Chalkbeat

Migrant students in Philadelphia aren’t getting the support they need, advocacy group says

2024-03-28T18:46:11+00:00

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Zulma Guzman came to Philadelphia from El Salvador in 2019 and is a part of South Philadelphia’s Hispanic community. But she’s had a difficult time getting comfortable as the parent of three students in the city’s public schools.

She said through an interpreter that there’s been a lack of translation services in official school meetings that makes her feel unwelcome. When she and other Spanish-speaking parents have asked for interpreter services, Guzman said, they’ve often been told to “bring our students or children or another community member to interpret for us.”

In addition, she said she struggled to find people at her childrens’ schools to help make her aware of the resources available to her as a member of a newcomer family.

Guzman’s experience isn’t uncommon. In fact, it reflects complaints about significant shortcomings with how the district supports newly arrived migrants, refugees, and those seeking asylum, according to survey results collected by Juntos, an immigrant rights advocacy group, and shared with Chalkbeat.

In the 152 responses from teachers, administrators, and counselors at 56 schools, just 17% said there were sufficient Bilingual Counseling Assistants or bilingual staff members to meet students’ needs in every language they speak. Only 19% said they had received newcomer-specific training that covered more than just interactions with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And only 33% said they believe their schools are equipped to communicate with newcomers and their families.

Philadelphia schools’ inability to provide the kind of support that immigrant students and their families want has been a problem for years, and reflects challenges schools are facing nationwide with recent increases in newcomer and migrant students.

District spokespeople were not available for comment about Juntos’ survey on Thursday, and said they would not be available to respond to Chalkbeat’s requests for comment until next week.

Philadelphia does have two “newcomer” academies at Franklin Learning Center and Frankford High School that are supposed to help these students. Students in grades 9-12 who have arrived to the U.S. within the past year can enroll in these academies. They are supposed to receive “an accelerated course of study” and unique support “so that they are able and expected” to get up to speed with their peers.

But even these academies that are tailored to help newcomers acclimate may not be enough to serve students’ needs. According to data provided by the district, Juntos said in 2023 there were 1,032 newcomer students, but only 70 were enrolled in the two newcomer programs, and that there were 120 spaces remaining. And empty seats may not be the only issue.

Ashley Tellez is a senior at Franklin Learning Center and a junior organizer at Juntos. Her family is from Mexico, but she was born and raised in South Philadelphia and has had a front seat to her school’s newcomer academy. She said in practice, students in these programs are not getting the support they need.

She said newcomer students are kept separate from the general student population, and she’s only had a class with a newcomer student once in her high school career. Tellez said these barriers that keep newcomer students apart starve them of connections with their fellow students and hamper their ability to make friends, join clubs, and fully participate in the Philadelphia student community.

“There’s so many students who come to the schools for these programs who live an hour, 45 minutes away, and aren’t given the right access to education that they are supposed to be getting,” Tellez said.

‘These systems don’t look out for them’

In 2021, the city school board unanimously approved a “welcoming sanctuary schools” resolution promising to provide training to staff on how to respond if ICE officers were to show up on school grounds, and generally how to engage with families and provide and protect newcomer students in their schools.

Guadalupe Mendez, a youth organizer with Juntos, said the group sent out the survey to follow up on that mandatory training teachers were supposed to be getting.

She said the survey results, as well as conversations she and other Juntos members have had with youth and teachers across the city, shows that training is not as robust as was promised. Juntos had spoken with some people who received the training “and they don’t take more than 20 minutes to go over it,” Mendez said.

Mendez grew up in South Philly — like Tellez, her family is from Mexico. Although she’s older than the students she works with at Juntos, not much has changed for Spanish-speaking students in the public school system, despite the “good teachers that had good intentions” who taught her.

Mendez said that, according to district data, for the nearly 23,000 English learner students in Philly schools, there are only 131 bilingual counseling assistants. These assistants provide translation services, help families get connected with resources in the city, and help non-English speaking families build relationships with their school leaders, teachers, and community.

But the relatively small number of these assistants restricts how much they can help families, Mendez said.

The students she’s talked to who’ve come to the district while still learning English “can’t believe that there are no supports. They can’t believe that these systems don’t look out for them.”

Mendez said the district defines students who have “recently arrived” as those who have come to the country within the past year. But that’s often far from enough time to learn a new language, get caught up on classwork, and feel integrated into their schools, she said.

Juntos has told the school district it should expand the newcomer definition to “any students who have recently arrived (within the last three years) to the United States, and may include but are not limited to: asylees, refugees, unaccompanied youth, undocumented youth, migratory students, and other immigrant children and youth.”

The group also wants the district to set up newcomer programs in middle schools and add at least one new high school program in South Philly, where many newcomer students live.

Students act as interpreters for newcomer students

Felipe Mejia-Cuba, a Philadelphia student and volunteer with Juntos, remembers working in a restaurant two years ago with a newcomer student when one day, in the middle of a shift the student insisted that Mejia-Cuba call a hospital to help him navigate the health care system.

Mejia-Cuba said the student, who attended Horace Howard Furness High School, told him his school wasn’t able to help, and that he needed forms and vaccinations to help him stay in school.

That’s a common experience for many bilingual young people, who are tasked with translating meetings and documents for friends and family.

“That was the first red flag that I encountered,” Mejia-Cuba said. “I found out about all the disadvantages and all the neglect that the newcomer students are facing.”

Mejia-Cuba said being a mentor for other kids his age has helped him better understand the resources available to Spanish-speaking Philadelphians and find his place in his community.

“The me that I am now would be able to help that kid in the basement of that restaurant,” Mejia-Cuba said.

He doesn’t want his newborn cousins and relatives in the public school system to have the same struggles that he did: “It’s not just a battle for who is in the schools now, it’s a battle for generations to come.

Tellez, the senior at Franklin Learning Center, said she feels lucky because she’s able to speak out when some of her fellow students may not be able to because they are undocumented or have family members who are undocumented and fear federal immigration authorities.

She and Mejia-Cuba both said though they are graduating, they want the school district to improve for those coming up behind them.

“I really grew up with these ideas of what schools can look like and what power I have as a student to achieve that,” Tellez said. “I learned that I have a voice and I can use my voice to create change.”

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

Meet the new boss: Philly school board picks leaders after clash over nominees

2024-05-09T21:53:53+00:00

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After a campaign to oust him from the Philadelphia Board of Education failed, Reginald Streater was unanimously reelected president of the body on Thursday.

At their first meeting as a new board, members also made a surprising decision by electing first-time board member Wanda Novalés to be vice president. The position was contested and required the board to vote twice. Members Sarah-Ashley Andrews and ChauWing Lam were also nominated but did not garner enough votes.

“I have no written comments as I didn’t think this was going to happen,” Novalés said after she was elected. “But I am so excited to serve the students.”

Speaking before the vote, Streater hinted at the potential for holding board “office hours” and “reimagining” meetings in the future, as well as focusing on “our facilitation of tough and public conversations that we must have.”

Philadelphia’s school board nomination process became Mayor Cherelle Parker’s first big political struggle with the City Council. Although the council approved Parker’s eight other school board nominees, several members strongly opposed Joyce Wilkerson’s nomination. Their reasons for doing so remained relatively vague, but allegations of racial bias in the charter school authorizing process came up during a tense council hearing on Parker’s nominees.

Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas also indicated a desire to seek accountability for the actions of earlier iterations of the board and its predecessor, the School Reform Commission.

Wilkerson is the longest serving board member and has been both board president and chair of the School Reform Commission.

Ultimately, a behind-the-scenes campaign to oust Wilkerson and Streater fizzled. After Wilkerson’s nomination stalled for several days, Parker announced that she was asking Wilkerson to remain on the board anyway — without the council’s consent. Wilkerson agreed to do so. In response, Thomas has called for hearings to “explore possible reforms to the school board nomination, confirmation, and governance processes.”

All eyes will be on this new board in the coming months, and special attention will undoubtedly be paid to their votes on whether to approve applications for new charter schools, or proposed charter expansions.

Novalés, the new VP, founded Philadelphia’s Pan American Charter School.

With budget negotiations ongoing in the City Council and in the state capitol, the school district’s financial position is also being scrutinized by councilmembers and legislators. Several state lawmakers on Tuesday signaled their support for Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed increases in education funding that would benefit Philadelphia schools. But until the budget process is settled, those increases are far from secure.

One concrete piece of good news for the district came on Wednesday, when the credit ratings agency Fitch Ratings upgraded the district’s outlook. But Fitch cautioned that the district’s enrollment has been “adversely impacted” by a soaring number of students switching to charter schools and cyber charter schools over the past decade.

“This shift has led to an increase in spending to fund charter schools which accounts for a significant portion of the district’s spending,” representatives from the credit ratings agency wrote in their explanation for the rating change. “These charter school payments pose a significant limitation on the district’s ability to manage its expenses.”

Former board member Mallory Fix-Lopez wished the new members well and cautioned the board Thursday to “please be mindful of even the appearance of improprieties” because of its negative impact on the district’s primary mission and its students. She also issued a warning.

“You are in for a wild ride,” Fix-Lopez said.

The new board’s first action meeting will be on May 30.

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

Philadelphia mayor unveils simplified pre-K application, bonuses for early childhood teachers

2024-05-06T18:24:39+00:00

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Applying to Philadelphia’s free preschool options may soon be much easier.

Mayor Cherelle Parker has announced two initiatives designed to get more students enrolled in the city’s free early childhood education programs and help retain teachers in the field.

Starting June 3, parents and caregivers will be able to use one simplified application portal to sign up for the city’s free public preschool programs — a big change from the current process, which families have found to be onerous and confusing.

Parker also announced she’s allocating $3 million for signing and retention bonuses for some early childhood teachers who stay in their jobs for the upcoming school year. Lead teachers will be eligible to get up to $2,000, and assistant teachers will be eligible for up to $1,500.

In a statement following the announcement, Parker said the city will also be offering summer training for teachers “providing them the tools needed to support children facing ongoing trauma, and mental and behavioral challenges.”

These city investments in the childcare sector come at a crucial time. Early childhood providers have said their industry is in crisis with the end of federal COVID aid looming and a worsening teacher shortage.

An estimated 50% of early childhood educators surveyed across the commonwealth said last year they were “unsure” or “intending to not be working in their jobs in five years,” according to a report from Start Strong PA, a statewide early education advocacy group.

Parents and caregivers have told Chalkbeat the city’s free pre-K options are life-changing, offering high-quality childcare and learning opportunities for thousands of 3- and 4-year-olds. But the application process has been a barrier preventing many families from signing up.

“I hate unnecessary bureaucracy,” Parker said at a citywide “playdate” event at Smith Playground on Saturday. “As a mother and a former teacher, I know firsthand why teachers are critical to our communities … we really do care about early childhood education providers, and we’re not just talking about babysitters, we’re talking about true, prepared educators.”

Expanding access to free preschool was former Mayor Jim Kenney’s legacy initiative. However, in Parker’s budget proposal this year, she notably recommended Philly’s pre-k programs to be funded at the same level as last year, with 17,000 seats available across the city.

Creating a teacher retention fund can be more beneficial than expanding the number of pre-K seats alone, said Elizabeth Farwell Ozer, the policy and special projects manager at First Up, an advocacy group that provides training and accreditation assistance to early childhood educators and organizations.

“Until we’ve invested in the workforce and redrafted existing programs, any money towards expansion will be futile, since there aren’t enough staff to care for the existing kids,” she said in an email.

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

Philadelphians ask City Council for more education funding as COVID aid expires

2024-05-01T19:35:44+00:00

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Philadelphia residents urged their city representatives on Wednesday for more funding for education and out-of-school activities in this year’s budget.

Parents, teachers, students, and advocates testified at the City Council’s public budget hearing that they want $20 million more for the Community College of Philadelphia to provide subsidized transportation and child care to working students. They want to increase the share of property tax revenue that goes to the school district. They want more free preschool seats. And they want the city to renovate and reopen several public pools.

These requests come at a pivotal time for City Councilmembers who are currently engaged in the process of crafting their budget that will reflect their priorities in the year ahead. This year’s budget comes with the added urgency of the end of millions in federal pandemic aid later this year that could hit public schools hard.

Sara Morningstar, executive director of the local nonprofit group After School Activities Partnerships, told councilmembers that thousands of Philadelphia students stand to lose access to after-school programming if the city and school district don’t come up with a plan to continue funding the hundreds of programs across the city that have been dependent on COVID aid.

Several other residents urged their councilmembers on Wednesday to boost the percentage of property tax revenue that goes to the school district from 55% up to 58%.

In her proposed budget, Mayor Cherelle Parker recommended the school district should get 56% of that tax revenue. Parker said this week she would like the percentage to shift as high as 58%, but that such an increase would take time to phase in.

“Children are not the future, they are the now,” Sheryl-Amber Edmondson, grants manager for the Fund for The School District of Philadelphia, told councilmembers. “What we do in this very moment with our power matters.”

Among the groups asking for more funding were faculty and students from the Community College of Philadelphia (CCP). Members of the faculty union appealed to councilmembers for $20 million more in operating aid for their school. They say that money could go towards benefits for students like subsidizing transportation costs, providing child care for young parents working their way through school, and providing increased salaries for teachers and staff — many of whom make less than a living wage, they said.

In her budget proposal, Mayor Cherelle Parker announced a new workforce program at the college called the “City College for Municipal Employment” and a proposed increase of $10 million to the school to pay for it, on top of the $51 million the college already gets in its annual contribution.

While the faculty said Wednesday they appreciate the focus on preparing students for the workforce, they said what the school really needs is more operating aid to avoid tuition increases and provide the broader student population with educational support.

Marissa Johnson-Valenzuela, a tenured full-time faculty member, told Chalkbeat the school’s success is inextricably linked to the city’s public school system. Often, she said, students come into the college from the district needing extra help, tutoring, and remediation.

Charlie Allison, another faculty member, testified he has seen his students miss class because they couldn’t afford the SEPTA ride or had to look after a child or young family member. He said like the city’s public schools, the Community College of Philadelphia is struggling with old buildings and a lack of proper temperature controls.

Jaritsa Hernandez-Orsini, treasurer of the college’s student government association, told councilmembers the education and support she’s received as a student at CCP has been the “best thing that’s ever happened” to her and more funding would allow the school to serve other students like her.

Hernandez-Orsini said she was a young person in the foster care system and has experienced trauma and hardship growing up in Philadelphia, but is set to graduate this Saturday and has been admitted to a four-year university to continue her education.

“Amid the chaos and despair, CCP welcomed me with open arms and provided me with the resources and support that I needed to regain my life,” she said.

Elsewhere at City Hall on Wednesday, seven of the nine members of the new Philadelphia Board of Education were sworn in to begin their four-year terms. Parker said Wednesday that her appointees “bring the right balance of experience and change” to governing one of the nation’s largest school districts.

Not sworn in were Crystal Cubbage, who had a professional commitment she could not reschedule, and Joyce Wilkerson, the former board president. Wilkerson has not been approved by the City Council but is remaining on the board at Parker’s request.

Dale Mezzacappa contributed to this story.

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

Philadelphia school officials face budget questions

2024-04-30T21:22:49+00:00

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Philadelphia City Councilmembers on Tuesday questioned Superintendent Tony Watlington and his staff about ongoing facilities issues, teacher vacancies, resources for unhoused students, and more as they begin to shape the city’s budget for public education.

The district and school board have already held several meetings and votes on their $4.5 billion budget, but Tuesday’s hearing was the first time councilmembers could publicly interrogate Watlington, Board of Education President Reginald Streater, and other district staff. The city’s budget process is ongoing and no vote was taken at Tuesday’s hearing.

Over several hours, councilmembers pressed the district to present a comprehensive facilities plan, do more to keep students safe from gun violence, and fill teacher vacancies among other issues.

Philadelphia’s school district only controls some 10% of their budget, with the remaining 90% divided up in union contracts and under the control of city and state leaders – that means the Council’s relationship with Watlington is critical. Whether councilmembers trust his leadership and financial decisions can drive their budget decisions.

Tuesday’s hearing also comes on the heels of controversial political maneuvering this week that secured Mayor Cherelle Parker’s school board nominee, Joyce Wilkerson, over the heads of council leadership.

Parker delivered an impassioned speech at the start of the hearing, urging councilmembers to look past the school board nomination drama and work with her.

“I didn’t usurp a process,” Parker said. “I respect this institution, I respect the body.”

But she added her administration’s agenda could just as easily be “torpedoed” by Council President Kenyatta Johnson’s leadership.

“I can’t do it without you. And you can’t do it without me,” Parker said. “I don’t want to fight. I want to get things done.”

Here are some takeaways from the hearing:

‘We can’t just let kids disappear’

To start the hearing, Watlington provided a similar presentation to ones he’s delivered on multiple occasions to the school board, and in his “State of Public Education” address. The highlights are: Yearly revenue is falling behind expenditures, student achievement is making some limited progress, the number of students dropping out has fallen since last year, and Watlington is continuing to follow his strategic plan.

However, councilmembers and Watlington agreed, the district is not where they want it to be academically.

“Scores are still too low,” Watlington said.

Watlington said he intends to “shine a big, bright, spotlight on our dropout problem.” He said he’s added an assistant superintendent to his team who will focus on dropout prevention to “find every single kid’s record,” and hold face-to-face meetings with them and their families.

“We can’t just let kids disappear,” Watlington said.

Facilities concerns are ongoing

Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, chair of the education committee, led the line of questioning on the condition of school facilities.

“I think the most severe catastrophe that we’ve seen are the issues related to our facilities,” Thomas said. Several schools have closed in the district over the past year due to damaged asbestos and other environmental hazards. Watlington said Tuesday only 47% of schools in the district have adequate air conditioning.

Thomas and Johnson, the council president, pressed Watlington to produce a facilities plan for the district sooner rather than later.

Watlington said his office has been working to produce a comprehensive facilities plan, but that plan has been delayed. He previously estimated that renovating and modernizing the school district’s infrastructure, whose buildings on average are 73 years old, would cost nearly $8 billion.

Watlington told Thomas “we intend to move quickly,” but stopped short of laying out a timeline for when that plan would be produced.

According to Watlington’s opening presentation, the district is currently compiling a “data warehouse” on their facilities conditions and plan to launch a facilities plan “project team” starting this December.

Recruiting teachers remains a ‘struggle’

Councilmember Kendra Brooks asked Watlington about competitive salaries for teachers, paraprofessionals, custodial staff, and other school employees.

Watlington said he is “confident” the district has the resources to meet the district’s hiring demands, but he did not give data on the vacancy rate in the district.

“I would not have come to work as superintendent if I thought I was going to walk into a place that was going to implode,” Watlington said.

Still, he cautioned “we are going to continue to struggle” recruiting teachers in Philadelphia as the country battles an ongoing teacher shortage.

Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke asked what Watlington has heard in exit interviews the district has conducted when teachers leave their positions in the city. Watlington said the primary reasons teachers leave are low pay, a lack of support at the school level, and some struggles with classroom management.

Year-round school will start slowly

Councilmember Cindy Bass asked Watlington about ongoing plans for year-round school — one of Parker’s mayoral promises.

Watlington said for now, year-round-school will mostly resemble “beefed up” out-of-school opportunities and summer programming, but in the 2025-26 school year, the district will be piloting longer days and an extended academic year in some select schools.

Watlington would welcome forensic audit

During the six-hour hearing, councilmembers also asked about selective school admissions, improving communication between the district and public, and other issues.

Johnson asked if Watlington would “welcome” a forensic audit of the district, and Watlington said he would. Johnson also expressed an interest in involving more faith-based organizations in schools to help with students facing trauma due to gun violence.

On the district’s new $70 million curriculum package that launched this school year, 83% of teachers reported in a recent survey that they felt they are “equipped to deliver” it, Watlington said. But he also said that many teachers didn’t feel they had enough time with the new materials before the school year started. For the English Language Arts curriculum rollout scheduled for next academic year, the district is starting training now to prepare teachers. Training will also be offered in the summer, he said.

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

Philadelphia mayor plans to go over City Council’s head, put contested nominee on school board

2024-04-29T21:49:48+00:00

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A power struggle has erupted in Philadelphia between Mayor Cherelle Parker and City Council leadership that could have serious implications for Parker and impact one of the country’s largest school districts.

The person at the center of that tug of war is longtime Board of Education member Joyce Wilkerson. After a public back-and-forth, the City Council voted Monday to pull Wilkerson’s nomination to the school board from its agenda for the second time. Council President Kenyatta Johnson said Wilkerson still did not have the votes to be confirmed.

But Parker is not backing down. She sent a letter to Wilkerson Monday asking her to stay on until a new appointment is made, which Wilkerson has agreed to do. The rest of Parker’s school board nominees were approved by the council April 19 and are due to take their seats Wednesday.

It’s not entirely clear what effect the dispute over Wilkerson will have on the board and the school district. But during a hearing on the nominees, several councilmembers pressed them about their views on charter schools in the city, and indicated that they would like to see the school board approve more charters, especially those with Black leadership. The board hasn’t approved a new charter school since 2018.

If the relationship between Parker and the council deteriorates over Wilkerson’s fate, it could have significant consequences for the school’s budget and the council’s support for long-term education plans from both the board and Parker, who has proposed year-round school for the city’s students.

Wilkerson is the longest serving member of the board, and served as its president from 2018, when the district shifted from state to local control, until 2022. Before that, she spent two years as the chair of the School Reform Commission that ran the district after the state took it over.

A smiling Wilkerson read Parker’s letter to reporters after the vote. The letter called her a “laudable” public official during her time on the board.

A separate statement from Parker’s office confirmed that she had asked Wilkerson to continue serving past Tuesday.

The mayor’s office said it has a legal opinion that spells out her authority to keep Wilkerson on the board, but did not release it. The City Charter requires the City Council’s “advice and consent” on board appointees.

And the council — specifically Johnson and Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas — appears to be signaling that the body will not be a rubber stamp for Parker’s administration.

Some officials don’t view nominee as ‘beloved friend’

Various councilmembers have told Chalkbeat they don’t have passionate positions on Wilkerson either way, but are voting with Johnson and Thomas against the backdrop of important budgetary negotiations.

Despite the role charter schools played during the hearing on Parker’s school board nominees, Councilmember Kendra Brooks denied that her concerns about Wilkerson stemmed from the board’s unwillingness to approve new charters or its approach to charters in general.

“I’ve never been a supporter of charters, so the notion that this is about charters, I push back against,” said Brooks in an interview. She started her public career as an education activist fighting for adequate resources for her neighborhood schools, among other causes, and said she would have voted no on Wilkerson’s nomination: “The years I’ve been doing this education work, Joyce was never our beloved friend.”

Pressed further, Brooks said that if Wilkerson’s presence on the board “is the only thing saving the state of education in Philadelphia, we are doomed.”

Thomas also issued a statement Monday saying he does not support Wilkerson “because our schools have been inadequate under her leadership.”

“This is bigger than one person. This is about the need for change and doing what’s best for our children and families,” Thomas wrote.

Johnson has repeatedly rebuffed questions from reporters about the reasons for the opposition to Wilkerson’s nomination. Critics of the council’s move have noted that Dawn Chavous, who is married to Johnson, also serves as spokesperson for the African American Charter Coalition, which first leveled the allegations of racial bias against the school board regarding Black-led charters.

Chavous did not respond to an email from Chalkbeat on Monday.

Before calling for a vote to remove Wilkerson’s nomination from the agenda, Johnson said that members had heard from many members of the public, including but not limited to charter school supporters, expressing concerns about Wilkerson.

“I will not make those concerns public out of respect for Ms. Wilkerson,” he said.

Councilmembers, by a voice vote, also rejected a motion to make their positions public through a roll call.

Curtis Jones was the only councilmember besides Johnson to speak publicly Monday about the situation and he expressed misgivings about the process by which Wilkerson’s nomination was being held up.

“We are barely past 100 days,” Jones said, referring to Parker’s time in office. “And we’re not allowing the mayor to have the benefit of the doubt.”

“I trust my mayor and trust my leadership,” Jones added. “If you’re asking her to cook the meal, she should be allowed to buy the groceries.”

For her part, Wilkerson said she is “delighted” to have Parker’s support and to remain a member of the board.

“When Mayor Parker announced my nomination, one of the things we talked about is the significance of continuity,” Wilkerson said.

Legality of mayor’s move is in question

Still in question is whether Council will challenge the legality of Parker’s move.

The Home Rule Charter states the nine members of the board “shall be appointed by the Mayor, with the advice and consent of a majority of all the members of the Council after public hearing.”

Parker’s Deputy Chief Education Officer Sharon Ward said the mayor interprets the charter to say Wilkerson can continue to serve until someone is named to replace her, since the council removed her nomination from the agenda but did not reject it. Parker could also choose to indefinitely delay nominating someone else, perpetuating Wilkerson’s term.

Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, an attorney with the Public Interest Law Center, said in an interview Monday there has to be a mechanism by which governmental bodies like the Board of Education can continue to function even in the absence of a traditional confirmation process. Parker is betting her push for Wilkerson to remain on the board would fall under that mechanism, he said.

Philadelphia is the only district in Pennsylvania with an appointed, not elected, school board. The City Council voted in 2018 to amend the City Charter to require the council’s advice and consent for school board nominees.

Donna Cooper, a former aide to Ed Rendell when he was Philadelphia mayor and governor and now executive director of the advocacy group Children First, came to the Council’s chamber to support Wilkerson and later said in a statement: “Clearly the mayor knows how to play chess.”

The newly constituted school board’s first meeting about its long-term goals and strategy is scheduled for May 9, and their first action meeting as a voting body is May 30.

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.

Outgoing Philadelphia school board approves millions for new curriculum and asbestos abatement

2024-04-26T13:49:33+00:00

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Philadelphia residents got their first opportunity to publicly comment and ask questions about the school district’s $4.5 billion budget proposal Thursday night at the final meeting of the board’s current iteration.

Community members asked the board for more funding for extracurricular activities, music and art programs, improved air filtration, and building renovations, among other requests. The budget will be up for a full board vote at the May 30 meeting.

The most pointed question Thursday evening came from student board representative Cavance Snaith, who asked if all schools would be outfitted with heating and air conditioning by 2030 under the district’s five-year capital plan.

Oz Hill, the district’s chief operating officer, said the “cold hard truth” is that it’s unlikely. Hill said underlying infrastructure and electrical issues and longstanding funding gaps stand in the way.

Much of Thursday’s meeting was also devoted to speeches from four of the board’s nine members who will be replaced on May 1, when Mayor Cherelle Parker’s nominees take their seats. Outgoing members thanked their colleagues and district staff for their diligence and guidance over the years of their time on the board.

Board members also unanimously approved a resolution renaming the district building after former Superintendent Constance E. Clayton.

Board approves millions in curriculum, SEPTA contracts

In their last official action as a board, members voted to approve nearly $234 million in contracts and construction change orders, including:

Nearly $4.2 million for new StudySync English language arts curriculum resources. This money will come from COVID relief funds. The district already approved $20 million for the materials. This would be an additional allocation.
$82.7 million for private pre-K providers that partner with the district to provide 180 days of “free, full-day, developmentally appropriate PreK instruction from qualified staff,” according to the board, as well as free breakfast, lunch, and snacks for young learners daily.
$12 million for asbestos abatement and nearly $20 million for “environmental remediation and restoration” at Frankford High School, which has been closed since last year due to damaged asbestos.
$34 million for a contract with SEPTA to provide fare cards for students. According to the board, Pennsylvania reimburses the entire cost of the Student Fare Card.

Board changes “goals and guardrails”

Board members also voted to amend and extend the “goals and guardrails” targets for student achievement that were originally set before the COVID pandemic. The board previously expected the district to reach the old benchmarks by 2026 and have monitored progress toward these targets every month. The new metrics approved Thursday are expectations for 2030.

The new targets as written in the board’s resolution are:

The percentage of students in grades 3-8 who score “proficient” on the state ELA assessment will grow from 34.0% in August 2023 to 65.0% by August 2030.
The percentage of third grade students who score “proficient” on the state ELA assessment will grow from 31.0% in August 2023 to 62.0% by August 2030.
The percentage of students in grades 3-8 who score “proficient” on the state math assessment will grow from 20.7% in August 2023 to 52.0% by August 2030.
The percentage of students who score “proficient” on the state literature high school assessment by the end of their 11th grade year will grow from 53.9% in August 2023 to 71.0% by August 2030.
The percentage of students who score “proficient” on the state algebra high school assessment by the end of their 11th grade year will grow from 30.1% in August 2023 to 53.0% by August 2030.
The percentage of students who score “proficient” on the state biology high school assessment by the end of their 11th grade year will grow from 31.4% in August 2023 to 54.0% by August 2030.
The percentage of Career and Technical Education students who pass an industry standards-based competency assessment by the end of their 12th grade year will grow from 49.1% in August 2023 to 80.0% in August 2030.

