused on day-to-day administration, the school’s parent group has taken the lead on community outreach, Wear said, “helping to facilitate a kind of redistribution of resources — school supplies, [child] care during the day. They’ve done some work to survey parents and find out what they need, or what they have in abundance.”

Perhaps the biggest question for these parents is whether students can maintain the kind of personal relationships with teachers and peers that are critical to learning.

“All three of my children have a teacher that’s familiar to them,” Wear said. “They knew each other … but this incoming class doesn’t have that relationship.”