Philly school board members say their goodbyes

Thursday’s meeting was the last for this iteration of the school board nominated by former Mayor Jim Kenney.

Board members Leticia Egea-Hinton, Julia Danzy, Cecelia Thompson, and Lisa Salley reflected on their years on the board and offered some advice for the new members. The status of longtime board member Joyce Wilkerson’s nomination is still uncertain; City Council President Kenyatta Johnson told reporters earlier on Thursday that she “doesn’t have the votes” to retain her position.

Wilkerson’s nomination has become a political flashpoint for the charter school debate in the city.

Board member Julia Danzy spoke out in support of Wilkerson, saying she “watched in horror” as council members interrogated Parker’s nominees last Friday about their willingness to expand and approve new charter schools, especially those with Black leaders.

After Thursday’s council vote, Johnson and Councilmember Isaiah Thomas vehemently denied that Wilkerson was being “singled out.” But her nomination has been the only one of Parker’s picks to be held up in the council hearing process.

“What I saw [at last Friday’s City Council hearing] was the litmus test for being a board member was, would you let the charter schools have what they want?” outgoing board member Danzy said at the board meeting. “There is something wrong with that.”

Speaking publicly for the first time since her nomination was deferred, Wilkerson also thanked the rest of the board in a speech mirroring the goodbyes of her fellow members, though Parker and Board President Reginald Streater shared statements on Thursday saying they would not be backing down on Wilkerson’s nomination.

“It’s a slate, not eight,” said Sarah-Ashley Andrews, a current board member and Parker nominee, noting she would not be saying goodbye to Wilkerson.

Egea-Hinton advised the new, incoming board members: that they’d better “put their seatbelts on.”

“It’s a rollercoaster ride,” Egea-Hinton said.

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

Philadelphia’s new school board members get City Council approval

2024-04-25T17:19:37+00:00

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In a chorus of “ayes”, Philadelphia’s City Council voted to approve eight members of the city’s Board of Education on Wednesday, leaving one seat open with the deadline rapidly approaching.

Councilmembers approved the nominations of current Board President Reginald Streater, Crystal Cubbage, Cheryl Harper, Whitney Jones, Wanda Novales, Joan Stern, Sarah-Ashley Andrews, and ChauWing Lam by voice vote on Thursday. All are expected to take their seats on the board starting May 1, as the city’s Home Rule Charter requires, and their first action meeting is scheduled for May 30.

Neither councilmembers nor Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration gave any update on Joyce Wilkerson’s nomination on Wednesday, however. Wilkerson, the longest serving board member, saw her nomination deferred at a tense hearing last week during which councilmembers interrogated board members about the board’s decisions not to approve or nonrenew several Black-led charter schools as well as the absence of a long-promised school facilities plan.

Council President Kenyatta Johnson refused to give details about the delay in Wilkerson’s nomination Thursday.

“She doesn’t have enough support or votes to go forward,” Johnson said to reporters’ repeated requests for more information. “We will continue having conversations with the [Parker] administration, and we’ll go from there.”

Members of the public spoke out in support of Wilkerson on Thursday, but a hearing date for her nomination has yet to be set. Several current board members as well as labor and advocacy groups issued statements and letters of support for Wilkerson this week, citing her fiscal prudence and years of experience leading the board and its predecessor, the School Reform Commission.

“I know there is inevitable push and pull between charter schools and the board that is supposed to provide them oversight,” Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, an attorney for the Public Interest Law Center said. “To serve charter school students, we must have oversight for charter schools themselves.”

The uncertainty over Wilkerson’s nomination is indicative of a broader test of mayoral and council power since Parker has taken office. Following her nomination announcement, Parker has been largely absent from the public debate surrounding Wilkerson, leaving space for councilmembers, led by Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas, to drive the conversation.

Nominating school board members is the most direct impact Parker can typically have on public education in the city, along with naming her education executives. School board seats also have powerful political influence especially against the backdrop of looming city budget negotiations.

In a statement following the vote, Parker said Thursday “I continue to support my entire slate of nine nominees, including Joyce Wilkerson. I selected nominees who wholeheartedly share my vision for public education in our city.”

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

Charter school debate dominates Philadelphia school board nominees’ hearing

2024-04-20T00:10:53+00:00

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Following a heated interrogation by the City Council over charter schools, eight of Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker’s nine nominees to the Board of Education are moving ahead. But the future of Joyce Wilkerson, the longest serving board member, remains in limbo.

The Council’s committee of the whole voted Friday to approve eight of Parker’s nominees, including current board President Reginald Streater. Those nominees will now head to a full council vote next Thursday.

In addition to Streater, Crystal Cubbage, Cheryl Harper, Whitney Jones, Wanda Novales, Joan Stern, Sarah-Ashley Andrews, and ChauWing Lam all received Council approval. Wilkerson’s nomination was deferred. The new board must be seated by May 1, but it doesn’t have to be a complete slate of nine members.

Leading up to the hearing, rumors circulated that Streater, as well as Wilkerson, would not receive enough votes because of their recent votes in opposition to several new charter schools. Streater and the rest of the nominees, barring Wilkerson, ultimately earned a unanimous voice vote from those council members present to move ahead. However, the overall tenor of the councilmember’s questions and comments signaled many of them would like to see more charter schools — specifically Black-led charter schools — in the city.

After the meeting, the board nominees made it a point to say that they were sticking together as a slate.

“We have unfinished business,” said Streater, as Wilkerson stood beside him, adding that Parker “picked the nine people who she thought could get the job done.”

Wilkerson declined to comment on why she thought there was opposition to her nomination.

Council President Kenyatta Johnson gave no reason for delaying the vote on Wilkerson, and did not speak with reporters after the hearing concluded. But based on council members’ questions and comments, several members seemed to want to send a message regarding the board’s charter school policies.

They apparently focused on Wilkerson since she led the board from 2018 until 2022; during that period, no new charter schools were approved. She was also chair of the School Reform Commission for two years before that when the district was still under state control.

The school board is the sole authorizer of charter schools in the city.

After a six-and-a-half-hour hearing, Isaiah Thomas, the chair of the council’s education committee, told reporters that “we felt like it was best to continue dialogue” around Wilkerson’s nomination but did not give a reason for the opposition. “Once we have more of a consensus, I think that you’ll see a decision being made,” Thomas said.

In addition to the intense questioning about charters, returning board members were grilled about the “deplorable” condition of school buildings and the absence of a promised school facilities plan from the school district. They were also pressed about the new, lottery-based special admissions policy that has contributed to a surge in empty student seats in many of the district’s top schools.

Thomas led a particularly pointed line of questioning directed at the four incumbent board members about what he alleges is a discriminatory charter authorization process that’s resulted in the district closing an outsize number of Black-led charter schools in recent years.

Of the charter schools that board has voted to close, Thomas said 80% of those were founded or led by Black people, even though they comprise only about 25% of the 82 charters in the city.

“Those numbers aren’t racist?” Thomas asked during a particularly intense exchange with Streater.

In fact, from 2010 to 2021, the district’s governing body voted not to renew or revoke the charters of 13 charter schools. Eight of those — a little over 61% — were Black-led.

Political divisions over the treatment of Black-led charters in Philadelphia came to a head last year following the release of an independent report examining alleged bias in the charter school approval process.

The report determined that there was no intentional bias in the authorization process. But the authors did point to inherent flaws in the system that resulted in Black-led charter schools being non renewed or closed in “greater numbers than their peers.”

Several councilmembers and public speakers on Friday chastised the board for what they perceive as a failure to address any of the systemic flaws noted in the report.

Councilmember Anthony Phillips outright asked the board members: “Will you champion public charter schools as vital partners in creating a system of great schools that better serves Philadelphia students and families?”

None of the nominees answered that question directly. But board member Lam said: “Every charter decision made is a difficult one,” noting that while public dollars fund charter schools, the district does not manage them.

Councilmembers hold considerable funding power over the district, determining how much of city tax dollars are allocated to schools. The Board of Education has no taxing power of its own.

Parker never said explicitly during the campaign whether she favored the creation of more charter schools. But her close ties to charter consultant Dawn Chavous — who is married to Council President Johnson and served as chief of staff to state Sen. Anthony Williams, one of the state’s leading charter proponents — has raised eyebrows among traditional public school supporters.

Chavous also serves as spokesperson for the African American Charter Coalition, which first leveled the allegations of racial bias against the school board regarding Black-led charters.

Several public speakers expressed their support for Wilkerson including Loree Jones, the district’s former director of external affairs. She praised Wilkerson’s “brilliant competence and solid balanced approach” to decision-making.

Asked if Wilkerson’s nomination would be considered before the May deadline, Thomas said, “I’m not sure. I mean, negotiations are unpredictable.”

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.

Pennsylvania students must take state standardized tests online by 2026

2024-04-18T20:06:29+00:00

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Pennsylvania will require nearly all students to take state standardized tests online by 2026, Gov. Josh Shapiro announced Thursday.

During a press conference at Pittsburgh’s Northgate Middle School, Shapiro said the move would free up more classroom time for learning, save the state money, and reduce time spent on test preparation and processing.

Schools across the state can already choose to administer their Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) and Keystone state exams online or using pencil and paper. But by 2026, all schools will be required to give all tests online, Shapiro said. However, paper-and-pencil assessments will still be available for students who need special accommodations, according to a statement from the state Department of Education.

The Philadelphia district already administers online assessments and each student is provided a laptop or tablet device, said spokesperson Christina Clark in an email. Though “we do not know what the specific requirements for online PSSA/Keystones districtwide will be,” she said, “we are confident that we will be able to make any necessary adjustments that are needed by 2026.”

The window for administering this year’s PSSA in schools, including Philadelphia, starts next week. According to a statement from the state Department of Education, 32% of schools in Pennsylvania have already started giving their assessments online.

In explaining the decision, Shapiro said that students do “a ton of interactive learning on their computers” and moving the tests online would be a better fit for their classroom experience. The state also plans to adapt the online tests to include more items like drag-and-drop elements, sorting, and graphic manipulation questions.

Educators have long argued state tests are a burden and impact classroom flow while providing limited information on what students are learning. Forty-eight states, including Pennsylvania, already offer optional online testing. And New York City is also moving to drop the pencil and paper alternative for some grades by 2026.

“We are spending too much time on these fill-in bubble sheets,” Pennsylvania Secretary of Education Khalid Mumin said, adding that this move is part of Shapiro’s promise to “reimagine” public education in the commonwealth.

The traditional tests, mostly multiple choice, are limited in value and “take too damn long,” Shapiro said. He also said they place a major bureaucratic burden on teachers that’s separate from their primary job.

To be sure, online tests have their limits. There is some evidence that students tend to perform worse on exams taken on a computer, tablet, or other device than on one taken with pencil and paper.

Shapiro’s announcement about online exams wasn’t the only testing news from Thursday’s event.

To better assess student progress and achievement, the state Department of Education is also developing a new “benchmarking” tool to help educators identify if students are on track to succeed, flag any potential issues early so they can be addressed before testing begins, and help teachers “respond to unique student needs to set them up for success.”

“What we really want [is for] our teachers and students to be able to collaborate on learning, that’s the environment that we want to create,” Shapiro said.

At the same time, Shapiro took the chance to criticize testing broadly. He said the state is working to “get rid of [standardized] tests entirely.” But he noted he can’t do that without losing $600 million in federal aid.

The main federal law governing K-12 requires standardized testing in certain grades and subjects. Shapiro said his administration is working with the federal government to relax the standardized testing requirements on states.

“Trust me, the moment that they provide some easing of those requirements, we will ease them as well here in Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said.

Mumin said the Pennsylvania Department of Education will be ready to help districts make the switch in 2026 through professional development, webinars, tutorials, monthly newsletters, a help desk, and more.

“No student is going to be inhibited by this process or held behind by this process,” Shapiro promised.

In a statement following the announcement, Shapiro’s administration also claimed the move to online testing would save the Commonwealth $6.5 million a year and reduce its carbon footprint by cutting back on printing, packaging, and shipping test materials.

Carrie Wynn, an 11th grader at Northgate who appeared at the press conference, said taking her state tests online eased some of the pressure that can come with the exams.

“I cannot stand here today and say that moving to online testing has made me more excited for testing, but it was not the nerve wracking change that I had anticipated,” Wynn said. “It was more similar to the way we learned in class than the old paper tests … while they still aren’t fun, that made these tests less stressful for me.”

The PSSA is given in the spring to students in grades three through eight in English Language Arts, math and science.

The Keystone exams are administered in winter and spring to high school students in Algebra I, Biology and Literature. Keystones are currently most commonly administered via pencil and paper.

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

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

Philadelphia will stop the teacher shuffle between schools known as ‘leveling’

2024-04-16T18:36:13+00:00

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The Philadelphia school district will stop shifting teachers around between schools after the academic year starts, a dreaded practice known as “leveling,” Superintendent Tony Watlington announced Tuesday.

The longstanding procedure reassigns teachers based on actual enrollment for each school, instead of predicted enrollment. But teachers and parents have long complained that the annual teacher shuffle at the end of October disrupts and harms student progress as well as school stability.

This school year, 59 schools lost teachers under leveling, according to the district, and 88 teachers changed schools.

In a letter to parents and a video posted on social media Tuesday, Watlington said the district “will reallocate up to $8.8 million from Central Office cuts and energy savings to fund the discontinuation of leveling in any schools or classrooms after the beginning of the school year.”

Christina Clark, a spokesperson for the district, said it’s the district’s intention to eliminate leveling permanently “unless there are significant funding reductions.” During the pandemic, the district suspended leveling only to bring it back.

“We are committed to investing in and protecting our classrooms to the extent we can,” Clark said in a statement.

To make sure that all schools are staffed appropriately from the outset, Watlington said the district will do more outreach to families over the summer to get more accurate enrollment data. If it can estimate more precisely how many students actually show up, it can make sure that enough teachers are assigned to each school, he said.

Education, city officials and parents welcomed Watlington’s news.

“We’re relieved and excited that the district and Superintendent Watlington listened to the parents and community members’ cries to stop leveling,” said Emily Pugliese, co-president of the Houston Elementary Home and School Association, Philadelphia’s equivalent of a PTA; Houston lost a teacher through leveling last October. “We’re really hopeful we’ll see the end of it forever and our students won’t have to go through the damaging process of losing a teacher and being in a classroom with too many kids.”

Why parents worry about the teacher shuffle

During the leveling process, some schools gain teachers, if their enrollment has been underestimated, and others lose them if it has been overestimated.

Because teachers are allotted according to strict class size limits — 30 students in grades K-3 and 33 above that — the lack of two or three students could mean the difference between losing a teacher and keeping one. It could mean the difference, for example, between having two fifth grade classes with 17 students each, or one with 33.

But due to requirements of the teachers contract, if a school loses a position, which teacher relocates has been based on seniority rather than on a principal’s judgment. This meant that if the fifth grade was not large enough to support two teachers, it would be the second grade teacher who has less seniority who is reassigned, resulting in disruption for more than just fifth grade students.

The leveling practice also doesn’t take into account whether the rising fifth grade in the school is large enough to accommodate two teachers the following year, leading to further instability.

The practice has occurred in Philadelphia since the 1970s, but in recent years there have been efforts to dial it back. The district suspended leveling during the pandemic but resumed it in 2022.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan said Tuesday that Watlington’s decision would promote school and classroom stability. Katherine Gilmore Richardson, the City Council’s Democratic majority leader, issued a statement saying she supported the district’s decision, as did Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, the chair of the education committee.

“I have spoken with countless families on how their children have been impacted by leveling,” Gilmore Richardson said, adding that smaller class sizes in early grades were particularly beneficial for students of color and those from low-income families.

The district’s federal pandemic aid is ending and it faces a budget shortfall without significant funding increases. But the $8.8 million cost Watlington said is sufficient to stop leveling is a tiny fraction of the district’s $4.5 billion budget, and he made sure to say the money was coming from savings elsewhere. The district cannot raise its own funds and is dependent on the city and the state for most of its revenue.

In the midst of a statewide teacher shortage, the district started this school year with more than 200 vacancies for teacher positions, although it’s not clear how many of those positions have remained vacant throughout the year.

Clark said the district started this school year with “the most teachers of any fall in the last eleven years, and our teacher applications for open positions is significantly higher than this time last year.” She said Watlington’s team is confident the rate of filled positions will be even higher in the fall. Clark did not say whether the district has filled all its vacancies for this year.

Leveling has long been a sore subject for parents who say the practice harms students and is something the district should be able to avoid.

During testimony to the City Council in February, Seleny Fernandez, a parent of a 7-year-old at Clara Barton Elementary School, testified in City Council about her concerns that leveling had on her children’s education.

“A lot of those kids, they have big problems learning,” Fernandez said, “And then if you [take] away their teachers, what is going to happen? More problems.”

Fernandez’s husband, Luis Ramirez, told the council that at Clara Barton, their daughter was regularly in classes of 28 kids or more. He argued that this situation in the richest nation in the world “cannot be a money problem.”

“As a concerned parent, I get emotional because my daughter is in this mess,” Fernandez also said.”To me leveling is the same thing as looting. The school district is coming to my school and looting us of the most valuable resources.”

This story has been updated to include comments from a spokesperson for the school district.

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

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

Philadelphia Mayor Parker’s ‘enhanced’ safety plan for schools relies heavily on police

2024-04-11T20:55:57+00:00

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Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker marked her first 100 days in office by unveiling a public safety plan that includes increasing police presence in and around schools and social media surveillance.

Speaking at Russell Conwell Middle School in Kensington on Thursday, Parker released her 53-page plan which focuses on strategies to reduce gun violence citywide. Those strategies include hiring more police officers, expanding and deepening community partnerships between police and residents, and modernizing police technology.

She said her plan is an effort to “make good on the promise” that she made to Philadelphians during her campaign: to “deliver a government that they can see, touch, and feel in the neighborhoods where they live where they can see their tax dollars at work.”

Parker’s focus on addressing gun violence comes in the wake of two shootings last month that killed one Philadelphia student and injured ten others near their schools. Two groups of young people were also responsible for a shooting in a West Philly park this week.

“It is our mission to stop gun violence in Philadelphia once and for all,” said Adam Geer, Parker’s chief public safety director. “I will not rest until that work is done.”

Here’s what’s in Parker’s so-called “enhanced school safety plan”:

It adds more police in and around schools. The plan says these officers will be “additional specialized unit personnel” that will be paired with existing officers assigned to schools to “enhance deployment and visibility” during dismissal times at “high priority schools across the city in 13 police districts.” Those schools were not named in the plan.
Those 13 police districts are expected to get “upwards of two to three officers and supervisors” from specialized units at each school from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily through June 2024.
Noting that “gun violence in our schools …. often begins online,” Parker’s plan says the Philadelphia Police Department will be increasing its social media monitoring efforts to “possibly preempt shootings before they occur.”

Parker also reiterated her calls for “year-round school,” which she and her Chief Education Officer Debora Carerra said has the potential to reduce crime. Young people are less likely to get in trouble if they are engaged in positive activities in school, Carerra said.

Though gun violence in Philadelphia declined last year overall, shootings involving young people have been rising steadily since 2015, according to police data released Thursday. The percentage of people arrested who are 18 or younger has risen from 7% in 2015 to 11% so far this year.

Every year since 2020, 80% of young shooting victims in the city have been students, according to a gun violence data analysis by the school district included in Parker’s plan.

That analysis also shows students are more likely to be shot during weekdays between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. And the majority of student gunshot victims were shot in five of Philadelphia’s 48 ZIP codes — all in North and West Philadelphia. The district also found students are more likely to be shot closer to school than to their homes.

Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, who was formerly chief of school safety at the school district, said at Thursday’s event that part of his expanded community policing initiative will include closer partnerships with schools to divert young people from ever entering the juvenile justice system.

Dale Mezzacappa contributed to this report.

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

Students, parents: How much are senior dues this year?

2024-04-11T19:19:09+00:00

It’s that time of year again: Schools across Philadelphia are collecting senior dues for this year’s graduating students to go toward prom, senior luncheons, class t-shirts, gifts, and graduation expenses.

According to a spokesperson for the Philadelphia School District, the average cost for these fees citywide is $200 per student, but we’ve heard those amounts vary widely from school to school and from year to year. Some are all-inclusive and cover prom tickets, class trips, and portraits, while others only pay for graduation-specific costs.

We want to know how much you’ve been asked to pay for senior dues, what they pay for, and how you feel about this practice.

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

FAFSA errors endanger Philadelphia students’ state financial aid

2024-04-10T18:21:45+00:00

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Kevin Tellez-Torres thought filling out his financial aid forms for college was a breeze this year.

He didn’t encounter any glitches, and spent a total of maybe 30 minutes on the website filling in his information. ”It was really, like, easy,” Tellez-Torres said.

The issues started after he hit submit. What concerned him was when he heard the federal government was “having trouble delivering it to colleges, or even verifying our information.”

Tellez-Torres, a 19-year-old senior at Horace Furness High School, said it took a month to get his financial aid information to his colleges. That put him up against decision deadlines at some out-of-state schools. Other students have been even less lucky.

Students like Tellez-Torres across the country are finding themselves powerless to make decisions about higher education due to the federal government’s bungled rollout of the new Better Free Application for Federal Student Aid, commonly known as the FAFSA. Students who complete the form are much more likely to attend college. But just 35.2% of Pennsylvania seniors have submitted the FAFSA this year, down more than 22% from the previous academic year, according to data from the National College Attainment Network.

The bad news keeps coming. This week, President Joe Biden’s administration announced that as many as 16% of FAFSA applications require a student correction, and 30% of FAFSA forms are “potentially affected by known processing or data errors.”

The federal government will be reprocessing forms next week, and it will begin sending reprocessed records to schools by May 1. But that’s essentially too late for many Philly students looking to take advantage of Pennsylvania’s state grant money for college.

That’s because the deadline to apply for the state grant is May 1, the date set by the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, or PHEAA. And students need to have their FAFSAs completed and processed by then.

The way the assistance agency hinges on the FAFSA is “an absolute disaster at the moment” said Jonathan Holbert, manager of College and Career Advising for Heights Philadelphia, an education nonprofit that focuses on college and career access for Black, Brown, and first-generation students.

In order to take advantage of this state grant money, Holbert said, students must complete the FAFSA, the federal government must then process it and send that information to the state, which then spends 10 business days processing the FAFSA data. Then the state sends students a link to complete their state grant application.

Yasmeen Mutan, 18, a senior at William W. Bodine High School, said she’s still waiting for her federal financial aid package some four months after submitting her FAFSA documents.

Without knowing how much aid she’ll get, she said she can’t make a decision about what school she wants to attend and can’t apply for state financial aid, given the way the PHEAA’s process works.

“It’s super annoying but what can you do?” Mutan said. “What happens if my FAFSA isn’t completed before May 1st? Do I just go into college without knowing how much I’m going to pay?”

Bethany Coleman, a PHEAA spokesperson, declined to say whether the state is considering pushing back the May 1 deadline because of the known processing delays. Coleman said in an email her office is “watching student application volume and will be providing our Board of Directors with information to consider later this month.”

Colleges are adjusting how they send out financial aid awards because of the FAFSA delays. Ron Ozio, a spokesperson for The University of Pennsylvania, said in an email Penn students won’t be impacted. Ozio said Penn supplements students with institutional aid “until we receive FAFSA data,” at which point they can “swap in any federal aid.” But not every school has the same financial flexibility.

Holbert said students and teachers frequently ask him what they can do about issues filling out the FAFSA and he said he has to tell them: “Nothing. We have to wait until they fix it.”

He said students all over the city are experiencing anxiety and grappling with the feeling that they have no control over their postsecondary options. And unlike in previous years, Holbert also said, there is no support for students from the federal government.

“In the past you could have some success calling and getting some help,” Holbert said. “but this year it’s a nonstarter. There’s no point. We’re not advising students to reach out. It’s a waste of time, they’re just gonna tell them it’s a glitch and they have to wait anyway.”

FAFSA events and counseling hit stumbling blocks

Madeline Birkner, senior manager of postsecondary persistence at the Philadelphia Education Fund, an education nonprofit, said she’s trying to remain positive with students to keep them optimistic.

Birkner said the most glaring problem this year is “this feeling of a lack of urgency” from Philly seniors, “because the deadlines have been so messy, because the messaging isn’t consistent, or sometimes it’s not accurate.”

Students are told to “just fill out your FAFSA” she said, but then “they actually can’t in some cases.”

“Hearing how important FAFSA is, that it’s the first step of college, but then it actually isn’t functioning the way you’re being told it should, it undermines the sense that this is worth doing,” Birkner said.

Birkner also said Philly schools and organizations like hers have had a hard time scheduling larger “FAFSA completion” events because they’re not sure students will actually be able to complete the FAFSA onsite.

Kelsey Smith, a college access coordinator from the Philadelphia Education Fund stationed at Furness High School who worked with Tellez-Torres on his application, said even when students do everything right and have all of their documents prepared ahead of time, it can take five or six counseling sessions to submit a student’s FAFSA.

And with Philly’s chronic absenteeism challenges, Smith said she can’t guarantee every student will stick through those multiple sessions.

Despite the messy rollout, Birkner and Smith said the Better FAFSA may actually be better one day. Just not today.

“I’m really optimistic that in the future, this will matter,” Birkner said. “All these changes, these growing pains, will actually matter for the most disadvantaged students.”

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

Los estudiantes inmigrantes de Filadelfia no están recibiendo el apoyo que necesitan, dice un grupo que aboga por ellos

2024-04-01T21:12:00+00:00

Read in English.

Zulma Guzmán llegó a Filadelfia desde El Salvador en 2019 y forma parte de la comunidad hispana del sur de Filadelfia. Pero le ha costado sentirse cómoda como madre de tres estudiantes en las escuelas públicas de la ciudad.

Dijo a través de un intérprete que la falta de servicios de traducción en las reuniones oficiales de la escuela hace que no se sienta bienvenida. Cuando ella y otros padres que hablan español han pedido servicios de interpretación, dijo Guzmán, a menudo les han dicho que “traigamos a nuestros estudiantes o hijos o a otra persona de la comunidad para que nos interprete”.

Además, dijo que batalló para encontrar a alguien en las escuelas de sus hijos que la ayudara a saber qué recursos tiene disponibles como miembro de una una familia recién llegada.

La experiencia de Guzmán es común. De hecho, refleja quejas sobre importantes deficiencias en cómo el distrito apoya a los inmigrantes, refugiados y solicitantes de asilo recién llegados, según los resultados de una encuesta recogida por Juntos, un grupo que defiende los derechos de los inmigrantes, y compartida con Chalkbeat.

En las 152 respuestas de maestros, administradores y orientadores de 56 escuelas, solamente un 17% dijo que había suficientes Asistentes de Orientación Bilingües o personal bilingüe para atender las necesidades de los estudiantes en todos los idiomas que hablan. Solo un 19% dijo haber recibido adiestramiento específico para trabajar con recién llegados que abarcara más que las interacciones con el Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas de Estados Unidos. Y solamente un 33% cree que sus escuelas están preparadas para comunicarse con los recién llegados y sus familias.

La incapacidad de las escuelas de Filadelfia para ofrecer el tipo de apoyo que los estudiantes inmigrantes y sus familias quieren ha sido un problema durante años, y refleja los retos que enfrentan las escuelas en todo el país con el reciente aumento de estudiantes recién llegados e inmigrantes.

Los portavoces del distrito no estaban disponibles para hacer comentarios sobre la encuesta de Juntos el jueves, y dijeron que no estarían disponibles para responder a las peticiones de Chalkbeat hasta la próxima semana.

Filadelfia tiene dos academias para “recién llegados” en el Franklin Learning Center y la Escuela Superior Frankford que se supone que ayudan a estos estudiantes. En estas academias pueden inscribirse los estudiantes de los grados 9 a 12 que hayan llegado a Estados Unidos en el último año. Se supone que reciban “un curso acelerado” y apoyo específico para que “para que puedan y se pueda esperar” que se pongan al día con sus compañeros.

Pero incluso estas academias diseñadas para ayudar a los recién llegados a adaptarse pueden no ser suficientes para atender las necesidades de esos estudiantes. Según los datos proporcionados por el distrito, la organización Juntos dijo que en 2023 había 1,032 estudiantes recién llegados, pero solamente 70 estaban matriculados en los dos programas para recién llegados y quedaban 120 asientos vacíos. Y es posible que los asientos vacíos no sean el único problema.

Ashley Téllez es estudiante de duodécimo grado en el Franklin Learning Center y organizadora junior en Juntos. Su familia es de México, pero ella nació y se crió en el sur de Filadelfia y ha estado en primera fila en la academia para recién llegados de su escuela. Ella dijo que en práctica, los estudiantes de estos programas no reciben el apoyo que necesitan.

Señaló que a los estudiantes recién llegados se les mantiene separados de la población estudiantil general, y que ella solamente ha tenido una clase con un estudiante recién llegado en una ocasión mientras ha estado en la escuela superior. Téllez dijo que estas barreras que mantienen separados a los estudiantes recién llegados les privan de hacer conexión con sus compañeros y dificultan su capacidad para hacer amigos, unirse a clubs y participar de lleno en la comunidad estudiantil de Filadelfia.

“Hay tantos estudiantes que viven a una hora, 45 minutos de distancia y vienen a las escuelas para estos programas y no se les da el acceso a la educación que se supone que deben recibir”, dijo Téllez.

‘Estos sistemas no velan por ellos’

En 2021, la junta escolar de la ciudad aprobó unánimemente una resolución para tener “escuelas santuario” prometiendo proporcionarle capacitación al personal sobre cómo responder si los oficiales de ICE se presentaran la escuela, y cómo relacionarse en general con las familias para atender y proteger a los estudiantes recién llegados a sus escuelas.

Guadalupe Méndez, organizadora juvenil de Juntos, dijo que el grupo envió la encuesta para darle seguimiento a la capacitación obligatoria que se supone que deben recibir los maestros.

Ella dijo que los resultados de la encuesta, así como las conversaciones que ella y otros miembros de Juntos han tenido con los estudiantes y maestros de toda la ciudad, muestran que la capacitación no es tan sólida como se había prometido. Juntos había hablado con algunas personas que recibieron la capacitación “y no les toma más de 20 minutos repasarla”, dijo Méndez.

Méndez creció en el sur de Filadelfia y al igual que Téllez, su familia es de México. Aunque ella es mayor que los estudiantes con los que trabaja en Juntos, las cosas no han cambiado mucho en el sistema de escuelas públicas para los estudiantes que hablan español, a pesar de los “maestros buenos con buenas intenciones” que tuvo.

Méndez dijo que según los datos del distrito, para los casi 23,000 estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés en las escuelas de Filadelfia, solamente hay 131 asistentes de orientación bilingües. Estos asistentes prestan servicios de traducción, ayudan a las familias a conectarse con los recursos de la ciudad y ayudan a las familias que no hablan inglés a entablar relaciones con los líderes, maestros y comunidad de sus escuelas.

Sin embargo, la cantidad relativamente pequeña de estos asistentes limita su capacidad para ayudar a las familias, dijo Méndez.

Los estudiantes con los que ha hablado que han llegado al distrito todavía aprendiendo inglés “no pueden creer que no haya apoyos”. No pueden creer que estos sistemas no velen por ellos”.

Méndez dijo que el distrito define a los estudiantes “recién llegados” como aquellos que han llegado al país en el último año. Pero con frecuencia eso no es suficiente tiempo para aprender un nuevo idioma, ponerse al día con las tareas de clase y sentirse integrado en sus escuelas, dijo.

Juntos le he dicho al distrito escolar que debe expandir la definición de recién llegado a “cualquier estudiante que haya llegado recientemente (en los últimos tres años) a Estados Unidos, y puede incluir, entre otros: asilados, refugiados, menores no acompañados, menores indocumentados, estudiantes inmigrantes y otros niños inmigrantes y menores de edad”.

El grupo también quiere que el distrito establezca programas para recién llegados en las escuelas intermedias y que añada al menos un nuevo programa de escuela superior en el sur de Filadelfia, donde viven muchos estudiantes recién llegados.

Estudiantes interpretan para los recién llegados

Felipe Mejía-Cuba, estudiante de Filadelfia y voluntario de Juntos, recuerda que hace dos años estaba trabajando en un restaurante con un estudiante recién llegado cuando un día, en medio de un turno, el estudiante insistió en que Mejía-Cuba llamara a un hospital para que lo ayudara a obtener servicios de salud.

Mejía-Cuba dijo que el estudiante, que asistía a la Escuela Superior Horace Howard Furness, le dijo que su escuela no podía ayudarlo y que necesitaba formularios y vacunas para poder permanecer en la escuela.

Esa es una experiencia común para muchos menores bilingües, a quienes se les pide traducir reuniones y documentos para amigos y familiares.

“Esa fue la primera señal de alarma que encontré”, dijo Mejía-Cuba. “Descubrí todas las desventajas y toda la falta de atención a las que se enfrentan los estudiantes recién llegados”.

Mejía-Cuba dice que ser mentor de otros estudiantes de su edad le ha ayudado a entender mejor los recursos disponibles para los residentes de Filadelfia que hablan español y a encontrar su lugar en su comunidad.

“El yo que soy ahora sería capaz de ayudar al muchacho en el sótano de aquel restaurante”, dijo Mejía-Cuba.

No quiere que sus primos recién nacidos y parientes en el sistema de escuelas públicas tengan las mismas dificultades que tuvo él: “La batalla no es solamente para los que están en las escuelas ahora, es una batalla para las próximas generaciones.

Téllez, la estudiante de duodécimo grado en el Franklin Learning Center, dijo que se siente afortunada porque puede hablar cuando algunos de sus compañeros no pueden hacerlo por ser indocumentados o tener familiares indocumentados y le temen a las autoridades federales de inmigración.

Ella y Mejía-Cuba dijeron que aunque se están graduando, quieren que el distrito escolar mejore para los que vienen después de ellos.

“Realmente crecí con estas ideas de cómo las escuelas pueden ser y el poder que tengo como estudiante para conseguirlo”, dijo Téllez. “Aprendí que tengo voz y que puedo usarla para lograr un cambio”.

Carly Sitrin es la directora de Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Para comunicarte con Carly, envíale un email a csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Milly Suazo-Martinez

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker picks 5 new members for school board

2024-04-01T18:13:19+00:00

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Mayor Cherelle Parker is pushing to remake the Philadelphia Board of Education by appointing five new people to the nine-member body, including two with strong past ties to charter schools and organizations.

But Parker, who released her nine appointees on Monday, also wants to keep the board’s president, Reginald Streater, along with three other current members.

The new names Parker chose are:

Crystal Cubbage, a former teacher and executive director for the Philadelphia Learning Collaborative.
Cheryl Harper, a former Philadelphia district employee and distinguished educator for the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
Whitney Jones, the chief financial officer at Children’s Crisis Treatment Center who has also worked for the nationwide KIPP charter network and for a charter school consulting firm.
Wanda Novales, founding CEO and principal of Pan American Charter School.
Joan Stern, a public finance attorney and former special counsel for the district.

In addition to Streater, the current members chosen by Parker to stay on the board are Sarah-Ashley Andrews, Joyce Wilkerson, and ChauWing Lam.

Parker’s picks will now be submitted to the City Council, which will hold public hearings and vote on each nominee. If the council confirms her picks, as is generally expected, then the new board will take office May 1 to start four-year terms.

The Philadelphia school board has the power to drive education decisions in the city including voting on and monitoring the district’s $4.5 billion budget, hiring the superintendent, and influencing curriculum decisions including the purchase of new materials. It also has the power to authorize new charter schools, close underperforming ones, and expand charter seats.

Education advocates have been watching Parker’s decisions closely to see whether her administration would preside over a new era for charter school expansion. Since regaining local control from the state in 2018, the school board has not approved a new charter school but has allowed current charters to grow by more than 2,000 seats.

“I said I wanted a school board with a diversity of skills, from different neighborhoods, sectors and communities, some with deep knowledge, some with new ideas, a group that truly reflects my vision of One Philly, a United City,” Parker said in a statement Monday. “I’m confident we’ve assembled that board.”

Current members Leticia Egea-Hinton, Cecelia Thompson, and Lisa Salley sought to stay on the board and were among the 27 names submitted to Parker by the Educational Nominating Panel. But Parker didn’t reappoint them. Board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez and member Julia Danzy previously took themselves out of the running.

During her campaign last year, Parker indicated she may be open to growing the charter sector, which are publicly funded but privately run schools and enroll upwards of 70,000 students in the city. Thompson and Salley, who were not selected by Parker to continue on the board, voted several times in favor of renewing or approving new charter schools that other members opposed.

“I want quality seats and I don’t care where they are,” Parker said in an interview with Chalkbeat before the election, adding that she “will not allow anyone to act as if district-run and charter schools are warring factions.”

Alongside Superintendent Tony Watlington, the new board will also be tasked with determining what Parker’s promise for “year-round school” means in practice.

Watlington has said that he plans to start piloting year-round schooling this summer at 15 schools. At last week’s school board meeting, Watlington said plans for that pilot are still “under development” and he is “not yet ready to roll anything out.”

Parker said she would be appearing alongside her nominees in a press conference Tuesday. If confirmed, the new board picked by Parker will have seven women and two men.

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

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

What Philadelphia public schools could get in new city budget

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Enough is enough,” Parker said.

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

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

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

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

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

What the budget leaves out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Philadelphia principal says his school won’t be defined by violence after 8 students shot

2024-03-20T18:33:20+00:00

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Northeast High School Principal Omar Crowder said Wednesday his school community is on a “steady return to a semblance of normalcy” after eight of his students were wounded by gunfire earlier this month.

“Our community suffered a tragedy on a scale that we have not seen in the history of the school district of Philadelphia,” Crowder said.

Speaking outside of the school’s entrance while students gathered near windows in the staircase above, Crowder said student attendance is rebounding and the community is healing, but “this is going to be an ongoing, long-term recovery effort.”

Eight Northeast High students, all between the ages of 15 and 17, were shot on March 6 at the intersection of Rising Sun and Cottman avenues at a SEPTA bus stop down the street from their school. Two of the eight students are still in the hospital, Crowder said, and face a “long road to recovery.”

While Crowder said he does not know what caused the shooting, he stated that “we are not going to be defined by senseless street violence … and what feels like persistent lawlessness in our city.”

Gun violence in Philadelphia declined last year, according to an analysis of city data by The Trace, but violence on SEPTA has persisted. Of the 3,300 students at Northeast High, about 1,500 students rely on SEPTA to get to school every day, Crowder said.

According to Monique Braxton, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia school district, 199 public school students were shot during the last school year, and 33 died. So far this school year, 70 students have been victims of gun violence and seven have died.

Crowder said Wednesday the school is doing what it can to ease the mental and emotional pain his students, staff, and parents are facing.

For two days following the shooting, the school went remote and staggered the return to in-person learning. Crowder and the district made mental health services available on an ongoing basis and police patrols have increased around the school.

Later on Wednesday, City Council President Kenyatta Johnson and other council members plan to hold a “peace, not guns” town hall at the school to discuss the violence and efforts to heal.

“We have to address those who are seeing their loved ones murdered and work on treating the whole child,” Johnson said in an interview Wednesday morning.

Johnson said he wants to increase the number of “credible messengers” inside schools whose “lived experience” — including one-time involvement in illegal or violent activities — make them more able to relate to young people.

Crowder said “despite the hurt and fear, our school community has continued to show up for one another and that will not change.”

“I’ve made it very clear to our students and staff this narrative belongs to us, not to the streets,” he said.

Dale Mezzacappa contributed to this report

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Creating community but also pushing for change

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s who could be chosen for the new Philadelphia Board of Education

2024-03-13T00:06:34+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education will have at least two new members, according to a list of candidates submitted to Mayor Cherelle Parker.

The 13-member Education Nominating Panel voted to approve its shortlist of 27 finalists at a public meeting Tuesday evening. The list includes former teachers and administrators, education advocates, business leaders, and labor union officials and appears to represent a range of ages and neighborhoods.

Otis Bullock Jr., chair of the panel, said the group was “just looking for diversity all around the board.”

“You need some folks on here with some gravitas … and legislative experience,” Bullock said. He added if the school district is looking to legislators in Harrisburg for additional funding for the cash-strapped district, “you need some folks that know how to do that.”

Parker’s board picks will have the power to set the education agenda in the nation’s eighth largest school district. Board members can authorize or deny new charter schools, hire and evaluate superintendents, guide curriculum decisions, and approve the district’s $4.5 billion budget.

Seven of the names on the panel’s list are current board members, but board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez and Julia Danzy were not on the list. Earlier this month, Fix-Lopez unexpectedly announced she would be resigning, and Danzy had previously indicated she would not be reapplying.

Which candidates Parker chooses to sit on the board — in conjunction with her budget proposal expected to be released on Thursday — will signal her education priorities for the city.

Parker has indicated she may be more open to expanding the charter school sector than her predecessor Jim Kenney. The school board has not approved a new charter school since 2018. Charters, which are publicly funded but privately run, now educate upwards of 70,000 students in Philadelphia, about a third of those enrolled in tax-supported city schools.

Indeed, many of the public comments at Tuesday’s meeting included calls for more charter seats and resources for those schools, a fair authorization process, and an end to charter school closures.

Many of the written comments, which were read aloud at the meeting, were identically worded, and echoed something Parker has said. She wants to eliminate the “us vs. them mentality” between district-run and charter schools.

Despite speculation that Parker’s nominating panel would try to load the shortlist with pro-charter activists, few of the 27 people on the list appear to have direct or deep connections to charter schools.

This is the first full school board nomination process since 2018, when former Mayor Kenney chose his nine appointees to replace the School Reform Commission. It had governed the city school district since 2001, when the state took over the district citing financial and academic distress. Since then, Kenney appointed a few additional members to replace some who resigned.

Lee Huang, a former board member, said Tuesday he would not “sugarcoat” that serving on the board was challenging at times. The position is unpaid, demanding, and comes with intense public scrutiny.

“It was long hours …. and you’ll get yelled at,” Huang said. “That’s part of the job.”

Parker will choose nine people (or request more names if she is not happy with the 27) and send those to City Council, which will hold public hearings. With its approval, the board members will take their seats starting May 1.

In alphabetical order, here’s the list. The mayor’s office provided biographies for each candidate.

Sarah-Ashley Andrews (current board member)
Nakia Carr
Timothy Crowther
Crystal Cubbage
Leticia Egea-Hinton (current board member)
Cindy Farlino
Mark Gittelman
Cheryl Harper
Keola Harrington
Michael Henderson
Jameika Id-Deen
David Irizarry
Dominique Johnson
Whitney Jones
ChauWing Lam (current board member)
Letisha Laws
Maddie Luebbert
Colleen McCauley
Cheryl Mobley-Stimpson
Wanda Novales
Michelle Palmer
Lisa Salley (current board member)
Marisa Shaaban
Joan Stern
Reginald Streater (current board president)
Cecelia Thompson (current board member)
Joyce Wilkerson (current board member)

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

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

Who will be on the Philadelphia Board of Education?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to get involved

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The contract will cover more than 14,000 district employees, according to Grant-Skinner.

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.

11 young people have been shot in Philadelphia this week

2024-03-07T15:17:34+00:00

Eleven Philadelphia students were shot at bus stops less than a mile from their schools this week in separate incidents that have sent shockwaves through schools across the city.

Eight of those students, all between the ages of 15 and 17, were injured by gunfire on Wednesday afternoon at the intersection of Rising Sun and Cottman avenues in Northeast Philadelphia at a SEPTA bus stop down the street from their school, Northeast High School, according to city police.

On Monday, Dayemen Taylor, a 17-year-old Imhotep Institute Charter High School student, was killed in a shooting that injured two other young people at a different SEPTA stop at Ogontz and Godfrey avenues.

The incidents were among four shootings this week on or around SEPTA buses, a setback coming as city data shows gun violence is declining overall in Philadelphia. Nearly 55,000 students use SEPTA to get to and from school every day.

Philadelphia School District Superintendent Tony Watlington announced in a statement Wednesday night that Northeast High, which educates over 3,200 students, would be going remote through the rest of the week. Watlington said an emergency crisis response team will be on-site at the school “to support our students with grief counseling and whatever emotional assistance they need.”

Watlington also dispatched counselors to Kennedy C. Crossan School, an elementary school across the street from Wednesday’s shooting.

Jayme Banks, the Philadelphia School District’s deputy chief of prevention, intervention, and trauma, told Chalkbeat on Thursday the emotional impact of the shootings has reverberated throughout multiple nearby schools and student populations. The district will be providing counseling services for four or five other schools this week in addition to Northeast High School, Banks said.

Some Crossan students were leaving their building and witnessed the shooting on Wednesday, Banks said. There were some George Washington High School students aboard one of the SEPTA buses who also saw the eight students shot.

“People are affected in many different ways, and it’s important that we give them the space and time to process all of it,” Banks said. She added that the “trauma is so pervasive that we have to pour our resources and supports into everyone. Every student, family, teacher and community member.”

In a press conference Wednesday night, Watlington said he was “just absolutely heartbroken and angry that innocent children walking home from school would be impacted by gun violence.”

He said his office is “absolutely committed” to “improving outcomes” for students so that “when parents send their children to school, they can expect them to return safely to them.”

Kevin Bethel, Philadelphia’s police commissioner who used to serve as the district’s chief of school safety, said Wednesday “it is hard to sit here and see, in three days, 11 juveniles shot, who were going and coming from school.”

Banks said as the district and city plan a broader response to gun violence, “the impact has to be greater than therapy alone. We really need to pour [support] into our community so that everyone can heal together.”

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

Philadelphia district wants more school-based health clinics but state funding is an issue

2024-03-05T21:06:08+00:00

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For many Philadelphians like Mitata Gbondo who have young children, going to the dentist can be inconvenient, costly, and even scary.

So when a dental clinic opened at William D. Kelley Elementary School, which her son attends, Gbondo jumped at the chance to get a free teeth cleaning for herself and her son. She walked up to the third floor of the school at noon on a Thursday, and entered a fully functioning dental office with candy-colored walls and a picture of a smiling toothpaste mascot.

“This experience has been awesome,” Gbondo said.

School-based health clinics, like the dental office at William D. Kelley, are expanding rapidly across the country. Experts say students — especially those who live in low-income communities — who’ve had access to free and comprehensive checkups, screenings, and even behavioral therapy, do better academically and emotionally.

According to data from Education Plus Health, a nonprofit advocacy group that lobbies for more school-based health centers in Philadelphia, in 2022-23, three out of five students who attended a school with a center improved their attendance from the previous school year.

But these clinics are often underfunded, understaffed, and usually can’t operate without the financial support of a hospital, community health partner, or university.

Some 23 states have passed legislation to try to stabilize funding for school-based health centers by dedicating state dollars to the centers in their budgets every year. But Pennsylvania is not one of them.

“We don’t have a robust system of school-based health centers at all,” said Kendra McDow, the School District of Philadelphia’s medical officer.

The district is trying to change that. McDow said it is looking for health care partners to help start new school-based health centers in one or two district schools over the next three years. After that, they want the number to grow, McDow said.

The dental clinic at William D. Kelley Elementary School is staffed by students and faculty from Temple University's Kornberg School of Dentistry.

There are more than a dozen school-based health centers in Philadelphia and 30 in total across the state, according to Julie Cousler, executive director of the Pennsylvania School-Based Health Alliance and Education Plus Health advocacy groups. The majority of them are at private or charter schools. As with school-based health centers nationwide, the ones in Philadelphia schools are funded by a mix of federal aid, insurance reimbursements, philanthropic donations, and some one-time state grant money.

Only three Philadelphia district schools (Building 21, John B. Stetson Middle School, and Vaux Big Picture High School) have comprehensive school-based health centers with nurse practitioners. Edward Gideon Elementary School has a planned clinic that hasn’t opened yet, and Kelley has the dental clinic.

Meanwhile, New York state has 252 centers in schools (146 of those are in New York City), according to the state health department, and Delaware — the first state to mandate centers in every public high school — has more than 50. Newark, New Jersey just opened its first school-based health center in 2023. But recent funding cuts in New York and Delaware have put those centers in jeopardy.

Cousler and McDow said the centers are vital for Philadelphia students in particular because living in cities near several highways, industrial facilities, and other sources of pollution can trigger or exacerbate chronic health problems like asthma. Those chronic health issues can cause students to be frequently absent from school or make it difficult for them to concentrate in class, McDow said.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 21% of children in Philadelphia have asthma — more than double the national rate.

“We have high rates of asthma, high rates of uncontrolled asthma, high rates of hospital visits because of asthma,” Cousler said. “We have high rates of mental health distress among kids and high rates of kids not getting the services they need. So we just have to start going to where the kids are.”

McDow said if Philadelphia officials want to make school-based health centers “really work for our city, we have to have funding.” And she said that would mean state-level legislation.

School-based health centers would not get a dedicated funding stream from the state in Gov. Josh Shapiro’s newest budget proposal.

“Right now, there really isn’t any support for school-based health centers and that’s why it’s hard to sustain them,” Cousler said.

The dental clinic is open to all public school students in kindergarten through eighth grade as well as their families regardless of insurance status.

‘A hub of what families would need’

In the early 1990s, under former governor Robert P. Casey, Pennsylvania received a series of grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to launch a network of school-based health centers in high-need areas, according to Cliff Deardorff, who was the first public health program administrator for the grant for the Pennsylvania Department of Health. Between 1987 and 2001, the foundation spent $40 million nationwide on school-based health centers.

Deardorff said there was a lot of momentum around the new initiative.

“It was exciting. This was a new idea for Pennsylvania,” Deardorff said. “We were starting something that we hoped would make a difference.”

But when the grant funding ran out, nearly all of those centers closed. Today, Deardorff said, only one of those original school-based health centers exists.

Deardorff said building community trust around any kind of health center is crucial to keep patients coming back, staff employed, and insurance reimbursements flowing.

“To give somebody a chance to start something like this up, and then, poof, it goes away” was painful, Deardorff said.

But he said he’s hopeful state lawmakers, prompted by advocates like Cousler, might avoid the financial mistakes of the past.

Crystal Edwards, William D. Kelley Elementary’s principal, said it’s been an “honor” to have the dental clinic in her building. She said she’s seen firsthand the good it has done for her students, their families, and even her staff members who can all use the clinic’s services regardless of their insurance status.

“We try to be a hub of what families would need to make sure that their children are not just physically safe, and educationally safe, but psychologically safe and emotionally safe, and I’m just proud to be able to give that to the community,” Edwards said.

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

Philadelphia school board vice president resigns

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Philadelphia school board denies charter school application for third time

2024-03-01T02:49:54+00:00

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Philadelphia Board of Education members voted to deny an application for a new charter high school Thursday night, citing declining academic performance data and several recent charter school closures in the city.

Board members voted 6-3 to deny the proposed Global Leadership Academy International Charter High School, which sought to enroll 150 students in ninth grade its first year and build up to 600 students in grades 9-12 by year five.

Board President Reginald Streater said the decision was a “hard one” because of the strong community support for the school. But he said he had too many concerns with the details of the application and cited his experience watching multiple charter schools “collapse” in recent years.

The board hasn’t approved a new charter school in the city since 2018. But Mallory Fix-Lopez, the board’s vice president, noted that the board has “expanded the charter sector by over 2,000 seats” since 2018. It remains to be seen whether the board’s stance on charters clashes with new Mayor Cherelle Parker’s vision for public education in the city.

Global Leadership Network CEO Naomi Johnson-Booker, a longtime Philadelphia educator, has tried for years to add a high school to the already existing two Global Leadership K-8 schools. But the board has repeatedly rejected her attempts.

One of GLA’s schools, Global Leadership Academy at Huey, is a Renaissance charter school. The district turned the school over to the network in 2016, but it has since failed to significantly improve student academic performance.

Peng Chao, chief of the district’s Charter Schools Office, presented academic data for GLA’s existing schools which shows sharp declines in the percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced proficient in English Language Arts and Math standardized tests from the 2017-18 school year to 2022-23.

Chao also noted the charter group’s proposed curriculum materials for high school English language arts, mathematics, and science “still do not fully demonstrate that the proposed charter school would meet all grade level requirements” set at the state level.

“There is a question there as to whether they would truly be able to achieve all of their academic requirements,” Chao said.

In defense of her schools’ performance, Johnson-Booker cited a flood in one of the school buildings that interrupted testing during one school year and the impacts of the pandemic that affected school performance nationwide.

Several students, parents, and elected officials testified in support of GLA and the proposed high school at the Thursday board meeting, saying the school community provides a safe and positive environment for students in the city.

But ultimately, board members said they had too many concerns with the application.

Board member Lisa Salley, who voted to approve the school, took a different view. She said the charter school office’s “analysis is anemic and needs work.”

The charter school approval process has come under fire in recent months for alleged bias against Black-led schools. However, an investigation found district leadership never deliberately discriminated against such schools.

In a statement following the vote, Ken Kilpatrick, a spokesperson for Global Leadership International, called the board’s decision “myopic and selfish” and said the organization “will be reviewing our legal options and will announce our next steps when prepared to do so.”

Logan Peterson, a spokesperson for the board, said the network can appeal to the state’s charter appeals board or resubmit their application.

Meanwhile, Parker’s assertions that “high quality” charter seats would be valued as much as traditional district seats during her tenure as mayor have raised questions as to whether the school board would begin approving charters again.

The board’s decision could have significant political ramifications. Parker has convened her Education Nominating Panel to consider reappointing or remaking the board to reflect her priorities. She’s given no signal yet whether she intends to replace any of the current members. Parker could decide to replace none, some, or all of them.

The next public meeting of the Education Nominating Panel is scheduled for March 12.

Board approves contracts for parent stipends, nurses

In addition to the charter decision, the board voted to approve more than $230 million in contracts for classroom furniture, payments for substitute nurses, stipends for parents who drive their kids to school, and more.

Here are some of the items included in those contracts:

$60 million for “furniture and classroom fixtures.”
$50 million for “educational resources” including textbooks, gym supplies, science materials, and other items. This does not include core curriculum items.
$10 million for ESS Northeast, LLC for payments to substitute nurses and other school staff.
$10.5 million for a contract with The Home Depot for custodial supplies and equipment.
$36 million for monthly payments to parents who drive their children to school. According to the district, there are approximately 14,000 households or parents that are enrolled in the program for the 2023-2024 school year.
$2.7 million for Catapult Learning, LLC and Littera Education, Inc. for a high-impact tutoring pilot in two middle schools serving grades 6-8 for the 4th marking period. (Less than 1% of students used these programs as of 2023.)
$10 million for furniture and equipment for “Digital Literacy Labs” including computers and “codeable robots.” According to the district, there are 113 elementary and middle schools that offer digital literacy in the city. The district wants an additional 74 schools to have access to these labs by the start of the next school year.

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

Philadelphia’s ‘State of Public Education’ improving but has a long way to go, schools chief says

2024-01-30T21:19:34+00:00

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The “State of Public Education” in Philadelphia is not as strong as it could be, Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a sweeping address Tuesday.

In the first speech of its kind in Philadelphia, Watlington celebrated some incremental successes since he became superintendent in June 2022: Student attendance is up, the four-year graduation rate is up, dropouts are decreasing, and teacher attendance is also improving. But he cautioned that the district is facing many challenges, including a looming budget shortfall of more than $400 million, declining enrollment, low test scores, aging facilities, and a persistent teacher shortage.

With no ability to raise taxes on its own and with federal COVID aid set to run out, Watlington’s ability to appeal to representatives in Harrisburg and City Hall will be crucial to getting the chronically underfunded district more money to address different issues.

And Tuesday’s event — which began with remarks from Mayor Cherelle Parker and was attended by a host of state, federal, and local elected officials — was a public attempt to make the case for adequately funding Philadelphia students.

Watlington, who came to Philadelphia from North Carolina, said in an interview before the address that in his nearly two years leading the district, he has perceived a “crisis of confidence” in a city he described as “hard on itself.”

“All the children are not well, it is no secret,” Watlington said in his speech. Citing modest improvements in several areas, he added: “Is it enough? Absolutely not.”

Speaking at the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts, Watlington presented data showing the district is improving on some markers from 2021-22 to 2022-23:

Student attendance is up from 57% to 60%.
The teacher attendance rate is up from 77% to 84%.
The four-year graduation rate is up from 71% to 74%.
The number of students who dropped out fell from 3,917 to 3,652.

But state test scores show students are still struggling in the classroom; even with small gains last year, most students are still scoring below proficient in reading and math. In Algebra I and Biology, performance has also declined post-pandemic; just one in five students scored proficient in Algebra I last year.

Watlington said he wants to “establish deep partnerships” with district families, caregivers, and community members, and be more transparent with budgeting.

Watlington’s presentation reiterated much of what he said when he finished out his first full year in office. But now, with Parker in charge, changes to the district may be coming.

Parker has expressed more openness to charter schools, which now educate a third of the city’s students. But the Board of Education has not approved a new charter school in six years, and it and the district’s charter office has been accused of racial bias in disproportionately moving to close charters that have Black leadership.

The first hint of a possible political shift on this issue came at last Thursday’s board meeting, when members reversed their previous decision not to renew the Southwest Leadership Academy charter school.

Parker’s presence at Watlington’s speech could signal she wants to take a more hands-on approach to public K-12 education than her predecessor, Jim Kenney. She has the power to appoint all nine members of the school board, and can remake it from scratch if she wants. Current board members’ terms expire on May 1.

So far, she has given no hints about her intentions, although she spoke well of Board President Reginald Streater.

Philadelphia mayor says ‘crumbles of funding’ are inadequate

Watlington said in his speech he is trying to prove to Parker, and to state and federal lawmakers, that under his leadership the district will be a responsible steward of any new funding. He highlighted decisions to reorganize his office, overhauling math and language arts curriculum, eliminating vacant positions, and shaking up his leadership team in an effort to trim administrative staff and focus more on crucial priorities like dropout prevention, facility improvements, and high-impact tutoring.

Parker pledged to work to bring more school funding to the city. She also called out elected leaders attending Tuesday’s event, including several members of Congress, state legislators like House Speaker Joanna McClinton, and City Council members including Council President Kenyatta Johnson.

Philadelphia’s children are “given crumbles of funding when they really do deserve a whole loaf” Parker said of the state’s current school funding system.

Parker commended Watlington for his five-year strategic plan, known as Accelerate Philly, which the school board adopted last year. But she said it’s the job of policymakers and elected officials to “make sure we have the dollars in order to get it done.”

Still, Parker cautioned that “this is going to be a tough year,” and expressed concern about whether city taxpayers should be expected to shoulder more of the burden for schools. She placed her faith in state education funding reform in the wake of last year’s Commonwealth Court decision that the current system is unconstitutional.

In her remarks at the event, Parker did go out of her way to express her continued support for another of her campaign platforms – year-round school, a potentially budget-busting initiative that would require massive union buy-in. In his speech, Watlington expressed some support for extending the school day and year.

The district’s presentation on Tuesday concluded with a “call to action” by Kathryn Epps Roberson, president and CEO of the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia — a source of private philanthropic funding for the district. Epps called Watlington’s five-year blueprint an “audacious approach” to school reform and improvement.

She also announced the Fund’s intent to raise $40 million by 2028 to support Watlington’s plan, including $6 million in year one.

“This has to be a public and private effort,” she said.

That money will provide stipends to people to participate in Parent University, an initiative Watlington intends to revive that helps parents shore up their skills and learn how to better help their children with schoolwork. It will also fund a high-impact tutoring pilot program in up to eight schools, help with teacher recruitment and training, and underwrite swimming programs, among other priorities.

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.

Kindergarten registration is now open in Philadelphia

2024-01-22T19:29:27+00:00

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Kindergarten registration is now open for the 2024-25 school year in Philadelphia, and the 5-year-old students at Ellwood Elementary School in the Oak Lane neighborhood want their peers to know what they’ve learned.

They can sound out words and explain how birds build their nests. They know how to cut paper and can match superheroes with their super senses. And they know about hammerhead sharks and how to play the “shake and spill” math game.

Ellwood’s 40 students are some of the 9,100 kindergarteners learning crucial early education skills across the city this school year, and district officials want that number to grow.

Kindergarten enrollment took a dip during the pandemic but has come close to recovering to pre-COVID levels: In 2019-2020 there were 9,880 students registered, but in 2020-21 that figure dropped to 7,140.

Superintendent Tony Watlington said Monday he is encouraging families to sign their 5-year-olds up before the May 31 deadline. In addition to helping the district prepare for next year, registering early also gives families a better chance for their students to be placed in seats at their neighborhood schools or schools of their choice.

“Getting registered for kindergarten is so important,” Watlington said at a press conference at Ellwood. “Kids who get an early start get a good foundation in reading and math and do well as they go through school.”

To be eligible, students must be 5 years old on or before Sept. 1, 2024. Parents and caregivers can sign their students up online on the district’s website or in-person by appointment at families’ neighborhood schools.

All 3- and 4-year-old students can enroll in free prekindergarten through the district if they won’t be 5 years old by the next school year.

Diane Castelbuono, the district’s deputy chief for early childhood, said registering as early as possible “gives families a chance to adjust and think about preparing for kindergarten.” It also gives schools the proper time “to get to know who the children are as they come in.”

Kindergarten is not mandatory in Pennsylvania, but Castelbuono said “almost everybody goes” in Philadelphia. She said that’s evidence that families in the city “really understand the importance of full day schooling at the earliest age.”

Watlington said he would “love for there to be compulsory kindergarten” in the state.

“We need more school, more time to learn, not less,” Watlington said. He’s already thrown his support behind new Mayor Cherelle Parker’s year-round-school proposal, promising to pilot the idea in the coming years.

Parker hasn’t revealed any details about what she wants year-round-school to look like, but she told Chalkbeat it won’t be “children sitting in a classroom at a desk” for 365 days.

Over the next few months, the district will be hosting open houses for registered students to come and meet their potential teachers and future classmates. One will be on March 5 and another will be during the week of May 13.

Students who go to Ellwood next year may have Erica Meyers, who has been teaching kindergarten in Philadelphia for eight years.

Meyers said “every day is a big win” in her classroom.

“I see these students come in to me, they don’t know how to sit in chairs. They don’t know how to sit on the carpet or raise their hands,” but they learn quickly, she said. And by the time they move on to first grade, Meyers said they’re adding, subtracting, and spelling their names.

“They’re making sounds, they’re reading and the little light bulbs go on, which is awesome,” Meyers said.

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

How ‘reading captains’ are fueling Philadelphia’s push to improve early literacy

2024-01-16T12:00:00+00:00

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On an unseasonably warm day in Philadelphia, Tiye Thompson was investigating a mystery.

Thompson, 46, is one of more than a thousand city residents, mostly women of color, who spend their own time and money supporting Philadelphia’s youngest readers by serving as “reading captains.”

A few days earlier, as part of that work, Thompson and a group of neighborhood matriarchs papered South Philly with fliers for a big party they were throwing to celebrate “Reading Promise Week” and promote early literacy. She booked sponsors, volunteers, free food, and even an inflatable bouncy castle to boost the event.

She could have sworn she put one of her painstakingly laminated signs to promote the event on a sidewalk tree. But now, it’s gone. “What is going on?” Thompson asked. “Who is taking these signs and where did y’all put them?”

Thompson’s tenacity about finding that single sign mirrors her dedication to the reading captains program, a quintessentially Philly invention.

Armed with a crash course of expert training in the science of reading, phonics, and other early literacy techniques, reading captains help prepare parents and guardians to reinforce the lessons kids are learning in the classroom. They fan out into neighborhoods with one goal: Make sure the children on your block have the support they need to read on grade level. Because right now, many of those children cannot.

They are also plugged into a volunteer network that spans the city. They know prekindergarten application deadlines, how to spot students at risk of dropping out, and other aspects of the education ecosystem. And unlike other people involved in education and schools, they can knock on doors to provide children with direct support, like free books and other literacy resources.

Tiye Thompson, center, a reading captain in Philadelphia, posts signs about a block party to celebrate "Reading Promise Week."

“It’s very Philly, and it’s very in your face,” said Simone Partridge, director of communications at Read by 4th, a coalition of groups working to improve early literacy in Philadelphia. “It’s like, I’m going to show you and I’m going to bring you along, whether you like it or not, you are going to love literacy by the end of this five-minute conversation.”

Most Philadelphia district students in grades 3-8 can’t read on grade level according to the latest standardized test data. And over 30% of children in third grade, which is considered a critical year for literacy, are scoring at “below basic” on those exams — the lowest score level.

Adults aren’t doing much better. Recent federal data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows some 22%of Philadelphians aged 16 and older “lack the most basic literacy skills.” That same federal data, collected by advocacy group Achieve Now, shows 52% of Philadelphia’s adults are functionally illiterate.

All that means many Philadelphians may struggle to fill out job applications, apply for local and federal resources, and help their children become strong readers. In short, a lack of reading skills sustains the cycle of poverty, Partridge said.

Partridge works closely with the reading captains to champion their work.

“Reading captains are the heart and engine of Philly’s early literacy movement,” Partridge said. “When I say they make change happen quicker and faster than anybody else, I mean it.”

Black women are ‘mothering the community’ through literacy

The reading captains program launched in September 2017 as an extension of a collaboration between the Read By 4th campaign and Global Citizen, a civic engagement group in the city.

The program is modeled after the city’s block captain program — another initiative powered by volunteers who organize neighborhood clean-ups and beautification efforts.

At the Latinx Literacy Fest at Max Myers Playground in Northeast Philadelphia, reading captains handed out free books in multiple languages.

Reading captains organize block parties, group discussions, read-aloud events at laundromats and cafes, and they connect parents working with young readers to existing resources. They aren’t tasked with giving instruction or tutoring directly to students, but some come to the program with a background in education and can offer that kind of one-on-one support.

And many of the reading captains giving their time and energy to this effort are Black women and women of color, Partridge said.

“There’s a culture of Black women, particularly older Black women, giving back to their community … and extending their time,” she said. “With or without recognition that is happening. Whether you see it or not, whether they are funded, or not,” Black women are “mothering the community,” Partridge added.

For Thompson, the effort is personal and intergenerational.

Her family has been a mainstay on the block since 1941. Thompson’s grandmother (her “nana”) was a community fixture on 18th street and her house — which Thompson now owns and is raising her young daughter in — was a gathering place for neighbors of all ages.

“I refuse to allow the neighborhood to do anything but blossom,” Thompson said, “because I know how hard my grandmother worked … whatever it takes, whatever I have to do, I’m going to make sure it gets done. No excuses.”

Philadelphia's reading captains are working to make early literacy a part of every day life for kids in the city.

Diane Mills, a reading captain who helps run the program in West and Southwest Philly, said every volunteer approaches their job differently because each region and neighborhood has unique needs. But what connects them is their devotion to preparing the city’s children for a successful future.

“We want to see our children thrive by five, so they can read by fourth grade, so the street doesn’t take them and by seventh grade, they drop out,” Mills said. “If we don’t grasp them now, then we’re failing society and failing to help our future leaders to become powerful and take on the mantle that we have left.”

Mills said some of her family members struggled with their reading comprehension, which is part of what made the literacy issue so important for her.

Before the Reading Captain program existed, Mills, like many of her fellow reading captains, worked with several community volunteer and mentoring groups teaching reading, community health skills, HIV/AIDS awareness, and other issues that involve young people.

Then, in 2021, Mills had a health scare that almost took her life. She recovered, but said that experience was like God giving her a second chance.

“I’ve always had a passion for literacy, but after my illness, it was more like ‘this is my mission, to reach parents and their children.’ This is what I really have to do: Bring life to children through reading,” Mills said.

And their energy extends beyond academic concerns. As a reading captain, Mills organized an opera performance for students in a trendy hotel ballroom, complete with passed hors d’oeuvres. She said she wanted to give Philly students the chance to experience opulence and what it feels like to be waited on, something she said many young kids — especially Black kids or kids from low-income backgrounds — don’t get in the city.

For Eden Galan, a reading captain in Northeast Philadelphia, the pandemic spurred her to join the movement. Galan had already been volunteering as a bilingual reading coach in the city and mentoring students in the school district.

But watching her first grade son’s virtual classes, she noticed the wide array of abilities and challenges each student came to class with. In her neighborhood, many students are English language learners and speak Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, and a host of other languages.

Galan said seeing those challenges made her “want to help and make a change in our city.”

Reading captains organize story-time activities and read-aloud events for Philadelphia's youngest learners.

“We’re a class of hard-working people, we have refugees, we have immigrants with different needs,” Galan said. “I love how on my block, you’ll just go a couple of doors down and you see so many different people, you’ll hear so many different languages.”

And that impacts how she approaches her job as a reading captain. Last October, Galan held a festival for kids in the Northeast which featured bilingual read-aloud events, dodgeball games, free food, and free books available in English, Spanish, and Arabic.

She recalled attending another reading captain event where immigrant families were encouraged to share their experiences raising children and attending school in the U.S. Those opportunities for families from all backgrounds to share their struggles and successes around education is central to the role reading captains play in their communities.

“If you create the opportunities for people to come together, they’re going to come together,” Galan said.

‘I think all neighborhoods should have reading captains’

Reading captains don’t work directly with the school district, but their efforts are coinciding with a districtwide plan to overhaul how students learn to read.

Starting next school year, the Philadelphia school district will be rolling out a new English language arts curriculum with a focus on the science of reading, as part of Superintendent Tony Watlington’s strategic plan.

But while district officials focus on the curriculum, test score data, and the demands of supporting teachers and students, Mills said reading captains can take a more personal approach and act as a trusted messenger to instill a love of reading beyond the classroom.

Adara Richardson, whose young daughter is classmates with Thompson’s daughter, called the program “amazing.”

“I think all neighborhoods should have reading captains,” Richardson said. “It gives children a different perspective on life. And it allows them to see that there’s other things to do besides just carelessly and misguidedly roaming the streets.”

Shannon Petty, a mom on the block, said her daughter Elia is “reading very well now because she had so many resources available to her at a young age,” most of those through connections to reading captains.

Elia said she loved the artwork, the books, and the moonbounce at the block party but said she especially loved the cotton candy.

Tiye Thompson, center, speaks to neighbors at the "Reading Promise Week" block party.

Reading captains are the Philly community

The reading captains understand something fundamental about Philly: History means something.

Gabrielle Saylor, Thompson’s childhood best friend and a former education advocate in the city, said organizing and gaining neighborhood trust in Philly takes time and, sometimes, generations.

“Philadelphia is a legacy place,” Saylor said.

It’s that collective history that the reading captains want to share with new residents.

But Thompson’s block has been slowly gentrifying, and that can mean more challenges to the relationship-building work reading captains do.

A new neighbor who moved into the rowhouse where Thompson’s poster went missing said she threw the sign away. She didn’t like that Thompson had stapled it to a tree and said she thought attaching a poster to it could harm the tree.

Thompson said she was hurt that her preparation for the “amazing block party” was treated with such disrespect.

Philadelphia's reading captains work to create moments of celebration and joy around literacy.

“I’m giving, and giving, and giving of my time,” Thompson said, “so to get slapped and kicked in the butt because of a poster on a tree, that’s when it gets heavy.”

But Thompson pushed on. She and neighborhood matriarch Betty Beaufort — an unceasing voice in the fight to fund libraries in Philadelphia — put their signs up on a telephone pole instead.

Word got around and the event was a success. Kids from the block filled tote bags with free books and gathered on colorful cushions to have stories read to them. Other volunteers set up tables recruiting for after-school activities including Scrabble competitions.

The neighbor who removed the sign did not attend.

“I’m not doing this for me, I’m doing this for my community,” Thompson said. “It’s okay for [someone] not to participate, because everybody else is going to get a benefit from it. And if I just see one more baby come up to me and say that they finished a chapter of a book, and they’re waiting for the next book well, I’m good. It’s worth it.”

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

Bipartisan Pennsylvania school funding commission proposes eight changes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Instead, the commission determined that there’s a $5.4 billion funding adequacy gap, of which $291 million is “the local responsibility of low tax effort school districts.” The remaining $5.1 billion “rests upon the state” which Pennsylvania would close through a seven-year ramp-up in funding.

For 2023-24, Pennsylvania’s share of K-12 total spending in the Commonwealth is $10 billion.

The commission also acknowledged the widely disparate tax burdens for individual districts. To address this, it proposed an additional $955 million in state money, in the form of “tax equity supplements,” for districts that have been taxing themselves at high rates.

“I believe the report not only meets our obligation as a commission … but also meets constitutional muster as directed by the Commonwealth Court,” said state Rep. Mike Sturla, a Democrat and a majority chair of the commission.

But he cautioned, “really, this is the end of the beginning. There’s still a whole lot of work to do.”

Shapiro said in a Thursday statement he “look[s] forward to addressing these points when I deliver my budget to the Legislature in a few weeks, and to continue working with leaders in both parties in order to deliver a thorough and efficient public education for students across our Commonwealth.”

In a Thursday press conference after the report’s release, advocates who were among plaintiffs in the 2014 school funding lawsuit that was the subject of the Commonwealth Court judge’s ruling last year said it represented a step in the right direction. In particular, they highlighted the commission’s proposed adequacy targets that take into account the actual needs of Pennsylvania students, district by district.

“This is a big first step … the timeline is long, it’s not perfect, and there are unaddressed issues. But the vision it lays out is a transformative one,” said Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg of the Public Interest Law Center, which represented the plaintiffs along with the Education Law Center.

Recommendations focus on teacher workforce, poverty data, charters

The commission’s recommendations won’t go into effect without corresponding legislation approved by the state’s General Assembly and the governor. Its recommendations are:

Simplify and “reduce the volatility” in the state’s basic education funding formula by using three-year averages of U.S. Census Bureau data on poverty and median household income. The state should then add at least an additional $200 million to this updated formula each year.
Calculate adequacy targets — or how much each district should be spending on their student population, based on their needs. The commission recommended using Pennsylvania’s state performance standards to determine which districts are “successful” and then use those districts’ spending level as a target for all school districts.
Invest more state money in school facilities, especially in districts like Philadelphia.
Reexamine the way charter schools are funded in the state and “modernize” the calculation of cyber charter school tuition.
Invest in the teacher workforce.
Invest in student supports like mental health services and the “community schools” model.
Bring back the Basic Education Funding Commission in 2029.
“Consider other important education issues,” including access to pre-K, transportation, school safety, and “explore dedicated funding for every school district to have at least one school librarian.”

While saying that the state “should be investing in competitive teacher salaries across the Commonwealth,” the report cites a few actions already taken, including a teacher pipeline program and provides stipends and other incentives. But it doesn’t lay out a blueprint or funding source for helping high-poverty, low-spending districts raise their salaries, which generally fall below those offered by high-wealth districts.

The charter school recommendations are likely to be politically controversial. The commission wants to restore a charter school reimbursement line item in the state budget to help districts cope with the “stranded costs” of charters. When Gov. Tom Corbett ended the practice in 2011, Philadelphia, which has half that charters in the state, was receiving $110 million through that provision.

The commission also wants to change the charter school funding formula so that it uses the same three tiers of supplemental funding for students with disabilities that traditional districts receive, depending on the severity of their disability. Right now, charters receive the highest tier of funding for all students under current law.

‘You have to use good empirical evidence’

Though the final report reflects a compromise, experts and education advocates are already raising eyebrows at some of the commission’s suggestions.

Bruce Baker, a school finance professor and national school funding expert at The University of Miami, took issue with the assigned weights the commission recommends using to calculate how much it would cost to educate each student.

Research has found students with disabilities, English language learners, and students from impoverished backgrounds all require more funding than their peers to help them achieve a desired level of performance.

Baker said the commission should have required that those weights be updated because the current ones are part of a formula that has been deemed unconstitutional.

“You can’t correct the constitutional deprivation without specific consideration to the additional costs of providing children of all backgrounds, in all settings, equal opportunity to achieve the outcomes,” Baker said. “You have to use good empirical evidence in order to correctly calibrate the weights.”

Meanwhile, Nathan Benefield, senior vice president of the conservative Commonwealth Foundation, called the report “deeply disappointing” in a statement Thursday.

Benefield previously told Chalkbeat the state could find more money by phasing out so-called “hold harmless” aid rather than injecting billions of dollars that may not be sustainable if the state’s budget surplus runs out. “Hold harmless” was a policy enacted to guarantee that no school district in the state would receive less funding than it had the previous year, even if it lost students.

But in its report, the commission said abandoning “hold harmless” would be “counterproductive.”

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, called the report “a critical step in the right direction” primarily because it recommends additional state spending on facilities improvements and because of the significant increases it brings to the city’s schools.

Clarification: This story has been updated to better explain Pennsylvania’s share of total K-12 spending in 2023-24.

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

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

Philadelphia school board reelects president, faces $407 million budget hole

2023-12-08T00:45:39+00:00

Philadelphia Board of Education President Reginald Streater will continue to lead the board for the time being — at least until mayor-elect Cherelle Parker makes her personnel decisions.

Streater and Board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez were re-elected to their positions in the board’s annual officer elections Thursday evening. Streater and Fix-Lopez both won with 6-2 votes. Streater and Fix-Lopez were first elected to their roles last year in a significant leadership shift for the board.

Board members Cecelia Thompson and Lisa Salley nominated and voted for each other for the roles of president and vice president respectively. Both members have previously raised concerns about the board’s transparency.

It’s unclear how long Streater and the rest of the board will keep their seats. Their terms expire when outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney leaves office in January. Parker will have the power to appoint all nine members of the board.

A spokesperson for Parker declined to comment Thursday. On the campaign trail, Parker would not say what she plans to do with the board, but told Chalkbeat she “will be looking for people with a deep commitment to our city, the children of our city, and [who] share my vision for public education in this city.”

Rough financial waters ahead for Philadelphia schools

Regardless of who’s on board for the next mayor’s term, they will be confronted with a multi-million dollar budget deficit.

Chief Financial Officer Michael Herbstman gave board members an updated five-year budget outlook for fiscal 2024 through fiscal 2028 that includes additional projections for new union contracts and other costs.

According to Herbstman, just before the pandemic, the district was facing a looming deficit of nearly $300 million due to years of “insufficient funding” from the city and state. Through “effective and efficient use,” of federal pandemic funding, “the district temporarily delayed the inevitable,” Herbstman said. That led to a balanced budget in 2023 and the same projected for 2024.

But with that pandemic aid set to run out, the district is facing a $407 million budget gap for fiscal 2025. And Herbstman said that deficit is likely to grow every year, leading to a $702 million deficit projected for fiscal 2028.

Those projections could change if the state revamps its school funding formula. Earlier this year, a Commonwealth Court judge ordered the state to do so, in order to bring its funding system into constitutional compliance.

The school district has no taxing authority and is 99% dependent on state and city dollars for its operating fund, Herbstman said, meaning “how high we can climb” will depend on state and local officials.

Herbstman said if the state pitches in an additional $357 million and the city adds an additional $144 million in fiscal 2025, the district could make meaningful progress towards adequate school funding over the next five years.

Superintendent Tony Watlington said he and other district officials are trying to signal to state and city policymakers that “we are being good stewards of the public tax dollars,” in the hopes of securing increased funding in this coming year’s appropriations process. Watlington pointed to recent credit ratings reports that he said demonstrate the district is headed in a positive financial direction.

“We’re starting with the best financial investment grade credit rating that we’ve had in nearly a half century. That’s really important,” Watlington told reporters at a Thursday briefing.

The budgeting process will be “more transparent” this year, Watlington promised. He said their plan will involve more parents, students, and community members in the budgeting process through surveys and focus groups from November to March.

Board extends contract for reading services

The board also voted to approve an extension worth roughly $477,600 for the district’s contract with Curriculum Associates for the organization’s PHONICS for Reading instructional materials.

A note on the board’s website said the extension would go towards continuing to provide teachers and students with disabilities in grades 3-8 access to curriculum that’s “been successfully used” since last school year “to significantly improve the reading levels of students” in 77 schools.

Schools across the country have been reckoning with the way they teach students to read, and Philadelphia schools will be getting their own English language arts curriculum overhaul for all students starting next school year.

During the 2022-2023 school year, 2,010 students in 77 district schools had access to Phonics for Reading, according to district data. And those students “on average demonstrated significant improvements in reading fluency and comprehension, with many students moving up a grade level during this year,” the district said in its note

However, results from the most recent state standardized tests show the majority of district students are still not reading on grade level.

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

Philadelphia shares plan for relocating students and teachers if asbestos, floods close schools

2023-12-06T18:46:42+00:00

The School District of Philadelphia has shared 24 locations where students and teachers could be temporarily moved if damaged asbestos and other environmental hazards force schools to close.

The “swing space master plan” released Wednesday has been in the works for several months. It includes few details, but does feature a map of the temporary locations, which are mostly other school buildings that are either in use but have extra space, or have been closed but are still owned by the district. News that those locations were under consideration as swing spaces was first reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer in November.

Oz Hill, the district’s chief operating officer, said in a letter accompanying the plan that it will guide the district’s response to “environmental hazards such as asbestos abatement, mold remediation, building maintenance, repairs, or other safety concerns.”

Asbestos remediation has closed seven school buildings in Philadelphia since the start of the 2022-2023 year, and officials have warned more closures are likely still to come. The most recent closure was Southwark Elementary last month. District experts have said at least 293 of 300 Philadelphia district buildings contain asbestos — though they said the substance is not dangerous until disturbed.

The district has come under fire from parents and activists in the city who’ve demanded a more comprehensive and transparent approach to handling these school closures.

Hill said the new master plan comes with a commitment from the district to provide a “swift response,” “minimal disruption,” “transparent communication,” and swing spaces that have been “thoroughly assessed to meet safety standards.”

Marissa Orbanek, a spokesperson for the district, said in an email the plan could be used for anything “that renders a building temporarily unsuitable for in-person learning,” including flooding, repairs, asbestos or mold abatement, or building maintenance. It could also be used for “proactive work,” such as capital improvement projects.

Here are the locations the district will use to temporarily house students in the event of a closure:

Ada Lewis Middle School

Community College of Philadelphia’s Northwest Campus

Thomas Mifflin School

Martin Luther King High School

Roosevelt Elementary School

Austin Meehan Middle School

Washington High School

Conwell Middle Magnet School Annex

Feltonville Intermediate School

Mastbaum High School

Roberto Clemente Middle School

E. Washington Rhodes Elementary School

Penn Treaty School

Anna B. Pratt Elementary School

Strawberry Mansion High School

South Philadelphia High School

W. S. Peirce Elementary

McDaniel Annex

Bartram High School

Daroff Charter School

Robert E. Lamberton Elementary School

Morton McMichael School

Overbrook High School

Tilden Middle School

Below is a map of those locations, courtesy of the School District of Philadelphia.

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

This kindergarten teacher graduated during the pandemic. She was told to ‘be prepared for anything.’

2023-12-06T11:08:00+00:00

During the height of the COVID pandemic, when schools were closing and the future of education was uncertain, Sarah Budlow decided she wanted to become a teacher.

She is now in her third year teaching — her first in the School District of Philadelphia, and she said what she learned in her educator preparation program was simple: “Be prepared for anything.”

“We’ve been virtual, we’ve been in person, we’re not sure what it’s going to look like,” Budlow said was the attitude at the time she graduated in 2020. “We definitely had to have the mindset of, we don’t know what’s going to happen. So you’re just going to have to pivot and figure things out as it goes.”

Budlow is now putting her improvisational skills to work at Luis Muñoz-Marin Elementary School, teaching kindergarten. She regularly sends parents tutorial videos of lessons and skills she’s teaching her students so that they can continue the learning process at home. Because homework is optional in the youngest grade, giving parents the tools to do some extra practice when their kids aren’t in class can be crucial, Budlow said.

Budlow recently spoke with Chalkbeat about joining the educator workforce during the pandemic, getting kids excited about learning, teacher burnout, and her favorite book for early readers.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How and when did you decide to become a teacher?

I graduated college in 2020 with no clue what I wanted to do. I knew that I was interested in urban education and I loved working with kids. I started teaching at an outdoor summer camp with social distancing because of the pandemic.

I was really interested in learning more about urban education and being a part of what goes on in urban schools. That’s when I applied for Teach for America. I’m from Baltimore, but I wanted to go somewhere new, so I asked to be placed in Philly.

Were you daunted about going into teaching during the pandemic?

The more I learned about the impact of a kid’s school experience on their life and their future, the more I was interested in getting involved, especially during the pandemic.

It was kind of good timing because I started teaching in 2021, right when we were coming back from being all virtual. I think that it really highlights just how important it is for kids to be in school. A lot of people would tell me that everything was so different now from what it was before the pandemic, but I have nothing to compare it to. So this is just how it’s always been for me as a teacher.

For the most part, it’s been good to start teaching at a time when I think there’s a lot more appreciation for what goes on in schools.

What’s your favorite lesson to teach and why?

I’m really bad at picking favorites. The first thing that came to mind is math class. The district just started with this Illustrative Math [curriculum], and I love teaching it.

We’ve been learning about counting groups up to 10. There is a lot of room for kids to have conversations with each other and as a whole group about how they counted and why they counted and they can try different ways of counting. It creates this environment in math class where there’s not just one right way to do things. I think it gives them a deeper understanding of what we’re actually doing in math.

I’ve seen kids grow a lot from where they were at the beginning of the year and also just get really excited about math. I hated math as a kid so it’s awesome to be able to not recreate the experience that I had.

My other favorite lesson is any kind of read-aloud. Just asking kids what they think and what they noticed about the characters and getting those conversations going.

One of my favorites that I’m reading with my class today when they get back from lunch is “We Are In a Book!” by Mo Willems. It’s just a lot of fun. Right now I’ll read it to them, but later in the year, they should be able to read it with each other.

What’s something happening in the community that affects what goes on inside your classroom (or your school)?

Kids bring good things and hard things from the community with them. When there’s a holiday coming up, they’re gonna get excited. One of my students’ big sisters just had a baby and he’s an uncle and he was really excited to show me pictures. There are those exciting moments in the community when kids just come to class and are really eager and excited to share.

But then there’s things like gun violence, which is a very real problem in Philly. Every year that I’ve taught here, I have had kids that have had direct experiences with gun violence. A lot of times, they come to school looking for a place to process that. That’s really hard. But I also think it’s really important for us not to run away from that because that’s real. If kids are experiencing something like gun violence, then it’s important that they have a space to process that and don’t hold their emotions inside.

I will usually partner with parents, and if something comes up in school, I’ll let the parents know. But they also have the space to talk about it in school and just say how they’re feeling, and we can connect them with a counselor. Sometimes they just need to talk it out.

I think it’s a good opportunity to help kids process the world around them. Because we are in a classroom together all year.

When Sarah Budlow joined Teach for America, she asked to be placed in Philadelphia, where she currently is a kindergarten teacher at Luis Muñoz-Marin Elementary.

Tell us about your own experience with school and how it affects your work today.

I never really felt like I had teachers that got me. My teachers were nice. I did well in school and I was confident in my skills to some extent, but I also never thought that I was that smart. I thought I was kind of in the middle. And I was never that excited about school. I think that there are certain things from my education that I would want to replicate, like my parents’ involvement. But then there are certain things I don’t want to replicate, like just feeling disconnected from my teachers and just feeling like school was kind of boring.

I want to see my kids in the way that I felt like my teachers didn’t really see me that well. I want to know what they like and what makes them excited and find a way for them to feel excited to be in school and also feel competent in their skills.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received, and how have you put it into practice?

I read an article for class when I was at [The University of Pennsylvania] last year that was about teacher burnout, and it was called “Burned-in, Not Burned Out.” A lot of it had to do with teachers taking care of themselves as a way of taking care of their classroom and taking care of their kids.

I used to work way too many hours. But once I read that article, it really changed my perspective because I realized that I was over-exhausting myself and overexerting myself for little things that maybe could have waited until the next day or the next week.

[Now that I’ve started to] take care of myself, I’m able to be more present for my class and just generally I feel like I can do a better job. And that was a really hard lesson. The first two years, I can’t say I did very well at that, but I’ve gotten a lot better this year.

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

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney discusses his pre-K legacy: ‘We had all the parents’

2023-12-06T11:04:00+00:00

This story is featured in Chalkbeat’s 2023 Philadelphia Early Childhood Education Guide on efforts to improve outcomes for the city’s youngest learners. To keep up with early childhood education and Philadelphia’s public schools, sign up for our free newsletter here.

When Mayor Jim Kenney is feeling frustrated, he said, he has a guaranteed pick-me-up: He goes to visit students in a local prekindergarten.

“When I get really down, and depressed, and disgusted, and lots of other adjectives, I go schedule a pre-K visit,” Kenney told Chalkbeat in a candid interview conducted during his final weeks in office. “It’s like my salvation.”

Along with overseeing the school district’s return to local control after 17 years under state authority, Kenney regards the establishment of PHLpreK, which allows thousands of 3- and 4-year-olds in the city to attend prekindergarten free of charge, as one of the major legacies of his two terms in office.

“I believe the only way out of poverty and into a successful life is education,” he said, by way of explaining his commitment to the issue. Providing structured programs for 3- and 4-year-olds, he said, “sets the tone for the rest of their educational experience.”

As policymakers consider how to overhaul the state’s school funding system to make it fairer for districts like Philadelphia’s, Kenney also pointed out that the city increased its contribution to the school district by $1.5 billion during his tenure.

This year, more than 5,000 children are enrolled in PHLpreK, according to a report from Kenney’s office. Since its inception in 2017, more than 17,000 children have passed through the program and over 500 new teachers have been hired to work in PHLpreK classrooms, the report said.

Making free, high-quality prekindergarten more accessible helped parents and caregivers of young children hold down jobs, Kenney said, which in turn reduced poverty and led to more stable families – in itself an important factor in promoting school readiness.

While there isn’t research on PHLpreK’s impact that tracks students who had access to early childhood education versus those who didn’t, Kenney said third grade reading scores went up 3 percentage points last year in district schools. Those third graders were the first class of children who had access to PHLpreK.

To be sure, that increase is modest. The district set a goal for 62% of third graders to score proficient on the state exam by 2026. But in the 2022-23 school year, only 31.2% of third graders scored proficient or above on their state exams.

Beyond the numbers, Kenney cites anecdotal evidence that PHLpreK is having an impact. He loves to tell the story of visiting a kindergarten on the first day of school. “It was a disaster,” he said, with children bawling and clinging to their mothers — except for two kids sitting placidly in their seats, hands folded in front of them.

“I said to them, ‘Did you go to pre-K?’ They did. They knew exactly what to do,” Kenney recalled. “There was no learning curve.”

To get free pre-K done, Kenney fought off the soda industry, which spent millions trying to kill the sweetened beverage tax he proposed to fund the program. (The City Council approved the 1.5 cents-per-ounce tax on those beverages in a 13-4 vote in 2016.)

“They hired every lobbyist in the universe,” he said. “But we had all the parents. And ladies with babies strapped to their chests can be a powerful force.”

Kenney said he voted against the tax twice during his time on the council in 2010 and 2011 when then-Mayor Michael Nutter brought it to the table. Nutter had emphasized the health benefits of reducing soda consumption, which didn’t resonate with the council members at the time.

What changed Kenney’s mind? If he wanted free pre-K, he would need to establish a sustainable funding source.

“Once we got sworn in. We’re sitting in my office … and I said, well, how are we going to pay for all this stuff?” Kenney said.

Having a dedicated purpose for the tax revenue was enough to convince the council members to back the tax.

But in its first few years, hampered by an ongoing lawsuit against the soda tax and diminished state revenues during the pandemic, the program was slow to roll out and expand. A city controller’s audit in 2017 found some “missteps” with the program’s implementation, including over-billing and under-enrolling.

But Kenney said he never considered giving up on the effort.

“Head down, win or lose,” Kenney said. “I don’t know what we would have done if we had lost in court. But we didn’t.”

The state Supreme Court upheld the beverage tax in a 4-2 vote in 2018. Kenney said he hopes the program will continue to expand after he leaves.

It’s unclear what the future will hold for the program when Kenney vacates his position. A spokesperson for mayor-elect Cherelle Parker declined to comment on the program..

Kenney said he hasn’t had the expansion discussion with Parker’s team yet. But he thinks it’s “politically powerful enough” that “if somebody tries to take it away, I don’t think that they would get a good reception.”

In his waning days as mayor, Kenney has been thinking about what he’ll do next. He said he intends to set off on an ocean cruise the day after Parker is inaugurated. After that, he’s not sure. But it won’t be public life.

“I’m done with it. It’s time for people to move on sometimes,” Kenney said.

He said one idea he’s mulling is starting a nonprofit that would raise money to expose city kids to more live arts and culture programs, he said.

As a high school freshman at St. Joseph’s Preparatory School, Kenney said he and his classmates were taken on a field trip to see the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and its legendary founder, Judith Jamison, perform at the Walnut Street Theater.

“I went from hating it to thinking, ‘This is beautiful. I’ve never seen anyone move like that. I’ve never seen anything like this,’” Kenney said. “I honestly believe that kids in the city, who see nothing but chaos and hurt, [deserve] an opportunity to do that, to see that there’s beautiful things in the world.”

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

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

How families can apply to Philadelphia’s free pre-K programs

2023-12-06T11:00:00+00:00

There are several ways Philadelphians can access high-quality, free prekindergarten for all 3- and 4-year-olds living in the city. Families who’ve been through the program say it’s had a profound impact on their lives and is among the best the city has to offer.

But signing up for pre-K hasn’t been easy for everyone.

Some eligible families say they have struggled with the application process, found themselves stuck on waitlists, or weren’t aware that the city offers free pre-K at neighborhood schools or child care centers near them regardless of their family income.

The city and school district want that to change. Early next year, city officials intend to launch a more streamlined, easy-to-understand application process with the hope that more families will participate.

For now, there’s two main ways to apply: through the school district and through the city’s PHLpreK program. Funding for these programs comes from the city’s soda tax (a portion of which is dedicated to PHLpreK), the state’s PreK Counts program, and the federal Head Start program.

Together, the district and city offer some 16,250 seats at schools and private pre-K providers across Philadelphia, according to Diane Castelbuono, the district’s deputy chief for early childhood. Because it’s a two-year program, she said, some five to six thousand seats open every year as kids move from pre-K to kindergarten.

But that’s less than half (45%) of the estimated 36,022 3- and 4-year-olds who reside within the bounds of the city school district.

Families can face many barriers throughout the application process. For example, in-person application hours at school-based locations are only staffed during weekdays from 9 or 10 a.m. until noon. If seats fill up at a family’s preferred location, their child may be put on a waiting list for the entire school year. And neither the district nor the city provide transportation for pre-K children.

Leah Falk, a parent with one child who went through the program, said the application process was “opaque,” and a bit of a burden.

“This is from a family with two college-educated people who fill out forms all day,” Falk said. “There seems to be a process and a shadow process and I don’t know why that is.”

Castelbuono said the district is aware of how complicated the process can be for parents. She said they’re working towards adopting one universal application “which is the best thing for families,” but she said, “we’re not there yet.”

In the meantime, Castelbuono emphasized, families should start the application process as soon as possible. For the best chance at securing a seat in a preferred location, she said families should get started right after the winter holidays.

Whether this is your first time applying, or you’ve got another child already in the program, here is everything you need to know to apply to pre-K in Philadelphia:

What are Philadelphia’s pre-K options?

The city and School District of Philadelphia provide free, high-quality, full-day pre-K classes for all city kids ages 3 to 5. A child must be at least 3 years old to enroll, but families can begin the application process before their child turns 3. Children who are turning 5 on or before Sept. 1 have to apply to kindergarten.

You can check to see if your child is eligible using the city’s tool here.

Pre-K programs at school-based locations run from September through June and follow the school district’s calendar. According to the district’s website, program hours may vary by location, but in general the hours are: Monday through Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Want to know what a typical day might look like? You can see a sample lesson plan here.

How do I apply?

Parents and guardians can apply two ways: online or in-person.

For your best chance at finding a seat, the district is encouraging families to complete both the city and school district’s applications before the end of February 2024.

The city’s PHLpreK application can be found here.

The district’s application can be found here.

How to apply online

For the 2024-2025 school year, the city and school district hope to have a simpler way to apply online. Check back here in January for updated information.

The online application process for the school district takes about 15 to 30 minutes to complete and requires a number of documents — it’s important to note that the district and city require different documents for their respective applications. The school district offers their own step-by-step guide with photos that can be helpful to have open while you’re applying.

The application will ask questions about the child’s name, birth date, housing status, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) information, and allow you to request a location of your choice — either a program in a school close to your ZIP code or one run outside of a school by a community partner..

After submitting, you’ll have to upload your documents. Per their website, the district requires:

Proof of the child’s date of birth (ideally a birth certificate, but a valid U.S. passport, medical records, or any other form of government-issued document with your child’s birthdate would also work).
Documentation of family income.
Proof of Philadelphia residency (this could be a utility bill, driver’s license, W-2 tax form, or current lease or rental agreement, among other documents).
Child’s health insurance card.
Physical (health assessment form) and immunization records.
Picture identification of parent/guardian.

If applicable, the district will also ask for:

Proof of TANF benefits, SNAP/food stamps, medical assistance.
custody order.
Med-1 form if your child needs medication that a staff member will have to administer.
a copy of your child’s Individualized Education Program.
foster letter.
homeless verification letter/shelter letter.

The city’s PHLpreK application requires:

One proof of age document (such as a birth certificate or passport).
One proof of residency document (such as a utility bill, lease, or driver’s license, etc.).
A completed PHLpreK application and PHLpreK acknowledgement form.

How to apply in-person

You can register at many of the schools and community child care locations the district and city partner with or at the district’s office at 440 North Broad St. Just make sure you bring all of your documents — the same you’d need for the online application above.

You can find a location nearest to you here or here. Be sure to check the days and times they are open.

You also have to print, fill out, and bring a paper application with you. The school district’s application can be found here in English, Spanish, and nine other languages. The city’s PHLpreK application can be found here in the same languages.

What happens next?

If your child is accepted or put on a waitlist, you will get a phone call, note in the mail, or an email within six weeks of your application submission. However, the district warns that notification may be delayed depending on the time of year your application was submitted. Castelbuono said there is “always a crush” of applications in the summer months, so by August seats are often full.

Each pre-K location has a maximum funded capacity, meaning only a certain number of children can attend at each location. If more people apply to a location than there are seats available, the district will create a waitlist. District officials say on the pre-K website that “it is possible for a child to remain on the waiting list for the entire school year.”

If a seat opens up at the location of your choice, the district says someone will call to let you know.

What else do I need to know?

Transportation services are not provided by the city or district for pre-K children, so you’ll have to arrange your own transportation or carpool with neighbors or friends.

Some locations do offer before and after care if your family needs an extended day, though there will likely be a cost associated. Check here to see if a location near you offers before or after care.

Who do I talk to if I have questions or concerns?

The district offers phone support for anyone with questions about the program or registration process: 215-400-4270. The city’s Office of Children and Families also operates a PHLpreK hotline: 844-745-7735 (844-PHL-PREK). You can also email the office at OCFCommunications@phila.gov.

You can also reach out to the Early Learning Resource Center for information or guidance throughout the application and registration process. Their phone number is 1-888-461-KIDS (5437).

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

Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s Early Childhood Education Guide

2023-12-06T11:10:00+00:00

For thousands of Philadelphia families, access to reliable, high-quality early childhood education is a priority.

Luckily, all 3- and 4-year-olds living in the city are eligible for free pre-K through the school district and through the city’s free preschool program, PHLpreK.

This year, Chalkbeat has created a guide featuring stories that take a political and personal look at early childhood education in Philadelphia and an explainer to walk new parents through the pre-k application process.

In our guide, reporter Nora Macaluso looks at a new movement towards “playful learning” that considers how important fun and enjoyment can be for early learners. We sat down with outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney to reflect on his pre-K legacy in Philadelphia, and we also spoke with kindergarten teacher Sarah Budlow, who shared how her pandemic education inspired her to become an educator herself.

This year, more than 5,000 children are enrolled in PHLpreK, according to a report from Kenney’s administration. Another 11,000 students are enrolled through the school district.

Milagros Nores, co-director for research at the National Institute for Early Education Research, observed some 285 Philadelphia pre-K classrooms last spring and told Chalkbeat the quality was comparable with similar programs she’s studied in other states. But she said there was room for growth, especially when it comes to teacher and staff training.

Nores said now that the program has incorporated more professional development and embedded coaching, it will likely improve.

But those improvements will depend on political will. Kenney made PHLpreK the centerpiece of his education agenda, but it’s unclear if mayor-elect Cherelle Parker will maintain it, expand it, or change it when she takes the helm. A spokesperson for Parker declined to comment on the issue.

Amid that uncertainty, providers are warning of an impending mass exodus from the field. Some early childhood education advocates in Philadelphia and statewide say their sector is “on the brink of a breakdown.”

Carol Austin, executive director of First Up, an advocacy group that provides training and accreditation assistance to early childhood educators and organizations, told Chalkbeat the biggest challenge facing Philadelphia early childhood programs is underfunding.

That lack of funding at the top causes a ripple effect that means early childhood workers are often underpaid. As a result, caregivers are leaving the field, which creates more work and pressure for those who remain.

In Philadelphia County, the estimated full-time hourly rate for early childhood teachers was $14.37 for annual earnings of $29,884, as of the most recent earnings data from 2021.

“People are leaving the field because it’s so stressful,” Austin said. “They can make more money at Target.”

Austin said that like their peers in K-12 classrooms, early childhood staff are also seeing more students, including toddlers, grappling with challenging behaviors in the wake of the pandemic. In some cases, Austin said, those students would be better served by having more and better-trained teachers and support staff in the classroom. But that requires more funding.

“If we could pay educators and staff what they deserve, we wouldn’t be dealing with this cycle,” Austin said.

Barbara Chavous-Pennock, CEO of Somerset Academy Early Learning Center in North Philadelphia, said finding adequate space, quality teachers, enough funding, and necessary support for students from marginalized communities is getting more difficult every year.

But Chavous-Pennock said she’s hopeful the city can expand and streamline the free pre-K programs it has.

“The greatest thing that I think we falter from as a city is that we have tremendous programs, we have dollars, we even sometimes have political will,” Chavous-Pennock said, “but we talk to each other in silos. We are not sitting together, we are not working together.”

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

Kevin Bethel leaves top school safety job in Philadelphia to be city police commissioner

2023-11-22T18:51:03+00:00

Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker has named Kevin Bethel, the School District of Philadelphia’s current chief of school safety, as her new police commissioner.

Bethel has long been a well-respected fixture in Philadelphia law enforcement and school safety circles. During his tenure in the school district, Bethel focused on reforming the juvenile justice system, dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline, and promoting “trauma-informed policing.”

As a deputy police commissioner and then the district’s safety director, he also developed a national reputation for his work emphasizing prevention over punishment as an approach to improving student behavior and discipline both in and out of school settings.

In his four years leading school safety for the district, “I believe we have made the schools safer,” Bethel said at his appointment announcement at City Hall on Wednesday. “It’s unacceptable that some students feel unsafe going to and from school.”

This is Parker’s first mayoral staffing announcement, though she doesn’t officially take office until January. She said that she chose Bethel from among three candidates chosen by a search committee headed by former police commissioner Charles Ramsay.

Deputy Chief of School Safety Craig Johnson will serve as interim chief for the district while a search is conducted for Bethel’s replacement, according to the district.

“Chief Bethel is a class act, and I always felt very confident knowing that he was overseeing all efforts to create safe learning environments for our students to imagine and realize any future they desire,” Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a statement Wednesday.

The Board of Education issued a joint statement calling Bethel’s appointment “well deserved” and that his departure would be a “significant loss” for the district.

Bethel’s school safety legacy in Philadelphia schools

A John Bartram High School graduate, Bethel’s oft-repeated motto during his time in the police department and school district has been: “I didn’t become a cop to lock up children.”

While on the police force in 2013, Bethel said he was “alarmed” by how many students were being arrested in the city under a “zero tolerance” policy that saw police called on students as young as 10 years old.

“I can’t lock up a 10-year-old child who comes to school with scissors,” he said.

He described his dismay at a school in Kensington that put bulletproof blankets on the windows due to nearby shootings.

“I lived it when kids have been shot in front of our schools,” he also recalled. “I never thought I would take a job where kids would be killed at the doorstep of a school.”

With buy-in from district officials and others, Bethel created a diversion program for students with no prior delinquency record who committed low-level offenses like fighting or possessing a pocket knife. That program was praised at the time for substantially decreasing the number of students arrested in school from nearly 1,600 in 2013-14 to 251 in 2018-19.

Bethel has also worked to improve the district’s weapons detection process — a pain point that’s drawn public fury.

In 2019, outraged protesters shut down a Philadelphia Board of Education meeting after members voted to make metal detectors mandatory in every district high school. In the years after, random wand screenings, X-ray machines, and other detection systems have been used in high schools and some middle schools.

Some parents and community members have been critical of the practices, which they said can make students feel criminalized in their own schools.

When he announced new school safety measures last August, Bethel said the district would be introducing a new “minimally invasive gun detection system” in 14 middle schools. Those detectors were chosen because district officials were looking for technology “that did not add to the trauma of our young people,” Bethel said at the time.

To be sure, the city still struggles with youth incarceration issues. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in June that the city’s juvenile detention center reached its highest population levels ever, with 230 young people in custody. The Inquirer discovered overcrowding resulted in dozens of young people forced to sleep in offices, gyms, or on the floors of “filthy” cells.

As commissioner, Bethel said Wednesday he would work to make police officers a vital part of communities, not just enforcers of the law.

“I’m proud to be a cop,” he said. “We’re not your enemy. We’re here to serve, and I ask you to give us that opportunity to do that. … Raise your voice when it needs to be raised, but let’s be part of the community, let’s work with you.”

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

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

See how your Philadelphia school did on the latest state tests in English and math

2023-11-08T21:51:41+00:00

Philadelphia students’ state test scores are slowly recovering back to pre-pandemic levels, but most students still aren’t proficient in English language arts, math, and science, while longstanding performance gaps between student groups persist, according to new state test scores.

And the city’s students are still scoring far below their peers in the rest of the state on the tests, which were administered last spring. The scores, released on Wednesday, essentially confirm preliminary data shared with the Philadelphia Board of Education in early September showing that Philadelphia students made small gains from last year, but that most are still not proficient. The scores also indicate that Philadelphia has far to go to meet the school board’s own long-term academic targets.

Scores released Wednesday for the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, or PSSA, data for grades 3-8 show major disparities between white and Asian students and their Black and Hispanic peers in Philadelphia district and charter schools. Those gaps are most pronounced in math: Only 9.3% of Black students scored proficient and above on the math tests, while 44% of their white counterparts scored proficient or above. Some 11% of Hispanic students scored proficient or better in math while nearly 53% of Asian students scored the same.

Just 15% of economically disadvantaged students — who make up more than two-thirds of all city students — scored proficient or better in math.

Overall for the 2022-23 school year, 34.2% of Philadelphia students in grades 3-8 scored proficient or better in English, 20.4% of students in those grades scored proficient or above in math, and 41% of students in grades 4 and 8 scored proficient or better in science.

In 2021-22, the proficiency rates were 34.7% in English, 16.2% in math, and 37.1% in science — though the district’s science scores from that year do not include charter school students.

Philadelphia’s scores do show that students are gradually catching up to where they were before the COVID pandemic.

In 2019, 21.6% of students in Philadelphia scored proficient or better in math, while in English, 35.7% of students were proficient or better.

In late 2020, as part of a multi-year “goals and guardrails” plan, the district and school board set a goal that by 2026, 52% of students in traditional district schools, in grades 3-8 would achieve proficiency on the state math exam, and 65% of students would achieve proficiency on the state English exam.

Statewide, students scoring proficient or above in English increased slightly from 54.1% in 2021-22 to 54.5% in 2022-23. Over the same period, proficiency scores in math increased from 35.7% to 38.3%, and science scores increased from 54.4% to 58.9%. (Students did not take the state tests in 2020, while state officials say 2021 scores are not truly comparable to pre-COVID results.)

“This year’s assessment results underscore what we have said before — that with each passing year, participation and achievement will continue to improve,” Secretary of Education Khalid Mumin said in a statement Wednesday. “Pennsylvania’s results are well on their way to returning to pre-pandemic rates and we look forward to helping our students exceed those levels in the years ahead.”

But just as a much higher share of white and Asian students were proficient on state exams than Black and Hispanic students, there is a similar disparity when it comes to the lowest scores.

In English, 13.9% of white students in grades 3-8 scored below basic, compared to 29.4% of Black students, 33.4% of Hispanic students, and 9.6% of Asians, 14.1% of those who identify as multi-ethnic, and 27.7% of economically disadvantaged students.

In math, such differences are also stark. Overall, 57% of students in grades 3-8 scored below basic. That included 32.6% of white students, 69% of Black students, 66% of Hispanics, 22% of Asians, 45.4% of multi-ethnic students, and 45.4% of those who are economically disadvantaged.

District officials and board members said they were heartened by the increases from last year — however small — but said there’s more work the district can do.

Tonya Wolford, the district’s chief of evaluation, research, and accountability, told board members in September it is important to keep in mind that students “likely are not going from below basic to proficient in one year.” She said Philadelphia students will need more time, resources, and support to make the jump.

To emphasize the importance of students achieving proficiency in reading by third grade, the district also set a goal for 62% of third graders to score proficient on the state exam by 2026. Yet in 2022-23, only 31.2% of third graders scored proficient or above on the PSSA.

On Keystone exams — another state standardized assessment for high school students in literature, biology, and algebra — Philadelphia students also lag behind peers statewide. Just 25.1% of city students are proficient or better in algebra, compared to 34.2% of students statewide.

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 mayoral election results: Cherelle Parker wins

2023-11-08T01:00:02+00:00

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Democrat Cherelle Parker will be Philadelphia’s 100th mayor and the first woman to hold the position.

The Associated Press called the race for Parker Tuesday evening shortly after polls closed.

Parker will set the agenda on school safety, infrastructure, charter schools, funding, and more. She will have the power to appoint the city Board of Education’s nine members, who in turn evaluate the superintendent and monitor the district’s attempts to improve educational outcomes for students.

In her victory speech Tuesday night at the Sheet Metal Workers Local 19 headquarters, Parker reiterated her campaign promise to move towards year-round public school and said, “we are going to find a way to move educational opportunities for our young people forward.”

“We want all of our children in a 21st-century, modern school building with the highest academic achievement,” Parker said. “If anybody is interested in talking to me about public education, and you’re trying to pitch traditional publics against charters, don’t do it. I’m not the person to have that conversation with.”

With more than 273,800 ballots counted and 1,542 of 1,703 divisions reporting, the unofficial election results are:

Democrat Cherelle Parker: 73.6% (193,968 votes)
Republican David Oh: 25.6% (67,353 votes)

Check out our mayoral guide for more from both candidates.

In Philadelphia, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans seven-to-one, there has been little doubt that Parker would win the general election. She collected endorsements from some of the most powerful labor unions in the city and promised to be a pragmatic dealmaker in Harrisburg capable of bringing more state funding to Philadelphia.

The Associated Press called the race for Parker Tuesday evening shortly after polls closed.

This election cycle, Parker leaned on her proposal for year-round public schools — which Superintendent Tony Watlington promised to pilot — her desire to reform the much-maligned lottery admissions process for selective schools, and an increased police presence in and around schools.

Republican David Oh, meanwhile, told Chalkbeat he saw a path to victory due in large part to his active, in-person campaign strategy. While Parker opted to stay out of the public eye for much of the summer, recovering from a dental emergency and holding private meetings, Oh was door-knocking, giving interviews, and calling for public debates.

Oh’s education platform called for a partially elected school board and a more “horizontal” district leadership model, with power shared between the superintendent and other chief executives.

Tonight’s vote counts are unofficial until the Philadelphia City Commissioners, the officials who oversee the city’s elections, certify the results.

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

Philadelphia mayoral election results: Cherelle Parker wins

2023-11-08T01:00:02+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.

Democrat Cherelle Parker will be Philadelphia’s 100th mayor and the first woman to hold the position.

The Associated Press called the race for Parker Tuesday evening shortly after polls closed.

With more than 273,800 ballots counted and 1,542 of 1,703 divisions reporting, the unofficial election results are:

Democrat Cherelle Parker: 73.6% (193,968 votes)
Republican David Oh: 25.6% (67,353 votes)

Check out our mayoral guide for more from both candidates.

The Associated Press called the race for Parker Tuesday evening shortly after polls closed.

Oh’s education platform called for a partially elected school board and a more “horizontal” district leadership model, with power shared between the superintendent and other chief executives.

Tonight’s vote counts are unofficial until the Philadelphia City Commissioners, the officials who oversee the city’s elections, certify the results.

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

Philadelphia voter guide 2023: Where the mayoral candidates stand on education issues

2023-11-01T14:39:24+00:00

Philadelphia’s next mayor — the city’s 100th — will be in a historic position with the ability to fundamentally change the way schools are run and governed.

In addition to shaping the city’s conversation about school safety, infrastructure, funding, and more, the mayor has the power to appoint the city Board of Education’s nine members. Those members have the responsibility of appointing and evaluating the superintendent, and monitoring the district’s efforts towards improving educational outcomes for all students under their care.

Democrat Cherelle Parker and Republican David Oh are vying for the seat, and each has put forward distinct platform proposals for education.

Parker is promising year-round school, which she said she envisions not as “children sitting in a classroom at a desk” for 12 months, but something more flexible, with extracurricular and enrichment opportunities available to students all year.

Oh, meanwhile, wants a partially elected school board and a more “horizontal” leadership model with power shared between the superintendent and other chief executives.

The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7, and the last day to vote early in person is Tuesday, Oct. 31.

Chalkbeat sat down with both candidates and discussed issues affecting Philadelphia’s students, educators, and families at length. You can find Cherelle Parker’s detailed Q&A here, and David Oh’s detailed Q&A here.

Below is a selection of their responses to some of the biggest education questions facing the city. Their answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Jump to a topic:

Charter schools |
School safety |
Infrastructure |
School board |
Teacher shortage

Do you want more charter schools in Philadelphia?

Parker: I want quality, modern 21st education for all of our children [regardless of] their race, class, socioeconomic status, or zip code.

Under a Parker administration, I will not allow anyone to pit traditional publics versus traditional charters to act as if those two are warring factions. They are not. They are two types of schools that are both public that educate children in the school district of Philadelphia

Oh: No, I don’t. I’m not for or against the charter schools … I’m for good public schools. But we’ve had horrible public schools and no response. And therefore there were charter schools.

I think we have enough charter schools.

What would you do about school safety?

Parker: We have to make public health and public safety the number one priority here in the city of Philadelphia, and we should do it with three primary buckets in mind, prevention, intervention and enforcement.

We are going to have community policing in every neighborhood in the city of Philadelphia. The only time we see law enforcement won’t be because it’s a crisis and someone called 911. They will be a part of the very fabric of our neighborhoods, and that, of course, does mean in and around our schools and buildings.

Oh: [Students] have every legitimate reason why they cannot focus and why they are afraid. They’ve been traumatized by all this gun violence. They have to see we care. The way I show them we care is I have uniformed officers, school police — no weapon, but looking sharp, being attentive and being accountable.

People want policing, but they want police reform. They want good policing. They don’t want police brutality. They don’t want ‘stop and frisk,’ I’m against the return of stop and frisk.

What is your plan to address Philly schools’ facilities needs?

Parker: Let’s think about using apprentices and pre apprentices in the building trades and students in our school district to help be a part of that process. Do we do it via a School Building Authority, an accelerated process within our current structure? I’m not sure.

I’m more concerned with getting it done. We have to get together at the table, agree to what the plan will be. And then we have to be unified in our advocacy and not trying to pick winners and losers with the ultimate goal being focused on our children and doing right by the people who work in those buildings.

Oh: I think there is purposeful inefficiency [in school construction and upkeep]. … I would look at serious rightsizing of the district based on the fact that we probably need to build new buildings.

We need to look at the buildings that have asbestos and actually clean them for real and not just coat them. We don’t need to remediate them. We have to remove it.

The most direct control the mayor has over education is appointing the school board. Would you make any changes to the board?

Parker: I am not going to make any comments or personnel decisions while I’m on the campaign trail. … I will be looking for people with a deep commitment to our city, the children of our city, and [who] share my vision for public education in this city.

I will not and do not support an elected school board because if you elect a school board that comes with taxing authority … I trust the [city] council with the taxing authority for the city of Philadelphia. They are our legislative branch.

Oh: I would appoint nine new [members] … start from scratch.

I have really pushed five elected school board members … we can have five councilmanic districts where the people elect a representative … regionally, [combining the 10 councilmanic districts to make five], but not the same as the council districts.

That would give people a level of responsiveness and accountability that they really feel is missing in the school district

How would you address the teacher shortage?

Parker: We’ve got to market it to them.

Philadelphia hasn’t done a good job in trying to package supports and services that we have available for example, with home ownership. … We’re going to make [Philadelphia] the safest, cleanest, greenest big city in the nation with economic opportunity for all and because it’s safe, we want you to have access to home ownership in a safe and a clean area with a thriving economy, thriving arts, culture, creative economy.

Oh: We’re losing teachers to public safety issues, and they’re telling us “we’re getting out of here, because it’s dangerous for us to go to work … this is not what we signed up for and you don’t seem to care.”

If I wanted to deal with teachers, I would look at recruitment. I would create a more predictable system of how you get paid, and how the pay increases every certain number of years. And it would incentivize staying in Philadelphia longer.

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

Philadelphia schools consider remote learning if SEPTA workers strike

2023-10-27T14:57:05+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.

Update: As of Friday afternoon, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported SEPTA and its collective bargaining unit, Transit Workers Union 234, reached a tentative contract deal to avert a strike. This deal will have to be put to a vote of the union’s more than 5,000 members.

A looming public transit worker strike could leave thousands of Philadelphia students without reliable school transportation, meaning that more than three years after the pandemic began, remote learning may be coming back.

If members of Transit Workers Union 234 walk out when their contract expires at midnight on Tuesday, Oct. 31, several highly-trafficked train, bus, and trolley routes would be suspended, city officials have warned.

Nearly 55,000 students use SEPTA to get to and from school. In the event of a transit workers strike, the district would be unable to find suitable transportation for those students, Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a Friday statement.

“We are fully committed to ensuring that learning continues for all students in the event of a SEPTA strike,” Watlington said. “While the ideal would be to maintain in-person learning for all students, please know that staffing challenges or other conditions that may result from a strike could require some or all of our schools to shift to hybrid or 100% virtual learning.”

Because of an ongoing national shortage of drivers, “providing transportation support to all students who would need it during a strike would not be an option,” Watlington said.

As a result, Watlington said the district is also “considering relaxing absence and attendance policies such that students who are late or absent due to SEPTA-related travel challenges will not be marked late, or will be excused upon receipt of a note from the parent or guardian.”

Noting that school staff also rely on SEPTA to get to work, Watlington said the district is also considering “temporary reassignments, extended overtime and relaxation of start and end times” for educators and other school employees.

“The District will monitor staffing at each school daily and deploy educator and Central Office staffing supports for specific schools that may need additional coverage,” Watlingon said.

The district provides free transportation via yellow buses for students in grades 1-6 living at least a mile and a half from the school they attend. Older students in grades 7-12 ride SEPTA. Students with disabilities may have different accommodations through their individualized education program, or IEP.

Students in district, charter, and private schools ride for free on SEPTA buses, trains, and trolleys. The district subsidizes the cost and pays SEPTA directly, and then is reimbursed by the state.

This isn’t the first time a potential transit worker strike has threatened to disrupt Philly students’ learning. In 2021, a deal was reached narrowly avoiding a strike. The last SEPTA strike was in 2016 and lasted six days. SEPTA has been called “the most-strike prone transit agency in the nation.”

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

Philadelphia mayoral election 2023: How Cherelle Parker answered 10 important education questions

2023-10-26T20:27:58+00:00

If Philadelphia voters cast their ballots in line with their party registration this November, Democrat Cherelle Parker is all but guaranteed to become the city’s 100th mayor. She will also be the first woman, and the first Black woman, to hold the office.

Parker is a former City Council member and state representative who has a degree in education from Lincoln University and worked briefly as an English teacher in Pleasantville, NJ. She is running against Republican David Oh, an attorney who also used to be on the council.

The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7, and the last day to vote early in person is Tuesday, Oct. 31.

The next mayor will have the responsibility of appointing the city Board of Education’s nine members, who in turn appoint and evaluate the superintendent, and monitor the district’s progress related to student achievement.

Parker’s campaign has already begun shaping education conversations in the city. Her pledge for “year-round school” was quickly picked up by Superintendent Tony Watlington, who incorporated a pilot program into his five-year strategic plan for the district.

Inspired by reader submissions, Chalkbeat asked both candidates to weigh in on the city’s most pressing education issues: school funding, safety, infrastructure, school board appointments, charter schools, and more. You can find Oh’s detailed Q and A here.

Here, Parker clarifies that for her, year-round school doesn’t mean more seat time in traditional classrooms, but vacation breaks spread throughout the calendar year and shortened during the summer, along with more enrichment activities for students. She also reiterates that she would favor putting more city funds into schools by increasing the district’s share of the city property tax, its largest source of local money.

She did not rule out creating more charter schools: “I want quality seats and I don’t care where they are,” she said, adding that she “will not allow anyone to act as if district-run and charter schools are warring factions.” Unlike Oh, she does not favor electing members of the school board.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Year-round school has been the centerpiece of your education platform. Tell us more how you envision that working.

When people heard me describe access to year-round school, I was not referring to our children sitting in a classroom at a desk, like we do during a traditional school day. But rather, it will … ensure that everyone has access to not just our traditional school curriculum, but academic enrichment programs, tutoring, homework help after school, and access to any workforce development and life skills opportunities that we could offer during out-of-school time.

Year-round education also references being innovative with scheduling. It doesn’t mean you don’t ever get time off. It could be two weeks here, two weeks here, three weeks here. All of our children … aren’t in the Hamptons or the shore all summer long. So for those children for whom those kinds of familial opportunities aren’t a part of their real lives, how do we structure our traditional school year in a way that makes good economic sense and is worth the educational investment for them?

Do you have any more specifics about how this would work and have you talked to the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers’ union about this?

The way I design things, they won’t be designed without the PFT, without our administrators, without our parents, without the external stakeholders, and subject matter experts all at the table figuring out, how do we make this work? … That has not been figured out, but that’s the purpose of putting out the concept. Stakeholders come together and we figure out a way to make it work. And that’s how I go about doing things.

Maybe some other people would love to be able to offer a plan and very specifically say, “This is how it’s going to work and this is what you’re going to do in a Parker administration.” That’s a recipe for disaster. This is a concept that I have in my mind. If I am the mayor, we are going to have year-round educational opportunities for our children. What does it specifically look like when it’s baked and done? I don’t have the specifics for you right now.

There is a basic foundation to public education, that we should in no way shape or form attempt to usurp. But I will tell you that it is in no way sufficient for everything that our children should be learning today.

The most direct power the mayor has over education in Philadelphia is by appointing the school board. Do you intend to replace any of the Board of Education members?

I am not going to make any comments or personnel decisions while I’m on the campaign trail. … I will be looking for people with a deep commitment to our city, the children of our city, and [who] share my vision for public education in this city.

Your opponent David Oh has talked about shifting to a partially elected school board. Is that something you would support or do you think the current model is working?

Who do you think would have access to the resources to run a citywide campaign to get elected to a school board? It would be those who are boosted by very special interests.

What is your position on charter schools? The Board of Education has not approved a new charter school since 2018, do you think that there should be more charter schools in Philadelphia?

I want quality, modern 21st education for all of our children [regardless of] their race, class, socioeconomic status, or zip code. I want quality seats and I don’t care where they are … Some people are not going to like it, but I’m going to unify educational institutions in the city of Philadelphia to work together to help our young people.

I want to see our traditional publics, our traditional charters or parochial schools, and even the private schools — I want to see the leadership all coming together to say this is what we’re doing. Is there a way as educational leaders … that we can add value to each other’s delivery of education? Can we leverage working together, and any supports or services that could benefit young people? Can we share or steal an idea?

I’m always looking to see what other cities and states and countries and nations are doing relative to public education … we haven’t thought big enough and broad enough because everybody’s so accustomed and comfortable working in silos, my mind doesn’t work that way.

Do you support Councilman Thomas’s proposal for a school building authority that would help the school district deal with flaking asbestos and other issues relating to safety and modernization of its buildings?

Let’s think about using apprentices and pre apprentices in the building trades and students in our school district to help be a part of that process. Do we do it via School Building Authority, an accelerated process within our current structure? I’m not sure. I’m not wedded to any way, I’m actually still right now reviewing what that means.

How do you expect to pay for some of the big policy ideas you’ve put forward?

I would be open to exploring increasing the school district’s portion of our property taxes from 55%, potentially to 58%. And that would add an additional $50 million in additional revenue.

That couldn’t be done alone. You have to have an intergovernmental strategy that’s state, local, and federal. You also need the philanthropic community, you need the business community. We cannot try to address these issues in silos that we’ve got to bring people together to say this is the plan, this is what we need from you and you and you and how are we going to work together in order to make it happen?

Our district is historically underfunded, we get it. The court case [ruling Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional] is extremely important, and potentially increasing our school district’s portion of our property taxes, but we also have to be demonstrating that we’re trying to do things differently here. People are not going to talk about providing additional support and funding to the school district until they see us trying to do something different [in the city.].

Gun violence is also a major issue affecting students, educators, and school communities. What are your proposals for improving school safety?

I welcome everyone to take a look at my comprehensive neighborhood safety community policing plan … we have to make public health and public safety the number one priority here in the city of Philadelphia, and we should do it with three primary buckets in mind, prevention, intervention and enforcement.

We cannot talk about [education] without talking about trauma, mental and behavioral health support. We can’t talk about public education without the need for nurses and counselors and therapy for our children. A holistic approach to delivering public education helps us with public safety.

How does policing fit into that?

How can anyone shout we should be defunding the police when we should be focused on a holistic approach that does include community policing? … [We should] have officers who are not there as warriors but as guardians, working in partnership with our public safety office in the school district, with SEPTA and with other institutions so that we can have a holistic, comprehensive approach

I don’t apologize to anybody about making that a priority, because every child deserves to feel safe in school, and we should do everything that we possibly can to ensure it.

School was a lifeline for a person who grew up in poverty like me. … Every school should be a community school.

What’s your plan to address the teacher shortage and grow the teacher pipeline?

We’ve got to market it to them.

Philadelphia hasn’t done a good job in trying to package supports and services that we have available for example, with home ownership. We should be creative and incentivizing this … first we’re gonna make [Philadelphia] the safest, cleanest, greenest big city in the nation with economic opportunity for all and because it’s safe, we want you to have access to home ownership in a safe and a clean area with a thriving economy, thriving arts, culture, creative economy.

We’re going to see shortages across the board if we don’t find a way to use non-traditional strategies to market and encourage people to become residents of our great city.

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

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

Philadelphia mayoral election 2023: How David Oh answered 10 important education questions

2023-10-26T20:27:53+00:00

Though the voter registration rolls are against him, Republican mayoral candidate David Oh thinks he sees a path to victory in Philadelphia, and that path starts with the city’s schools.

Voters are “not coming out because of the pomp and ceremony. They’re not coming out because of the noise, they’re coming out because they want a change,” Oh said in a recent interview at his campaign office in Northeast Philadelphia. “People want to believe there is a better future for them. And schools are where it can happen.”

Oh, a former City Council member, is running against the heavily favored Democrat Cherelle Parker, who also served on council and was a state representative. In Philadelphia, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans seven to one.

The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7, and the last day to vote early in person is Tuesday, Oct. 31.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Oh said he favors holding elections for five of the nine members of the Philadelphia Board of Education while the mayor would appoint the remaining four. That would in effect cede the mayor’s primary influence over education in Philadelphia, which is to appoint all members of the board that governs the district.

Oh did not go into detail into how such a hybrid board would work with respect to issues like taxing power. Now, the appointed school board relies on the City Council to allot local tax dollars to the schools. Parker said she opposes an elected board because she wants the council to keep taxing power.

But Oh said that having elected members would make the board more responsive to community concerns. He proposed combining the 10 current councilmanic districts (districts that are aligned with those represented on the City Council) into five, and electing one from each district.

He said he would also seek to promote “equity in resources and facilities” and beef up vocational education. On charter schools, he said: “I am not for or against. I am for good public schools.”

An attorney, Oh was born and raised in Southwest Philadelphia, where he still lives, and represented on the council from 2012 until he resigned to run for mayor earlier this year.

He reiterated that the major issue facing the next mayor is crime — in the city and in the schools. He contends that reducing crime will have a beneficial effect on education by attracting more people to teach in the city and reducing student trauma, among other things.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are your proposals for improving school safety?

[Students] have every legitimate reason why they cannot focus and why they are afraid. They’ve been traumatized by all this gun violence. They have to see we care. The way I show them we care is I have uniformed officers, school police — no weapon, but looking sharp, being attentive and being accountable. I say ‘when you’re in our custody, you’re in our care’ for people who we arrest. When you’re in our schools, you’re in our care.

I think a lot of our problems come from the fact that people feel neglected. They feel like nobody cares about them, they feel like they have no future.

I think, although well intended, to not provide police, to not provide discipline, to not provide that shows you don’t care when kids are getting killed, shot, and hurt.

People want policing, but they want police reform. They want good policing. They don’t want police brutality. They don’t want ‘stop and frisk,’ I’m against the return of stop and frisk.

How would you address the teacher shortage?

We’re losing teachers to public safety issues, and they’re telling us “we’re getting out of here, because it’s dangerous for us to go to work … this is not what we signed up for and you don’t seem to care.”

The low pay with no visible steps — the more experience you have in Philadelphia, what do you get? What is your future there? And so a lot of teachers look at Philadelphia as their public service time … we lose too many good teachers, and they really want to be here. They want to be a part of the community.

You’ve said you would support an elected school board. How would that work? What would you do when you first take office, before you could change from an appointed to elected board?

I would appoint nine new [members] … start from scratch.

I have really pushed five elected school board members … we can have five councilmanic districts where the people elect a representative … regionally, but not the same as the council districts.

That would give people a level of responsiveness and accountability that they really feel is missing in the school district. … In other words, I would rather have the community tied in with the schools and have some level of tailoring language, culture, educational options, things like that. And recognition of religious issues that are important to their community.

What would your education priorities be as mayor?

Safety in the school, which is a big problem. Number two, it would be equity in resources and facilities ... and I would return the standards of academics, vocational career training, and then I’d try to create a VET program like they do in Germany, Switzerland — vocational educational training.

If someone wants to get certified in a good vocation, there’s a program that I would try to work out with [lawmakers in] Harrisburg, where you do ninth and 10th grade in business theory, academics, all that related to what your career is. Then in 11th and 12th grade, you do part-time [at a] workplace.

What changes would you make to the way the school district is organized?

I’m not really a fan of the way schools are run now with a superintendent in charge of everything … I think it has to be a little more horizontal. There should be a chief innovation officer for technology. One that doesn’t get fired or demoted by the superintendent.

I don’t think the school board should be in the school administration building at all … you have to let the administrators administrate. Let the teachers teach, let the principals be the principals, let the facilities [workers] do the facility, the police do the police and the board looks at the overall but without any interest, without any conflicts.

A Commonwealth Court judge recently ruled the way Pennsylvania funds its schools is unconstitutional and many school districts, including Philadelphia, are underfunded. What would you change about the system?

The city is very wasteful. And nobody likes to hear that, or they already know it.

The poorest neighborhoods in Philadelphia are overtaxed. They have a lot of anxiety, they have a lot of problems, they have a lot of violence and all kinds of things. It’s illegal and it’s unfair.

I would … audit the [property tax] assessment process… we have to create fairness in taxation. … Otherwise, we’re going to drive all our poor folks out of the neighborhood with their kids who go to schools.

I believe the city should contribute more money from the money it has..the taxes have to be accurate, if they are higher, no problem. If they’re lower, whatever they are, they have to be accurate.

The current system is abusive to the poor, the vulnerable, and the low income and that is resulting in a lot of other problems that are very expensive.

That is having a devastating effect on our city. A lot of the problems we face are from people who feel targeted by a bullying, hateful government that doesn’t care about them … they could see it in schools and the libraries and places like that. I would correct that property tax.

How would you deal with the school infrastructure issues like damaged asbestos?

I think there is purposeful inefficiency [in school construction and upkeep]. … In this city, since the colonial days, schools have been a place of political payback.

I would look at serious rightsizing of the district based on the fact that we probably need to build new buildings.

We need to look at the buildings that have asbestos and actually clean them for real and not just coat them. We don’t need to remediate them. We have to remove it.

Do you think there should be more charter schools in Philadelphia?

No, I don’t. I’m not for or against the charter schools … I’m for good public schools. But we’ve had horrible public schools and no response. And therefore there were charter schools.

I think we have enough charter schools.

I would look at the mayor as someone who’s responsible for education for every child … whether it’s at a charter school, a neighborhood public school, a magnet school, a private school, at religious school, or whatever it is, it’s a school … [and it] is the mayor’s responsibility. One of the biggest jobs a mayor can do is to raise the money to put into education.

Would you support private school vouchers?

I think I’m for them.

If [private school families] are going to pay their taxes and send your kids to another school and pay for that, that helps us … it helps us to have them pay their taxes and have open seats … I would like to give them a tax break, to encourage them to do that so I can get the benefits of their tax dollars and those open seats.

If we had more people paying taxes, and paying for their own tuition, we’d have more money, more room in schools. So in that sense, I’m for it.

How would you improve trust between the school district and the communities it serves?

Our issue is how do we deliver a good quality education, a meaningful education in a way that shows the children in our care in our worst neighborhoods, that they have hope for the future? … As a mayor, I have to answer that question.

I think the problem with this whole situation is that the public does not trust the schools anymore … it’s all a scam to them.

You’re going to have to show them a visible difference from almost day one. The neighborhood looks different, the school’s different, the library hours have changed, the whole delivery of services is different.

You have to build credibility. We have such pessimistic people in this city. And it’s one of our biggest problems. Many of them don’t believe school matters, quite frankly, they just see school as a place to send kids and just occupy their time there.

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

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

What education questions should we ask Philadelphia’s mayoral candidates?

2023-09-27T20:15:42+00:00

In deep-blue Philadelphia, where registered Democrats significantly outnumber Republicans, it can feel like the mayoral race ended with Cherelle Parker’s primary win in May.

But voters do have a choice in the general election this November, and the winner will have the strongest degree of mayoral control over education in the city in decades.

The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7, and the last day to vote early in person is Tuesday, Oct. 31.

Two candidates are running for mayor: Democrat Cherelle Parker, who is a former City Council member and former member of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, and Republican David Oh, an attorney who also used to be on the council.

The winner will have the power to appoint the city Board of Education’s nine members, who in turn appoint and evaluate the superintendent and monitor the district’s progress related to student achievement.

The current board members’ terms will expire when Mayor Jim Kenney leaves office in January. Whoever steps into the role can opt to keep some, all, or none of the current members.

While Parker has not said whether she would consider replacing any of the current board members, Oh said on his campaign website he favors an elected school board where as many as five of the nine members could be elected by Philadelphians.

The mayor also sets the policy tone and conversation around education in the city. During the lead-up to the primary election, Parker campaigned on a pledge for “year-round school” which, despite lacking details, was quickly picked up by Superintendent Tony Watlington and incorporated into his five-year strategic plan for the district.

We’re building a Chalkbeat voter guide for the election, and we want to know what’s on your mind. Let us know what questions to ask the candidates, and issues to raise with them, using the form below:

If you are having trouble viewing this form, go here.

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

Philadelphia school leaders celebrate small gains in standardized test scores

2023-09-07T22:48:37+00:00

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Some Philadelphia students are making minor gains in math, English, and science and are catching up to their pre-pandemic scores, according to preliminary standardized test data the district released Thursday.

While the increases are incremental — only a few percentage points in each category — and many students still have not reached proficiency, school leaders said they are hopeful they can keep up the momentum this school year and in the years to come.

According to early data from the 2022-23 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, or PSSA, students scoring “proficient” in math in grades 3-8, English in grade 3, and science in grades 4 and 8 increased from 2021-22, and students who scored “below basic” declined in those grades and subject levels.

“Students may not have reached … proficiency [yet] but they are moving in the right direction,” Jermaine Dawson, the district’s new deputy superintendent of academic services, told board members on Thursday. “We are catching up and we are closing the achievement gap in those areas.”

Superintendent Tony Watlington cautioned the final data — including a deeper look into disaggregated data sorted by race, gender, and grade level — would be coming in the late fall or early winter.

Board members expressed optimism that Philadelphia students may be making progress.

“Knowing that there are thousands of more students who are now proficient at math … that excites me,” Board President Reginald Streater said.

English Language performance

Third grade students — who have been under the national microscope as districts across the country confront the way they teach reading in their classrooms — were given special attention in the district’s presentation on Thursday.

The percentage of grade 3 students who scored “proficient” or “advanced” on the English PSSA rose from 28.1% in 2021-22 to 31.3% in 2022-23 — an increase of 3.2 percentage points.

The percentage of grade 3 students who scored “below basic” on the PSSA ELA declined during that time period, from 38.2% to 30.3%.

According to the district’s data, the percentage of students in grades 3-8 who scored “proficient” or “advanced” on the English PSSA “remained stable,” dropping 0.3 percentage points from 34.4% in 2021-22 to 34.1% in 2022-23.

The percentage of students in grades 3-8 who scored “below basic” in ELA dropped from 28.2% to 25.4% between 2021-22 and 2022-23 — a decline of 2.8 percentage points.

Watlington said the district has committed to shifting schools towards implementing structured literacy, sometimes known as “the science of reading,” to students in the years to come and are looking to implement new curriculum in that vein next school year.

“We’re not saying that teachers have to take away academic creativity and freedom … but we have to draw the line in the sand and say all kids will have a rigorous and guaranteed viable curriculum,” Watlington said. “The best available in the United States.”

Math performance

Watlington also highlighted the new math curriculum that’s already being rolled out in classrooms citywide this week. He said he hopes those new materials will build on the gains reflected in the PSSA scores.

The percentage of students in grades 3-8 who scored “proficient” or “advanced” on the math PSSA rose from 16.5% in 2021-22 to 20.1% in 2022-23 — up 3.6 percentage points.

In 2022-23, 57.3% of students in grades 3-8 scored “below basic” on the math PSSA, down from 61.7% in 2021-22 — a decrease of 4.4 percentage points.

The percentage of grade 3 students who scored “proficient” or “advanced” on the math PSSA rose from 20.8% in 2021-22 to 26.0% in 2022-23 — a gain of 5.2 percentage points.

In 2022-23, 52.1% of grade 3 students were “below basic” on the math PSSA, down from 58.9% the previous year — 6.8 percentage points.

Science performance

The science portion of the PSSA is only given to students in grades 4 and 8. The district reported from 2021-22 to 2022-23, the percentage of students scoring “proficient” or “advanced” on that test increased from 37.1% to 40.5% — an increase of 3.4 percentage points.

Still a long way to go

To be sure, even with the gains, last year’s scores remain well below levels school officials said they’d like to see.

“We know we’re not where we need to be. We’re not even close to where we know the kids deserve to be,” Board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez said.

Tonya Wolford, the district’s chief of evaluation, research, and accountability, told board members it’s important to keep in mind, “students likely are not going from below basic to proficient in one year.” They’ll need more time, resources, and attention to catch up to their peers.

Philadelphia also didn’t see the drastic “drop in performance” during the pandemic from 2018-19 to 2021-22 that districts saw across the country and across the state, Wolford said. “But we’re still not back to pre pandemic levels.”

What are they doing about it

Dawson, Wolford and Watlington all pointed to their efforts to increase student attendance and implement some high-dosage tutoring through a pilot at six to eight schools this year.

Board member Joyce Wilkerson said the board would need to know more details about specific efforts that are working or not in schools across the city, especially as federal covid relief funding comes to an end and dollars may need to be stretched.

“We’re going have to make some budget decisions in the next couple of months, and we’re going to need to know and in fairly specific ways what are we going to fund and what are we going to cut out,” Wilkerson said.

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

Back to school in Philadelphia has students and teachers feeling excited — and the heat

2023-09-05T16:54:39+00:00

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First grade teacher Holly Lau crouched down so she could speak with her new student Jahlil Porter at his level.

“It’s our first day, too,” she said reassuringly to Porter, who was sporting a colorful backpack but looked a bit lost after showing up to his first day of school Tuesday at Bluford Elementary School. It was something of a fresh start for Bluford as well — it was a charter school last year but has returned to district control.

Lau was generous with her hugs, and then led her students into the building between a line of cameras and dignitaries including Mayor Jim Kenney, Superintendent Tony Watlington, and state Sen. Vincent Hughes marking the first day of school for Philadelphia’s more than 113,000 public school students.

If Jahlil was jittery, so was his mom. “I’m a little nervous,” said Yvette Williams. “I just hope everything goes well for our kids.”

More than 500 students at Bluford avoided the disruptions to the start of the school year caused by extreme heat. Students at 74 other schools in the city without air conditioning or in need of electrical system upgrades weren’t so lucky.

The first day of school at Bluford Elementary School on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

With temperatures projected to soar above 90 degrees this week, the district informed families over the weekend that those schools would operate on an early dismissal schedule Tuesday and Wednesday, and that “any decisions about Thursday or Friday will be communicated by 12 p.m. on the day before.”

The news underscored the challenges Philadelphia schools face when it comes to infrastructure, following a year when several schools closed due to fears about asbestos.

After his first year leading the district, Superintendent Tony Watlington has big plans for year two, even as he wrestles with such long-standing challenges. He’s hoping to put his five-year strategic plan into action. A new math curriculum is hitting classrooms. And the district is planning a new “two-way communication system” to give parents more access to district staff.

In addition, the district has tweaked its much-maligned lottery admissions process for selective schools. And its new safety plan aims to keep students safe from the ongoing gun violence in the city.

On Tuesday, Watlington projected optimism.

“Every year teachers, students … get a chance to have a fresh start no matter what happened in the last year,” he said. “If you had a good year you can make it even better. If you made some mistakes last year we can improve on them.”

Watlington added that “the same is true with superintendents I’m told.”

Bluford Principal Tangela McClam, a graduate of the Philadelphia district, had good news Tuesday for parents gathered in front of the school wondering about dismissal times. The school day would end at 3:09 p.m., she said, not at noon.

Like Watlington, she expressed high hopes for the future of Philadelphia public schools.

“I am delighted to be able to lead a school that is returning [to the district]” McClam said. “We’re calling … for all of our community members, parents, families, and friends to help us as we launch successful citizens and prepare them for the next generation in Philadelphia.”

Tangela McClam, left, the principal of Bluford Elementary School, stands next to other school administrators and elected officials while students enter the building on the first day of school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 5, 2023.

Asbestos, heat, and teacher vacancies remain concerns

Still, Philadelphia has a long way to go toward becoming “the fastest improving large urban district in the country,” which Watlington has said is his overarching goal. One hurdle will simply be ensuring students have safe school buildings to learn in.

The district will, in all likelihood, continue to uncover flaking asbestos this year, Watlington said. Although the district is still crafting its “master swing space plan” to ensure displaced students are able to learn in-person, disruptions should be expected.

Though some students at Frankford High School and all students at Universal Vare Charter School will be learning in other buildings this year as the district remediates damaged asbestos, the district has made progress with other schools that had been closed at the end of the previous school year.

In an effort to lessen the extreme heat affecting school buildings, the district has invested $285.7 million to “improve electrical and HVAC systems” in 23 schools and installed over 800 window air conditioning units and over 1,400 hydration stations, according to a statement from Oz Hill, the district’s chief operating officer.

Teacher and school staff vacancies are also persisting into the new school year.

According to the district, staffing is at 95.3% this year, meaning there are still more than 400 vacancies among the 9,000 positions for teachers and counselors. Last year, the school year started with about 200 vacancies.

District spokesperson Marissa Orbanek said last year the district had 225 yellow bus drivers; this year, she said, 210 have been hired so far. About 33,000 students are transported to school on yellow buses, she said, a number that includes district, charter, and private school students.

Under state law, the district must provide or pay for transportation for all students who live more than a mile and a half from the school they attend. The younger ones and those in special education require yellow buses; older students get free SEPTA passes.

A test for one Philadelphia school

This year will be pivotal to Bluford’s success as it transitions from its status as a Renaissance charter school back to district control.

In 2021, the Board of Education voted not to renew the charters of Bluford and nearby Daroff, which had been run by Universal Companies as part of a decade-old strategy of turning over existing district schools to charter operators in the hope of improving them.

Daroff has closed altogether. But the district is promising to engineer a turnaround at Bluford, which under Universal had fallen short of academic goals and had financial problems.

“I’m hoping for a good school year,” said Sharady McDuffie, the parent of two fourth graders at Bluford.

McClam said that the school is expecting 505 students, although only 95 had been signed up when she arrived to take over the school in the summer. She held various outreach events and said that so far about 400 are officially enrolled.

On Tuesday, McClam gathered unregistered students into the auditorium to fill out paperwork and get them cleared for class.

The school was named for astronaut Guion Bluford, the first Black person to travel to space and who attended the school when it was called the Hanna School. Keeping the school’s namesake in mind, McClam said the motto this year will be “launching successful citizens.”

A student holds onto a guardian’s hand during the first day of school events, at Bluford Charter School, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 5, 2023.

Meanwhile, at a “meet and greet” event last week at Ellwood Elementary School — one of the 74 schools on a revised heat schedule this week — dozens of students and their parents showed up to meet their teachers and collect goodies such as backpacks, water bottles, and pencils.

Ellwood, built in the 1950s, isn’t as up to date as it could be when it comes to infrastructure. But it has gotten new windows and doors. The school is installing air conditioning, but it’s not yet operational. And parents and students are still holding out hope for a strong school year.

Assistant Principal Edward Davies said that the focus for Ellwood this year is “maintaining what we have and making gains.” It was easy to find excited students around him.

Eris Brown, 7, is entering second grade. Her favorite subject, for now, is art. But she has big ambitions. “I hope to learn everything,” she said.

Berlyn Stanford, 6, is entering first grade and likes school because “I get to play with toys. I can meet new friends and I like gym class.”

Kiyon Harris, 8, who is entering second grade, spent a long time talking to physical education teacher David DiEva about his plans for the year, hands on hips and ideas flowing. He said he’s looking forward to “a lot of math, and reading, and I like activities and sports,” he said.

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

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

This South Philadelphia principal is leading her community through an asbestos closure

2023-08-18T19:08:59+00:00

Philadelphia school days have been upended by the ongoing discovery of damaged asbestos in buildings across the city. And school district leaders have warned that more asbestos-related closures may be coming.

Principal Karen Howell-Toomer is tasked with making sure students are ready for in-person learning at a temporary location.

Universal Vare Charter School Principal Karen Howell-Toomer is guiding her community through one of the longest closures. Their building shut its doors in April when damaged asbestos was first discovered, and Howell-Toomer gave notice earlier this month that their district-owned building would remain closed through the 2023-24 school year as well.

Howell-Toomer is now tasked with making sure her 173 students, in grades five through eight, who learned virtually from April to June are ready for in-person learning at the nearby McDaniel Annex building at 1901 South 23rd Street.

Despite the daunting task in front of her, Howell-Toomer said she’s excited for the new school year. She’s already planned open-house visits for parents and a school-wide kickoff event on Aug. 25, when they are planning to give away backpacks, uniforms, hot dogs, and water ice.

“I’m calling our new school a boutique because it’s smaller, more intimate. It’s gonna be fun,” Howell-Toomer said. “I think the teachers and staff members will like it.”

Howell-Toomer didn’t always envision herself in this position. She began her career with degrees in social work and nursing and started substitute teaching to pay her tuition bills.

During her first weeks she taught at close to five different schools in Philadelphia, she said, before ending up at the Walter George Smith School in South Philly, which has since closed. At that school, the principal at the time told her, “you are a natural-born teacher,” and steered her in the direction of getting her master’s degree in education.

That conversation led her to spend 28 years in the Philadelphia school district, first as a classroom teacher, then in the district’s office of teaching and learning, where she supported early-career teachers, and eventually as a principal.

Howell-Toomer said she thinks those people who saw a spark in her when she was first starting out observed her interactions with her students, the way she commanded the classroom, and her relatability.

“A lot of times when people come as a sub, they treat it as ‘I’m a sub.’ I came in and actually treated it like these are my kids, these are my students,” she said.

Howell-Toomer spoke with Chalkbeat about her career and how she is leading her students, parents, and staff members through their asbestos closure.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What have you admired about leaders in your life? Who has inspired you on your educational journey?

The first principal that I served under, Sandra Ruffin Pearson. She was very steady, very calm. I’m the hyper one. I’m the quick, quick, quick, Type A personality and she was more subtle. She had excellent people skills, writing skills, and she just engaged with everyone. We have that in common. She was a good leader because she developed leadership in other people. She would see what their skills were and then she would hone in on those skills and help develop them further.

My second great leader is who I work under now, Penny Nixon, CEO and Superintendent of Universal Schools. She has a monumental task each day, and she makes it look like this is really easy. But I know that she’s working hard and just keeping us all together. She makes our job fun; she doesn’t micromanage. She allows each principal to use their own creativity in our buildings. She is extremely smart — serious when she needs to be but funny and engaging. She also does a good job of treating everyone individually. She meets you where you are and helps to develop you further.

What has it been like to navigate your school’s building closure due to asbestos?

It came as a shock. But [most of] the schools in Philadelphia have asbestos, if we want to be honest about it. Because they are all very old. We didn’t have ample time to get in, get our things, do what we needed to do. They came in and the next day, it was like, ‘OK, you guys can’t return to the building.’

The parents have been great. The scholars have been great. I’ve been communicating with the parents by email, ClassDojo, letters to the homes, calling them on the phone. They all have my cell number. So when they call, I answer. I’m able to give answers right on the spot. That’s why no one is disgruntled.

Parents have said they want more communication during asbestos closures. How have you helped parents through this process?

I’ve been keeping [parents] in the loop. I’ve been sending weekly messages. I don’t live too far, I live in the community, so parents see me. They have more accessibility to me. It was short notice. But for us, we were a little bit luckier — if you can find any luck in this — because it happened towards the end of the year. So it’s different from the other schools that were shut down earlier. Everybody was disappointed, of course, I don’t want you to think it was all roses. But they went along with it. And they were like, ‘OK, we know you got this, Principal Toomer, you’ll tell us what’s going on.’ All they cared about was A) Are we closed for the year? Then if so, B) What’s your plan? C) Where’s the new location? As long as you answer the ABC, they were good.

What’s the best advice you’ve gotten?

Treat every child like they’re your own, and treat people with respect and you’ll get respect in return. Be human when you’re engaging with your family members, kids, and your staff. Don’t fly off the handle if kids are chronically late. Dig deeper, ask, ‘Why are you late every day, sweetie? Come in here. Let me talk to you for a minute; what’s going on?’

Sometimes kids are just being kids, and their parents work early, and the parents aren’t there to wake them up so they oversleep, but some of them have deep-seated situations going on: I couldn’t find a clean pair of pants, I couldn’t find underwear. I didn’t have toothpaste, I didn’t want to go to school. I’m in middle school, and middle school kids can be mean. Even as an adult, if your breath is not minty fresh, they will remind you of that.

What do you do to take care of yourself outside of the classroom?

Right now, that’s a little bit of a challenge for me. Even though I’m working full-time, I am [my husband’s] primary caregiver. We always traveled everywhere. We’ve been to almost every continent. But we’re unable to do that now. Everybody keeps saying ‘self-care, self-care,’ but self-care is not always easy. I’ll figure it out. I just keep going. I stay on ten.

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

Philadelphia district seeks to revoke Franklin Towne’s charter over discrimination allegations

2023-08-14T21:24:03+00:00

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A highly ranked Philadelphia charter school is in danger of losing its charter following allegations of discrimination within their admissions process.

The Philadelphia School District is recommending the city’s Board of Education begin the process to revoke Franklin Towne Charter High School’s charter, citing evidence that the school’s lottery admissions process was allegedly “influenced” by “nonrandom factors” for several years, according to a memo released Monday.

The school, in the Bridesburg neighborhood, is accused of systematically excluding students from certain city ZIP codes where Black families are in the majority.

According to the memo to the board authored by Peng Chao, the district Acting Chief of Charter Schools, the district charter school office “received initial outreach” from the chief academic officer at Franklin Towne in April alleging that the school “implemented discriminatory lottery practices.”

The district conducted an analysis that revealed, for the 2020-21 through the 2023-24 school years, the racial composition of the admitted students versus those who applied “raises questions about the selection process and suggests potential factors influencing the acceptance outcomes,” Chao wrote in the memo.

In an email statement on Monday, Franklin Towne CEO Brianna O’Donnell said her office “ordered an investigation through an impartial reputable outside agency” to look into the allegations when she took over the position in February. “That investigation is still under way,” the statement said.

In February, months before the discrimination allegations surfaced, Joseph Venditti, Franklin Towne’s CEO since 2004, resigned.

The allegations were first reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer in May and Chao told reporters on Monday his office would provide evidence supporting the revocation recommendation at the school board meeting on Thursday.

“Our families, and our students need to have faith that the charter schools in our city are implementing fair and open enrollment processes,” Chao said Monday. “This is also about making sure that the adults who have the privilege of operating and governing this charter school directly are also held accountable for what has occurred over the course of time.”

Chao noted Franklin Towne “is not a new school,” as it opened in 2000, and therefore “the individuals in charge of the school…need to be held accountable.”

The school’s student demographics haven’t reflected those of the wider city in previous years. According to its 2014 application for a National Blue Ribbon Award, which the school won, Franklin Towne’s student demographics were 2% Asian, 8% Black/African American, 14% Hispanic, and 76% white in a city where the population was 42% Black and 36% white at the time.

According to the district’s charter school office website, a charter school operating in Philadelphia “must be accessible to all students within their district” and “must enroll and support all students, including those with special needs and limited English proficiency.”

The high school serves 1,300 students in grades nine through 12 and is currently operating under a charter agreement effective July 1, 2019 through June 30, 2024, according to the district memo.

In a statement on the Franklin Towne website, O’Donnell said the school’s leadership was “blindsided” by the district’s decision to initiate the charter revocation process.

“The data used to prepare our renewal application over the summer gave us no reason to believe the school is in any violation that would prohibit our charter from being renewed,” the statement read, cautioning that charter revocation processes “often take years to complete,” hinting at future action: “Especially if appeals are involved.”

The charter office’s investigation revealed a section of the school’s admission data, that included a yellow highlighted note labeled, “Do not take” with a list of 11 students as well as a note labeled, “Not in good standing” with another list of 11 students.

The investigation also highlighted five majority-Black city ZIP codes where, over the course of four school years, fewer than 10 students were accepted to Franklin Towne despite 88 students applying.

The charter school office does not regularly complete admissions analyses like this one, Chao said, but he did not rule out expanding this process to other charters operating in the city.

“We certainly hope that the outcomes here that we’ve seen in the analysis are unique to this scenario…in terms of whether or not this type of evaluation gets expanded into other scenarios, that’s something that we’re looking into,” Chao said.

If the board votes in favor of revoking the school’s charter on Thursday, their action would “kick off a hearing process,” Chao said.

Any hearing officer assigned would then work with the board to consider whether or not to actually revoke the school’s charter “at some point in the future.” After that, a potential appeals process could begin depending on the outcome, Chao said.

O’Donnell said in her email statement “given the voluminous work,” an investigation of this type requires, “we are puzzled as to how the Charter Schools Office could conclude in far less time than a reputable outside agency needs to complete its investigation.”

As to whether the current admission process took place under Venditti or continued after O’Donnell became CEO, Chao said, “it’s our understanding” that Venditti “was still in place for at least part of it,” but that there wasn’t “one set point in time at which there was a handoff” to O’Donnell.

“Acceptance processes and enrollment processes tend to span the course of multiple months from the winter through basically now and families are finalizing their schools for the new year,” Chao said.

Still, O’Donnell said in her statement on the school website, “regardless of how the [board] votes on Thursday, we will continue to educate students, enroll new students, and hire new staff.”

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

As Philadelphia mulls year-round schooling, a charter school network shows what it can look like

2023-08-07T11:30:00+00:00

Mikayla Woody and Aniyah Brown-Johnson are spending part of their summer doing things that might make their friends jealous: crafting a social media strategy and setting up a TikTok account.

A few hallways over, other kids are studying African dance, growing basil and lavender, and constructing London’s Big Ben clock out of clay.

These students are not at summer camp, or stuck in a cubicle completing a marketing internship. It’s all part of their year-round school program at Philadelphia’s Belmont Charter School.

Belmont’s model might soon attract more attention. Democratic mayoral nominee Cherelle Parker — the city’s Democratic nominee for mayor and therefore the favorite to assume the office next year — has made year-round schooling part of her education platform. And Superintendent Tony Watlington included a pilot for year-round school in his five-year-plan adopted by the district in June. They’ve said it would be a worthwhile idea to explore in response to concerns about the pandemic and student safety.

But they have yet to release further details about their vision. And there are a host of questions and potential challenges linked to whether district schools have the funding, staffing, and desire from teachers and parents to adapt something like Belmont’s approach to more than 113,000 students in traditional district classrooms.

So parents and students have been left to wonder: Would year-round schooling mean academics for 12 months? Shorter and more frequent breaks around holidays? Or something akin to an educational camp during the traditional summer recess?

Officials at Belmont Charter Network schools in West Philadelphia say their long-running summer extension program could be an option for policymakers to consider. But making it work has required Belmont to be flexible and listen to parents.

A young Belmont student during a summer activity. Belmont students say they want a year-round program that puts a focus on outdoor projects, field trips, and team-building activities.

Keeping school buildings open to ‘expand community’

Belmont charter schools educate over 1,200 students in pre-K-12 across three campuses, and their summer programming adds about seven weeks to the traditional 180-day school year.

Their buildings are open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday during July and August, as well as the latter part of June; the school district’s last day for students was June 13.

This year, Belmont’s school buildings were closed for as few as four business days between the last day of the 2022-23 school year and the start of summer programming. But some campuses closed for six days. When it comes to putting breaks on the calendar for a year-round schedule, Belmont prioritizes flexibility.

Teachers working in summer learning programs were given a few weeks off between the end of the regular academic year and the start of summer programming. During those breaks for teachers, the charter network ran more camp activities and field trips. Those teachers will also get two weeks off before they go back to Belmont in the fall.

Belmont’s July and August programs offer 255 students the chance to participate in a combination of camp activities like swimming, sports, and crafts. There are also lessons on everything from Greek mythology and undersea biology to Egyptian mummies and European currency exchanges.

Though small, the summer programs are highly individualized, in terms of activities as well as scheduling. Younger children participate in camp-related activities during the day, while older students have more opportunities for work-study programs, job training, and classroom learning in small groups.

The network also offers paid internships for high school students, flexible schedules for those with jobs, field trips, and college tours. And it has community service requirements.

The Philadelphia school district also offers free academic programs during the summer, including special education programs, workforce training, and a “full day school-meets-camp experience,” at locations across the city. But not every district school building is open for these programs.

Beth Dyson, chief of staff for the charter network, said she thinks Belmont’s programming has been responsive to parents, students, and teachers. Belmont’s summer extension program has been running for nearly two decades, Dyson said, though it’s mostly “flown under the radar.”

Morgan Schrankel, a reading specialist at Belmont, put together the summer lessons on foreign currency exchanges and is leading arts activities for students.

She said working during the summer has allowed her to “expand her community” at Belmont by working with new students. It’s also given her an outlet to experiment with lesson plans.

“When I’m following a curriculum, when I’m worried about testing, when I’m doing all those things, I kind of have to do things one way. But this allows me to do things I’m passionate about,” she said.

The opportunities outside regular coursework at Belmont during the warmer months are also crucial. Woody said her summer internship has helped build her resume and prepared for life outside of and after high school.

“You’re actually gonna take these skills and apply [them] to something,” Woody said. “Build references, build your resume, and different things too because that can be hard. We don’t get a lot of chances. So it’s just like, work with what you’ve got, and know what’s being provided to you.”

Dyson said Belmont surveys parents and students continuously to learn about what’s working and what’s not.

For example, families reported wanting more child-care coverage for older students earlier in the summer and for young children later in the summer.

As a result, Belmont staggered starting dates for their middle school and high school programs and extended their early education summer programs further into August to accommodate family needs.

Year-round school is far from a panacea

When they’ve discussed year-round schooling, Parker and Watlington have said it’s one way to address learning disparities, provide child care for working parents, and give kids places to go during the summer.

For example, they’ve touted it as a way to help students who are struggling academically after COVID’s disruptions. Lagging state test scores have underscored worries about their progress and the district’s ability to meet its long-term goals.

Just 19% of all Belmont students scored proficient or advanced on state English language arts exams for the 2021-22 school year, an 11 point decrease from the previous year, and 4% did so in math. Belmont’s scores are lower than the traditional district schools’ results during the same time period.

There are other acute concerns beyond academics that Belmont tries to address. In recent years, people under the age of 18 have made up a growing number of gunshot victims —as well as perpetrators — in the city. Simultaneously, school climate ratings in the district have dipped. There are also city curfews and age restrictions limiting where young people can gather, and these can feel especially constraining in the summer.

That desire for students to feel “cared for and appreciated,” Dyson said, and that they feel like they’re making good use of their time, are big factors in how Belmont’s leaders have designed the year-round schooling program.

“The number one goal is for our kids to have a safe, consistent place to be,” said Jane Lawson, Belmont’s managing director of out of school time.

The first Belmont charter school started in 2002 following the state’s takeover of the district as the city’s first “turnaround school” in what was originally a district-run school. The network has grown to include five schools across three locations in Philadelphia.

Belmont has its critics. There’s been resistance to its attempts to grow over the years. And just before the pandemic, it attracted controversy regarding the sale of its district-owned building.

Dyson said Belmont has not been contacted by the Parker campaign or anyone from the school district to discuss their summer programming and how it fits into the network’s approach to year-round school. A spokesperson for the Parker campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Belmont students spend the summer participating in a combination of camp activities like swimming, sports, and crafts, in addition to academics.

Getting funding, avoiding teacher burnout are key

Then there are hurdles related to dollars, cents, and staffing.

The pilot in the district’s five-year plan doesn’t include a cost or other details about potential year-round programming. Watlington has admitted the district lacks the funding to accomplish all of the goals in his strategic plan as the district faces long-term fiscal worries.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers union hasn’t commented on any year-round school proposal yet. But in order to make such a big shift, the district and the union would have to renegotiate the district’s teacher contract, which expires in August 2024. Such talks could be daunting.

A related issue: teacher burnout and turnover, which has become a national crisis. Philadelphia has faced significant staff turnover recently, and Pennsylvania as a whole faces a teacher shortage.

That was the backdrop for a simple question Woody had for Philadelphia education leaders: “Are y’all gonna be paying teachers more?”

She added that, in her experience, teachers are already “worn out” from expectations during the regular school year, and many may not be eager to keep working during the summer.

At the same time, to Dyson’s surprise, she said Belmont hasn’t really experienced challenges finding some regular classroom teachers willing to sign on for summer programming.

That also provides continuity for students, Dyson said, even if they work with teachers who aren’t their regular classroom teachers, because seeing someone familiar in the hallways helps students with feelings of anxiety about the next school year.

Tara Quinn, a former district teacher who is in her fifth year teaching at Belmont, said having sufficient break time for teacher “rejuvenation” is non-negotiable, something Woody and Brown-Johnson said is also necessary for students.

Without that time off, Quinn said, she would have seriously considered not teaching during the summer: “I need some kind of break.”

Then there’s the financial incentive. Quinn said having the opportunity to earn extra money during the summer was also a big motivator — she has a son in college and the extra income has been helpful.

Woody and Brown-Johnson said if they could advise Watlington and Parker, they would encourage the city to set up a year-round program that puts a focus on outdoor projects, field trips, and team-building activities for students.

Woody said the priority should be “something inspirational, educational, and fun. You don’t want to have busy work and boring work.”

Internships, work-study programs, or other job-related activities are also a must, they said.

But Brown-Johnson’s advice about the nuts and bolts of a good year-round program comes with a general caveat: She encouraged policymakers to think about making year-round school optional, not a mandatory one-size-fits-all solution.

Many students might not adjust well to being in classrooms year-round, she said. Rather, “everybody should have a say” in what their school’s program should look like.

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

Transparency watch: Public gets time to see Philadelphia schools chief’s strategic plan after all

2023-05-24T22:48:48+00:00

This story has been updated to include additional information about curriculum contracts the Philadelphia Board of Education is due to vote on May 25.

Less than 24 hours before the Philadelphia Board of Education was due to vote on Superintendent Tony Watlington’s as-yet-unseen strategic plan, the board postponed the vote until June and released an executive summary of the plan to the public.

The executive summary says the plan will include a pilot program to “incentivize” teachers to work in “hard to staff schools,” the relaunch of “Parent University” — a program to give parents and caregivers courses in academics, financial literacy and other areas — and a $70 million update for the district’s core curriculums in math, reading, and science, among other proposals.

The board was previously scheduled to vote on the plan at Thursday’s board meeting. But two days after Chalkbeat reported that the public had yet to see the plan, Watlington said he will now present the proposal for review Thursday, and the board will vote on it June 1. If the board approves the plan, it will begin July 1.

Pressure has been building on Watlington to unveil the plan to the public before the board’s vote on it. The plan will be the culmination of Watlington’s work in his first year in office, and could guide the district through pandemic recovery, a growing asbestos crisis, and a gun violence epidemic that’s killed more than 20 students this academic year so far.

“We’re going to ask the Board to take some time to kick the tires, look under the hood, and ask our community to do the same thing,” Watlington said of the plan in an interview Wednesday. “This is going to be our North Star for the next five years and beyond, and I want to make sure we’re very thoughtful about how we begin this work.”

The summary says Watlington’s strategic plan is intended to be a “living document that can be updated by the Administration as needed based on progress monitoring, emerging trends, new internal evidence, or external research.”

The executive summary is light on specific, prescriptive policies. Many of the ideas involve launching new advisory groups, audits, updating websites, and reviewing the current policies.

And there’s no price tag for the plan yet.

“In the process of costing out this plan, we know that current funding is inadequate,” he said.

He highlighted a February ruling from Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer that the wide gaps in spending between wealthy and poor districts in the state makes Pennsylvania’s current school funding system unconstitutional.

However, Jubelirer did not prescribe a specific remedy, and securing more state aid is likely to take time. Republican legislative leaders haven’t said whether they will appeal.

“I think it’s easy in Philadelphia to get immune to what historic underfunding really means,” Watlington said.

Aside from comments about his five-year plan, Watlington also said he was confident about his future even though the next mayor can appoint an entirely new school board, which could in turn hire a different superintendent.

Cherelle Parker, the Democratic nominee for mayor who’s a heavy favorite to win November’s election, has not indicated her intentions regarding school board appointments.

Although she doesn’t exercise direct control over the district, she’s promised that her plan for education will “transform how we think about public schooling.”

Two leaders’ dovetailing plans for year-round schedule

The summary says the plan includes five priority areas: safety and well-being, family and community partnerships, accelerating academic achievement, recruiting and retaining “diverse and highly effective educators,” and “high-quality, cost-effective operations.”

One of the most high-profile proposals in Watlington’s plan — one likely to have a substantial cost — is a pilot for year-round school. Parker’s most far-reaching education proposal during the campaign called for the same.

Watlington said he wants to pilot “a year-round and extended day school calendar” in up to 10 schools. Beyond that, he had few details.

It’s too early to say whether year-round schooling means extending the academic school year or the school day, or both, Watlington said.

“I want to slow down and roll out the strategy, cost out what it would cost us, and then we want to take the time to build support and do an information campaign with various school communities,” Watlington said. “I don’t want to just assign schools to do this.”

Parker’s plan was also short on specifics. On the campaign trail, she promised to “create full-day, full-year education for all students in Philadelphia.” She also wants schools to be open from 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. for “before and after-school enrichment,” but has not elaborated on those statements.

Any change in school schedules “is something that would have to be negotiated,” Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan said in an interview.

Asked whether year-round schooling was a major component of his plan before Parker made it a keystone of her platform, Watlington demurred.

“I think it’s coincidental, but inherently good” that both he and Parker are talking about the idea, Watlington said. “What we do together is more important than ‘who came up with the idea?’”

But Jeron Williams II, a Central High School student who sits on one of the committees that helped develop the plan, said “never once did we discuss year-round schooling.” Jordan, who also participated in the process, said the same thing.

Incentives for teachers will require union negotiations

Another component of the plan would create a pilot to give some teachers and principals “retention incentives” for teaching in schools where staffing has proven difficult.

But the executive summary does not provide further details, such as whether those incentives would take the form of bonus pay or something else.

Such incentives would also have to be negotiated with the teachers’ union. Jordan said that the district used to have a program that offered salary boosts to teachers who took particularly difficult assignments, but that only covered about 25 teachers at its peak, and that teachers generally didn’t like it.

The summary doesn’t provide details about Watlington’s proposed $70 million changes to curriculum. However, the agenda for the board’s May 25 meeting includes votes on contracts with various vendors for new curriculum in math and language arts that add up to $50 million; another $20 million contract for science materials was originally included on the agenda but withdrawn as of late Wednesday. Those contracts are related to Watlington’s plan, a board spokesperson said.

Watlington also highlighted a proposal to pilot “learn to swim” programs in “different parts of the city,” but did not provide further details. Students and members of the public have stressed that helping young people — especially Black and brown children from low-income backgrounds — learn to swim and giving them access to pools provides various benefits.

“The fact that we can’t do this all over the city does not mean that we should not start somewhere,” Watlington said of the swimming pilot, “I’m hopeful that we can grow that over time.”

In general, Watlington said he’s optimistic that he will have the buy-in necessary for his strategic plan to get the board’s approval and get his proposals done.

“I think the future is bright for Philadelphia and the school district of Philadelphia,” Watlington said. “I’m excited to be here and we’re gonna do some great things. I really believe our best days are ahead of us.”

Damaged asbestos will close school into next year

New details about Watlington’s plan came on the heels of news Wednesday that Frankford High School would remain closed for the rest of the school year and into next year because asbestos remediation at the century-old school building was more extensive than originally thought.

In addition, the district has been “unable to quickly identify a nearby swing space that could be prepared in time for this school year to accommodate our students and staff, as well as meet all the programmatic needs,” Oz Hill, the district’s deputy chief operating officer, said in a letter to the school community. All but Frankford’s special education students are learning virtually.

As with his strategic plan, Watlington placed the blame for such asbestos-related school closures on historic underfunding for the district, as well as prior leaders’ failure to “care for our facilities like we should have.”

The summary of Watlington’s strategic plan does call for a “facilities master plan project team.” Last November, the district paused its work on a blueprint for infrastructure upgrades; Watlington said at the time that he wanted to ensure that such a blueprint matched his strategic plan.

“We’re going to be in this asbestos space over the long term,” Watlington said. “Unfortunately, because of historical underfunding we don’t have shovel-ready swing spaces” that school community members can support or commute to.

District officials told reporters at a briefing Tuesday they were making progress in their building inspection process.

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

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

Philadelphia superintendent to pitch year-round school pilot as likely next mayor talks up the idea

2023-05-18T22:28:01+00:00

Philadelphia’s top education official and its likely next mayor are coalescing around a big idea for education: year-round school. But so far, neither of them wants to say how it would work.

The most consequential and far-reaching proposal in Democratic mayoral nominee Cherelle Parker’s plan for education is to keep schools open year-round. And Superintendent Tony Watlington will include a proposal for a pilot program on year-round schools in his five-year strategic plan that is not yet public but that Board of Education members are scheduled to vote on at their May 25 meeting.

Parker and Watlington aren’t alone in their interest in shaking up the traditional school calendar. In the wake of the pandemic, several school leaders and state lawmakers are looking to extend their school years as a way to give struggling students an academic boost. Year-round school can take many forms and it is used to try to address various issues, from academics to overcrowding.

District spokesperson Marissa Orbanek said Thursday that Watlington “has included the pilot of year round schools in his five-year strategic plan, which will be presented soon.” Orbanek said that Watlington was interested in the idea before the primary election, which Parker won on Tuesday. She declined to provide further details.

In her campaign platform, Parker said she would combine the longer school year with more before and after-school activities. And her website puts more emphasis on a year-round school schedule as a way to help parents than its impact on academics. But otherwise, her platform doesn’t focus on the details of how her idea would work in practice.

“Philadelphia students need to be prepared for a modern economy, but Philadelphia’s public school system is stuck in the past,” she said on her campaign website.

A Parker spokesperson said Thursday that Parker’s team had not seen Watlington’s proposal.

On Thursday, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told us that Watlington “shared those ideas” about year-round school with him previously, although he didn’t have any details about what Watlington would propose.

Shapiro said he is open to any “creative ideas” to address students’ mental health needs and improve learning environments including extending the school year or adjusting school start times.

“I want to be thoughtful about how we do this,” Shapiro said, “so the Commonwealth is not dictating a one-size-fits-all approach to every district, but rather allowing districts to sort of consider what they think would be best.”

Year-round schooling gets mixed reviews

Using a year-round calendar does not necessarily mean having more than 180 days of instruction, which is what the majority of states (including Pennsylvania) have set as the minimum for a school year.

The National Association of Year Round Education advocates for districts to implement the “balanced calendar,” which shortens summer vacation and adds longer breaks called “intersessions” during the school year. The group’s suggested calendar uses a 30-day summer break and breaks for fall, winter, and spring of 15 days each, plus a three-day break for Thanksgiving.

This strategy keeps 180 instructional days, but uses them “more efficiently,” said David Hornak, the association’s executive director and superintendent of the 5,000-student Holt School District in Michigan. He said about 4% of school districts educating some two million students nationwide use some form of this calendar.

After a long summer break, according to Hornak, teachers generally spend the first 20 to 40 days in school reteaching students to compensate for summer learning loss. With traditional school calendars, “schools are asked to remediate learning gaps that they are contributing to,” Hornak said.

The “balanced calendar” schedule also “improved educator morale and has a positive impact on the teacher burnout problem” as well as teacher and student attendance, he said.

“I have yet to meet an educator who wants to return to the regular calendar,” Hornak said.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has declined to comment on Parker’s plan or Watlington’s pending pilot proposal. A change to year-round schooling would require the district to rework its contract with the teachers’ union; the contract expires in August 2024.

Many districts across the country have tried year-round schooling over the years, with varying levels of success.

The Los Angeles school district tried year-round schools as enrollment grew in the 1980s, but by 2015, just one school still used that type of calendar, according to Education Week.

At least a few school districts have abandoned this approach or at least cooled on the strategy recently. In January, officials in Virginia’s Chesterfield schools recommended phasing out their year-round school trial run, after disappointing academic outcomes.

And a school district in Wisconsin is also ending its year-round school calendar after nearly a decade; officials said the schedule didn’t seem to benefit test scores or student behavior.

Paul von Hippel, a professor of public policy at the University of Texas who has researched year-round schooling, said there’s evidence that adding instructional days has a positive impact. (Parker, who has a 10-year-old son, has also said the elementary school day is too short and wants to keep school buildings open from 7:30 a.m. until 6 p.m.)

But he has not seen evidence that the balanced calendar approach has led to better student outcomes.

And it’s typically very difficult for school districts to add days to the school year, even when there is a year-round calendar. Only about one in every 1,000 schools in the U.S. has calendars that stretch the school year beyond 180 days, and most of them are charters, he said.

The Los Angeles district was among several California cities that implemented a year-round schedule similar to the balanced calendar called Concept 6. That schedule had just 163 days of instruction, although the school days were longer, he said.

Research showed that students on Los Angeles’ Concept 6 schedule did not benefit academically, von Hippel said, adding that it is “disruptive of family life and teachers tend not to like it.”

There are some “high-performing education systems” elsewhere, including in England and South Korea, that have more than 200 days in the school year, he said.

But in the U.S., von Hippel said, “I don’t think you will find a large district that has gone to 200 or 210 days.”

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

Carly Sitrin is Philadelphia Bureau Chief and can be reached at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Year-round schools and more education funding: What Cherelle Parker could mean for Philadelphia

2023-05-17T21:39:15+00:00

Cherelle Parker’s Democratic primary election win on Tuesday means she is all but certain to be the city’s 100th mayor and first woman to hold the office.

So what would a Parker administration look like for schools?

Parker, who used to be a public school teacher in New Jersey, has proposed keeping school buildings open year-round and lengthening the school day. She’s said she wants to heal the splintered relationship between the Board of Education, the district, and city officials. And she has positioned herself as a bipartisan dealmaker capable of negotiating more money for the city from Harrisburg to help Philadelphia schools fix crumbling buildings and recover from COVID-interrupted learning.

Parker’s ascension to the mayoral seat is not a done deal. She will face off against Republican nominee David Oh in November’s general election. But in Philadelphia, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly seven to one, her primary win means she’s heavily favored.

Parker was not available for an interview on Wednesday due to a medical issue, her campaign spokesperson Aren Platt said.

But based on her comments and proposals made on the campaign trail and her responses to our mayoral questionnaire, it’s possible to project what Parker in the mayor’s office could look like for education.

Parker’s big-ticket education idea: Year-round school

Parker’s boldest education campaign proposal was to “create full-day, full-year education for all students in Philadelphia.” According to her campaign website, Parker said more time in school would allow students to pursue extracurricular activities, sports, and other “enrichment” opportunities, while also providing parents and caregivers more child care flexibility.

She’d pay for it “by leveraging existing funding” and “with new state and city funding,” according to her campaign site.

It’s not immediately clear what this would look like in practice or how much it would cost. School districts have tried year-round schooling to bolster academics and avoid overcrowded classrooms, among other reasons. But the change can also increase district costs, complicate family schedules, make it harder for teenage students to get summer jobs, and hurt tourism and other industries.

The Los Angeles school district turned to year-round schools as enrollment grew in the 1980s, but by 2015, just one school there still had such a schedule, according to Education Week.

Perhaps the biggest unanswered question is whether the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, which endorsed rival Helen Gym in the mayoral campaign, is on board with the idea. At minimum, officials and the union would have to renegotiate the district’s teacher contract, which expires in August 2024.

PFT President Jerry Jordan offered his congratulations to Parker in a statement Wednesday saying “the first female Mayor in our city’s history will be an important role model for our youth—especially young Black girls.” (Parker is Black.)

At the same time, PFT spokesperson Hillary Linardopoulos said Wednesday that the union was not ready to comment on the idea of year-round school, or any of Parker’s education positions.

Parker confronts tricky school board politics

Philadelphia’s mayor has no direct governing power over schools. But the mayor does appoint the nine Board of Education members, who in turn hire the superintendent and oversee all policy and budgetary decisions made by the district. The board is also the sole authorizer of charter schools in the city.

Parker said she wants a superintendent and board that reflect “the diversity of the city, wields the passion for elevating our school system to the prominence that it could be, and whose primary priority is creating quality seats for all of Philadelphia’s students.”

Under outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney, a simmering tension has developed between the school board, the district, and city officials around issues of asbestos remediation, funding needs, and community engagement.

In response to our mayoral questionnaire, Parker said she plans “to be a very active Mayor when it comes to appointing and dealing with the School Board and educating our children in general.”

She said the superintendent, board, and the mayor’s office “cannot work in silos or impose an ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality.”

Whether this means she will completely remake the board from scratch or keep some or all of the current Board members remains an open question. The board members’ terms will expire when Kenney leaves office, but they’ll continue to serve until their replacements take over.

Optimism that Philly schools will get more funding

Philadelphia city schools are perpetually seeking more funding. Earlier this year, a Commonwealth Court judge declared Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional and ordered the General Assembly to overhaul it. According to an Education Law Center and Public Interest Law Center analysis, the district schools need an estimated $1.1 billion more each year from the state to properly educate its students.

What’s more, the district doesn’t have the ability to raise tax revenue on its own. The school board is dependent on city and state officials to allocate the funding necessary to operate the district.

Parker, a former state representative, has said she is well-positioned to negotiate with state lawmakers in Harrisburg to get Philadelphia schools the money they need.

On her campaign website, Parker touts her position as former chairwoman of the Philadelphia delegation in Harrisburg. She also says she was able to secure a plan to send the district $148 million and prevent layoffs of some teachers and support staff in 2013, when the “District was on the verge of financial collapse.”

Parker is also optimistic that the court case over the state’s school funding formula will result in more money for the city schools.

“There is almost no scenario where the Philadelphia School District does not receive more funding,” Parker said in her responses to our questionnaire.

She also said she would be open to increasing the city’s share of funding for the district. Currently schools receive 55% of the city’s property tax revenue; she said she would increase it to 58%, which she said would bring an additional $50 million to the district.

“We must prioritize investing in our education system and if that means increasing our share of funding, my Administration will be prepared to do that,” she said in her questionnaire.

In a list of priorities for the next mayor, the school board singled out funding as a top issue.

Some school buildings need to be ‘torn down’

Several school buildings have closed this year due to damaged asbestos, and district leaders have said the growing crisis means more school closures may be coming.

In response to our mayoral questionnaire, Parker said “it is unconscionable that we ask anybody, but especially children, teachers, and other workers to go to buildings with environmental, structural, and other issues.”

On her plans for remediation, Parker said “many of our school buildings need immediate attention but some are too far gone and need to be torn down, period.”

She also joined the chorus of elected officials and education advocates calling for a comprehensive plan from the district. “While the school district is already implementing an improvement plan, it’s not happening quickly enough for kids and parents who don’t have options, and for the first time in my experience, the money is there to get it done,” Parker said.

Parker: State should restore charter school reimbursements

The Philadelphia Board of Education is the sole authorizer of charter schools in the city. It has come under scrutiny concerning racial bias amid allegations from Black-led charter schools that board members have targeted them for closure.

Parker hasn’t said outright whether she wants the number of charter schools to grow, shrink, or stay the same. As a state representative, Parker signaled her support for a moratorium on new charter schools.

Parker said in her mayoral questionnaire responses that she would “insist” the state legislature reinstate the charter school reimbursement line item in the state budget that was removed by former Gov. Tom Corbett in 2011. The line item sent state funds to districts to compensate for “stranded costs” because some of their per-pupil state aid went to charters; about half the total went to the Philadelphia district.

Striking that line item “pitted public schools against charter schools unnecessarily by leaving public schools no way to defray the overhead and stranded costs that remained the same despite smaller enrollments,” Parker said in her questionnaire. “Reinstating this will grow the pot of funds and allow for more opportunity for Philadelphia’s students no matter what type of school they attend.”

Getting more librarians into schools

Philadelphia had the worst ratio of school librarians to students in the country as of 2020, according to data from the Pennsylvania Association of School Librarians. The association said there were just six school librarians in a district with more than 125,000 students and 215 district-operated schools.

Parker said she “would ensure that every district school has a certified librarian by drawing upon our funding streams and using my voice to amplify the need for them being more prevalent in our schools.”

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

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

2023 election results: Democratic and Republican primary elections for Philadelphia mayor

2023-05-17T03:23:57+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free twice-weekly newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.

This post will be updated.

Cherelle Parker, a former City Councilmember and state representative, is poised to become Philadelphia’s first Black woman mayor after securing the Democratic nomination in Tuesday’s primary election.

The Associated Press called the election Tuesday night for Parker, who cleared a crowded Democratic primary race. Parker will face off against Republican nominee David Oh in November’s general election.

The race was tight. In the lead up to Election Day, public poll forecasts put the top five Democratic candidates within a few points of one another. Philadelphia is a deep-blue city — registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly seven to one — meaning whoever wins the Democratic primary has a significant upper hand in the fall’s general election.

Parker was seen by many as the establishment candidate. She garnered support from some of the most powerful labor unions in the city and ran on a campaign promise to be a dealmaker in Harrisburg and bring back more state funding for Philadelphia.

Her election could have big implications for Philadelphia schools. She’s said she wants to reform the much-maligned lottery admissions process for selective schools, and work toward year-round public schools and a longer school day.

Parker will challenge Oh, the only Republican candidate on the ballot Tuesday.

With 72% of expected votes counted, the unofficial election results are:

Democrats

Cherelle Parker 32.89% (53,906 votes)
Rebecca Rhynhart 22.33% (36,600 votes)
Helen Gym 20.65% (33,842 votes)
Allan Domb 12.16% (19,925 votes)
Jeff Brown 9.47% (15,528 votes)
Amen Brown 1.41% (2,317 votes)
James M. “Jimmy” DeLeon 0.60% (985 votes)
Delscia Gray 0.23% (382 votes)
Warren Bloom 0.19% (310 votes)

Republicans

David Oh 95.77% (10,584 votes)

While the mayor has no direct governing power over schools, the mayor does appoint the nine school Board of Education members who oversee all policy and budgetary decisions made by the district. The board is also the authorizer for all charter schools in Philadelphia.

The current board members’ terms will expire when Mayor Jim Kenney leaves office in January. That means whoever wins in November can choose to remake the board in its entirety, or keep some or all of the current members.

At a 9 p.m. press conference Tuesday, acting Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said there were “only a few minor and isolated issues” reported “sporadically” across the state at polling locations.

Schmidt said staff at the Department of State responded to an estimated 600 calls to their voter hotline, “which is lower than recent comparable municipal election cycles.”

“We know everyone wants to result of the election as soon as possible,” Schmidt said, “but counties must first make sure that every eligible ballot is accurately and securely counted.”

More than 186,000 voters cast ballots in the primary election Tuesday; 56,394 of those were mail-in ballots and 129,944 were cast at polling locations, per data from the Philadelphia City Commissioners’ office. There are 1,025,354 registered voters in the city.

Tuesday’s election results are unofficial until the Philadelphia City Commissioners, the office that oversees the city’s elections, certifies results 20 days after Election Day.

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

Damaged asbestos closed three Philadelphia schools this year. More could be coming.

2023-04-17T16:06:22+00:00

As Philadelphia education leaders confront a growing asbestos crisis, they also face a conundrum: The more they do to discover the extent of the problem and address it, the greater the impact on students.

And meanwhile, frustrated parents are demanding the district show them a way forward.

“What will be the plan in the future when these types of things occur?” said Sheila Johnson, whose daughter attends Building 21, which abruptly closed in March after the district discovered flaking asbestos and hasn’t reopened. “[District leaders] have already stated that yes, there may be other schools affected by this because of the older buildings. So what are you going to do?”

The recent discovery by inspectors that asbestos was routinely used in plaster in school buildings, which was not previously assumed, creates risk that the material could eventually become dangerous. And the accuracy of previous inspection reports that marked buildings safe with respect to asbestos has now been thrown into serious question.

Last week, Frankford High School and Mitchell Elementary School also closed their buildings to remediate flaking asbestos in plaster walls and ceilings. In letters to parents, district officials and the building principals said that both schools will remain closed for the rest of the school year and likely into the summer.

Such closures have spurred fears that a series of building shutdowns is looming in the district, where students are still trying to recover from disruptions to in-person learning caused by COVID. There’s also been a dispute between city and district officials about whether the district has kept parents and others adequately informed about asbestos-related issues, which have posed problems in aging Philadelphia schools for years.

After officials shuttered Building 21 — a small high school located in a 100-year-old former elementary school — due to damaged asbestos, most Building 21 students have been learning virtually. A few have opted for in-person learning at Strawberry Mansion High School, which is six miles away.

That virtual learning has not worked for many students.

“My daughter is sinking like a ship,” Johnson said of her 11th grader. She said virtual learning for two years during the pandemic pushed her child into a depression and now, the majority of her high school career will have been remote.

‘Incomplete or inaccurate’ reports on asbestos in schools

Scientific research has shown that breathing in asbestos fibers can cause certain diseases and increase the risk of certain cancers, including lung cancer and mesothelioma.

Previous estimates have determined that approximately 80% of Philadelphia schools were built prior to 1978 and are likely to contain asbestos. It was commonly incorporated into floor tiles, pipe insulation, and some paint and cement roofing in school buildings constructed prior to the 1970s.

A district statement on Friday said of the 321 school buildings in the city, 295 district buildings “have asbestos-containing materials.”

Undisturbed asbestos is not harmful, and it is only considered dangerous when it begins to flake. But other infrastructure problems — failing roofs, leaky windows, or faulty boilers that release steam — can compromise asbestos. And the district has suffered from years if not decades of deferred maintenance on buildings that on average are more than 70 years old — all of which makes the discovery that asbestos is also in most plaster more concerning.

Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a statement on April 7 that “in the coming weeks and months, we continue to anticipate that more damaged asbestos will be identified.” But the district’s facilities plan doesn’t say what it will do if more schools are closed for extended periods.

The most recent federally mandated report posted for Building 21 is from 2018-19, and showed asbestos in plaster at various locations, including the auditorium ceiling, but not throughout the school.

But the discovery of the material in plaster in Building 21 set off alarm bells, and spurred the district to retest in Frankford and Mitchell, the district said.

The plaster in Building 21 was for years marked safe by inspectors on building reports. The district now says those records were “incomplete or inaccurate,” throwing into question decades of inspection data.

Watlington, who is coming up on his first anniversary as superintendent, is facing a daunting challenge: The more the district investigates, the more damaged asbestos it’s likely to find. That means more school closures and asbestos remediation for a district that is already billions of dollars in arrears when it comes to facilities repairs, upgrades, and maintenance.

And according to the district’s facilities plan released late last month, 29% of its facilities workforce positions were vacant.

But what matters to Sonja Grant, another parent of a Building 21 student, is that “there was no consideration of parents” when the school first closed.

Grant said she wanted to respond to a survey, speak to school leaders at a roundtable, or otherwise open a dialogue with her school and the district.

But Grant said “they did not respect us enough or care enough to give us an option or ask ‘what would you like to see?’ or ‘how would you like us to move forward?’”

Philadelphia district response targeted by politicians

Asbestos is not a new issue for the district. In 2019 alone, several Philadelphia schools were forced to close because of damaged asbestos. In 2020, the district settled with a teacher who contracted mesothelioma for $850,000. And students and teachers have perennially fought for remediation efforts to make their buildings safe.

The federal Asbestos Hazardous Emergency Response Act, or AHERA, requires asbestos inspections in schools every three years. The AHERA reports, which are posted on the district website, say “NAD” — no asbestos detected — for most plaster walls and ceilings in Mitchell, Frankford, and Building 21.

Michelle Whitmer, an asbestos expert at The Mesothelioma Center who has written about the issue in Philadelphia schools for years, said plaster containing asbestos is considered a more dangerous type of asbestos product because of its “friability.” That means it can be easily crushed into a powder, releasing the dangerous fibers into the air.

That the plaster was originally noted as not containing asbestos is worrying, she said.

“To me that suggests that they may have not done proper testing to identify what was actually inside the material,” Whitmer said.

According to a district presentation to the City Council last month, the school system has a three-year, $24.2 million contract with Tetra Tech, a consulting and engineering firm, “to support and restructure the District’s Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act management program.” Tetra Tech took over management of the AHERA inspection process last August.

AHERA reports show Tetra Tech managed the Mitchell building inspection last December. Its report says no asbestos was detected in plaster walls and ceilings at the time. Investigators did detect asbestos in some floor tiles, pipe insulation and other areas.

Tetra Tech did not respond to several requests for comment.

In an April 7 statement, the district said identifying the problem is necessary and finding damaged asbestos is evidence of success.

“This is not an indication of the program failing, but rather the program is working to protect health and safety through the identification and management of environmental concerns,” the district said.

The statement also noted that the oldest buildings tend to have the most plaster, and that these buildings “have been prioritized in this plaster review.”

For some, that position represents an improvement in Philadelphia schools. Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said Watlington is being more “transparent” than leaders have in the past.

“So much over the years, has been swept under the rug,” Jordan said in an interview. “The buildings have been neglected forever. And I know that that sounds like an exaggeration, but it really isn’t.”

Monique Braxton, a district spokesperson, declined to answer specific questions about long-term plans regarding asbestos removal and school closure.

But other power players in the city say the district has fallen short. Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, a Frankford graduate, has suggested the city might withhold district funding until it shares a detailed asbestos plan, and cautioned that the district’s response could impact its state funding. And mayoral candidate Helen Gym blasted the district for “being reactive” instead of prepared.

“‘I’m just disappointed with the district in their handling of our children’s education,” said Johnson, the Building 21 parent.

Billions needed to address failing infrastructure in schools

The danger from asbestos in schools across the country continues to cause concern in the federal government and elsewhere. In recent years, there has been exposed asbestos in schools in cities like Chicago, New Orleans, and Berkeley, Calif.

In an interview, Mayor Jim Kenney said he was “disappointed” that the district had not alerted city officials earlier to the scope of the problem. “I wish we had known about this sooner,” he said.

But he added that the city is ready to help.

“I’m not an expert on asbestos, but we’ll do whatever we can to get these schools back online,” he said, which could include enlisting members of the construction trades to help with asbestos removal and abatement.

The district estimates that $4.5 billion is “required to address building systems that are either failing, damaged or beyond their service life.” Facilities reports say an additional $430 million is also needed to “address health hazards, risks, and life safety deficiencies.”

But regardless of what the district does next, parents like Johnson and Grant say they need to be at the table.

“We are rational people,” Grant said. “We want results and we want to be heard.”

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

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

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Mayoral candidates present their visions for improving Philadelphia education

2023-03-22T20:29:35+00:00

In Philadelphia’s first mayoral forum devoted solely to education issues, eight candidates presented a few bold ideas about funding, facilities, and safety, but avoided talking about whether they would seek major changes in district leadership.

The biggest influence that the mayor has over the schools is the ability to appoint the school board members, who in turn select the superintendent. But with all nine board members sitting in the room – and in fact, sponsoring the forum – discussion of how they would shape the school board was virtually nonexistent.

The terms of the board coincide with the mayor’s, so the new mayor can decide to keep current members or appoint all new ones.

Candidates Warren Bloom, James DeLeon, Derek Green, Helen Gym, Cherelle Parker, Rebecca Rhynhart, and Maria Quiñones Sanchez attended the two-hour forum Tuesday night, half of which featured questions from students. Candidate Amen Brown stayed for one hour.

Jeff Brown and Delscia Gray did not attend. Nor did Allan Domb, who cited the board’s involvement as a deterrent. “I do not believe it is appropriate to participate in a forum held by a group I would have to make decisions about whether to reappoint when I become Mayor,” Domb said in a statement shortly before the forum convened. “There is no other forum I am aware of that is being hosted by mayoral appointees.”

At the forum, candidates made innovative proposals but didn’t fully explain how they would fund, enact, or otherwise see their visions realized.

In general, the candidates said all teachers should be paid more, to bring their salaries up to those in surrounding suburbs. Sanchez said that she would find ways to recruit more Black and brown teachers, including through additional incentive pay. Parker, meanwhile, said she would work toward year-round public schools and a longer school day.

Both these proposals would be costly and require some novel negotiations with the teachers union.

Gym said she wants to restore nurses, counselors, and school psychologists who were cut from schools in 2013 due to budgetary constraints and not replaced. She also promised to guarantee free transportation for students, including those who live less than a mile and a half from school and are currently ineligible for it.

She also proposed unifying the city and school district budget and “stopping the idea that we fund the number of teachers based on the number of students that we have, rather than on the learning environment students deserve to have.”

The current contractual maximum is 33 students per class in grades 4-12 and 30 per class in grades K-3, and teachers are allotted on that basis, although sometimes class sizes can go higher if there are vacancies.

“Every mayor before us has turned their back on our public schools or has failed to fulfill their promise,” Gym said.

The candidates also said they would advocate for more education aid from the state.

Bloom proposed taxing coffee as well as alcohol and tobacco to raise money for the schools. DeLeon called for more transparency in federal COVID relief money spending. And Rhynhart said her experience as city controller, city treasurer and budget director makes her uniquely suited to “get more money from the state” for the district.

She also said she will “appoint a school board that shares my vision for improvement and accountability in our schools.”

“We need a plan. We need goals. And then we need to measure success against those goals,” Rhynhart said

To help raise money for what would be costly proposals, Gym, Parker, and Sanchez said they would devote a higher proportion of city property taxes to public schools. Now, the schools get 55% of local property taxes. Sanchez noted that she had introduced in city council a bill to increase the district’s share to 60%, but it lacked support.

They also talked about redoing the property tax assessment system to ensure that people are paying their fair share; Rhynhart called the system “broken.” Philadelphia’s property tax is the single biggest source of local revenue for the school district.

Redoing that system, however, wouldn’t necessarily yield more tax revenue for schools.

Expressing frustration about the condition of school facilities, Sanchez said, “I am tired of debating the condition of buildings that we just need to knock down.”

Brown said in the first 100 days of his term he would “evaluate each and every school” building “to see what needs to be done, whether it needs to be knocked down, rebuilt, or if it’s a historical building, we’ll keep the building and relocate the school in that same area.”

“We shouldn’t have our students and our children learning in these horrible conditions where you feel like you’re in prison,” Brown said.

Green said he would improve communications between the city and school district. Earlier this month, city and school officials had a testy exchange about whether the district had been appropriately transparent about the safety of school buildings.

“We should not be seeing our tax dollars being used in a fight between two parts of our city government,” Green said.

Bloom’s position was one of delegation: at one point, he suggested he would appoint all of his fellow candidates to his cabinet and “adopt” their ideas.

All the candidates said public safety is a major issue in the campaign, especially for students and young people. They also noted how safe and effective schools are a key factor in determining the city’s quality of life.

DeLeon leaned heavily on his proposal for a Local Incident Management System to coordinate city responses to gun violence. Sanchez, meanwhile, said the city should have “an honest conversation around safety” and rethink the juvenile justice system that sometimes incarcerates children over misbehavior in school.

The system here “removes children from families more than anyplace in the world,” which worsens poverty and destabilizes families, she said.

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

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